Chapter 13: Deus’ Notes
“Ugh! I’m so busy. There's no time to rest.”
Professor Karen, who was investigating the laboratory, was urgently called back to the nurse's office. The reason was that some students were once again involved in a strange incident.
On reaching the nurse's office, Karen saw about five students huddled together, and Erica and Gideon were comforting them.
‘I thought the two of you went on a date.’
As Karen entered the office, she immediately approached the students with pale faces.
Most of them were speechless and shivering, but one of them was talking to Erica.
"S-so, she suddenly offered us candy."
"Candy?"
"What kind of candy?"
As both Karen and Gideon looked puzzled, Erica narrowed her eyes and signaled them to be quiet, putting her index finger on her lips.
"Well, it was in her mouth. She opened her mouth wide and showed us the eyeballs on her tongue."
“…”
It was a strange and unbelievable testimony. But if it was not true, then all five students would not be shivering on remembering that moment.
“Those were her own eyes! That person didn't have any eyes in her eye sockets! Hiccup!”
In the end, Erica Bright hugged the student who couldn’t stop crying.
Although Karen cared for the students, she didn’t have the confidence to empathize and hug a student that way, so she only shrugged her shoulders and, as a good professor, checked for any injuries.
‘There are no wounds.’
Karen let out a strange moan in frustration as she dug her hand deep into the pocket of her white coat.
She couldn’t understand 'their' intentions; the only things they did was to frighten and cause panic or make students faint.
To be precise, students suffered only minor injuries such as falling over in surprise or a simple bruise from bumping into something. Karen could not understand what their motive was at all.
Once all the students had calmed down, the three professors naturally left the room.
Gideon, leaning against the corridor wall with his hand in his pocket, suggested his opinion.
"It's a collective hallucination. There must be a wizard hiding somewhere."
“It can’t be.”
Erica remained silent with her eyes closed, and Karen outright denied it. It was still too early to make a definitive judgment.
But Gideon didn't think so and asked the two of them.
“Then do you really think that is possible? An old woman with empty eye sockets came and gave her eyes as candy?”
Gideon laughed, finding it even more absurd when he said it out loud.
He continued:
"It doesn't make sense. Someone must have cast a hallucination spell on the students while they were exhausted. There's no other explanation."
"No traces of magic were found on any of the five students," Erica, the only magician among them, crossed her arms and denied it.
“Even psychedelic magic has its own stages. The more senses you cheat, the more traces you leave behind.”
For example, if it was hallucinatory magic that only deceived the eyes, indeed, only a few traces would be left behind-
“However, the five students expressed the situation at the time in detail. The sight of an old woman without two eyes, the smell, the voice telling them to eat candy, and her wrinkled hands…”
-But in this case, the students’ at least five perceptions were fooled. It would be difficult for anyone to do that without leaving any traces behind.
“They even felt the sticky taste of the eyeballs given to them as candy.”
Karen continued her words. Erica met Keren’s eyes and nodded.
“You’re right. Any hallucinatory magic that deceives all five senses will inevitably leave traces.”
But no traces were left.
Feeling frustrated, Gideon raised his voice slightly and asked again. "So you're saying the students really saw something like that? It would be more logical to assume that a highly skilled magician has infiltrated the academy, wouldn't it?"
He was right.
Neither of them had an answer to that.
Amidst the frustrating situation where no one could come up with a proper opinion, a woman with pink hair approached them from the end of the hallway.
She tried to hide the curvature of her body by wearing a baggy sweater, but the prominent chest that did not match her short stature still attracted attention from men.
Gideon was the same.
‘Hmm?’
Seeing Erica completely unconcerned when Gideon looked at the newcomer with lustful eyes, Karen felt puzzled once again.
‘Are these two really dating?’
"Professor Perr, are you feeling better now?"
"Yes, yes! I'm fine!" The woman who came to visit was Professor Perr. She was appointed just a few days ago and was also the first victim of this incident.
Erica approached her first, and Perr bowed her head, not only to Erica but also to Keren and Gideon.
"Oh, hello. I'm Perr Petra. I just started as a professor. Please take good care of me." Rather than not being able to read the atmosphere, Perr realized she read too much and said useless words.
Gideon and Karen just raised their hands briefly and greeted her.
Thinking that she had made a mistake, Perr hurriedly took out a letter from her pocket. It was an antique blue letter with an emblem that Erica knew very well.
'Verdi?'
It was the Verdi family’s emblem, which meant that it was a letter left by Deus Verdi.
“When-when I woke up, this was placed on the bed in my room. I was so scared that I quickly brought it.”
“You mean you got a letter that wasn’t there yesterday?”
"Yes!"
Erica's expression turned sour. She sneaked a glance at Gideon and Karen behind her, wondering if they recognized the emblem.
“Let’s first see what it is.”
Calmly, Karen approached and snatched the letter. Erica, a magician, could not respond to the former mercenary and swordsman’s swift and fast movements.
“Oh, the mountain and tiger that represent North Whedon… Isn’t it the Verdi family’s emblem?”
"Verdi?"
Gideon, too, seemed intrigued and approached right away, thinking it must have been left by Deus Verdi.
"Can I read it?"
"Oh, yes!"
After getting permission from Professor Perr, who received the letter, Karen immediately opened and unfolded it. Gideon and Erica stuck to both of her sides to check its contents.
The letter was written in a classic style using a quill pen and cursive handwriting.
[Precautions when using the laboratory.]
1. Remove the full-length mirror.
2. Don’t be loud.
3. Don’t run around.
4. Don’t talk to yourself when no one is around.
5. If you accidentally talk to yourself and someone speaks to you, ignore them.
6. Leave the lab before evening, if possible.
7. If someone knocks on the window, ignore them.
9 If a woman with black clothes suddenly opens the door and comes in, hide under the desk, close your eyes, plug your ears, and hold your breath.
10. If there is a missing number in this letter, burn it immediately.
"...Huh?"
Even Professor Karen, who had gone through all sorts of hardships while working as a mercenary, couldn’t help but show her confusion.
What kind of precautions were these?
"Missing number? Number 8 is missing, isn’t it?"
Gideon, who was next to her, muttered after having finished reading the letter belatedly. Then a moment later, he smiled brightly.
“Hahaha! Professor Deus is wittier than I thought. Even playing this kind of prank…”
But it was a forced, distorted smile.
Erica bit her lip. Grabbing the letter hurriedly, she immediately burned it.
“Did you ever see that man joking?”
Even Erica, his fiancée, was able to see his smile only once- on the day he left the academy.
The letter turned to ashes and disappeared into the air.
Karen frowned, wondering if Erica had been too hasty in burning it.
But she froze when the ashes of the letter didn't scatter or sink to the ground, but floated in the air as if waiting for something.
“... This….”
As soon as Karen noticed the strange phenomenon, suddenly she looked at Erica, who had already blown her mana into the ashes.
As if the ashes were also waiting for the same, they began to move and form letters.
[If a number is missing in the letter, it means that not just the lab but the entire academy is already in their hands.]
“Their?”
Gideon spoke with a puzzled voice, but the others focused on the content of the letter.
[I cannot predict what kind of situation will unfold, but the solution to this chaos is left in the third drawer of the desk I used to use.]
“...!”
[And… Just be merciful to them.]
There was no more message in the fallen ashes.
Therefore, Karen was the first to run out. Having already checked all the labs, the only thing left was the room that Deus used.
"Mercy..?"
Professor Perr was pondering the last words with a dumbfounded expression, but Gideon and Erica were already chasing after Keren.
“Do you know which room Professor Deus used?!”
Being taken aback by Keren’s question, Gideon replied.
"Were you running without knowing that? It's room 404 in the faculty dorms! It's the last room!"
All three of them rushed to the room. Karen broke down the locked door and hurriedly entered.
Only basic furniture remained in the lonely room.
When she opened the desk drawer, there was indeed a small note lying there.
“As expected, Professor Deus knew something!”
"What did this damn professor do?"
Karen and Gideon were pleased that the troublesome task had been solved, but Erica remained silent with her lips tightly closed.
Flutter.
As Karen unfolded the note, characters, in the same handwriting as the previous letter, were hastily written.
[Regarding the girl who appeared in the lab]
"Is it the same girl that Professor Perr saw?"
Professor Perr, who had just joined them, was panting and struggling to catch her breath. Her full breasts swayed so much with every breath that they caught everyone's attention.
As they were about to continue reading-
[Found it. Hehehe…]
-a girl's voice echoed throughout the room.
Whoosh!
And suddenly, the note left behind by Professor Deus caught fire.
"What the-!"
Trying to quickly extinguish the fire, Karen threw it to the ground and stomped on it, but the flames only grew stronger instead of weakening.
"Move aside!"
Water droplets came out of Erica’s palms as she attempted to put out the fire, but…
The note was already gone without a trace.
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