Uninvited Confession
Jeon Chayeon felt the blood rush to his head as the brown-haired guy stood right in front of him, holding out a crumpled letter like some bad drama script.
“From the moment I saw you, I’ve been staring. I like you. Please date me!”
Yeah. This was the kind of fucked-up situation Chayeon was stuck in again.
“Fucking hell.”
He wasn’t exactly a green freshman anymore—more like a third-year who’d survived his share of nonsense. Still, in this day and age, who the hell did they think they were pulling this romantic-comedy crap on a public walkway?
He hadn’t seen anything like it in any era. Blood pressure spiking. First it pissed him off, now it just annoyed the shit out of him.
Looked like a freshman on the surface, but the academy had its fair share of kids who skipped a few grades, so you couldn’t be sure. Still, the pattern was obvious by now.
Here they came again—the usual crowd.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing standing there in front of Jeon-nim? Back up at least five meters!”
Right on cue.
“Jeon-nim, are you okay? That dirty guy!”
“Get away from Jeon-nim! You parasite!”
Yeah, that was him. The dirty guy.
After the day Jeong Seohee had taught him a lesson on Ju Jihyo, the whole academy was buzzing. Chayeon had picked up every name they’d slapped on him: The Penis Breaker, Fire Egg Destroyer, and that weird Queen of Something-or-other.
Two made sense if you stretched it. The last one? No idea what the hell it meant.
Since that day, the fans had multiplied like crazy. Guys and girls both. Some would freeze when they saw him, then slink away like cowards—whatever. But these ones?
Where the hell did they get the vibe to jerk off over the sight of a guy’s life being crushed? And now, three weeks after the Ranking Match, he had an actual fan club attached to him. Right now, in the middle of getting confessioned to, they were throwing themselves at him like idiots.
“Dirty guys get out!”
Oh, sure. They were guys too.
Chayeon hated this group of losers. Annoying, heavy, and a pain in the ass. He’d begged them to stop following and they still wouldn’t listen.
Their club name was apparently “Eungchaa~.” Short for something like “Eung-ay, Chayeon-ah is my baby~.”
“Fucking hell.”
“What’s wrong, Jeon-nim? Did we upset you?!”
“That bastard! He’s ruining Jeon-nim’s mood. I’ll fix that!”
“Hee-hee!”
The guy who’d confessed turned ashen and bolted.
Great. Just what he needed.
“Yo, Jeon Chayeon!”
The voice cut through the hallway like a whip. Chayeon turned to see a pair of golden eyes bright as barley fields shining under a bright smile. Snow-white witch costume, pointed hat, broom in hand.
Kawada Arena, who’d been discharged a couple of weeks back.
At the sight of her, the whole “Eungchaa~” crew scattered like roaches when the light comes on—bunch up when you want to crawl, scatter when you run.
“Let’s spar!”
Thought it was someone coming to help, but maybe it was just another burden.
“No.”
“Why?!”
“We sparred this morning, remember?”
Chayeon shot it down flat. Arena raised her voice.
Chayeon glanced down. She flinched, hiding her hands behind her back.
“You said you weren’t supposed to push yourself.”
“Y-yeah! Yeah, rehab! It’s rehab!”
“Who forces rehab like that?”
Even after discharge, Arena had jumped straight into third-year classes. Unfortunately for her, she was in Class D. Different from Chayeon’s.
Side note: Ju Jihyo had vanished after that day. Present on the attendance list, but never showed up for class. Chayeon didn’t care much. Revenge was done, and now he had a whole squad of bodyguards glued to him—posthumous fears handled.
“Anyway, no. At least wait till tomorrow.”
“Hiiing……”
Arena’s face drooped hard.
“Then I’ll go.”
“W-wait!”
Chayeon sighed. Lunchtime was ending.
“Why?”
“T-that! I-I made a bento…… no! I didn’t make it for you! I just made too much!”
“Lunch together?”
“Y-yeah!”
Was this really the main topic instead of the sparring? Chayeon wondered.
Since Arena got discharged, they’d eaten breakfast and dinner together on the way to and from school, but this was the first time she’d asked to eat lunch together.
Bento? Hell yes. Chayeon was always footing the bill for meals out of guilt toward Jeong Seohee. Any way to cut costs was welcome.
“Sure.”
“R-right? Really…… e-eh?!”
“Let’s eat. How about the courtyard?”
“E-eh! Yes! Just don’t be surprised by my cooking!”
Arena’s gloomy face lit up like fireworks. She skipped ahead humming, as if her invisible tail was wagging like crazy.
That’s kind of cute, actually.
Chayeon followed, chuckling at the thought.
At first she’d looked completely unhinged. Who knew her face could change this much?
Maybe that time they’d almost said their last goodbyes together. People’s hearts were truly weird.
Still lost in the feeling, a voice whispered inside him.
<>
“……”
It was useless fluff, but according to the fox, he was also a member of the “Eungchaa~” crew.
“Munch munch.”
“Did you eat everything?”
“All done. Tell me.”
“Swallow—.”
“Where’s the homework?”
Under the big shade of a massive tree in the academy’s courtyard garden, Chayeon and Arena sat side by side, playing with their spoons.
“Who knows. I’ll pick a moderate A-rank quest.”
The Ranking Match results had left Chayeon with the only A-rank in Class B—three spots total. The other three losers from the finals were B-rank, and everyone else was C-rank. They’d split the C-ranks further for detailed grading, but that was irrelevant to him.
Arena, who’d joined late, had no records, so she was the lowest in Class D’s C-rank.
Quest season hit like an RPG event—announcements everywhere, each with rank restrictions.
Students formed teams based on rank and came back with the results.
“I’m jealous. I want an A-rank quest.”
“I want a C-rank quest.”
C-rank quests weren’t really quests—they were basically volunteer work. Assigned to facilities inside Jindal, helping with their jobs.
A-rank quests involved real danger: arresting criminals, taking down crime organizations, or subjugating low-class demons that had been hiding outside the academy under the name “ghost hunters.”
“And you didn’t even have hands when you picked an A-rank quest.”
“Uuu……”
Arena chewed her lower lip, looking annoyed. She’d improved a lot, but still couldn’t swing a sword properly yet.
To outsiders she looked great. To people who knew her past, she was still way behind.
“Still, I want to do the same quest as you.”
“Why do you want the same one as me?”
“You heard?”
It was quiet. But with her ear so close, of course she’d catch it.
Arena’s ears turned bright red.
“S-sorry! I want an A-rank quest too! I want to show off my skills!”
Bam! Arena shot up from her chair and shouted loud enough to echo.
Chayeon couldn’t figure out why she posed like that. Maybe because she’d lived in Japan? Everything she did looked straight out of an anime.
A gust of autumn wind blew, and one maple leaf fluttered down right in front of Arena’s sharp little nose.
“Ah……”
Arena stared at it, then mumbled something.
“Jeon Chayeon……?”
“Why?”
“T-the bento…… how was it?”
Even from the side, Chayeon could tell she was super nervous. It felt almost girlish.
“It was the best one I’ve had recently.”
“Really?!”
Chayeon’s honest answer made Arena’s face brighten.
“T-then……”
“Hm?”
“I’ll bring a bento…… wanna go on a picnic?”
Picnic. A word Chayeon hadn’t heard since elementary school.
“Picnic?”
“It’s autumn foliage season! There’s a famous spot on the north side of the academy!”
Arena hopped up and down like a ball.
Her tail seemed to be wagging again.
Chayeon had heard about the north-side maple spot this season. People loved going there.
Spring was cherry blossoms on the west side. Autumn was maples and ginkgo on the north.
“You’ll miss out on Jeon Chayeon! It’s super super super pretty!”
Arena tried desperately to convince him with limited vocabulary.
“……”
Honestly, he wasn’t thrilled. Flower viewing and maples weren’t his vibe at all.
But watching her jump around full of excitement, he couldn’t bring himself to say no.
He didn’t know if it was because they’d fought together and she’d gotten hurt that day, but there was something oddly gentle in the way he treated her now.
“Fine.”
“Yatta!”
Arena said it in Japanese without thinking. Then she hopped, glanced back at Chayeon, and coughed awkwardly.
“E-actually, I wasn’t that eager! But since you seem like you really want to go, I’ll tag along!”
Chayeon wondered if she realized how late that offer was. This girl was hopeless.
Deep inside the dense multi-layered barrier, a naked woman hung upside down on a cross, nails driven through her wrists and ankles.
Her long turquoise hair hung limp and tangled below. A tail that continued from her hips ended in a blunt stump at the base. Her long ears, inhuman in shape, had been torn off at the tips.
“How is it?”
“It’s almost done.”
From her upside-down position, Uroboros stared blankly at a distant point while a skinny woman beside Jeong Seohee asked the questions.
“It took a long time.”
“Sorry, Headmaster. Mind control against demons isn’t easy.”
The woman’s ability was mental manipulation. She was the only human allowed to use the power demons alone possessed.
“It’s done.”
The mental control finally snapped. Uroboros’s mind was now completely under the woman’s control.
“Good. Well done.”
Jeong Seohee squatted in front of Uroboros and locked eyes with her.
“Now, tell me. Who is the person you mentioned?”
Six weeks of torture and mind control. Jeong Seohee had poured everything into capturing and interrogating the demons.
There was a catch.
Six weeks ago, Uroboros and Rubrum-Luna had attacked Jindal. Somehow the barrier had been deactivated.
When it turned out Kim Sun-ssi had actually contacted the demons, the case seemed solved.
But.
Headmaster, this doesn’t feel right.
What is it, Jeong-ssi?
I scanned the barrier’s internal structure. It wasn’t dismantled from the inside. It looks like it was destroyed by force.
Kim Sun-ssi, who’d been eaten in Jindal Heart, was an expert in barriers.
The barrier that had wrapped around Jindal Gate had also relied heavily on his power.
Would someone who knew so much about barriers really need to destroy it the hard way?
Of course there could be reasons. But the most likely was that someone wanted to make it harder to repair. And now, with Kim Sun-ssi dead, the new barrier was weaker than before.
Still, one percent of discomfort wasn’t something to ignore.
It was a lesson Jeong Seohee had learned the hard way from life.
They started interrogating the captured demons to pull out information.
Instead of the expected silence, the two of them laughed and said things like:
“Liar, I don’t love light, I’m the weapon that destroys, ‘that’ is coming!”
“That?”
They left cryptic sentences and never once mentioned “that” again.
Afterward, the academy started mental manipulation on the demons.
Finally, the long-awaited harvest was ripening.
“Come on, tell me. Who is it?”
“……Me……”
“‘Me’?”
The instant Uroboros opened her mouth and Jeong Seohee asked,
Bam!
Uroboros’s head exploded like a smashed watermelon right in front of Jeong Seohee’s eyes.
Sticky blood and brain matter splattered across her face, then dripped down.
“……Are you okay?”
Jeong Seohee turned. The woman who’d been with her had collapsed, clutching her head.
Jeong Seohee gave a small wave. A flash of light passed, and the woman’s breathing slowly returned to normal.
“Hah, hah. Thank you, Headmaster.”
“The greeting’s done. What happened here?”
Jeong Seohee pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the blood off her face.
“T-that…… it feels like a powerful Geas was placed. Probably whoever it was would be forced to die on the spot if they revealed information about themselves.”
Geas.
High-level mental control that went beyond mind manipulation and exercised physical force. At least, that was the kind of thing a second-class dangerous demon wouldn’t have access to on its own. Someone powerful must have been behind it.
“‘Me’.”
With just one syllable, nothing could be understood. But.
There was something deeply unpleasant about the sound.