Vol. 1 - Ch. 16 - Shadow of Something (3)

As far as I know, it was very hard for a cadet to go against the academy's rules and use magic.

Looking at what happened in the past, it's clear that breaking this rule led to the death of mages in all known cases.

There's no evidence that Theodore has been using magic against the rule.

I'm someone who's under a spell, and I've never been outside the academy's boundaries where magic use is forbidden. So, what's happening now seems impossible.

But there's something important to consider.

'If what happened in my dreams is affecting the real world.'

If the person who cast the spell on me was Theodore with strange eyes, not Theodore with one eye, then I might be able to avoid the magic-use ban within the academy.

In my dreams, sometimes it's at the academy, but most of the time it's not.

So, it might be an odd thing to say, but it means that it is possible for the Theodore of dream to cast magic on me.

"Do you have any guesses?"

"Sorry, it wasn't like that."

I skillfully concealed my expression and sighed.

I wanted this nervous looking movement to appear to him as a sign of fatigue rather than worry.

'I cannot tell that so easily.'

Arthur is fine now, but the Arthur in my dreams was at odds with me, for what reason, I don't know.

I didn't know how Arthur Usher came to point his knife at me, but now that I couldn't say for sure that dreams and reality were completely separated, I couldn't trust him now.

"Hmm."

Arthur slowly scanned my expression and then went silent as if he didn't want to talk further.

"I am just checking, in case. Is there a way to break the ban?"

"Well, there are methods which are almost like folk stories."

"Like?"

"After receiving the blood gushing from the heart of a living demon beast-"

"Let's just count what we heard."

While my condition was at the lowest, I felt nauseous just listening to the unfiltered delusions the cadets of Crown of Thorns had.

"I do not think that this is something we can resolve by talking among ourselves."

"Right."

"Then it is your turn now. Because I put my cards all out for you to see."

After returning the latter I had used to lure Theodore away from Arthur, I leaned back.

Since it wasn't an armchair, my form seemed too uncomfortable, but it was clear that I would never be able to get up again if I sat down on a soft cushion.

"I already told you why I was there, now all that remains is what I saw."

Arthur who had become much more honest with me than the start, got to the point without hesitation,

"I want to emphasize once again, I didn't see anything."

"..."

"When I arrived at the chapel, there was just one man lying on the altar."

Well, that probably had to be me. Arthur continued to speak as he touched his chin, thinking of that time.

"When I felt the magic of Theodore and got closer, this magic circle began to engrave onto the body of the senior."

"Is there a difference between engraving the magic circle and activating magic?"

"The actions themselves are so separate, but in simple terms, they are the same. To be precise, the first thing to do is use magic and to tie it down to a phenomenon. And a miracle can be done right away."

I took out the gun I had released in slow motion as I heard him. Even Arthur wasn't wary of my actions because I was moving so slow.

I turned the lever on the pistol and bent the barrel to the hinge, and pretended to load ammunition.

I turned the level again to fix the barrel and pulled the hammer, loaded the gun and aimed it to the air.

"The magic circle is like a gun which can be fired at any time then."

"Right."

Arthur stretched out his hand and pointed the gun to himself and pulled the trigger, it caused this hammer clinking sound called 'thunk'.

If it had been loaded with live ammunition, it would have fired but since it was an empty one, it didn't make such a loud noise.

"Then... it is dangerous...."

"Magic is different from guns."

Even though it is the same academy, why does the type of knowledge change so much just because the majors are different?

I checked the gun once again after checking and placed the gun on the desk.

"There are cases where there is a time lag for it to activate."

"That is true in case of slow acting curses or recovery magic. And It varies extremely depending on the mage's skills and the usage. I will limit my explanation to cases of advanced black magic."

As Arthur said a while back, except for curses, which are expected to act slowly, most of the black magic is meant to kill.

This isn't to say that white magic doesn't have magic for killing but I knew that depending on whether the basis for using magic was divine or plain magic, it differed.

"The magic circle was engraved, and the magic was activated. It was you, Arthur Usher, outside the chapel, who I saw that moment."

"Yes. After that, I tied the shirt with an outwear tightly to prevent others from seeing the magic circle. The ink from the magic circle must have been everywhere at that time."

"And then? What more?"

"I followed the steps of Theodore and moved to my place to check if Theodore had broken any law, unknowingly."

As I was thinking of the actions, I realized one thing and got angry.

'This jerk....'

Arthur Usher left without taking any action when he saw his senior was unconscious.

What would have happened if I had been out of breath at that time?

"In the end, you didn't see the moment the murder happened?"

"If I had seen it, I wouldn't have told senior Arma Cruz to turn himself in. That wouldn't be a surrender but a false confession."

"You are a bit too honest in that aspect."

"..."

Anyway, to summarize this, Arthur was secretly watching Theodore whose sleepwalking symptoms were worsening and in that time, a suspicious letter came to him which started the incident and brought him there.

After that, he found out that Theodore's magic had been activated, and after checking my chest for the circle, he went to look for Theodore again.

Finally, a murder happens in the chapel where I am the only one left, according to the circumstances I have proven.

"Did the murderer commit murder and hide the body in such a short period of time?"

This is a truly bold move.

Who is the criminal who not only committed a terrible murder at an academy where the kingdom's elite had gathered, but also had the guts to hide the body?

At that time, Arthur said something difficult to ignore.

"... Is there really a need to hide the body?"

"What does this mean?'

"Hiding bodies is the human way."

Goosebumps appeared in an instant.

We were convinced that the culprit who caused the incident was a human, based on the appearance of the blood drops and the situation around the trap being set to make me the culprit.

But what if the person who committed the murder wasn't a human?

I had overlooked it till now because I thought the killer was a human, but if the culprit wasn't limited to humans, the case would be very simple.

A being capable of harming a cadet with a certain degree of military training and then vanishing within a short period of time like-

"Could it be that a demonic beast was involved?"

"If it is a type that is sharp like a knife and has long tusks, or nails then it could be."

"But it cannot enter the academy unless it is trained though. Even the tamed demonic beasts must be double marked by the student council and the president too."

"But even so, it could be under a spell."

My heavy eyes popped open.

All this time I was so focused on finding the body which was hidden and not at all interested in why the body was hidden.

"If the body is found, it will be discovered that the culprit wasn't a human."

"Probably."

"Then all we have to do is get rid of the body which might serve as evidence."

"I was thinking that too."

If it were a murder case involving a demonic beast, this case couldn't have gotten more bizarre.

I had heard these stories of unlucky people who were eaten by wild animals.

Some animals only eat parts of the body or internal organs, but some animals even devour the belongings, making the person they devoured think of them as missing rather than dead.

Even more so, if it was a demonic beast stronger than wild animal, wouldn't it be able to swallow Kale Ace without leaving hair behind?

"Demonic beast... I hadn't thought of that at all. Right, Machina Christie probably knew "

"It would be so if the incident was caused by the demonic beast managed by the Student Council."

"This won't be it. I don't think Machina Christie wound be that sloppy."

If he had immediately claimed that a demonic beast had harmed a person, how would Machina have acted?

If it were Machina, she would have dragged out all the beasts in the academy, opened the mouth of each beast species, put her arms in, searched for the body and claimed the innocence of the beast.

I suddenly came to my senses while imagining the horrifying sight of Machina inserting her thin arm all the way into the beast's neck.

"I figured it out. Since we can't do anything early in the morning like now, let us postpone the public talks of the incident until after the sun rises."

At my words, Arthur looked out the window.

The night had begun to take on this blue hue, becoming brighter than when Arthur had first arrived, but there were still five or six hours left before the sun would arise.

It was impossible to hold on to Arthur and speak for six hours like this.

I assigned the mystery of why Theodore's magic was activated as his homework and sent Arthur Usher away.

Although this is a case that has already come to a conclusion within me.

'It is clear that Theodore in my dream has cast a spell and that dream... although it is difficult to understand, it is connected to reality.'

It had never occurred to me that a person in a dream could have influence over a person in real life, but at this point, this theory made sense.

Arthur Usher came in through Window, and went out through there. As a result, quite a bit of cold air rushed in from the open window.

I belatedly felt the chilly cold of dawn and felt a shiver down the spine.

'I left the window open for too long.'

I am already a weak person, but if I catch a cold now, I will be in a pretty miserable situation.

I went to the window and closed it.

Thanks to Arthur being my conversation partner, my mind was quite clear even though my condition was at the lowest.

There was just about five or six hours left.

Stay awake until the sun rises, then meet Judith or Shirley and briefly share the situation-

-Clank!

-Puak!

Something heavy broke through the window and hit my head.

The shattered glass shone brightly, reflecting the moonlight, and saw a shadow cast between it.

I had tried so hard not to fall asleep, but in vain, I just passed out.

Comments