I looked at the door in silence.
A wooden door marked with a staff-only sign.
The black line that had spread through the gap of shadow beneath it had lasted only an instant.
Brief enough to miss if I blinked.
But it felt far too foul to ignore.
Mia asked in a very low voice beside me.
“Did you see it?”
“Yeah.”
“Same as before?”
“Yeah. The smell?”
Mia twitched the tip of her nose slightly.
Her ears were standing straight up.
“Paper. Ink. And… that.”
Good.
Really good.
At this point, it wasn’t just me being oversensitive. Anyone could see things were enthusiastically rolling in a bad direction.
The problem was, knowing that didn’t make life any easier.
I swept a glance down the end of the hallway.
The sound of students’ footsteps, chatter, a professor’s voice fading into the distance.
“Let’s get closer.”
When I murmured that, Mia immediately nodded.
We naturally blended into the flow of people and edged toward the door.
If we moved suspiciously out in the open, it was over.
At times like this, we had to look like curious freshmen.
The problem was that when I made that kind of face, I usually didn’t look like an ordinary freshman, but like a guy right on the verge of causing trouble.
It was when we had pressed right up beside the door.
Voices came from inside.
“Are the morning guide schedules not finished yet?”
“Only the noble recommendation students are left.”
The sound of papers being turned.
The scrape of a wooden chair.
And another voice.
“The route for Princess Arsein has been changed.”
My heart stopped short.
Beside me, Mia’s fingertips clutched my sleeve tightly.
“Senior.”
“Quiet.”
I held my breath and stared only at the door.
Princess Arsein.
In this school, that title belonged to only one person.
Serena.
Someone inside clicked their tongue.
“Because of the accident earlier?”
“I wouldn’t know. They just said the order came down again.”
There was another clatter as the documents were sorted.
“Then who will deliver it?”
“I will.”
Footsteps approached.
I immediately pulled Mia’s arm and pressed us behind the pillar beside us.
The door opened.
Creak.
A young staff member in a gray vest came out.
At most, he looked just over twenty.
A thin clipboard was tucked under his left arm, and a small bunch of keys dangled from his right hand.
On the surface, he looked ordinary.
So ordinary that it was even more irritating.
That was how the world always worked.
The most suspicious people wore the most normal faces.
As the staff member passed without seeing us, Mia immediately whispered.
“That person.”
“Yeah.”
“He smells like it.”
I slowly lowered my gaze.
A red seal was stamped on the corner of the paper at the top of the clipboard.
I couldn’t see all the writing, but I could read one line of the name.
Serena Arsein.
What was written beneath it was too blurred to make out in full.
But west.
That word alone was clearly etched into my eyes.
The staff member quickly walked toward the opposite end of the hallway.
I hesitated for a moment.
Follow him.
Don’t follow him.
Not following him would be comfortable.
For a very brief while.
“We’re going.”
“Okay.”
We followed the staff member at a reasonable distance.
The farther the hallway got from the center of the main building, the quieter it became.
Most of the students had scattered toward their departments, and this seemed like a path that only staff or upperclassmen would normally use.
Old portraits, decorative shields bearing imperial patterns, and ceremonial weapons far too fine to be for practice hung on the walls.
It was a place where the academy had tried to pretend it was a school, only to suddenly reveal its true nature as a noble social hall.
The staff member never once looked back.
That bothered me even more.
Usually, if someone was following behind you, you’d feel something off and become aware of it at least once.
But that bastard was so focused on his work that he didn’t notice.
Or maybe he was used to it.
To situations where someone tailed him.
It was at that moment.
The inside of my left eye stung.
“Ugh.”
I reflexively pressed my temple.
Mia looked at me right away.
“Again?”
“Quiet.”
Something black brushed the edge of my vision.
At first, it was as thin as the black line beneath the door.
But this time was different.
It was crawling along the wall.
No, to be precise, through the gaps between the decorations hanging on the wall.
Nail heads.
Hooks.
Cracked wooden supports.
And all the way up to the large school crest hanging near the ceiling of the hallway.
Nice.
Really nice.
Why did things like this have to become clearer and clearer?
When exam topics or ways to make money never showed up this well.
The staff member stopped at the end of the hallway.
More footsteps came from ahead.
Two knights.
And between them.
Serena Arsein.
Her silver-tinged blond hair shone coldly in the hallway light.
Familiar knights were with her.
Since there had already been an accident once, it was only natural they had added more protection.
Serena briefly skimmed the document the staff member held out, then nodded.
“You said the western corridor?”
“Yes. It is the professor in charge’s instruction.”
His voice was ordinary.
Serena moved without much suspicion.
The two knights moved with her.
And I saw it.
One old iron hook supporting the school crest near the ceiling.
The black line flowing beneath it.
And directly below it, the spot Serena was about to pass through.
My breath caught.
That was it.
But the problem was always the same.
So what was I going to do about it?
I was already a freshman who had looked suspicious enough once in front of Serena.
If I stood out again here, it really might be the end.
But if that iron crest fell?
Who would be standing under it?
Good.
As expected, the choices were truly humane.
Become suspicious, or regret it.
One or the other.
The staff member passed beneath it first.
Nothing happened.
A knight passed.
Nothing happened.
The moment Serena was about to step beneath it.
The black line suddenly deepened.
My mouth moved faster than my thoughts.
“Stop!”
My voice rang through the hallway.
The two knights reacted at the same time.
Serena was half a beat late.
The staff member turned back in surprise, and in that instant I lunged forward and roughly grabbed not Serena’s shoulder, but the arm of the knight beside her.
“Back!”
That one word was enough.
The knight instinctively shoved Serena hard inward.
The very next moment.
Craaaack!
The sound of iron being torn came from the ceiling.
The huge school crest plaque and its iron support fell in one piece.
It slammed into the stone floor, scattering metal fragments and dust in every direction.
The entire hallway shook.
Someone screamed.
The staff member fell backward.
The two knights reflexively grabbed their sword hilts.
Serena had taken one step back, her expression only faintly hardened.
Again.
Again, I just had to be here.
Again, I just had to see it first.
Again, I just had to interfere.
What a beautiful life.
After coughing a few times in the dust, the first thing I heard was a knight’s voice.
“My lady, are you all right?”
“I am fine.”
Serena answered briefly.
Then she immediately lifted her gaze.
This time, she looked directly at me.
Her gray-blue eyes were clear even through the dust.
“It is you again.”
Nice.
If that sounded like a friendly greeting to me, I’d be insane.
I bit the inside of my mouth once.
“It’s a coincidence.”
One of the knights immediately snapped.
“Twice?”
He wasn’t wrong.
I would have thought it suspicious too.
While I couldn’t even refute him, Mia said very quietly beside me.
“Senior.”
I lowered only my gaze to look at her.
Mia’s eyes were on the staff member.
The same staff member who had just brought the clipboard.
He was on the floor, frantically gathering up the documents.
Too urgently.
Usually, when something like that fell, a person would freeze first.
But he didn’t.
Those weren’t the movements of a startled man.
They were the movements of someone trying to hide something that must not be seen.
And in that moment.
The inside of my left eye stung again.
It was brief.
Brief, but clearer this time.
A very thin black line flashed between the stack of documents he had gathered.
Not on top, but below.
A single sheet of paper half-buried beneath other documents.
A familiar texture.
The threatening letter that had slipped under the door.
The layout map.
That same kind of thin, tough paper.
My heart dropped with a thud.
Life always gave only two choices.
Take my hand off it now and walk away,
or accept becoming suspicious and touch it one more time.
Serena stood a short distance away between the knights.
The dust had not completely cleared, so I couldn’t see her expression well, but her gaze was on this side.
If I started by pointing fingers here, it was over.
I would first have to explain what I couldn’t explain—why I knew that, why I suspected that staff member.
I didn’t want that.
I steadied my breathing once, then took a step toward the collapsed iron decoration.
And deliberately stumbled.
Pretending to step on a broken piece of metal, I twisted my body and drifted half a step toward the staff member.
“Excuse me.”
Thud.
My shoulder brushed against the staff member’s forearm.
Not very hard, but just enough to be ambiguously annoying and easy to lose grip over.
That was enough.
The clipboard he had half-gathered slipped from his hand again.
Flutter.
The papers spilled across the floor once more.
At that moment, the staff member’s expression truly stiffened.
Ah.
So I was right.
This time, I saw it clearly too.
Among the scattered documents, a single sheet of thin, tough paper with a different grain from the other guide documents slid out.
Crease marks.
An unfamiliar texture.
And a red line along the edge.
One of the knights immediately narrowed his brows.
The staff member hurriedly reached out.
But this time, someone was faster.
“Wait.”
It was Serena.
Her voice was refined, yet the air in the hallway immediately came to a halt.
The staff member’s hand stopped in midair.
Serena slowly walked closer.
A little dust still clung to the tips of her silver-tinged blond hair.
She looked down at the paper on the floor, then spoke briefly to the knight.
“That document first.”
One knight bent down and picked up the paper before anything else.
The corner of the staff member’s mouth trembled ever so slightly.
I said nothing.
What was needed right now
was not for me to brag that I was right, but to make it look strange in their eyes as well.
The paper in the knight’s hand slowly unfolded.
And the moment she saw it,
Serena’s expression sank coldly for the first time.
Her gaze slowly swept over the paper.
I also stepped closer and glanced at it.
It wasn’t a document densely packed with writing.
Rather, it was the opposite.
On the thin, tough paper, black lines and red lines overlapped in several layers.
Small circles, short angle charts, markings that looked like fixed points, and arcane formula symbols that were hard to recognize.
Even an outsider like me could tell it wasn’t an administrative document.
It was honestly, blatantly nice.
Because that meant the thing that had just fallen over my head hadn’t been merely an old decoration.
Without taking her eyes off the paper, Serena asked,
“What is this?”
The staff member could not answer right away.
Serena did not wait for an answer.
She began examining the paper more closely.
Several black lines.
Red correction lines.
Suspension point marks.
Short, broken arcane formula symbols.
Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
“……This is not a reinforcement formula.”
The air in the hallway stopped for an instant.
The staff member’s Adam’s apple bobbed visibly.
Without taking her gaze from the paper, Serena continued in a low voice.
“A suspension hook loosening formula.”
Serena slowly raised her head.
Her gray-blue eyes fixed on the staff member.
“Which means that decoration falling was no accident.”
The staff member’s lips trembled.
“N-no, that’s not it. I was just—”
“Then why were you carrying a paper like this tucked among the guide documents?”
Serena’s voice grew even lower, yet clearer.
The staff member opened his mouth, then closed it.
No excuse came out right away.
Ah.
That was the face of a man who truly hadn’t prepared.
The attitude of the two knights changed at once.
One blocked the front of Serena, and the other moved beside the staff member.
Serena touched the unburned edge of the paper with her finger.
“Load transfer. Resonance delay. Suspension hook loosening.”
Each time she pointed out a term on the paper, the staff member’s face turned a little paler.
Beside me, Mia drew in a very small breath.
“Senior.”
“I know.”
My voice was low too.
Mia’s ears were still standing straight up.
She couldn’t take her eyes off that paper.
“The smell is the same.”
Of course it was.
The smell that had drifted out from under the door.
The smell of paper left at the back gate.
The smell of ink that had been in that bastard’s hand until just a moment ago.
It was all on the same line.
The staff member could no longer even look toward the knights.
His eyes darted between the floor and the tips of Serena’s shoes.
Should he run?
Hold out?
Deny it?
His frantic calculations were written all over his face.
Serena took one step closer.
“I-I was just, I only delivered—”
“Who gave it to you?”
The staff member’s shoulders visibly stiffened.
Ah.
That wasn’t the reaction of someone who truly didn’t know.
It was the kind of reaction of someone who knew the name, but couldn’t bring himself to say it.
Cold sweat beaded on the staff member’s forehead.
And then it happened.
The inside of my left eye stung again.
Very briefly.
I saw a single black line wriggle at the edge of the paper.
I opened my mouth by reflex.
“Drop that paper!!!”
The knight looked at me.
So did Serena.
But there was no time to explain.
“Now!!!”
The instant I shouted again, one of the black symbols drawn in the center of the paper glowed ever so faintly.
Sssst.
Serena immediately let go of the paper.
The knights also stepped back at the same time.
From the paper that had fallen to the floor, something like black flame spread from within.
It didn’t blaze up violently.
“Damn it!”
One of the knights stomped it out with his boot at once, but it was already too late.
Half the paper had curled up black.
Serena looked down at the charred remnant.
Her expression grew even colder, but strangely, her voice became even more controlled.
“Restrain him.”
Two knights moved at once.
Only then did the staff member jerk his head up like a man who had lost his mind.
“It wasn’t me! I only—”
He couldn’t finish.
A knight’s hand twisted his shoulder and shoved him against the wall.
The staff member’s face went deathly pale.
I let out a long breath.
Inside the school, in broad daylight no less, a faculty member.
Serena slowly turned her head and looked at me.
Her gray-blue eyes were far clearer than before.
“You.”
I swallowed a sigh inwardly.
“Yes.”
“How did you know just now?”
It was a good question.
And also the question I least wanted to answer.
I glanced for a moment at the half-burned scrap of paper.
The black marks on it still seemed to be wriggling like insects.
Whether that was an illusion or not, I didn’t know.
Honestly, even I wasn’t sure anymore.
“It just.”
I spoke quietly.
“Seemed strange.”
It wasn’t a complete lie.
Nor was it the complete truth.
Serena was silent for a moment.
Then, from the end of the corridor, came the sound of someone running in a hurry.
And the instant he heard those footsteps, true fear crossed the face of the staff member pinned to the wall for the first time.
Ah.
Great.
This school was even more rotten than I thought.