THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE. LABYRINTH 35.
The door creaked open as Ace stepped feet into the Principal’s Office.
Glancing over his shoulder, he closed the door behind him. Edris had warned him about the spatial illusions planted to get to the office. However, it didn’t take Ace much to sneak in and navigate around the illusions without the Shadows noticing, now that he’d (forcibly) regained access to his mana channel.
The office was entirely empty, darkened from the closed curtains. The Principal himself was nowhere to be seen.
It was quite strange, if one thought about it closely. Despite being the supposed “head” of MW Academy, the Principal barely held a presence during their three months here.
Even at the [FINAL EXAM] today, the man did not show his face.
It was almost as if he was an empty shell who was brought out for the sake of convenience.
Ace headed towards the bookshelf behind the office table. The books, all in an identical shade of maroon, towered up against the entire wall. Ace scanned the books row after row, his dark eyes at last landing on the one at the rightmost position on the fifteenth row.
Although also maroon, the book bore a slightly lighter shade than the rest.
Edris had cautioned him against the sturdiness of the shelf coverings, but that was just Edris.
Ace punched his fist through the glass, sending the surrounding pieces tumbling down as well.
He reached for the book and tried to pull it out, only for it to be stuck like glue.
Ace narrowed his eyes.
He was considering using blunt force to rip it out from its position.
As if sensing his menace, the book bounced out the next second by itself, falling onto the ground with a plop.
Ace stared at the book with a raised eyebrow. He bent over to pick it up. As the paddings of his finger contacted the book cover, he frozen on the spot.
Ba-dump.
He felt a heartbeat. The pulse was abnormally profound, almost like it had jumped right beside his ears.
Was it his own? Or…
Ace fixed his eyes onto the book. It was thinner than the usual and leaned closer to a notebook. Touching the book had thrown his mind in a daze. This had never happened before.
Was it because the special item counted as Labyrinth property, while he wasn’t technically supposed to be here? Strictly speaking, Ace was neither a native or a player. He’d only ended up here somehow due to being bound with Edris.
A gleam of light squeezed through the closed curtains. As Ace went to pick up the book, his body froze once again.
Someone was behind him.
Ace swerved his body around and slid backwards, enlarging the distance between himself and the silhouette. Only then did he notice the figure to be someone familiar.
Ace’s forehead formed a subtle crease.
The Principal stood with his back towards the curtains, against the light. The single ray of sunlight casting an elongated shadow onto the floor.
How long had he been here?
A flat expression spread across the Principal’s plain features. Swaying subtly from left to right, the old man looked like he was sleepwalking. Ace wouldn’t be surprised if the man flopped down like a doll the next second.
For awhile, the Principal did not speak, and neither did Ace. They observed each other, silence building up between them.
Then, the Principal stiffened.
“004,” he said in a monotone voice. “004.”
Ace narrowed his eyes. The Principal repeated the same thing over and over again. Each time he called out to him, it was in the exact speed and intonation like an eerie chant.
Ace shot the man a look of pure disgust. As he deliberated on whether he should just grab the notebook and go, the air in the room shifted slightly.
“004…”
Without warning, the Principal straightened his back with a crack. The action was so abrupt that it took a second for his neck to follow the movement.
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Ace tensed, his gaze tracking the Principal’s every move with caution.
Under the purple moonlight, the Principal’s eyes focused. The corners of his lips dragged upwards into an exaggerated smile, one that showed all his teeth.
“Good evening,” he said. There was something distinctly different about him from merely a moment ago.
The Principal pounced forward, an arm lashing out aimed right at Ace’s neck. The white-haired man pressed a foot down, a burst of air exploding his step. With a pivot, he evaded the attack and grabbed onto the Principal’s arm with one hand. With the other, Ace took advantage of the man’s momentum and plunged him forward, sending the Principal flying across the room.
The office table trembled as the Principal’s back slammed against it. It was as though the man couldn’t feel the pain, because the next second he was up on his feet again and charging towards Ace.
The Principal bore a coy expression as he closed the distance once more. No matter how many times the white-haired man knocked him down, the man’s gaze remained fixed on him.
A few more exchanges, and Ace couldn’t shake off the feeling that the Principal’s movements—unrelenting and arrogant—resembled someone he’d come across in the past.
He stepped sideways, avoiding another one of the Principal’s futile attempts at grabbing him.
It was then it hit him.
“Robin, member of Nest,” Ace said aloud. His movements came to a stop, and so did the man across from him.
Robin was the hypnotist Awakened that he fought against back at the Zacriya Kingdom.
The Principal’s smile widened. His gloved hand reaching for his left chest pocket and his back lowering, he entered into a rather ostentatious bow.
“And so I’ve been found,” Robin said, the undertones of his high, silvery voice reflected in the Principal’s usually monotone one. “Did you miss me, 004?”
He took a step forth, and Ace maintained the distance with his own step back.
“You know me,” he said sharply. “How?”
Last time at the Slums, the man had also mentioned that he found Ace familiar.
“Of course I know you. I’d recognize you anywhere. On the other hand, the question you should ask yourself instead”—Robin clicked his tongue— “is why you’ve forgotten all about me.”
Ignoring the white-haired man’s look of dismay, he laid his hand out with a melodramatic sigh.
“You lost your memories, didn’t you?” Robin mused. “After all we’ve been through, too. What a shame.”
“How do you know me?” Ace asked again. His gaze was stoic as usual, but a ripple of impatience had spread beneath those dark pupils.
Robin strode left and right, carrying a thoughtful hum as he did so. Ace tracked his every motion, adjusting his stance ever-so-slightly as needed to maintain vigilance.
“Just telling you the answer would be no fun,” Robin said.
Then, he threw a wink Ace’s way, an act the latter certainty did not reciprocate.
“...I see.”
Ace burst forth, a stream of mana spiralling around him as he aimed right at the man’s vital point.
In the body of the Principal, Robin brought both arms together in an attempt to block the attack, but the old man’s physiques were naturally no match in comparison as he was sent tumbling back.
“Impatient as always,” Robin struggled to his feet, licking the blood from his lips.
“This body is… quite disappointing,” he said with a soft sigh. “Looks like we will have to save our heart-to-heart for the next time.”
Ace lunged forward, grabbing hold of his collar. Robin made no attempt resist as he did so, but the next second, he released one last laugh and his eyes rolled back.
The Principal’s body returned to his previous tenseness, and Ace knew the Nest member had left.
He released his grip on the old man, only for the latter to slip onto the floor like a sponge jelly. Next thing he knew, the Principal’s entire body had flipped sideways. His joints folded into each other, and his back hunched over.
His limbs contouring towards the floor, he crawled towards the window like a four-legged insect. His feet and arms seemed to be releasing some sort of sebum, leaving a trail of clear, sticky liquid in his path.
“…”
Ace’s view towards this place had just reached a new low.
He didn’t know what was more disgusting—Robin inside the Principal or the Principal himself.
Under his look of discontent, the Principal, now no different from a cockroach, continuously inched towards the full-length windows. Behind him, dozens of Shadows emerged from the ground.
Ace suspected that they were coming for him, yet the Shadows floated right past and followed the path of the Principal.
Forming a single-filed line, they crashed head-first into the windows one by one before dissipating into air. Usually, the Shadows took no concrete shape or form. The only time where they can directly make contact with something in the physical world was to fulfill an assigned goal.
The Shadows were intentionally making way for the Principal?
Ace watched from the shadows as they hit the same spot on the window one after another. After a couple dozen or so, a crack began to form on the surface. First only a crevice, then extending onto the entire clear surface.
Glass shards shattered all over the place, and the Shadows, witnessing the fruit of their efforts, faded into the empty space. The Principal continued squirming forth, ignoring the shards of glass that impaled deeper into his body with every step.
Ace retracted his gaze from the absurd sight and reached for the book on the ground. This time, it rested like any other item in his hand. He focused on the book once more.
Was it his imagination then?
He didn’t have time to think deeper into it. As he turned around, he came face to face with the Principal himself.
At some point, the Principal had changed his tracks and was now leaping his way at an intense speed. His eyes bulged forward, and thousands of teeth spilled from his mouth as he called out in a wave of incoherent screeches.
"Mine! It’s mine!"
“…”
Ace didn’t even bat an eye as he yanked the collar of the Principal, halting him amidst the attempted attack. In a swift combination of actions, he then dropped the insect-like human from mid-air and, with a pivot to the right, kicked him right out the window.
As the Principal tumbled out of sight, Ace slowly exhaled through his nose. He wiped his palms against his long coat, used its sleeves to wipe the surface of his shoe, then tossed the coat onto the ground.
Clenching the notebook in one hand, he stepped out of the office once and for all.
It was time to meet up with the others.