The main facilities on the second floor of the school were the first-year classrooms, the science lab, the music room, and the art room. Ian and Lee Seo-a started by looking through the classrooms.
“Wow, look over there, Ian. Everything in that class hanged themselves as a group, didn’t they? What are the ropes connected to?”
“Classes One through Three are all out. Class Four is… ugh, I think we’re better off not looking. Maybe because the number is four, but they died the filthiest deaths.”
“Class Five is the same. Did they headbutt each other or something? Their heads are all smashed open.”
“Still, just in case, let’s go in one by one and search. I’ll start with Class One.”
He went in.
“…There’s nothing here.”
It wasn’t just Class One. There was nothing particularly special in any of the first-year classrooms. At most, there were human heads arranged like cakes inside the lockers. The rest were all just simple scenes of mass suicide and murder. There weren’t even any anomalies.
So Ian quickly stopped searching the classrooms and moved to the science lab. As they went, he also rummaged through the lockers in the hallway, but nothing special came out.
“…You’re here.”
Lea was sitting in the science lab. She had been seated at a desk reading The Touch of Re-creation, but when she saw Ian, she closed the cover.
“You’re later than I expected. Weren’t you coming up right away?”
“We looked through the first-year classrooms. There wasn’t anything particularly special.”
“I saw them too. The music room and the art room were the same.”
She rose to her feet. With a clattering sound, the painting that had been leaning against the desk wobbled slightly. Lea set the book down carelessly, then picked up the painting and showed it to Ian and Lee Seo-a.
It was the Mona Lisa. However, unlike the original, the Mona Lisa painted on the canvas was weeping, tears streaming down her face.
Blue paint ran down the surface, pooling at the corners of the frame before dripping off. The blue paint that soaked the floor spread outward like insects.
Crunch!
Lea stepped on the paint. The blue insects immediately boiled and bubbled before bursting like carbonation and evaporating.
“This is a painting I found in the art room. I personally liked it, so I brought it with me.”
Lea tapped the frame with her finger as she spoke. Strangely, even though the frame touched her hand, it did not burst or melt away. Apparently, the anomaly’s main body was not the frame, but the painting or the paint itself.
[Kill… me…]
For some reason, it felt as though that voice was coming from the weeping Mona Lisa, but he ignored it. There were few things more foolish than lending an ear to the voice of an anomaly.
“You know you can’t take that with you when we leave, right?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t like it that much.”
Without any lingering attachment, Lea tossed the painting roughly to the floor and approached Ian. Then she pushed her face toward the nape of his neck and sniffed.
“Hmm… It seems you weren’t stuck together too closely. I only smell you.”
“…Don’t do things like this. It gives me the creeps.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can accept that request. You should have a few things you’re willing to yield on too, shouldn’t you?”
“And,” she added, placing her hand over Ian’s heart.
“When I get close, your heart beats faster. A fear response? No. The rhythm is different from that.”
“…”
“If I had to say… hehe, it’s a pleasant resonance.”
“…Enough. If you didn’t find anything, let’s go up to the third floor. There isn’t much time left until midnight.”
Ian pushed Lea away and let out a sigh.
It was exactly 11 p.m. In one more hour, midnight would arrive. It was the time when Nut and Hecate were at their strongest, and the time when the next day began by the world’s standard. Since he did not know how the school would react once the day changed, it was right to resolve this as quickly as possible and leave the place.
“Let’s go.”
They went up to the third floor. A female student whose lower half had been blown away crawled up the stairs, dripping blood, but Lee Seo-a sent her on without even glancing at her. The girl’s head went rolling away, and she died without even being able to scream.
On the third floor were the second-year classrooms and slimes toddling around. Contrary to their cute appearance, the slimes, made of hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, and nitric acid, slowly moved about as they melted the hallway.
They were strong acids that would melt not only skin and muscle, but even bone if touched carelessly. But ghosts had no blood or flesh, nor any substance that could be dissolved by acid.
“Take that.”
[Kyuiiiik!]
The slimes vanished after being ganged up on by the ghosts. They screamed desperately, but unfortunately, there were no heroes to help them. There were only ghosts laughing and stomping them underfoot.
And so the slimes were annihilated. Lea looked at their corpses, left behind all by themselves, with an indifferent expression.
“There’s a lot of unnecessary work involved. Is this the limit of the magic humans create?”
“It looks impressive to me.”
“When you handle two kinds of Outer God magic and say something like that, even I feel my pride taking a blow.”
Lea muttered as she looked back at Ian. Ian shrugged.
“It’s a difference in perspective. If I’d touched those just now, my hand would have melted right off.”
Re-creation magic could not be used remotely from afar. One had to make contact with the body in some way to activate the spell. It was magic powerful enough to kill any opponent instantly if he wished, but it had the clear limitation of requiring close combat. It was a bad match against strong-acid slimes.
As if Lea knew that as well, she folded her arms with an expressionless face.
“…That is the only safety device. If I had created magic that worked with just sight, without even contact, you wouldn’t be able to endure it. Even now, don’t you feel headaches as a side effect?”
“Well, whatever the reason, it still has its strengths and weaknesses. Meaning necromancy isn’t magic you can just look down on.”
“…Hm.”
Lea fell silent. On the surface, it looked as though she understood Ian’s words, but in truth, she was only pretending to. She had shut her mouth because she did not particularly want to argue with Ian. In her head, she was feeling displeased at the very idea of putting her magic and that sort of magic on the same line of comparison.
It was not strange. If one compared the rank of the magic, the magic she had personally created was far superior. Ian knew that fact very well too. However, separate from that, limitations existed. Affinities and counters were simply present everywhere.
“Ah, Senior!”
At the end of the third-floor hallway, the Lord of the Outer Sea was sitting. She had been drawing on the floor with chalk from who knew where, but she sprang to her feet.
“You’re late! I got tired of waiting!”
“Yeah, sorry. More importantly, what were you drawing?”
Ian asked with a calm expression. She smiled brightly and subtly moved aside.
“Ta-da. It’s you, Senior.”
Beneath the window where moonlight seeped in, the drawing made with white chalk boldly displayed Ian’s face. For something drawn by an Outer God, it was an exceedingly peaceful picture. Aside from the fact that it was wriggling little by little.
“It’s a picture I drew while looking forward to the day we live together someday. What do you think? I drew it well, right?”
Beside Ian’s face, which was drawn with rather considerable skill, was the face of a girl whose strangely shaped tentacles covered half her body in hundreds of strands. Around them were tiny drawings of bizarre creatures of the Outer Sea. The composition resembled parents and children.
“…”
“It’s our future. Do you like it?”
When Ian remained silent, the Lord of the Outer Sea linked arms with him and smiled. A faint scent of roses wafted from her.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it. It’s a future that will come true in the end.”
“…You.”
“Now, let’s go. We need to start exploring the third floor, don’t we?”
Without even listening to Ian’s answer, she released his arm and walked down the hallway with a springy gait. Ian stared quietly at the back of her head, then let out a deep sigh and followed her.
‘When did I get led around by the nose like this?’
It was a monologue that did not require much deep thought. From the moment he picked up the grimoire, it was the same as having formed a connection with an Outer God. Perhaps it had been a predetermined fate.
Well, regretting the past at this point would be laughable. With a bitter smile on his lips, Ian explored the third floor together with the group.
“Ooh, this classroom is full of water? There’s a shark inside too. How cute.”
“You’re right. It wouldn’t be bad for you to go in either. Go on in. That thing will probably like you too. You look alike, after all.”
“Ahaha, could you shut up for a bit, you old hag of a teacher? Would you like to be planted in a garden with only your head sticking out?”
“Try it.”
“You think I can’t?”
The exploration went smoothly. Separate from that, they did not find the grimoire on the third floor. All that was there was a wriggling cube-shaped Kune-kune and a dancing ballerina. The four of them subjugated both and went up to the rooftop.
The rooftop was packed with students throwing themselves off in groups. Before they fell, Lee Seo-a collected their heads one by one to make them into corpses, then rummaged through their belongings.
“There’s nothing.”
“…Then we have no choice but to go underground.”
Ian let out a deep sigh. He had hoped to finish before having to go underground if possible, but at this point, it seemed there was no helping it.
“Let’s go. We’ve got about thirty minutes left.”
The group went down to the first floor and stood before the stairs leading underground that Lee Seo-a had mentioned finding. From the staircase where not even the step right below was visible came a bleak chill, the sound of chains dragging, and the cries of something.
No matter how one looked at them, they were like symbols of ill omen, but no one was particularly tense. Without hesitation, they descended underground.
“Kyaa! Senior, I’m so scared!”
The Lord of the Outer Sea let out a cute scream and clung tightly to Ian’s arm. Lee Seo-a gave a hollow laugh, and Lea grabbed the Lord of the Outer Sea by the head and roughly tore her away from Ian.
“If you’re scared, go back up. Don’t bother him.”
“Let go. Do you really want to die?”
“A small dog barking isn’t scary at all. If you’re only going to be a nuisance, wouldn’t it be better for you to just disappear? No, to begin with, the smell you give off is disgusting. Do something about that fishy stench.”
“Ahaha, isn’t it better than slathering yourself in perfume to look good to someone, like a certain someone? And it only smells fishy to idiots like you. It means ‘get lost.’ So let go and get lost.”
“If you promise not to approach him.”
“Why is my husband your husband?”
Leaving the bickering Outer Gods behind, Ian was the first to set foot down the stairs.
The structure of the underground was more ordinary than expected. Like the other floors, a hallway stretched straight ahead, and all kinds of classrooms lined either side of it. Ian deftly spun the lighter held between his fingers as he strode down the hallway.
“Hm?”
At that moment, he discovered a locker sitting alone right in front of him.
Its appearance was no different from an ordinary locker. Nor did he sense any special aura from it.
“…”
Holding the Knowledge-Eating Paper in one hand so he could respond at any moment, Ian carefully opened the locker.
Inside the locker was a single book. However, the moment Ian saw the book, he realized it was not an ordinary book.
Its thinness. Its blue cover embroidered with gold thread. The short chains lightly hooked around the corners.
And the title, which he could recognize in Korean despite it not being written in Korean.
[The Book of Blue Shackles and Contracts]
“…Found it.”
Ian grinned and looked back at the group.
“I found the grimoire. Come over here.”
“Ah, you found it, Senior? Where, where? Let’s see what this damned bitch looks like.”
The Lord of the Outer Sea, who had been growling and fighting with Lea until just now, crossed the stairs and approached Ian’s side.
It was then. The grimoire that had been inside the locker until just a moment ago vanished without a trace.
“…?”
Ian’s face twisted. He silently stared into the now-empty locker, then spoke to the approaching Lord of the Outer Sea.
“Wait. Go back up the stairs.”
“Huh? Why?”
“There’s something I need to check. Just for a moment.”
“Hmm… Yes, all right for now.”
She obediently went back up the stairs.
At that instant, the grimoire timidly appeared once more in the empty locker. Ian narrowed his eyes and parted his lips.
“…Lea, come down for a moment.”
“Yes.”
Click, clack.
The more Lea descended the stairs one by one, the more the grimoire began to tremble, and the moment she set foot in the hallway, it hid itself again.
“…Go back up.”
“…? Yes.”
She went up. When she disappeared from the hallway and set foot on the stairs again, the grimoire quietly revealed itself.
“…Ha.”
Look at this little bastard.