Earlier, in one of the classrooms…

Gonngggggg… Donnnnnngggggg… Gonnnnnngg…

The heavy bell above the Academy sounds out, and the empty classroom begins to fill as the students trickle in. Tisha, Neela and Cycelia take their seats at their usual desk. Damian arrives just a few moments later to his.

「Want to bet he'll forget again?」

Tisha asks the two, partially smirking through her mouth scrunched in frustration.

「Professor Aria said the class will be on… She wouldn't say that without a reason, would she?…」

Cycelia replies, gently furrowing her brows at her past Neela.

「Ah.」

Neela utters out, blinking in surprise at the open doorway as a very specific hat attempts to squeeze through.

「Hmphf!… Oookaay! Good morning!…」

Professor Aria exclaims, finally slipping through the opening. With a thick tome underneath one arm, she shuts the door behind her with the other, and approaches the teacher's desk.

「Huh?…」

Cycelia blinks, and glances sideways at the equally surprised girls beside her.

「Professor Aria, are we having combat magic classes today?…」

「No. We'll continue right from where Professor Reise left off.」

Thud.

She casually replies to Cycelia, and drops the tome onto the teacher's desk. She opens it, and quickly makes her way to the bookmark string.

「…You teach the professor's subject too, Professor Aria?」

Cycelia asks, tilting her head.

「I know this and that. He's a little sick, so I'm taking over for him. I know enough for the first yearss- Hnnhrgkakhh! Khakh!… Khhakh!… Hnnnnh!…」

Aria nonchalantly responds while flipping through the pages, when a coughing fit suddenly cuts her off. Covering her mouth with the back of her gloved hand, she winces heavily.

She draws another strained breath, but her coughs do not abate as she leans onto the desk with her free hand for support. The attention of the students is entirely on her as they watch with concerned faces.

「Professor, are you okay?…」

Cycelia asks, and Aria nods in response through her coughs. She returns a little wave of her hand to signify that she is in fact fine, but this does nothing to ease the students' anxiety.

「…The guy next room over barely got out of his bed today.」

「…What if it's the plague again? Everyone I know is feeling sick lately…」

「…That'd make sense why they want to keep us in…」

Aria continues coughing, and the students around Damian and the girls begin exchanging hushed rumors. Cycelia looks at Tisha and Neela with a greatly troubled expression, and all three let out discomforted sighs.

「Khakh… Ahem! What a dusty thing!」

The big hatted professor declares with confidence in her voice, right after taking control of her coughing fit. She resumes flipping through the pages, and quickly skims through the bookmarked one.

「…Right! Don't think for one second that I'm going to teach you like Professor Reise does! If it comes to it, I'll give you an exam myself!」

She exclaims, pointing her gloved finger at the students, and lightly lifting the brim of her large hat with the other. The students glance at each other with a mixture of moods on their faces.

Aria turns around, takes the chalk off the blackboard, and begins scribbling the continuation of Professor Reise's last lecture upon it…

…

In the afternoon, during the free period, in the headmaster's office…

Knock knock knock.

Corvus clears his throat from his previous coughing fit, when knocking on the door draws his attention to it.

「Ahem… Enter!…」

He clears his throat one more time, and says in a loud voice directed at the door. It cracks open, and the rotund dwarf woman peeks in through the opening.

「Headmaster, do you have a moment?」

She asks hesitantly with a troubled expression on her face.

「Julva… Of course I do, come on in.」

Corvus replies, pointing his hand towards the visitor's chair, as he adjusts himself to a more comfortable position in his own.

「…I don't remember the last time I've seen you in my office. Must have been quite a while… Or my memory is becoming rather poor. What brings you here?」

He remarks, and his voice trails off to a low grumble as he interlocks his fingers.

「It's been a while, headmaster…」

She nods as she approaches, and sets the thick, open tome in her hands down on his oaken desk. She ignores the visitor's chair, turns the book around so that Corvus can read it, and approaches his side.

「And this is?…」

He asks, squinting very heavily as he leans into the book right in front of him.

「I am very sorry that I've come here with yet another thing for you to worry about, headmaster, but it appears a key has been lost…」

「A key? Which one?」

Furrowing his bushy brows at her face beside him, Corvus blinks in light surprise.

「The one to the abandoned lower level. The one with the plaque?…」

She replies with an inquisitive, tilting her head at the old man to see if he understands what room she is talking about.

「…Ah. The one right by the demonology study?」

He asks, and Julva nods.

「Yes. A handsome man named Straf Katastrof came by, and he asked for all the keys to the defective rooms. He said that you gave him the permission, is that right?」

Julva explains, and leans a little closer over the desk as she asks.

「Yes… Yes, I have. And you couldn't find that key?…」

「Yes… Aside from the lost storage key, I gave him all of them… But look at this, headmaster…」

She says, and points her thick finger at one of the entries. He leans in, and reads it.

「Ah. I see… So he did not return the key?」

Corvus asks as he straightens out.

「No, headmaster.」

「I see… Well, I'll look into the students' records-」

「Spare yourself the trouble, headmaster…」

「Hm?」

Julva cuts his suggestion off, just as he leans towards one of the drawers in his desk. He looks at her over his shoulder with a face of confusion, and straightens out again.

「…This is the very first archival record. Have you looked at the date the key was taken?」

She asks, tapping her finger on the yellowed page.

「Hm?… Archival?…」

Corvus adjusts his glasses, pinching them, and with the creak of the leather on his chair, he leans over the tome again, squinting heavily. Surprised, his head perks up, and he slowly leans back in his seat.

「…That's twelve years after the construction of the Academy of Magic. No wonder I don't recognize that name. It's times before mine.」

He remarks, a little confounded by the discovery.

「The reason states… For the purposes of holding an association. Nothing in the records as to what that association was, but my guess is that they graduated, and forgot to return the key.」

Julva shrugs her shoulders, closes the tome with a noisy clap, and places it underneath her arm.

「Apologies for coming here with such a triviality. I know the room was out of use in any case, but I thought that as a headmaster, you should know.」

「No, of course. Thank you, Julva…」

Corvus nods as the dwarf woman heads for the door, she bows lightly, and exits. The headmaster is left alone in the room, pensively stroking his mustache down to his long beard, deep in thought…

…

In the evening, before sunset…

With his deerstalker on and the pipe in his mouth, Straf is walking through a dim hallway, reading the headmaster's map. Though the sun is still up and above the Academy's walls, it shines on the completely opposite side of the building. The faint, distant sounds of life are ominously contrasting with the deathly silence in the empty, dark halls. Even the runic automata have no business being here, and so Straf has not seen any for at least last twenty minutes, if not longer. He carries on, alone, with an eerie feeling of someone breathing down on his neck.

His head snaps over his shoulder. Nobody is there, but the presence remains. Straf throws the map into his [Portable Storage], and approaches one of the doors on the side. Outside the windows, the dying sunlight washes over the interior perimeter, slowly consumed by the tall walls' shadows. The hallway almost seems like a boundary between worlds. A world of artificial light wrapped in cold shadows, and an ever-shrinking world of warm natural light.

Cla-clack-clankclank…

Straf fiddles with the bundle of keys as he tries to open the door. One doesn't fit. Second doesn't fit. Third doesn't fit… He continues methodically checking each key while the sensation that someone is watching his hands over his shoulder grows almost tangible. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head.

「No shit you have a bad feeling about this hallway, old man… I can practically hear the horror sting in my head.」

Straf remarks with a hint of frustration in his smirk while he continues fiddling with the keys.

Clack.

「Ah.」

He utters out, as one of the them surprisingly slips into the lock.

Cla-clack.

He twists it, and unlocks the door.

Crrrrrrreaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkk…

He pushes the door to the pitch-black room open. Flakes of rust peel off the hinge unused for years, perhaps decades as it noisily makes itself known.

「…Elementary.」

Straf remarks, holding onto his unlit pipe's head, and draws a breath through it. Slowly, leisurely, he walks out of the dim blue light of the distant magic lamp levitating above, and enters the room. With no windows inside, only the faint, dark silhouettes of low furniture can be seen. Straf casually walks into the darkness, pretending to take puffs of smoke into his mouth. He looks around, but the level of light is far too low to see anything, except the outline of some furniture by the much brighter doorway.

A peculiar silence begins, interrupted only by the sounds of Straf's pipe as he holds one hand on its head, and the other in his pocket.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

「Well. This was a waste-」

SLAM!

The door swings shut, as if angrily thrown close by someone storming out of the room in anger. In the complete darkness, Straf's slowly brows rise in surprise while he nonchalantly continues to pretend that he's smoking his pipe. The inescapable presence from before now grows all-encompassing. Straf feels someone standing behind him, beside him, right in front of him, watching him from above, as well as below.

「…Enough…」「…You want to ruin it all…」「…Stop!…」

Hushed, indistinct voices like whispers speak from all around him. Both male and female alike, though the female voice sounds like a desperate plea. Straf tries to see through the darkness, but his eyes can't adjust well enough. Something seems to brush into his shoulder, as if someone was passing by in a cramped space.

「…Okay. Are you the type of voices to tell me winning lottery numbers, or the ones that tell me to kill the mailman?」

Straf briefly pulls his pipe out of his mouth to ask the darkness.

「…They… Asked for it!…」

A male voice seems to transition from one speaker to another as it exclaims.

「…The mailmen would beg to differ. Who are you? What are you?」

Straf asks, and stretches his free hand out into the dark before him. His hand touches someone's shoulder. Something resembling a shoulder, at least. It is far too soft to be one, being more like a hard pillow, or a dry sponge. Straf moves his hand up and down to feel for the shape in front of it, and it is distinctly and unmistakably human, or at least humanoid. He furrows his brows, moving his hand to the mysterious shape's face.

「…Disappear…」「…You trash…」「…I'm warning you!…」

Multiple voices of the same male speaker surround Straf in a bizarre fashion, speaking in disjointed snippets as if it were recorded soundbites, all faintly echoing, and sounding distant.

As Straf moves his hand, [Contextual Time Perception] activates. The same instant, an orb of magic light materializes above him, lighting up room. Time returns to its normal flow, and Straf is left holding his hand out at roughly head level, grasping at nothing in particular, alone. The room is full of one student tables stacked on top of each other, as well as moldy and broken chairs piled up in the corner. Some even have a quaint mushroom growing out of the wood. Straf continues taking puffs of air from his pipe, and rubs his chin.

「Hm…」

He hums as he walks to the center of the dusty, cluttered room illuminated by his magic orb. The ominous presence from before is gone, as if it was never there. Straf rubs his chin harder. As he breathes, he notices water vapor in front of his face, and the hand that was touching the mysterious shape slowly grows cold. With his brows raised as he stares at his hand, he wiggles his fingers for a few seconds in an effort to warm it up.

「Now this is embarrassing… I can't tell pants-shitter that he was right…」

Straf remarks as he pulls the pipe out of his mouth, and shrugs his shoulder. He nonchalantly makes his way to the door, and leaves, shutting it behind himself…

…

Around the same time, in another dim hallway…

Damian and the three girls continue their hunt. Every few minutes, a short series of sudden coughs burst from Neela's lips. She covers her mouth with her hand, wincing. The remaining three glance at her with varying degree of concern on their faces, but they continue onward.

「Ah…」

Damian utters out as the group comes to a halt in front of the demonologist's study.

「What? Did you sense something?」

Tisha asks, looking at Damian while he stares at the plaque on the door. He glances at her, and without replying, barges into the room.

「Ahh, excuse me, Professor Arkeis?…」

Damian walks into the room, startling the elderly man within. He visibly clicks his tongue and scowls at the young man, angrily stomping towards him.

「Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?」

The old man strokes his gray beard furiously, glaring at him. Neela stifles a cough, and the man's eyes jump from Damian to the girls behind him.

「Ahhh… Apologies for the intrusion, professor… A lot of people have been getting sick lately, and we thought that we should check on some of the older professors…」

Damian grins a little while he awkwardly explains, rubbing the back of his neck with his palm, spreading his other hand as he looks around the barely lit study. The three girls glance at each other with confused faces.

「…I don't need any wellness checks.」

The old man's glare and scowl softens, although their remnants are still on his face.

「Please don't take offense, I am not saying you are old, but… There's rumors of a disease going around the Academy, you see…」

「…And you've come to spread it? Leave.」

The gray bearded man demands, and turns around, returning to his desk in a rapid step. Damian's grin and narrowed eyes quickly fade into a serious, focused glare as he covertly looks around the room.

「But before you do… Take this to the headmaster.」

The old man stops them as they reluctantly turn to the exit, and returns to them with an envelope in his hand.

「This is?…」

「A letter.」

He replies, while Damian stares at the blank, unmarked envelope. The two lock their gazes, with the old man warily narrowing his eyes at the handsome student, before Damian nods and pockets it.

「We will get it done, professor. Please be mindful of your health.」

Damian smiles awkwardly, nodding his head as he leaves with the girls.

Clack.

The door latch makes a loud noise as he pushes it shut. Damian stares at the handle blankly for a few seconds, before turning his tight-lipped expression to the girls. Without a word, he walks past the three.

「Hey. Say something. What was up with that?」

With her arms crossed, Tisha demands in an insistent tone as they follow him.

「Yes… Akhhem… Your eyes were like a conniving salesman's.」

Neela nods, and clears her throat before commenting. Remaining silent, Damian continues heading back to the main building.

「Damian… Did you sense something?」

Cycelia asks, furrowing her brows at his back. They cross the corner into the better lit part of the hallway, and he lets out a relieved sigh.

「…That was fucking weird.」

He remarks, and places his hands in his pockets.

「What?」「What was?」

Tisha and Cycelia ask, staring at his back with focused eyes.

「It's hard to describe. I sensed the professor inside, but there was more… Not only that, someone… Or something was trailing behind us right until now.」

He replies, then sighs, sounding both fatigued and frightened.

「What? But there was-」

「Nothing there. I know.」

He interrupts Tisha as she quickly peeks over her shoulder. Her confused face snaps right back to him.

「…What do you mean by more? Somebody else?」

Cycelia asks, furrowing her brows as she fiddles with her medallion.

「I don't know. Maybe. I honestly can't even tell, that's why it's strange… The moment I walked in, the strongest presence vanished. But there was another one, I think…」

「Another one?…」

She hesitantly asks, and looks at the girls beside her with an anxious expression.

「Yeah. That was the strangest one. It was the weakest, but at the same time, it paradoxically felt the strongest.」

「…Why?」

「It's hard to explain…」

He replies, and looks aside with eyes deep in thought.

「How about this… Imagine you whisper in a silent room. The size of your bedroom in the Academy, let's say. I'd have no problem hearing you, right?」

「Yeah…」「Probably…」

Tisha and Cycelia nod along, while Neela silently listens.

「Now what if you were shouting during a battle full of cavalry, and men fighting? Even if you're that loud, it'd have to listen pretty carefully to hear you, right?」

「Yeah. That's why we have flags and horns…」

Tisha nods along without a delay, while the question gives Cycelia some pause.

「The same way, that third presence felt like a whisper in a silence, and screaming over a deafening noise at the same time. I genuinely can't tell if it was a threat or not. It creeps me out…」

Damian explains, then lowers his head in shame as he grumbles.

「What about the professor?」

Cycelia tilts her head.

「Him? I don't know… A little stronger than that loudmouth, I guess…」

He looks at them over his shoulder with tired eyes, and nods his head at Tisha before facing forward. She scrunches her mouth to the side, but only lets out a quick sigh in response.

「…I could tell he was pissed off though.」

Damian adds with a shrug of his shoulders.

「I'm surprised you just came up with a lie on the spot like that.」

Tisha remarks with one brow raised, looking at him with wary blue eyes.

「I can come up with much more if it gets us closer to the answers… That general area is probably our best bet.」

He glances at her over his shoulder with a fatigued face, and sighs out a reply.

「Uwaa… Creepy…」

She says, smirking at him, but Damian ultimately ignores her.

「Let's just get the letter to the headmaster and call it a day. I've got a pretty bad headache…」

He spreads his hands, and they turn a corner towards the dormitories.

「Ah. You can give it to me, I'll deliver it. It's on the way for me, anyway. You can go ahead and rest.」

Cycelia suggests as she stretches her dainty hand out towards his back.

「Especially you, Neela…」

She adds, glancing at Neela's tired face beside her.

「I'm fine…」

Neela quietly replies, turning her eyes back towards the floor.

「Well, I'll be counting on you, then. See you later…」

Damian says as he hands Cycelia the envelope, and splits from the group towards the male dormitories. The girls take a turn in the opposite direction, and head for the stairwell…