Chapter 30
[A student has lost consciousness on campus. As this incident has been confirmed to be the work of a wraith, we ask students to refrain from going out at night until the monster is caught—]
I turned off my smartphone while marveling at Justitia's technology that had already completed an autopsy (not really). Feeling that safety messages are annoying even here, I looked around.
Raphael was lying on her stomach, kicking her feet. I wanted to ask what she was doing, but her actions were, well, obvious.
"Lachesis, look at this. Isn't this person really good at mukbang? Watching this makes me want to eat too? Let's beg Seonghoon to buy us food tomorrow."
[That's a good idea, meow. I think the chicken that comes later looks even more delicious, meow.]
"Let's just eat both. Simple."
[You're a genius, meow!!]
They're having a meeting about how to efficiently waste someone else's money. And it's not even me who buys you things, it's Ishia.
Feel sorry for Ishia.
I definitely regret giving them smartphones. Is this what it's like? The feeling parents get when they see today's kids glued to their phones?
I slowly approached and took away the smartphone they were giggling over with Lachesis.
"Ah?! What are you doing?!"
"Confiscated. Do you know what time it is? You need to sleep now if you want to go to training tomorrow. No phones after 10 PM from now on."
"I won't make any noise. I'll watch quietly. Give it back!!"
Raphael jumps trying to grab the phone in my hand but can't reach it. Being short means her jumping power is disgustingly low.
My height is 175cm, the Korean male average, you know. What are you going to do if you can't even reach this?
"The light's no good. Do it tomorrow. If you can't sleep because of this, I'm the only one who'll be tired tomorrow."
"If I just had my wings, you wouldn't treat me like this!"
What's she talking about now? What difference would wings make? You'd just be a bit stronger, right?
"If I had just one pair of wings, I'd get my power back, how could you treat a high-ranking being like me this way? Don't you have any faith?"
"Nope."
"What?!"
"I'm irreligious. I only believe in myself. Even after seeing the actual God, I'd rather create the Infinite Seonghoon Religion than believe in that guy."
"That's a cult!!"
I swallowed the words 'That God guy is more of a cult.' I know Raphael would seriously attack me if I said that.
Seeming to realize I won't give it back, Raphael grumbled and returned to her bed.
She's hitting the bed saying 'Lachesis, sleep with me today. Don't sleep with that human,' but whatever.
I lay down in my bed too.
"Seonghoon."
"Go to sleep."
"I'm serious. You don't seem to believe me, but if I just got one pair of wings back, I could blow away an army of demons."
This is so noisy. If you had such power, why did you get your wings sealed? Besides, Raphael fighting demons at the front lines? I can't even imagine it.
"Raphael."
"Yes! Are you going to believe me?"
"No. If you have energy to talk nonsense, go out and do some jogging."
"......"
I heard words like 'Trash,' 'Scum,' 'Idiot,' but I ignored them and quietly closed my eyes.
Still, she might be strong if she got all six pairs of wings back. Well, her stats were strong.
Well, not like she'll ever get them back.
***
The next morning. I couldn't believe my eyes. Because of the disaster message that had come overnight.
[Five more victims appeared overnight. Justitia is currently investigating the cause internally, and we recommend staying in dormitories without attending classes today—]
"Five people?"
That can't be. This incident is just a passing event. At most it should be three people? How did five people fall in one night?
Even one night is strange. This incident is supposed to progress over a week. That means three people should collapse over a week.
But how did five people fall in just one night?
Something's wrong, I thought, but I didn't particularly want to get involved.
Even if something's wrong, it's not my business. People aren't dying anyway, and when the wraith is defeated, the souls will return to their places, so why bother?
If people were dying, I should definitely not get involved. I'm weak.
Besides, this is Justitia. The world's best academy, they say. If they can't solve this much, are they really the world's best? No way. Fighting, Justitia. Fighting, Kim Taehyun. Hurry up and solve this weird incident.
Come on, remember that life philosophy. My motto.
Kim Taehyun interferes, Kim Taehyun also rolls.
Yes, therefore I will enjoy this long-awaited holiday.
"Raphael, want to play games?"
"Games? Hmm~ I'll play if there are fighting games!"
We played extravagantly until evening.
***
The sun set. As the sun that lit the world went down, the blue moon rose to fill its empty place.
Sophia watched that moon with red eyes. Her eyes, redder than blood, sparkled even more. Vampires are creatures of the night. At night, their physical abilities and magic power increase explosively, and their blood authority strengthens.
Considering that True Ancestor vampires have been called Empresses or Emperors of the Night for generations, you can tell how much stronger they become at night.
"Well then. Shall we search?"
Crack. Crack.
The bones throughout her body make ominous sounds as they reconnect. Feeling a refreshing pain, she looked at the dark downtown.
She could see clearly. Down to every single rat in the downtown area. Even the numbers on the blocks.
Yet her gaze keeps moving. Obviously searching for one thing.
The wraith.
"Five people."
Five people fell in one night. Sophia couldn't just leave this wraith being alone.
It was already noisy with vampires stirring up the whole country looking for her, and she couldn't let incidents of people collapsing keep happening in Justitia.
That's why she's here. The clock tower in the downtown area. At its peak. Where vampires often stand.
It's a bit embarrassing as it seems like she's conscious of the media, but it can't be helped. This is the highest place.
Her gaze keeps moving. The area she's watching carefully is the forest.
Places where people rarely go.
How long had she been searching? Finally. It appeared. Actually, she didn't even find it. It appeared on its own and pointed its blade at Sophia.
Black cloak, invisible face, snow-white joints.
She could tell without checking. This is the wraith.
Sophia entered combat stance while recalling the information about wraiths she had looked up during the day.
'Wraiths respond to strong souls.'
Then it's natural for it to come to her. That's why she was here, to lure it.
'It accumulates souls, and when in crisis, consumes souls.'
Therefore, the strategy is to first cut off its hands to prevent soul consumption.
'The best is to end it in one strike.'
If you catch it in one strike, you don't need to cut off its hands. Sophia smiled as she watched the wraith pointing its sharp hands at her.
It looked pathetic. Who do you think I am? That appearance of reaching out its hands and screaming as if it found delicious prey.
"One strike, huh."
While she was thinking about how to attack, the wraith charged first with a horrific scream.
At the unpleasant sound that seemed to break through her thoughts, Sophia squinted one eye and changed her hand into a gun shape.
And the words from her mouth were just two lines.
"《Sacred Crimson Blood.》"
One line. A magic circle appears at her fingertips. The magic circle emitting brilliant crimson light showed its presence in the dark night.
"《Drive Away the Hateful Sun.》"
Two lines. Magic power rotates. From her heart, which is a magic tank, magic power rotates explosively as it moves to her fingertips.
Finally, the magic power reaches the magic circle, and the magic circle spews forth magic.
Blood spurts from her fingertips. An enormous amount of blood.
There's nothing special about it. Just bullets of blood. Like shotgun pellets, the bullets instantly pierced through the wraith's body.
Without even time to let out a death cry. The wraith collapses.
That's how easy an opponent it was. For Sophia, it wasn't even a warm-up. An opponent that dies to just a two-line incantation.
She lightly dropped to where the wraith had fallen. After landing with feather-like movements, she looked at the wraith.
"Now the souls should come out and return to their places."
Sophia kept watching the wraith with an expression like 'One down!', but nothing came out of the body. No matter how long she waited.
There was no response. What's going on? As she looked around with such an expression.
"GUOOOOOOOOOOH!!"
As if in place of souls, what appeared to be dozens of wraiths surrounded her.
***
"Sigh."
Yang Minji sat on a bench swinging her legs back and forth. Her cheeks were puffed up as if sulking, and her lips protruded.
The reason is simple.
It's because of Lee Seonghoon.
"Why does he run away whenever he sees me? He just runs away when I try to talk to him. Even I get hurt when treated like this~~"
No matter how thoughtless Yang Minji might seem, this kind of treatment hurts.
She is the daughter of Korea's top guild and has never been disrespected anywhere as a precious person.
Far from being disrespected, she only had people who were sad they couldn't talk to her, but this person, no, this bastard Lee Seonghoon, when none other than Miss Yang Minji personally tries to talk to him.
"Always. Always. Always. Either ignores me or runs away. Why? Am I ugly? No? I'm pretty? I'm cute? Then what's the problem? Did those women next to him make him stuck up? How many people in the world are prettier than those women."
Well, are there any? While thinking such thoughts, she kicked up the dirt around her violently.
At first she had expectations when she heard that the 1028th ranked person had beaten Ishia.
But when she checked his ability with her unique magic power, she was really disappointed.
However, she learned one thing. Not to blindly trust unique magic power.
He easily caught a Drake, and when you replay the video of him fighting Ishia, he performed indescribable acrobatics.
Rumors say he even came in first in the Instant Dungeon.
"And on top of that."
He's a space magician. Dropping steel beams from nowhere, then putting them back.
Space magicians aren't common. People are born with magic attributes.
Taking Ishia as an example, darkness attribute. People can only use two types of magic when they're born.
Magic of their innate attribute. And non-attribute magic.
Even Ishia's darkness attribute is rare. Maybe about ten thousand people worldwide.
But space is a thousand. One thousand.
The unit is different. Out of the world's population, only a thousand people are born with it.
It's impossible not to be interested. But.
"How am I supposed to do anything when I can't even talk to him~~"
She screamed in frustration, but there was no response.
No. There was.
Yang Minji felt it. Sometimes people intuitively sense their own crisis.
Goosebumps rise all over their body and instinct warns them to run away.
However, even if you feel it, there aren't many situations where you can actually run away. It's a story found in any book.
They say people can exert three times their strength in crisis situations, but right before death, their body freezes and can't move.
That's Yang Minji right now. Her whole body is frozen. Her gaze looks at the being before her.
Though it clearly has a human form, inside the black robe is pure white.
Not talking about skin color. Really pure white. Truly snow-white.
A skeletal body and invisible face. Yet exuding an overwhelming presence.
"Repentaaaaaaance."
It mutters something. Angel? The usual Yang Minji would have said something like 'How did you know I'm like an angel~', but the situation is the situation.
Even her mouth is frozen and won't move.
The black robe approaches. Holding a giant scythe.
Like a grim reaper announcing death. Slowly. Then quickly.