DMHS 93

When he looked around, no other students had finished their work as fast as they had. Everyone was still struggling at their assigned plots.

“We should get it inspected, right?”

“Yes.”

Kian went with Lucien to the zelkova tree where the gnome was asleep. The gnome seemed exhausted and slept with his mouth open.

“Teacher.”

The gnome didn’t reply even when called. Kian lightly grabbed the gnome’s shoulder and shook it.

“We finished planting the corn.”

Even so, the gnome didn’t wake up. Lucien, standing beside him, put his hand on the gnome’s hat.

When he lifted the pointed tip, the view in front of them turned completely black. To be exact, the ground within a round area centered on the gnome had sunk down.

Kian tilted his head back and looked up at the circular hole that opened toward the sky. From below, the view looked like what a person would see after falling into a well.

It looked about three meters deep. It was a pit that no human could escape from alone.

“Ah?”

Lucien let out a dry sound and put the hat back on the gnome’s head.

The sunken ground swelled back up again. The spirit and the two students returned under the zelkova tree.

Lucien seemed fascinated after coming out from underground, and he played with the gnome’s hat by putting it on and taking it off. Each time, they went down into the earth, looked around, and came back up again.

The gnome only regained his senses after Lucien finished playing.

“The garden’s lavender… pollen… makes me sleepy. Have the students finished planting the corn?”

“Please check that field over there.”

“Hmm… It seems I didn’t sleep that long.”

At this point, Kian started wondering why he could only hear that kind of nonsense clearly.

“It’s true. The seeds are… nicely absorbing the earth’s energy. You two must have some experience with farming.”

“I was just born and raised in the countryside.”

“Then from now on, I should teach you how to… use magic in cultivation. The basics weren’t even there, so I had to… start from scratch.”

“Thank you for your guidance. I look forward to the next class.”

“Yes, yes. I had a very satisfying… time in a while. At this rate, our department might have… hope too. That’s all for today’s class.”

Contrary to the full-day schedule, the class ended early.

Kessler, who had been working in the opposite field, waved at them with an envious look.

“Shall we go eat?”

When they went to the dining hall, they happened to run into Mila.

As soon as she saw them, her eyes widened like lanterns. She excused herself from the friends she’d been eating with and came over to their table.

After sitting down, she took a stack of papers out of her bag.

“This is what you asked for yesterday.”

Kian flipped through the pages and exclaimed in admiration.

The seven pages were filled with lists of forbidden matters.

1-Do not make eye contact with a black cat.

2-Do not go outside the rooftop on the north staircase.

3-Do not move the statue of the woman reading a book.

4-Do not follow the sound of piano music in the hallway at midnight.

5-Do not enter any classroom with a reversed number.

6-Do not flip over the painting of the girl hanging behind the art room.

7-Do not look in the mirror of the dormitory’s shared bathroom at midnight.

8-Do not go down to the fourth basement floor at midnight.

.

.

.

The last number was 99.

Kian read through the list from beginning to end again with a pale face.

“There are this many?”

“I only picked out the ones most of the students know about. If you add the smaller ones, there’d be well over a few hundred.”

Lucien crossed his legs and flipped through the pages too. Kian clicked his tongue and spoke.

“Thanks. It couldn’t have been easy to research all this in one night. You did well.”

“It’s nothing. I also checked with the students we talked about before, the ones from the Silent Society Club.”

“What about them?”

“It turns out they’re part of this too.”

Mila pointed to the end of the paper.

99- Do not try to learn too much about ghost stories.

“When I asked around, the kids said those students are actually the main characters in the ghost stories. They say the ‘Silent Society Club’ members investigated the stories and got swallowed by them.”

“They’re from the Administrative Department, right?”

“That’s what’s strange about it. The rumor is too specific. It says the club had six members from the Administrative Department, each with their own name. Lucen, Arion, Ben, Drek, Fin, and Jet. Of course, even if you look through the student list, none of those names exist.”

Kian wrote down the names Mila mentioned in the blank space.

Then they heard a familiar voice above their heads.

“You’re all eating together, I see.”

When they looked up, the princess and Frederick stood there with trays in their hands.

Mila smiled warmly when she saw Frederick.

“You’re the mage who helped us back then, right? The magic that used artifacts was really impressive. Thank you again.”

“Ahem. It was nothing.”

“Now that I think about it, there were four of you back then, but only two here now. Where are the others?”

Even in the thief village, the princess had followed their group in secret, so the four meant Kian, Frederic, Lucien, and Daisy.

“Sir Daisy had some business to take care of and stepped away. This is Miss Isabella, who joined us recently.”

“Nice to meet you, big sister!”

The princess greeted her cheerfully as soon as introductions ended. Mila seemed to like the bright girl and smiled back.

“And this one is…”

While Kian hesitated about whether to explain that it was the same boy she had seen before, Lucien quickly spoke.

“Luci.”

“We saw each other in the lounge yesterday too. You looked like someone of high status, so I couldn’t bring myself to speak first. It’s late, but nice to meet you. I’m Mila.”

While the short pause in their conversation lasted, Frederick began to complain.

“Is the Magical Agriculture course worth attending? Because of Princess… no, Miss Isabella, I’m going insane.”

“What did Miss Isabella do wrong?”

“No, listen to this. We just had a cooking ingredients class. It was about telling apart ingredients that look similar and are easy to confuse.”

“That sounds like a fun class.”

“It would’ve been if a proper dish had come out of it. But Miss Isabella must’ve been chosen by some devil. Even if you closed your eyes, there’d still be a fifty percent chance, yet how can someone pick the wrong one eight times in a row? It’s only lucky that the fire spirit Ignos is weak now. If it still had its old temper, the classroom would’ve become a sea of flames!”

The princess ignored Frederick’s outrage and laughed.

“The food didn’t taste as bad as you think.”

“No, it did! It was awful! It was the worst food I’ve eaten in my entire life!”

“But that’s how it felt to me. I really thought it was right, so what could I do if it wasn’t?”

“That attitude is what drives me mad! The things she chose so confidently were salt, vinegar, and baking powder. And her hands are so fast, she threw them into the pot before I could even stop her.”

Kian smiled kindly and soothed Frederick.

“You already know Miss Isabella has a special talent for picking the wrong one. Remember when she chose the mango tree on the plains? And when she picked the stream too…”

Before he realized it, Kian’s gaze had shifted to the paper of ghost stories that Mila had pushed aside.

There were ninety-nine in total. The number was so large that he didn’t know where to start.

“Miss Isabella, could you take a look at this for a moment?”

Kian handed the paper to the princess.

The princess, who loved anything new, lit up and began reading from the first one.

“These are well-organized ghost stories. My hands are itching to try them!”

After she finished reading all the way to the end, Kian asked her a question.

“If you had to pick only one to check, which one would you choose?”

“Only one?”

“For now, yes. Just one.”

The princess didn’t think long. Her finger stopped on one line.

8- Do not go down to the fourth basement floor at midnight.

“I’ll pick this one no matter what. It sounds like the most fun.”

Kian marked a star beside number eight.

“Mila, what’s on the fourth basement floor of the academy?”

“There’s no fourth basement floor. The lowest level is the third, and it’s used for storage, so students aren’t allowed in.”

“I see. Miss Isabella, are there any other ghost stories you want to check? Choose whichever ones draw your interest.”

“Numbers 1, 6, 45, 58, and 88. The rest don’t sound that fun when I think about them. And if it were me, I’d try the most interesting one last. I’d do the others first and finish by going down to the fourth basement floor. That’d be perfect.”

The princess had a gift for picking the worst possible option.

A normal person would choose a safe path that wouldn’t lead to anything frightening, but the princess would always go for the most dangerous one that might uncover the academy’s secrets.

A smile appeared on Kian’s face.

“Thank you. That helps a lot.”

“But we haven’t even started investigating yet?”

“This alone is already a big help. And if you’re going to assist us, you’ll need to follow the instructions of Lord Barbarnosputlkraknakar. Can you promise that?”

“Barbarno Sputl… what?”

Mila repeated Frederic’s name with surprised eyes, amazed that a person’s name could be that long.

“I swear. I’ll do exactly as you say here, mister.”

“Good.”

Next, Kian checked the list of the Silent Society Club.

“Lord Barbarnosputlkraknakar, you checked the list of missing students, right? Do you remember the names there?”

“Yes. Bennet, Ariandel, Derenak, Lucerion, Jetivan, Finnegan.”

It was just like a mage to have a good memory. Kian compared those names with the list of the Silent Society Club that he’d written in the paper’s corner.

Each name matched.

‘The names of the club members are the same as the nicknames of the missing students. Lucen is Lucerion, Arion is Ariandel, Ben is Bennet, Drek is Derenak, Fin is Finnegan, and Jet is Jetivan.’

That wasn’t a good sign. It meant the missing students really had formed the “Silent Society Club,” and now even the club had turned into a ghost story.