Chapter 26: Exposed
Diva-sensei stared at me with eyes as cold as ice, and the knight standing guard over her looked down at me as though I were a criminal.
‘It’s okay… I’m still okay… All they know so far is that Martina-jou slashed my textbook… Nothing else has been revealed…’
The room was enveloped in a frozen silence as if waiting for me to give some kind of defense. I took a slow, deep breath to steady myself, gathering the resolve to speak.
“If I understand correctly from your explanation, Sensei, the young lady who was brought to the chapel might be the one who slashed my textbook. Thank you for conducting the investigation.”
Diva-sensei may have been hoping I’d panic and confess to something, but I remained calm and expressed my gratitude for looking into the case of my textbook being slashed.
“Hmm… You’re rather composed and shrewd, aren’t you?”
Diva-sensei rested his elbows on the desk and clasped his hands in front of his face.
“Indeed, it’s true. All we’ve discovered is that the knife held by the young lady brought to the chapel was the one used to slash your textbook.”
The backlight from the window behind him cast him in shadow, making him appear as if he were plotting something sinister.
“However, your textbook was slashed by that knife, and the young lady holding it was found unconscious in the chapel. Isn’t it possible that, upon discovering her crime, you retaliated by rendering her unconscious?”
“T-that’s…”
I racked my brain at full speed. I had to say something. Silence would be interpreted as an admission of guilt.
“Of course, we’ve also confirmed that at the time the young lady was brought to the chapel, you weren’t at the dormitory, nor did you leave the academy grounds. How do you explain that?”
My excuses had already been preemptively cut off. This wasn’t about leading me to offer a different excuse but creating a situation where silence equaled guilt. It felt like a cunning, snake-like tactic.
“Rachel isn’t guilty!!”
Suddenly, Leaf, still trapped inside the birdcage, raised her voice and began defending me.
“Oh? And what do you mean by saying she isn’t guilty?”
Diva-sensei shifted his gaze to Leaf in the cage.
“That young lady used magic to put Rachel to sleep, so she only got what was coming to her in retaliation!”
Leaf grabbed the bars of the cage and shouted at Diva-sensei.
‘Leaf! You can’t say that!’
I screamed internally, but once said, words couldn’t be taken back.
“I see… So you and Rachel were at the scene when the young lady lost consciousness?”
“Ah!”
Only now did Leaf realize what she had just admitted.
“You said she got what was coming to her. Was it you who retaliated, Leaf?”
“…No… it wasn’t me…”
Leaf answered, her head hanging low.
“As I thought. A spirit like you doesn’t seem capable of inflicting such harm. The young lady’s condition is severe… So, if it wasn’t you, then who was it? If not you…”
“…It wasn’t Rachel…”
Leaf answered quietly.
“Indeed… A mere human couldn’t have done something like that. Someone capable of such a thing… could only be… hmm…”
Diva-sensei’s gaze slowly shifted toward me, as if he had locked onto his prey. That look sent a jolt through my heart.
“For example… an evil spirit, perhaps…”
His words made my body freeze in an instant.
Was he bluffing? No, that wasn’t it. The way he spoke, it was as if he knew everything. Could it be… was he…
‘He can see it.’
Yes, could he see it—the one haunting me? But he hadn’t shown any signs of it until now…
“Ah…”
I let out an involuntary gasp.
That’s right—when we first met in the classroom, Diva-sensei was startled. I had assumed it was because he was new, intimidated by the number of students or the presence of high-ranking nobles. But based on his recent behavior, he wasn’t the type to be easily intimidated, especially since his name, Diva Cole Regrias, carried the noble “Cole” title, a mark of ducal blood. There was no reason for him to be fazed by fellow high nobles.
So, he must have been startled when he saw it…
That explains why, when I visited the office, he didn’t seat me on the sofa set but instead made sure to put some distance between us by sitting in the chair on the opposite side. He was wary of me.
“Rachel, did you really think I couldn’t see it? I’ve been able to see it from the beginning—the very thing that’s keeping Martina-jou in a coma.”
Diva-sensei’s all-seeing gaze drained the blood from my face and made my body stiffen as if frozen. I felt like a frog being stared down by a snake.
“When we first met, you appeared to be someone surrounded by an aura of overwhelming darkness that threatened to engulf the classroom. Afterward, I summoned you here to this office and looked at you again, this time through this monocle.”
Diva-sensei tapped the monocle he wore with his finger.
“The darkness surrounding you isn’t just an aura—it’s something leaking and oozing out of you. And it’s terrifyingly malevolent, a bottomless void crawling with something that does not belong in this world.”
The knight guarding him flinched, as if he hadn’t expected to be dealing with such an entity. He must have been taken aback by Diva-sensei’s explanation.
“So, is that thing possessing you… or is it you yourself?”
Diva-sensei slowly and quietly rose from his chair.
“Just who… exactly are you?”
TN: I’ve been adjusting to my new job very poorly that I work an extra 4 hours unpaid just to finish my assigned work. Sorry for the long absence. I’ll be continuing this with 1 chapter per week for now.
