The Demon Uroboros Emerges from the Crimson Darkness
Chayeon and Arena walked side by side toward the old building, with Arena chatting endlessly without pause.
“Where did you learn your swordsmanship?”
“Here at the academy.”
“Before that?”
“I didn’t learn any before.”
“Don’t lie!”
As Arena let out a strange “euk” sound and glared at her with burning eyes, Chayeon simply ignored her.
“When did you first meet Professor Seohee?”
“Half a year ago… but it’s just as friends. Not the kind of relationship you’re imagining.”
“Hmph! Even now trying to make excuses is useless.”
Chayeon ignored the spiteful glare that came with her scoffing laugh.
“Why do you dress like that?”
“It’s not dressing up… Haa. Why do I even have to explain this?”
Since it would go in one ear and out the other anyway.
Thinking that, Chayeon’s will to explain vanished completely and she gave up.
“Is it… just like Professor Seohee’s taste…?”
“Fine. Think whatever you want.”
While shaking her head, Chayeon suddenly remembered something and asked Arena.
“You, do you know anything about speaking spirits?”
“Speaking spirits? All spirits can speak, right? When they were first given their supernatural abilities, they explained it out loud.”
“Not that. I mean, conversing with them.”
“Conversing with a spirit? What kind of nonsense is that?”
Chayeon had called the most airheaded woman she knew “nonsense,” and her pride was hurt.
As the two chatted back and forth, they reached the front of the old building.
The area that had been neglected was overgrown with wild weeds, and the same neglected building gave off a spooky, desolate atmosphere.
“So this is the old building? I’ve never seen it before.”
With curious eyes, Arena walked up to the entrance and peered inside.
Even though it was the middle of summer daytime, the inside of the unlit building was pitch black.
Chayeon left Arena to wander and checked the surroundings outside.
Despite arguing with Arena and arriving late to their agreed time, she still didn’t see Seohee.
“What’s going on?”
Since Seohee had spatial movement, she had no reason to be late even if she only knew the time.
“Maybe she forgot?”
From what she heard, teaching duties here seemed surprisingly demanding.
She had heard yesterday that there were urgent tasks to finish by midnight, so forgetting a promise because of the workload was understandable.
“What are you doing? Aren’t you going in?”
After exploring the entrance, Arena suddenly appeared behind Chayeon and asked.
“The place we agreed to meet is outside.”
“I see.”
Arena’s expression turned gloomy.
Was she hoping to go inside? Why?
Curious why, Chayeon stared at her, and suddenly it felt like she understood.
She had been glancing inside earlier. Did she have an adventurous streak?
Compared to the main building, the old building had a strangely “plausible” and ancient atmosphere.
Exploring what looked like an old building that seemed to exist. She really was a child at heart.
“Want to go in?”
“……”
Ever since they met, Arena had been chattering non-stop, but now she was completely silent.
Chayeon gave her a puzzled look, and Arena suddenly got angry.
“I-I’m not scared because I’m scared!?”
She seemed afraid to go in alone.
She was truly the kind of person who annoyed you from beginning to end.
Chayeon clicked her tongue inwardly.
“If it’s Professor Seohee, she would find out immediately with some clairvoyance. She could probably send telepathy too.”
Chayeon walked silently toward the door, and Arena’s expression brightened.
“What? Are you really thinking you want to explore this creepy building? You’re not a child. Well, since you insist, I’ll follow you!”
She was about to grab her by the collar.
After seriously pondering, Chayeon entered the building.
***
A little before Chayeon arrived at the old building.
Seohee had not left her office since morning.
Most teachers were away, leaving mountains of work to handle.
“I still have to go pick up Chayeon soon.”
There wasn’t much time left until the agreed hour.
Since she could reach the front of the old building in seconds if she willed it, Seohee decided to handle as much work as possible before then.
Documents, pens, and notebooks with keyboards being randomly pressed floated around her office, and she began moving at an incredible speed.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Her telekinesis was convenient for such tasks.
With only telekinesis, it would have been impossible, but combining it with her multitasking ability made her efficiency unmatched in the office.
Her ability eventually caused a problem by assigning extra work to other teachers.
Bee-beep! Bee-beep!
At the last minute, she was speeding up when the call bell suddenly rang.
Each teacher’s office had one installed.
Seohee ignored it and continued her work.
Bee-beep! Bee-beep!
But even after time passed, the call bell kept ringing sharply.
“Why isn’t anyone checking? I’m dying from being busy.”
Annoyed, she frowned deeply.
Then she remembered that most teachers were not inside the academy.
Since she had no choice, she had to respond to the call bell herself.
“Haa.”
Releasing a heavy sigh of stress, Seohee checked the call bell.
It was from Jindal Gate.
From above, the academy grounds looked like a human-shaped island surrounded by forests and mountains.
The public area was disguised as a fake cult headquarters, and the real academy was inside the body.
The neck part connecting the head to the rest of the body had a building acting as the entrance. This was called Jindal Gate.
It was also the place Chayeon had first passed through, barely escaping with her life on her first day.
What could have happened?
Another suspicious person appeared?
Yeonju was diligent in her duties, but she was too suspicious.
Still, she thought it was nothing serious.
Seohee looked at Jindal Gate with her clairvoyance.
Pen and notebook that had been moving quickly suddenly stopped.
Seohee’s thoughts had frozen.
Inside the Jindal Gate she saw was drenched in blood.
Seohee immediately moved to Jindal Gate.
The space distorted, and the office landscape changed into a blood-soaked, ancient wall.
A horrible stench filled her nose.
In person, it was even worse than what her clairvoyance had shown.
Bodies were scattered across the floor, and blood had sprayed everywhere, soaking the walls, ceiling, and ground.
Among the people guarding Jindal Gate were both supernatural ability users and non-users, but none of them were just fighters.
They included mercenaries, retired soldiers, current security guards, and people from various backgrounds who did their jobs from outside or inside the gate.
All of them had ended up on the floor in miserable states.
“Aah… aaah…”
In the suffocating air, a faint sound made Seohee turn her head.
There was still a living person.
Getting closer, she recognized it as Seo Yeonju.
Her neatly arranged hanbok was now crumpled, and her hair, once styled, was disheveled.
From the large hole in the middle of her stomach, blood flowed non-stop.
Blood trails from behind extended toward the hole.
It seemed the call bell had been pressed by her.
She must have crawled on the floor with her abdomen pierced to reach the bell.
“Yeonju, are you okay?”
Seohee quickly checked the wounds.
The stomach had a huge hole.
Just being alive was a miracle.
“Haa… aaah… aah…”
Soaked in blood and tears, her face was unbearable to look at.
She desperately tried to say something, but the words that came out were only incomprehensible mumbles that scattered away.
Only then did Seohee understand where the blood pooling around Yeonju’s face had come from.
Her tongue had been cut out.
Streams of blood flowed from her mouth and dripped.
“Aah… aaah…”
The light gradually left Yeonju’s eyes as she tried desperately to speak.
Finally, her cooling body lost all strength and slumped to the floor.
“……”
They hadn’t been close, but they had talked occasionally at work.
She knew Yeonju was always afraid of Seohee, so she didn’t know her well, but Seohee’s opinion of her was high.
Seohee gently closed Yeonju’s eyes.
“Your survival instinct is tough, huh? But you wanted to say something, didn’t you? You mumbled and died? Ahahaha.”
From beside her, a high, sharp voice rang out.
Seohee had already sensed someone else was there and didn’t panic. She slowly raised her head and looked toward the voice.
In the darkness dotted with red, hair like a lantern in the depths of the sea swayed.
In contrast, her eyes burned like a furnace.
Her ears were pointed like elves or fairies from Western legends.
A tall woman over 170 centimeters tall looked at Seohee.
“Who are you?”
Seohee asked in a calm voice.
She didn’t need to hear it to know. It was obvious from her appearance.
A demon. A high-rank one at that.
“Hmm, you seem to rank higher than the trash lying on the floor?”
The woman lit up her eyes and licked her lips.
“You look fresh. Tasty.”
As if reacting to her words, the swaying hair’s light grew stronger.
It looked like fireflies glowing in the darkness.
Seeing that color, Seohee was certain who it was.
“Uroboros.”
“Eh? You know my name?”
The 2nd-class dangerous demon classified as a “snake that bites its own tail.”
When Seohee spoke the name, the demon Uroboros looked surprised for a moment.
Then she laughed exaggeratedly, clapping her hands like she was playing with a child.
“Amazing! Amazing! These maggots here didn’t know anything. Fresh materials always have different backgrounds, huh? I’ll give you a praise sticker~”
At the end of her words, something long and thin flew toward Seohee’s body from the darkness.
Just before it touched her, there was a “pach!” sound as it slammed into an invisible wall and stuck to the ceiling.
“Oh? Doesn’t like my praise stamp?”
What had come was her hair.
The hair stuck to the ceiling lit up the surroundings like a lamp.
“You’re alone?”
“Hmm, maybe~?”
Pach! Pach! Pach! Pach!
From the darkness, sharp hair flew toward Seohee like it was in a scary mood and bounced back.
Immediately after, something much larger than the hair fell from above her head.
Crash—
Intuitively knowing it was too late to block, Seohee moved to the back with spatial movement in an instant.
Where she had been standing was now broken apart by a writhing white tail on the floor.
The tail was connected to Uroboros’s backside.
“I prepared a prettier stamp, but does this not please you either?”
Blocking the mind manipulation that had approached sneakily, Seohee said.
“You’re full of guts, huh? Not to mention Jindal, you dared to storm in alone.”
“Don’t brag, you pretty high school girl~”
Uroboros giggled cutely.
“It’s just a baby bird’s nest right now, isn’t it?”
Seohee quietly bit her lip.
As she said, most teachers at Jindal were absent.
They were fighting a 1st-class dangerous demon, the Basilisk, that had appeared near the Gangwon-do coast and was approaching.
The problem was how this demon knew that fact.
Not a low-rank demon, but two high-rank demons appearing on the same day. It was unprecedented.
“It’s because I’m kind and telling you. It’s not just me coming alone.”
At those words, Seohee quickly used clairvoyance and telepathy to search the surroundings extensively.
However, the only demon her radar caught was the one in front, Uroboros.
One of three possibilities.
She was lying.
She was a demon with concealment ability that didn’t even show up in Seohee’s eyes.
Or she had already entered the academy.
The first and third were more likely.
She wanted to widen the search range, but it was dangerous in this standoff.
One thing was for sure: take out the enemy in front first.
And then check if any other demons were left.
Deciding her route, Seohee straightened her back.
As Seohee’s blue eyes flashed once, a massive pressure crushed down on Uroboros.
“Oh?”
Shocked by the heavy pressure pressing in from all sides, Uroboros stepped back.
“A bug, you’re stronger than I thought? The taste is starting to look more appealing!”
Looking at Uroboros with a delighted, excited expression, Seohee said coldly.
“From earlier on, calling me a bug or whatever is making me feel a bit unpleasant. Do you know why we didn’t take much precaution and sent most supernatural ability users outside?”
Seohee suddenly poured out words like a waterfall, and Uroboros looked at her with a curious expression while she extended her arm forward.
Without saying a word, she raised the pressure to its maximum.
Warning! High-Rank Demon Detected!
Uroboros’s eyes widened, and she suddenly realized the situation was far worse than she had expected.
But there was no time to feel regret now.
Her tail swung fiercely, slicing the air.
Meanwhile, Chayeon had just entered the old building with Arena following behind her.
The dark interior was even more eerie than the outside.
Chayeon felt a strange pressure in the air, as if something was watching her from the shadows.
“Is there really a demon here?”
She muttered quietly, but Arena just kept walking forward.
The two of them moved deeper into the building, and the walls seemed to close in around them.
Chayeon’s senses tingled, and she instinctively reached for her sword.
Then, from the darkness ahead, a voice that sounded like a child’s giggle echoed.
“Hehe… you smell like fresh blood… like a little toy…”
Chayeon’s heart raced, and Arena’s expression turned cold.
“Demon. It’s definitely a demon,” Arena whispered.
But before they could react, the old building’s atmosphere changed.
The walls seemed to breathe, and the floor began to shift like it was alive.
Chayeon felt a sudden pull on her body, and she was dragged into a dark, endless void.
“What is this place?”
She tried to resist, but something invisible held her tight.
In the distance, she could hear Arena’s voice calling her name, but it was faint, like it was coming from far away.
“Chayeon! Don’t move!”
But it was too late.
Chayeon’s vision blurred, and the last thing she saw was a pair of glowing red eyes staring at her from the shadows.
The demon had found its prey.
She felt a sharp pain in her mind, as if something was reaching inside her skull.
And then everything went black.
The old building was silent again, as if nothing had happened.
But deep inside the darkness, something was smiling.
It was Uroboros, who had followed them inside.
“Ahaha… it’s so fun when they struggle…”
Her laughter echoed through the empty halls, and she licked her lips, tasting the fear in the air.
Soon, the two of them would be hers.
The Black Fox and her new plaything.
What a delicious meal.
-[Unknown] HP
But the real battle had only just begun.
Outside, in the distance, a blue-eyed woman with silver hair watched the old building with narrowed eyes.
“It seems the demon has already entered…”
Seohee muttered, clenching her fists.
The fight was far from over.
And in the heart of the darkness, Uroboros’s tail twitched with excitement.
“The fresh blood is calling me…”
She giggled again, and the walls of the old building seemed to close in even tighter.
Chayeon had no idea what was waiting for her inside.
But the fox had already sensed the trap.
And she would not fall for it.
Not this time.