Chapter 58
Chapter 58
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: Strange Hide-and-Seek (1)
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‘Am I the only one sensing it?’
The two of them, Theodore and Arthur, showed no reaction whatsoever, their faces expressionless.
As if they couldn’t feel the ominous aura creeping ever closer.
But it was definitely lurking there.
An invisible threat was taking shape, rising slowly like mist.
“-Did you finish class properly before coming, Theodore?”
At my words, Theodore raised an eyebrow, as if he’d heard some incomprehensible nonsense.
‘Well, of course... He’s the top student.’
When ranked by total scores regardless of year or class, Theodore had the highest among us.
After him came me, Judith, Arthur, and trailing far behind... Shirley.
In my case, practical training dragged my scores down, and since shooting majors had low overall totals anyway, first place academy-wide was impossible for me.
I’d wandered a bit after realizing that, but what could I do?
I was a parachute kid who’d weaseled in on my mother’s influence.
“I went through my own rebellious phase right around that age. Sorry for saying something dumb.”
I glanced around.
The long shadows felt like they inched closer when I looked away, only to retreat when I stared back.
‘Who among them is it?’
Who’s the guardian angel?
With the two top students from Thorn Crown Class flanking me, we were now drawing stares in the worst possible way.
-Murmur, murmur.
The whispers had escalated from hushed gossip to outright commotion all around.
The cadets, cloaked against the chill wind, all looked so similar from afar that it was impossible to pinpoint anyone.
Before the unwelcome gazes and sinister imaginings could solidify, Theodore stopped abruptly with a clack of his boots.
“What’s up? We need to keep going straight a bit more.”
The corridor we were traversing curved left toward the main building’s west side, past the fountain. A little farther in lay the club room of the Classics Department where Dylan hung out: the “Fruit of the Baby Angel” room.
But what I thought was just a brief pause turned out to be Theodore rooted to the spot, staring fixedly in one direction.
“What is it?”
“Black mage...”
“Oh.”
Do mages have some kind of intuition for each other?
I pointed at where he was looking and said,
“There’s probably one former black mage there. Wooden Cross Class dorm captain. Dylan.”
“Dylan? That famous fossil from Wooden Cross Class?”
“You’re from a slightly different year, so you wouldn’t know the details. Rumor is he transferred in from Thorn Crown Class.”
Even in Thorn Crown House, the perpetual student Dylan was apparently infamous.
Theodore nodded as if it made sense once I mentioned the name.
“He’s really that famous even in Thorn Crown Class?”
“Yeah. Especially the story about exploiting the school rules to avoid graduating. He knows the rules inside out just to break them—how could he not be famous?”
“Sounds like he’s weirdly dedicated about it.”
I have no idea why I keep getting tangled up with people like this.
I spun on my heel to avoid seeming too chummy and strode ahead purposefully.
Theodore kept staring that way for a moment, as if something still bothered him, then followed behind me.
“Nothing strange happen after that?”
“Not really? It’s only been a day.”
“Unexpected that he’d even send a note like that.”
“I’m grateful, actually...”
The murmurs around me were no longer subtle—they were openly taking shape now.
I might have to give up on graduating quietly at this rate.
The rumor that had spread like wildfire in an instant had clearly shifted me from “pathetic parachute senior” to “creepy senior,” making the knee pain I’d endured all day feel pointless.
I wanted to applaud myself for pushing through the gossip to make attendance anyway.
‘Feels like I’m the clown here.’
In any case, arriving at the lecture hall with my two sturdiest escorts from the academy, I flung open the door and turned to them.
“Thanks to you guys, we made it without issue. Time to head back, right?”
“No. I applied to observe.”
“...You’re sitting in on the lecture too?”
“That’s why I came all this way.”
Could we really catch the guardian angel like this?
I was starting to get fed up with these two shadowing me all day.
I was even worried they might insist on following me to the bathroom.
Thankfully, they had some sense and didn’t go that far, but they did follow me all the way to my dorm room.
“So, how was the Wooden Cross experiential learning?”
To entertain my two unexpected male guests, I lit the fireplace, set a kettle on top.
Soon, as the water boiled vigorously, I added tea leaves, and a fragrant aroma filled the room.
Theodore took the cup I offered with a serious expression.
“Their curriculum is a mess.”
“Honest, as always.”
As Theodore said, Wooden Cross’s curriculum was indeed a mess.
Not just me—Wooden Cross was packed with what you could charitably call “free-spirited majors” or more bluntly, “problem parachutes.”
It’d be a lie to say the other parachutes weren’t especially harsh on me.
But some were legit fine arts majors who’d enrolled properly, so I wasn’t in a position to complain.
“There are way too many major courses, and not enough practical sessions compared to theory.”
“And they skip even those few practicals to grind their own specialties.”
Theodore looked like he wanted to say, “Then how can they become proper people?”—but as someone who’d enrolled thanks to that bizarre curriculum, I had nothing to say.
I offered tea to Arthur, who’d been clamping his mouth shut like a clam, then sank deep into the armchair sofa.
Then Theodore sidled over, rolled up my pant leg, and checked the wound.
“Inflammation’s setting in, as expected. Might be best to request a dispatched priest.”
“Nah, it’s just a scrape. Sure, it bled a lot, but...”
“With no time to heal, it keeps getting worse. You’d be better off leaving it exposed.”
“Urgh.”
If I did that, the guy I bumped into yesterday might have a nervous breakdown.
He was already stewing over colliding with the creepy senior Arma Cruise—what if he learned I was injured too?
“But you might be right. Maybe I’ll wear shorts tomorrow. Seems like every rumor’s out there anyway.”
“Why do you think that?”
“You saw it too. All the murmuring and commotion.”
“...Pardon?”
Arthur, who’d been silent as a clam until now, let out a dazed voice.
My mouth was parched from hyper-focusing on my surroundings all day.
The moment I lifted the teacup to moisten my dry lips—
“No need to deny it—”
“What do you mean by that?”
I hadn’t even finished speaking.
This time, it was Theodore who sounded flustered at my words.
“What’s with that reaction?”
The vibe wasn’t one of comforting me that nothing had happened today.
A chill ran through me.
Theodore, uncharacteristically, paused as if pondering how to phrase it.
“Everyone avoided Senior Cruise.”
“...”
“They kept an excessive distance, so it wasn’t noisy enough to call murmuring.”
My mouth went bone-dry.
“Wooden Cross Class is... exclusive toward other classes. I thought they were shocked to see you guys...”
“That’s true, but we’ve been visiting here for nearly a year now as double-major students.”
“...”
That couldn’t be right.
I’d clearly heard more commotion around us than usual.
And there were those invisible waves of malice...
Realizing that, it suddenly hit me.
‘The more I think about it, the weirder it sounds.’
Yeah, a threat taking shape?
Something slithering up from the shadows?
I was just overly sensitive.
-In a normal situation, there would’ve been orders to check Arma Cruise’s mental state.
‘My head’s the one messed up...’
Dejected, I drained the tea in my cup in one gulp and leaned back into the sofa, closing my eyes.
“I must be tired. Sorry, but could you leave for today?”
“Arma Cruise.”
“Theo, please.”
“-Understood.”
Could there be anything more reliable than the testimony of a genius prodigy swordsman-to-be with keen senses and a genius black mage-in-training?
The mana flowing through them, a blessing from Aegis, granted transcendent insight into realms I, a mere mortal, couldn’t perceive.
Unless these two were conspiring to lie—which was unlikely—I was the one misreading the situation.
A warped mirror reflects only warped images; if my mind was warped, it had distorted reality...
I was exhausted.
Sleep came crashing down.
I drifted off without even mustering the energy to follow Theodore’s advice about drying the wound under my rolled-up pants.
***
The next day, I woke to the sun high in the sky.
Having fallen asleep without washing, I finally stumbled into the shower and turned on the water, at which point reality sank in belatedly.
Fortunately, it was a day without morning lectures.
Waking on schedule was a habit ingrained over half my life, so it was only natural.
I shook out my wet hair, donned the loosest pants I had and a black silk shirt, then tied a matching black ascot inside the collar.
My condition and mood were both wrecked, but with finals approaching, I couldn’t skip lectures.
‘Damn it...’
Lately, I cursed once a day without fail.
My empty stomach made me dizzy, but I dragged myself toward the academy anyway—because it was the only way to prove my worth, a compulsion I couldn’t shake.
Closing my dorm door behind me, I spotted a note from Theodore taped to the handle.
-You seemed fast asleep, so I didn’t wake you. Heading to the Wooden Cross main building lobby around 4.
Having firmly ushered them out last night, Theodore was apparently coming back.
I pocketed the note and started walking.
Taking one step, then another, battling myself as I headed for Lord Norfolk’s Magical Mechanics classroom—
“Arma Cruise!”
Thud! Someone shoved my back.
It happened so suddenly that I instinctively braced with my hands to avoid falling.
“I-I-I-I’m Leslie York!”
With hazy, unfocused eyes, a terribly trembling voice, and stiff movements like he’d been forced into it, the lanky brown-haired cadet who’d pushed me was a total stranger.
“You’re Leslie York? What are you talking about?”
Incredibly, the brown hair in front of me was completely different from the guy I’d collided with two days ago—the one who’d nearly been impaled by the ice spike when he fell.