DMHS 96

His face was horribly distorted. A fierce glare emanated from between his long bangs.

Mila sensed a creepy aura.

‘If he was angry, shouldn’t he have shown it earlier?’

Ivan, who had been holding his pen so hard it seemed as if he might break it, loosened his grip. The pen rolled and dropped under the desk.

“……!”

No, before it hit the floor, the pen vanished without a trace.

It was just like what they had experienced before.

None of the students focused on the lecture noticed it. Only Mila and Isabella saw the strange phenomenon.

After a moment, Laura checked Ivan’s desk.

“What is this? The pen’s gone again? I told you to tell me right away.”

Laura handed him another pen. This time, Ivan stayed still, looked around, and rolled the pen under the desk.

Before the pen touched the floor, it disappeared again as if it had been erased.

Laura, who didn’t notice, lent him a total of five pens during that class. Every one of them vanished as soon as it fell from the desk.

‘What’s happening right now?’

While Mila was deep in thought, the people and objects around her slowly blurred.

The crowded classroom filled with students grew hazy, and pale dust scattered with a musty smell.

Just then, Barbaros regained consciousness and stood up.

“Where is this, ah… Princess, Miss Mila, are you alright?”

“Princess?”

Barbaros rubbed his eyes and shook his head.

“Hm, I’m still dizzy. Miss Isabella, what happened while I was unconscious? I just saw something like an eyeball staring at me from inside the drawer.”

Isabella sat comfortably on the floor.

“Thanks to that, we just saw the ghost world.”

Isabella described the scene they had just witnessed, and Barbaros organized the situation.

“The owner of this desk is a student named Ivan. Laura helped him because he was bullied by his classmates.”

“How did the pens disappear?”

“Ivan, he was a…a dark mage, right? One of the spells they use is called ‘Erasure.’ It’s a spell that makes objects vanish completely. If that’s the case, it would let him quietly erase the pens.”

“But doesn’t that make no sense? Ivan didn’t erase the belongings of those who bullied him. He erased Laura’s pens. Laura was the friend who helped him.”

“You said his face didn’t look normal before, right? There might be a secret behind it. Maybe he simply wanted Laura’s attention.”

“By erasing her pens?”

“When the pen disappears, Laura would hand him another one.”

Mila and Isabella looked confused at the same time.

“Wouldn’t it be better to find another way to start a conversation?”

Barbaros cleared his throat and changed the subject.

“Sometimes boys who are bad at socializing try strange ways to get noticed. Of course, I’m not talking about myself.”

Mila gave up on asking further. Isabella stood up and let out a long yawn.

“This place is boring now. All the excitement’s gone. Let’s go check the next ghost story.”

“Alright.”

Barbaros almost flew out of the classroom.

After stepping outside the annex, Mila checked the remaining ghost stories with them.

“The next one’s this. Don’t follow the wet footprints on the rooftop.”

“Which building’s rooftop?”

“I have no idea. That’s all the story says.”

“Then how many rooftops could there be in the academy?”

Mila looked at the buildings around them. The academy buildings looked taller and grander than usual.

“There’s a rooftop on every staircase, so about thirty.”

“Thirty? Not three?”

“Ah…”

Yes. It wasn’t an illusion or her imagination.

Isabella sank into her seat. Barbaros rested his hand on his forehead and looked up at the sky.

Mila also swallowed a sigh. It seemed it would take time to uncover the next ghost story.

***

From afar, the academy looked like one massive structure.

But once inside, it became clear that it was a group of separate buildings arranged around a central tower.

The library was inside that central tower. The tower, shaped like a triangular pillar, had a narrow interior, so the floors were divided by spiral stairways.

‘The bookshelf on the first floor is Shelf One.’

Kian, who entered the library, figured out the shelving system. The shelf they sought, Shelf Thirteen, had to be on the thirteenth floor.

Kian climbed the stairs with Lucien. The books students often used seemed to be stored on the lower floors, because the higher they went, the fewer people they saw.

‘Twelfth floor. Only one more to go.’

But the next floor was the rooftop. Kian opened the door and stepped out, then looked down at the distance.

“I don’t think this is the thirteenth floor. There aren’t any shelves here.”

Lucien asked an unrelated question.

“Wasn’t there a ghost story about footprints?”

“Number 88. Don’t follow the wet footprints on the rooftop.”

“I think this is that rooftop.”

There were damp footprints near where Lucien stood. Kian looked around and found more.

“They’re here too.”

“And over there.”

There were thirteen footprints in total.

“Since we’re here, let’s try this one first. Let’s step on them starting from the one near the door.”

Kian stepped on the footprints one by one. The last footprint was placed beyond the railing, so he had to work to keep his balance.

Kian spread his arms and waited for something to appear.

But even after waiting silently for a long time, nothing changed before his eyes.

“It seems we aren’t supposed to step on them. I’ll try walking beside them instead.”

Kian stepped beside the footprints, then forward, then backward in several directions. But nothing happened.

After trying to step on the prints in every possible way, Kian gave up.

“It’s useless. We should try to find the thirteenth floor instead. There might be a separate entrance that connects from the twelfth floor.”

The two went back down to the twelfth floor.

“Let’s split up and search in case there’s a hidden passage. Lucien, take the right side. I’ll take the left.”

“Alright.”

The twelfth floor was an archive for ancient documents. The spines of the books were covered with dust and it seemed that no students ever came there.

Kian searched through the bookshelves carefully, but he found nothing useful.

‘Maybe I should check the stairs more closely.’

At that moment, a voice came from far away.

“Over here.”

The voice was small, but Kian could not have missed it. He followed the sound and found Lucien standing by the wall, touching it.

“There’s a mechanism. When I pulled out a book without dust on it, a secret door opened.”

When he removed his hand, a hole large enough for a person appeared in the wall. A spiral staircase leading up appeared beyond the portal.

Kian looked at the new passage and then at the book Lucien had taken.

‘This doesn’t look like an original part of the building.’

The wooden staircase was too clean. It felt out of place, like the sudden door that had appeared in the Fourth Tower.

The book Lucien had taken was the same. He had said there was no dust on it, yet beneath where the book had been, a layer of brushed-off dust had piled up. Only Kian, who had enhanced his vision, could see it.

Lucien raised his eyebrows asking why Kian was staring.

“Let’s go up.”

At least there was a way up.

The thirteenth floor was an attic. The ceiling was so low that Kian and Lucien had to walk with bent backs.

At first glance, it looked no different from the twelfth floor. The books looked so old that they could crumble at any moment, so it seemed to be a place used to store ancient volumes separately.

Kian searched for the thirteenth shelf. Then he counted the books from the front in order.

‘Eleven, twelve, thirteen. This one.’

He blew out and cleared the dust from the cover. The title came into view.

The Dream of the Doll

Kian sat down comfortably. Lucien sat beside him and looked at the book over his shoulder.

He turned the pages carefully so the worn paper would not tear. The first page contained the author’s preface.

For a long time, I explored the fundamental meaning of the world.

Does this world truly exist?

Where does the world begin, and where does it flow toward?

What is the essence of things, and what does that essence mean?

A fish living in a lake can gain only fragmentary knowledge of the lake.

To know the lake’s full size, its shape, and the part of the terrain it occupies, one must leave the water.

In the end, to understand the structure of the world, I decided to abandon the human body.

Of course, I would not completely leave the flesh, for that would only become a foolish death.

I would leave my body, exist as consciousness, and then return to human flesh.

But while I am gone, my original body will decay, so I must borrow another vessel.

The following pages record in detail the research related to that process.

It includes the method of creating a new body, the method of refining the soul, and finally the method of settling the soul into the body.

Even as I write these words, I cannot decide whether it is right to record such things.

Although my purpose is noble, to grasp the true nature of the world, there is endless possibility that this research will be used wrongly, as a tool for immortality or other corrupt means.

But knowledge has no fault.

Only those who misuse it bear the sin.

To whoever reads this, I hope you will walk the righteous path.

In praise of Celestia and Yahdreir,

Noctirion Semes.