By the time the afternoon classes ended, my head had grown even heavier.
It wasn’t much of a reward for enduring the whole day.
My eyes felt dry and gritty, and the inside of my temples slowly tightened.
Still, it wasn’t as if I’d missed the lectures entirely.
Strangely, that sort of thing still managed to sink in.
The problem came afterward.
The moment I stepped out into the hallway, I heard a voice I did not want to get used to.
It was Erka.
She had caught hold of someone again.
This time, it wasn’t the professor from the laboratory building yesterday, but another instructor from the magic department.
In her hand was something like a thin bundle of records.
I couldn’t tell whether it was a calculation sheet or a reaction log, but I could at least tell she was checking something again.
I slowed my steps slightly, then immediately started walking again.
Nothing good would come of going over there.
Yesterday had been tiring enough, and this morning had been even worse.
If I got any more involved with that person, the chances of the day ending quietly were almost nonexistent.
So I was just going to pass by.
Erka didn’t call out to me right away either.
Our eyes met for a brief instant, then hers returned to the professor.
That fleeting glance alone gave me the feeling she was already calculating something, and it killed any desire I had to get closer.
Just as I was about to walk past, Erka’s voice came from behind me once more.
“Then why is the management passage on the southeast side of the laboratory building blocked off?”
My steps slowed for the briefest moment.
Management passage?
I kept walking.
I didn’t look back.
But my ears were perfectly fine.
Behind me, the professor’s voice grew a little more rigid.
“That is not an area students need to know about.”
A fine thing to say.
In this school, “you don’t need to know” generally meant one of two things.
Either there really was nothing there.
Or there was really something there.
And judging by my experience so far, the second was far more common.
I let out a breath and turned toward the stairs.
Don’t worry about it.
Yesterday had already been enough, and this morning had been enough too.
There was nothing good to gain from poking around any further.
Originally, if a person wanted to live long, they had to know how to pretend they hadn’t seen suspicious things.
The problem was, I wasn’t very good at that.
I deliberately cut off that thought and turned into the rear corridor of the main building.
I didn’t have to take that route to get back to the dormitory, but my feet just went that way.
When a person is tired, even their steps start to resemble their personality.
You say you won’t go, and then you only turn toward strange places.
The back of the main building was far quieter than the front.
The windows were narrow, less sunlight came in, and the color of the walls was strangely lifeless.
From a distance, the academy looked neat and proper, but when you looked up close, it always had corners like this.
Management grew lax first in the places people didn’t look at.
I walked as if I wasn’t thinking about anything.
Then my left temple throbbed sharply.
My steps stopped.
It lasted only an instant.
It wasn’t enough to blur my vision.
It was just a pain like someone had pricked a corner inside my head with a thin needle and then passed by.
It was unpleasantly familiar.
I slowly turned my gaze.
At the end of the corridor, where the old wall met the floor.
The gap between the stones looked just slightly dark.
At first, I thought it was just a shadow.
But it wasn’t.
Shadows didn’t have direction like that.
It wasn’t clinging to the wall, nor was it seeped into the floor.
It looked like a thin crack leading somewhere farther below, beneath this building.
A black line.
It was the same grain I had seen yesterday.
I steadied my breath once and moved a little closer to the wall.
Up close, it was even more ambiguous.
It wasn’t something I could see clearly with my eyes.
If I had to explain it, it was that sort of thing.
There was definitely something there, but the moment I tried to point at it with my finger, it blurred.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t see it, but if I said I could, I would be the one who sounded strange.
Truly wonderful.
What I liked least of all was that I was gradually getting used to this sort of sense.
“Senior.”
Mia’s voice came from behind me.
Mia was walking toward me with both hands shoved into her pockets.
When she came closer, she wrinkled her nose very slightly.
“It smells strange here.”
“What kind of smell?”
“It’s similar to yesterday, but weaker.
Not a burning smell… Mm. Like wet stone.”
I looked at Mia for a moment.
Wet stone.
It sounded useless, yet somehow turned out to be helpful.
I gestured toward the wall with my chin.
“Does this place look a little strange to you too?”
Mia stood silently near the wall.
She placed her palm once against the air, then tapped the floor with the tip of her foot.
“It feels hollow underneath here.”
I looked at her.
“How do you know that?”
“Just because.”
A truly excellent explanation.
And yet, strangely enough, there were times when that one sentence felt the most trustworthy.
Mia furrowed her brows slightly.
“The smell continues along a path people don’t use much. This way.”
She pointed to a narrow connecting corridor leading toward the back of the main building.
It was a corner I would have normally just passed by.
A section that looked like the most boring part of the school, leading to a storage room or a management office.
Which made it even more suspicious.
Things that are hidden are usually not concealed in places that look important, but in places that don’t.
Without a word, we walked that way.
The corridor quickly grew darker.
The sound of people passing also faded, and the color of the floor tiles gradually changed.
Unlike the newly repaired sections of the main building, the old traces here were much more blatant.
The corners were worn down, faint repair marks lined the walls, and the window frames were slightly crooked.
“Senior.”
“Yeah.”
“Is this somewhere we’re not supposed to go?”
“This is my first time here too.”
“But it smells like someone doesn’t want us to come.”
I slowed my steps by the slightest bit.
“What kind of smell is that supposed to be?”
“Just that kind of smell.”
Good.
The level of today’s conversation was excellent overall.
After we went a little farther in, we reached the end of the path.
It wasn’t exactly blocked.
To be precise, it was far too obvious that it had been blocked off.
There was an old arched passage, and an iron door barred the way in front of it.
The iron door itself was old.
But the lock was new.
Dust had gathered below the doorframe, but only the area around the handle was worn.
That meant someone had touched this door recently.
Mia muttered very softly.
“Strange.”
“Yeah.”
I approached the iron door.
The air near the wall was faintly cool.
My temple prickled again.
This time, it wasn’t brief.
As soon as the pain came, I could sense what continued beneath it.
It went down.
That line definitely led downward.
Beneath the laboratory building.
Or somewhere beneath the very foundation of this main building.
Not a device, but a structure.
Not above, but below.
The moment that thought settled in my mind, I heard footsteps behind me.
Clearer than expected, and closer than expected.
I immediately turned around.
A caretaker wearing something like a gray uniform was walking toward us from deeper in the corridor.
He was a fairly old man.
His face was expressionless.
But that expressionlessness made him even more suspicious.
Even though two students had come all the way here, he showed no sign of surprise at all.
He looked us over once, then spoke calmly.
“This area is off-limits to students.”
“Ah.”
I answered as naturally as I could.
“We took a wrong turn.”
The caretaker didn’t even nod.
“This area is under construction and dangerous. Please go back.”
Under construction.
A fine phrase.
But it was strangely quiet for a construction site.
There were no materials, and no dust.
More than anything, I didn’t think this school would be so meticulous about student safety.
I looked once at the iron door, then once at the caretaker.
“What kind of construction is it?”
He answered immediately.
“Repairs on an old drainage structure.”
I couldn’t tell whether it was a lie or only half true.
But there was one thing I could tell.
It was a prepared answer.
It was the tone of someone who had already been told to answer this way no matter who asked.
Beside me, Mia drew in a very small breath.
The caretaker’s gaze shifted toward Mia.
“Both of you, please return.”
His expression was still perfectly composed.
But there was no choice in his words.
I shrugged once.
“Understood.”
I lightly tapped Mia’s elbow.
There was nothing good to gain by staying any longer.
It wasn’t as if we could force that door open, and if we held our ground here, there was a high chance we would only make sure our faces were remembered.
We slowly backed away.
The caretaker stood there until we turned the corner.
What a truly kind school.
It even kept watch over students personally, just in case they got lost.
Only after we had fully left the corridor did Mia open her mouth.
“He’s lying.”
“About what?”
“If it’s under construction, there should be a dust smell inside. But there isn’t.”
I laughed briefly.
“You really smell all sorts of things, don’t you?”
“You’re similar, Senior.”
I couldn’t refute that.
When a person is left speechless, they usually lose.
“What was it like behind that door?”
Mia asked.
After thinking for a moment, I said quietly,
“Dangerous.”
“Very?”
“Yeah.”
There were no other words to explain it.
The air beyond that single iron door had hardened differently.
It wasn’t the immediate danger of a single device about to explode, but the kind of danger where something buried for a long time was slowly leaking out.
That was worse.
Something that explodes immediately is frightening.
But something that spreads slowly is even more frightening.
Because most people don’t even consider it a danger.
Without speaking, we returned to our original path.
It was still bright outside, and the students were chattering as usual.
Someone ran toward the dining hall, someone was talking about clubs, and someone was grumbling that they had to finish their assignment before dinner.
Everything was normal.
So normal that it felt even stranger.
Something was connected beneath this huge school, yet above it, everyone was living so ordinarily.
Of course, that was how the world always was.
Even right before the ceiling collapsed, people ate, attended class, and worried about tomorrow’s schedule.
The problem was that I could no longer trust such ordinary faces as much as I used to.
Even after returning to my room, I sat there for a while without moving.
I spread a sheet of paper on my desk and roughly drew the routes I had seen today.
The laboratory building.
The back of the main building.
The blocked passage.
And Erka’s words I had overheard in the corridor that morning.
Management passage.
So that person had caught onto something too.
Great.
Now two dangerous people were sniffing in the same direction.
One digging in through calculation,
and one feeling it out with an unpleasant sense.
What a wonderful combination.
At this point, it would be stranger if an accident didn’t happen.
I pressed my temple and let out a sigh.
If I didn’t look, it would be easier.
If I pretended not to know, I could at least sleep tonight.
But the things left aside like that usually blew up even bigger later.
The ruined world I knew was always like that.
Problems were hidden, buried, and patched up just enough.
Then one day, one person died, then two, and only belatedly did everyone stiffen their faces and ask why things had turned out this way.
A truly splendid structure.
Then—
Scritch.
A very thin sound came from under the door.
I raised my head.
A brief silence passed, then another scritch.
Someone was sliding a piece of paper through the gap under the door.
My body moved first.
I immediately stood and went to the door.
Before grabbing the handle, I looked down first.
A folded piece of paper was caught just inside the threshold.
There was no sign of anyone outside anymore.
I didn’t open the door right away.
Instead, I stood there holding my breath for a while.
The corridor was quiet.
I slowly bent down and picked up the paper.
The way it was folded was neat.
It felt cleaner than necessary, and more ill-tempered than necessary.
A person’s nature seeps even into their handwriting.
I could tell before I even opened it.
I unfolded the paper.
It was written briefly.
Tomorrow night. Come alone.
There is something I need to confirm.
That was all.
There was no signature.
I knew even without one.
The handwriting was Erka’s.
Wow.
There wasn’t even an explanation of the location.
Just a direct summons.
Truly consistent, that person.
I stared at the note for a long time before eventually letting out a faint laugh.
I thought it didn’t feel over, and sure enough, it wasn’t.
I folded the paper, placed it on the desk, and locked the door once more.
Even then, my hand remained on the doorknob for a while.
If I didn’t go, it would bother me more.
If I went, I would get more tired.
And knowing my own personality, I would inevitably choose the more tiring option.
How disgustingly human of me.