The Grotesque Curse of Shadow Plastic Surgery
Following Emma's guidance on Shadow Plastic Surgery, we headed toward the Girls' Dormitory. Normally, a guy like me sneaking into the girls' dorm would be impossible, so I'd been racking my brain over how to pull it off—but surprisingly, Emma said there was no need to worry.
As we neared the Girls' Dormitory, she glanced around cautiously and pointed to a small cluster of bushes behind an old building. She explained it was a secret path known only to a select few students, allowing discreet passage in and out of the dormitory without drawing attention. It looked like dense shrubbery from the outside, but it actually connected to a hole in the wall, wide enough for one person to slip through. ...Is the security here really okay? I felt a twinge of unease at the academy's lax defenses, but it was still valuable intel. A way to come and go between the Girls' Dormitory and the academy without the dorm monitors noticing would prove useful for club activities down the line.
With that in mind, we followed Emma's lead, sneaking into the Girls' Dormitory and making our way to the room shared by her roommate, Melissa.
We crept quietly down the dormitory hallway and stopped in front of Melissa's door. Emma knocked softly, careful not to startle whoever was inside.
Knock knock.
A startled gasp came from within, followed by a wary response. "Wh-who is it...?"
Emma quickly lowered her voice to reassure her. "No need to worry. It's me. Emma. I brought someone who can help."
But the student inside, Melissa, didn't let her guard down. "No...! I can't let anyone see me like this...! Not anyone...!"
"Melissa...!"
"No! I said no! Not like this... hic... hic..."
Rone, who had been listening, spoke up in a quiet but firm voice. "Melissa Winslett? We've come to help you. Hiding in your room forever won't solve anything. Please trust us."
"...Is that Rone?"
"Yes, it is. Won't you trust me... and open the door?"
A brief silence followed Rone's steady, unwavering words. Then came the click of the door unlocking from inside.
"...You can come in. As long as you can change me back..."
Her small voice granted permission. We carefully opened the door and stepped inside.
As the door swung open, we caught sight of Melissa—who had just unlocked it—hurriedly pulling a cloth over herself and fleeing to the corner of the bed. She huddled there under the cloth, as if desperate to hide her appearance.
"Miss Melissa," Rone said softly. "We're not here to harm you. As Emma said, we've come to resolve the ghost story and help you. But if you won't show yourself, we can't know what curse you're under or how to lift it."
Emma whispered pleadingly. "Melissa... please, trust me. These people will definitely help."
Rone stepped forward, trying to soothe her. "I know it's hard, but can you show us your face?"
Did her words work? Melissa's form under the cloth began to tremble ever so slightly. After a long silence, a faint sob leaked out from beneath.
But the crying soon subsided, and she seemed to take a deep breath. Shh.
With fear and hesitation, she slowly lifted the cloth.
As the fabric fell away completely, Melissa's hidden face was revealed.
"Gasp...!"
"...No way."
Suddenly, gasps rose from the club members. Rone clapped both hands over her mouth in shock, Rozalia's face drained of color, and even Aurora furrowed her brow, unable to hide her dismay.
I'd braced myself to some extent, but my heart still sank at the sight. ...Yeah, this is bad.
Her face was twisted in a way that made it hard to look straight at. Her head was swollen to at least twice the size of a normal person's, the skin covered in jagged, rocky protrusions like haphazardly gathered granite. One side of her forehead was deeply凹ed, as if unnaturally gouged out, and the eyes beneath were mismatched in size, creating a grotesque disharmony. Her left eyeball especially bulged halfway out of its socket, veins starkly visible, its gaze unfocused and wandering the air.
Her jaw jutted out like a shovel, too malformed to close properly, revealing teeth sprouting wildly like weeds through the gap.
If we hadn't heard the warnings beforehand, no one would have mistaken her for human.
I'd expected a curse that mangled her looks based on the Shadow Plastic Surgery backlash, but this exceeded even that grim anticipation.
Melissa's anxious eyes scanned the room, then widened in horror as she spotted me—the only guy among the group. She flinched back with a look of pure alarm.
I ignored her reaction, speaking in a completely detached tone. "Don't mind me. I'm here to help you too, same as the others. I have some questions about what happened the night before last. Can you answer them?"
Acting overly sympathetic here would backfire. Better to treat it matter-of-factly, like it was no big deal.
She paused, hand halting midway to cover her face again. "Wh-what questions...?"
"Can you tell us in detail about this curse you're under and how it happened? Also, exactly what Shadow Plastic Surgery is, and how you ended up trying it."
In a hoarse, raspy voice, Melissa began recounting the events of that night.
She'd slipped out of the dormitory via the secret path known to a few students, heading to the fourth-floor hallway under the faint moonlight, where she tried manipulating her shadow to change her appearance. Even as she futilely tried to hide one swollen side of her face, she confessed her feelings in a trembling voice.
"I decided to try Shadow Plastic Surgery because... I wanted to fix my plain looks..."
She hesitated before continuing. "Believe it or not, back home, I was treated like a proper young lady... But it was just a minor rural noble family. Then I came to Everlight Academy, and... there are countesses and marchionesses everywhere, not to mention royalty. It's not just the academics—their looks are on another level entirely..."
The sight of those stunning boys and girls had been a shock to a country noble girl who'd thought herself decent-looking.
"That's when I was chatting with my roommate Emma and heard rumors about this ghost story called Shadow Plastic Surgery. I thought, what if it really could change my appearance...? I shouldn't have, but... hic... hic..."
She trailed off, swallowing hard in anguish.
"So I snuck out late at night through the secret path and tried it on the fourth-floor hallway. But I got spotted by the teacher on duty and had to flee in a panic. I didn't finish the process—in my rush, I pawed at my shadow wildly, and passing through the hallway's crooked turns distorted it badly. By the time I got back to the dorm and noticed, it had already twisted my face into this hideous mess. Sob..."
She couldn't continue and bowed her head again.
Her story boiled down to this: manipulating the shadow to beautify oneself naturally allowed the opposite too. In her panic, she'd yanked her head's shadow larger or squished it, and it reflected in reality. No mere side effect—it was the technique working as intended.
Having heard her out, I probed for more details. Resolving the ghost story required every scrap of info.
"Can you describe the exact procedure for Shadow Plastic Surgery? Any materials needed? How precisely did you manipulate the shadow? And any special sensations when handling your own shadow?"
I fired off questions like an interrogation, and the other members chimed in with their own. Stunned into silence at first by her appearance beyond imagination, they'd recovered while I led the talk.
Elaine calmly cross-referenced her compiled ghost story notes with Melissa's testimony, posing logical queries. Rozalia asked if she'd felt anything odd or seen anything strange. Aurora, true to form, coldly and sharply caught details others missed.
Melissa shrank back in panic but answered our barrage haltingly, clinging to hope.
Once we'd extracted all we could, we rose to leave. As I stood, the others followed, and just before exiting, Rone grasped her hand firmly.
"Miss Melissa. We'll take full responsibility and cure this curse!"
At Rone's words, Melissa stared blankly at my face before slowly nodding. Rone etched her expression into memory, then followed me out with resolute determination.