The teacher stares at me for a long while, her hair hanging limply down over my head.
A sticky black liquid stains my suit.
Her swaying hair covers my vision.
And the teacher’s pale, distorted face is staring straight at me.
Smiling brightly, as if she’s making an effort.
My knees go weak.
I pull my legs in tighter and hug them, trembling.
Since when had it been?
‘Since when… just since when?’
Had she been an aberration from the very beginning?
She had been one of the few people who showed any interest in me.
The reason I’d forced myself through high school had been the teacher.
Because she’d said she didn’t want me to have a hard time later on.
Thanks to that kindness, I’d said I would think about it for another year or so.
But now, that meaning was being interpreted in an entirely different way.
Maybe she had simply wanted to kill even one more person.
I hated it.
I wished she would tell me with her own mouth.
That the things she had said to me had been sincere.
The only person who had ever cared about me was actually an aberration.
I couldn’t believe it.
‘…Why?’
How could it be this cruel?
I feel like crying, but I can’t, so I clamp my hand over my mouth.
Barely holding on to the breath that feels as though it might spill out, I hold back the tears welling up so they don’t fall.
Covered by the teacher’s hair, I can’t see anything.
Looking into the darkness around me, I squeeze my eyes shut.
Then tears stream down.
“....”
The aberration is still lingering around me.
But its gaze has turned to the side.
Only then could I be certain.
This was not the teacher.
The aberration straightens the waist it had bent and slips away.
I sit behind the teacher’s desk for a long while, shuddering.
“…I almost died.”
The hallway was filled with the sound of the teacher’s shoes.
“Ra, radio…! I have to radio them.”
I had to radio them.
Because if it wasn’t here now, there was only one place the aberration would head.
The music room on the second floor.
I had to tell the senior there.
I got up and crumpled the school rules guide on the teacher’s desk into my pocket.
Then, somehow forcing my trembling legs to move, I flung the classroom door open.
“Senior…!!”
And immediately radioed as I ran down the hall.
* * *
[Music Room Rules]
[1. Do not make noise in the music room.]
[2. Continue to speak ?? about music. Ignore Rule 1.]
[3. If you meet the teacher, ?? ??.]
[4. ?? the teacher. Ignore Rule 3.]
[5. If the teacher speaks to you first, tell the teacher ????. (However, it will only count if the teacher is satisfied.)]
[6. Ignore Rules 2, 4, and 5.]
A voice came from behind.
At that, Yeonwoo calmly read the rules.
‘…This is troublesome.’
The rules weren’t properly visible.
They were soaked in blood, and the crucial words couldn’t be seen.
Meanwhile, the aberration standing behind her was slowly approaching, asking Yeonwoo a question.
“Student, what do you think of the song playing right now?”
Yeonwoo pretended as hard as she could not to hear and stared at the blood-soaked rulebook.
If she couldn’t know the rules—
She had to fight back.
“…….”
Yeonwoo slowly closed her eyes.
She wondered whether the blade would be able to function properly.
The blade that cut down aberrations, the Jinsa Sword.
A sword that slowed an aberration’s regeneration, or knocked it out entirely to delay its revival.
A sword that could suppress an anomalous phenomenon three times a day; its remaining uses were currently two.
‘I used one earlier to escape the delusion… There’s no time to delay.’
She had to cut it down within just two uses.
If she factored in escaping from this aberration, she had to cut it down in a single strike and run.
The rest would have to be left entirely to physical ability.
Yeonwoo took a deep breath.
When she gripped the sword’s handle, there was a click, and the lock came undone.
It was ready to use its ability.
‘Should I drop its head? Or would it be better to split it clean in half?’
Too many thoughts came to mind.
Just then, as the instinct to survive was tightening around Yeonwoo—
[I…!! I’m here!!]
“…!!”
Along with the sound of running footsteps from far away, Sion’s radio came through.
And immediately afterward—
“Hey, you… you ab, aberration bastard!!!”
“Sion…!”
“…?”
Sion burst out and shrieked.
The aberration looked at Sion in an instant.
‘Are the rules inside and outside the music room different?’
The teacher was undergoing some kind of change.
Watching that teacher, Yeonwoo immediately drew her sword.
‘When I cut it, run.’
Holding the sword in one hand, she sent a hand signal with the other.
She moved her fingers to signal, but Sion only tilted his head with an anxious expression.
Seeing that, Yeonwoo frowned and gripped the sword’s handle with both hands, preparing to spring forward.
“When I split it in half, run like hell…!!!”
“…!!”
Sion understood and opened his eyes wide.
And in an instant, Yeonwoo vanished.
A moment later, Yeonwoo appeared beside Sion.
—Slaaaash!!!!
Her body was smeared all over with the black liquid spraying from the aberration that had been split in half.
“It’s not dead! It’s going to regenerate, run!!”
“Ye, yes, yes, yes!!!”
Yeonwoo snatched Sion’s wrist and began to run.
Even as Sion followed her, he couldn’t take his eyes off the aberration writhing behind them.
* * *
After cutting down the teacher.
The senior and I ran like mad and reached the central entrance.
“Haa… heugh…….”
“…….”
I gasped for breath with my mouth open, drool dripping, while the senior beside me only let out slightly rough breaths with an expressionless face.
“You okay?”
“Yes… yeees… keheuk.”
Seeing me catching my breath, the senior handed me a handkerchief.
“It’s on your face.”
“Ah…….”
“Wipe it off.”
I thanked her and wiped my face clean.
“I slowed its regeneration… so it won’t come out right away. For now, let’s go to the assembly platform. The rulebook?”
At the senior’s words, I hurriedly took out the crumpled school rules guide.
“He, here it is.”
“…Tch, you crumpled it.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“Forget it. You were in a hurry, so don’t do it next time… If you worry about other people dying, both of you die.”
With a sour expression, the senior carefully smoothed out the guide I’d brought and put it into a plastic bag.
Looking at her, I muttered quietly.
“…I don’t die, though.”
“Haa…….”
At that, the senior sighed.
Then she shoved the guide in the plastic bag into her pocket and looked at me in dissatisfaction.
“You said dying was scary.”
“…!!”
“You said you weren’t an aberration. If you keep talking like that, I’ll really kill you.”
The senior fiddled with her knife.
She had an expression like she might genuinely kill someone, so I hurriedly lowered my head.
“I, I’m sorry.”
“Forget it.”
The senior rejected my apology.
Looking at her, I let out a breath of relief.
“The Bureau isn’t a humane place.”
“…….”
“Everyone’s desperate to survive, and that’s especially true in the Action Division.”
“I, is that so?”
“Try to survive well.”
Saying that, she helped me up.
“First… let’s stop here for today and run. We can hand the rest over to Action Division 2.”
“Yes…?”
“Our job ends with going in first and investigating. Besides, we’re one person short to begin with.”
“Ah…….”
I nodded and followed the senior to the assembly platform.
We came out onto the platform and looked out over the schoolyard.
I could see the Watcher and the Chief, who had already cleared out the aberrations that had gathered there and were collecting samples.
“…Is the hallucination over?”
“If it’s the Chief, he probably noticed from the start and put in earphones.”
The senior said he had merely needed time until the hallucination disappeared.
No sooner had she spoken than the Chief spotted us and raised a hand.
[Ahh… So you were alive.]
“That’s harsh.”
The senior answered with a smile as she said that.
Seeing how violently different the senior’s attitude was when dealing with aberrations and humans, I found myself wondering if she really was human.
* * *
After the sample collection ended.
Our Action Division 1 stepped slightly away from the front gate and waited for Senior Yeonwoo to resolve everything.
Then Senior Yeonwoo swung her sword in one wide arc and sliced through space.
“Ta-da.”
Completely ignoring me and the Watcher, she smiled warmly only at the Chief and flashed a V sign.
Seeing that, the Watcher twisted her expression.
“…Look at that fox of a bitch, rookie.”
“Eh…….”
“You mustn’t discriminate against aberrations like that, understand?”
The Watcher squeezed my shoulder painfully and looked at me only with the eye in her palm.
Because of that, I couldn’t exactly agree with her opinion very much.
“Let’s go.”
With just that one word, the Chief led us.
At that, we nodded and slowly returned through the torn space to reality, where the anomalous phenomenon did not apply.
“…….”
Blankly, I looked beyond the space that was still torn open.
“…My school.”
It would be a stretch to call it a place filled with good memories.
Even so, it was the only space that remembered the person I used to be.
I would remember the place where the people who remembered me had died.
At least until I forgot it.
“…….”
“Hey, rookie.”
“…!!”
When I turned at the Watcher’s voice from behind, she was staring blankly at me with eyes whose whites and blacks were reversed.
“Hurry up and get in. It’s been a while since I went outside, so I’m tired.”
“Ah… yes, yeees…….”
The Watcher patted the seat beside her with her hand, pestering me.
Though the sight sent a chill through me, I thought she was being considerate of me and hurriedly sat down beside her.
Once I got in the car, what I saw was Senior Yeonwoo, who had fallen asleep, and the Chief fiddling with a cigarette.
And black hair visible in the rearview mirror.