Ch.2222. I Didn’t Want to Know.

[The girl is not the dead.]

After reading these words, Erika was enveloped by an incomprehensible sensation. Throughout her life as a Mage, and as a first-class instructor at Robern Academy.

She had interpreted countless high-difficulty magical formulas and solved many vicious problems that seemed to reflect the malice of their creators.

Such problems were usually filled with dense text covering entire problem sheets.

Yet Deus’s note, with just a single line, gave Erika a sense of helplessness she had never felt before.

It was different from problems whose difficulty made her repeatedly tell herself she could solve them.

This was impossible.

It was a phrase she simply couldn’t comprehend.

“If not the dead, does it mean that what possessed Deus wasn’t a girl either?”

She thought she had found a clue, but she was back to square one. The restored portion of Deus’s note was only small enough to fit in her palm, so there was no way to learn anything more.

“Huk, huk.”

[Hehe.]

Between Professor Per Petra’s heavy breathing beside her, she heard the girl’s mocking laughter.

Frowning, she realized that the girl was actually here.

“Who exactly are you?”

Honestly, she didn’t expect an answer, and it was a statement made in surrender, out of desperation.

But fleetingly.

With a playful laugh that could have been sincere or false, a single word dropped.

[An angel?]

* * *

“……!”

Crunch!

The stiffly written letter couldn’t withstand the headmaster’s grip and was crumpled miserably.

It soon became a ball, and the headmaster threw it to the floor as if expelling his anger.

Three days had passed since the Spiritmaster’s death.

Deus’s reply had come again.

A letter with a simple and clear answer rejecting reinstatement as a full professor at Robern Academy.

“How much more will you humiliate and toy with me before you’re satisfied! Deus!”

Bang!

The desk shook with a sound as he struck it roughly with his fist. Despite offering one of the best compensation packages among professors in the industry, he had been rejected.

In truth, he hadn’t been sincere.

After the incident was resolved, he had planned to hold Deus responsible for the current situation.

As things stood, the current situation couldn’t simply be explained as supernatural.

Even if Professor Deus was actually uninvolved. Or even if he had tried to protect the academy as his memo suggested.

Someone needed to take responsibility, and Professor Deus was the most suitable candidate.

So he needed to bring him to the academy somehow.

But he was firmly rooted in his mansion in Norsweden like an old tree.

How could he bring that man here?

“Haaaaah!”

With just two days left before the semester began.

He could only foresee the situation becoming more serious once the academy’s students returned.

“Even bringing in clergy has had no effect.”

He had summoned clergy from a nearby church. As the dead Spiritmaster had said, they merely held daily services without showing any results.

“Perhaps I should invest a large sum to summon a Saintess.”

Unlike the clergy who simply offered prayers or used mana while making flattering claims about divine power.

A Saintess who was known to truly use a unique power called divine force.

But to keep her at Robern Academy even for a day would require donating about a quarter of the academy’s operating budget.

“Haaaaah.”

The headmaster could only sigh and rub his forehead.

At that moment, the school nurse Professor Karen entered without knocking. The situations had been so urgent that she no longer bothered with knocking.

“Headmaster, the damage situation is quite serious now.”

“Sigh. Has it increased again?”

After the Spiritmaster was brutally killed and devoured.

The academy’s evil spirits had become even more rampant. If they used to appear sporadically before.

Now they revealed themselves constantly, harassing and causing pain.

It was like stirring up a hornet’s nest.

It was fortunate that no one had lost their life yet.

“All the students who were sleeping on the second floor of the dormitory yesterday have fallen into comas.”

With Karen’s report, the headmaster barely managed to gather his wits, feeling like he might faint.

“Wh-what, what did you say? All the students on the second floor of the dormitory are in comas?”

Karen nodded heavily with a shadow across her face.

“There’s no immediate danger to their lives, but they show no signs of waking up.”

Since it was vacation, not many students remained, so the commotion hadn’t grown too large yet.

But what if such an incident occurred again after all the students had returned?

It would be terrible.

“There have been several other incidents as well. I’ve restricted access to the main entrance on the first floor and the gymnasium. Also, there’s reportedly a man with a twisted body walking around the right staircase on the third floor.”

“Haaaaah.”

Though sighing changed nothing, he couldn’t help but sigh.

As the headmaster suffered with his mind feeling like it was being wrung out, Karen finally demanded a decision.

“Let’s go to Norsweden.”

“……”

The headmaster raised his head slightly to meet Karen’s eyes. Despite his expression of sincere dislike, Karen spoke with conviction that there was no other way.

“Since letters don’t work, let’s go persuade him in person. Professor Deus is the only solution to the current situation.”

“Nnngh.”

“It’s best if you leave right now. I’ll speak to the academy’s dedicated coachman.”

The headmaster knew this was the right answer, but he really didn’t want to do it.

He had just received a letter rejecting his offer despite promising the best treatment.

It would be fortunate if he didn’t punch Deus in the face as soon as he saw him.

Clunk.

The door opened and Professor Karen entered.

“Headmaster, the damage situation is quite serious now.”

The piercing on her nose, her tied-up gray hair, her strangely pale eyes.

With the exact same appearance, tone, and atmosphere as when Karen had just entered.

“Huh?”

“……”

The headmaster gaped at the two Karens alternately, and the first Karen clenched her fist and was about to charge.

But the second Karen shrugged and stretched her mouth into a grin.

“Fucking bitch, you came first, huh?”

Swoosh.

The second Karen disappeared.

Seeing this, Karen felt both dejection and thought that the current situation at the academy had been properly conveyed to the headmaster.

The headmaster covered his face with both hands and mumbled in response.

“Let’s go to Norsweden.”

* * *

“……”

For Deia, the past few days had been full of incomprehensible events.

And the cause was very clear.

Deus Verdi, the second son of the Verdi family. Her second older brother.

Deia referred to him as “the second idiot” for convenience, but anyway.

Recently, his behavior had become so strange that she couldn’t help but keep an eye on him.

In the past, his mere presence had been disgusting.

But lately, his actions were so mysterious that she found herself strangely drawn to watching him.

Especially when he directly confronted the Verdi family’s hidden shame in the basement, taking responsibility in place of the head of the family, and acting for the benefit of the victimized girl.

Honestly, if it hadn’t been Deus, she would have thought it was admirable.

“So what are you doing now?”

Deia, who had come out to the streets of Norsweden for patrol, asked Findenai, who was smoking beside a street lamp.

Without putting out her cigarette even in front of her master’s younger sister, Findenai confidently exhaled smoke and shrugged in response.

“He said he needed something. So he came to buy it.”

“And what are you doing?”

She thought that normally a maid would handle such errands while the master waited outside or stayed at the mansion.

“Me? I’m his guard. And he told me to just wait quietly because I’d buy weird things if I went shopping.”

“……”

Indeed.

This willful maid seemed like the type who would buy alcohol and cigarettes if given money and suggest drinking together.

Clicking her tongue as she recalled the head of the family, Darius, who had been defeated by this self-willed woman, Deia asked something she was curious about.

“Deus learned Black Magic, didn’t he?”

“Hmm? You didn’t know?”

Deia almost lost strength in her legs, startled by how easily Findenai answered.

“Specifically, it’s spirit magic. It’s obvious from how he resolved Emily’s grudge in the basement. He also used it to block our way when we crossed the mountain range.”

Findenai, omitting the story about the mountain god, put the cigarette back in her mouth.

If she didn’t use these spare moments, she wouldn’t have enough time to clear her mind due to her non-smoking master.

Deia frowned at the smell of cigarette smoke and waved her hand around her nose before asking again.

“Of all things to learn, why that? If it becomes known, the family will immediately disown him, saying they know nothing about it.”

“Heheh, wouldn’t he cut ties first?”

That’s true, Deia swallowed the words she was about to say.

The recent Deus was so different from what she knew that just watching him was confusing.

Findenai exhaled smoke and muttered with interest.

“Well, spirit magic is quite fascinating. Did you know? If there’s a spirit stronger than you, you can be possessed.”

“Pos…session?”

“Basically, an evil spirit enters your body and takes over. If it’s severe, you can even lose your memory. Kekeke, isn’t that funny?”

Findenai was laughing like an excited mischievous child, but.

“Lose… memory?”

Deia felt as if puzzle pieces were floating in her mind.

‘If possessed by an evil spirit, one might not remember what happened during that time.’

‘Deus has been acting like a completely different person since six months ago.’

‘If the reason is… learning spirit magic?’

……

“Perhaps.”

What if Deus, who had his body taken by an evil spirit when he was very young.

Finally regained his senses and learned spirit magic to protect his body?

What if the second idiot, who had said and done things to her that no human should do.

Was actually an evil spirit with no connection to her?

It wasn’t entirely implausible.

First of all, from Deia’s perspective, the fact that he lusted after his own sister was something she could never accept.

‘His personality changed too much.’

A personality change so dramatic it could be said he became an entirely different person.

Could it be?

Actually, really?

Once her thoughts started to lean in one direction, they continued to build on each other.

Before she knew it, Deia was searching through fragments of her memories for evidence to support her hypothesis, but.

“Ah, that woman’s here again.”

Findenai snickered and pointed her chin at a woman.

Deia slowly stopped her train of thought and looked ahead.

A very beautiful woman with a glamorous appearance was clinging to Deus, who was holding a paper bag.

She was a woman from the brothel Deus used to frequent.

“Deus! Where have you been all this time! I really missed you! Didn’t that maid tell you properly that I’d give you special service?”

“……”

“Why aren’t you saying anything? I missed you so much. There’s no one as big and as good as you. Today I’ll give you extra special service! Shall we go right now?”

Deus was staring at her with his mouth closed.

At that moment, Findenai giggled beside Deia and whispered.

“That woman said last time they even lick each other’s assholes.”

“Ah, please……”

She didn’t want to know about the second idiot’s sex life.