“You’re healthy.”
“No, I’m a patient, *cough*. Look at this. Even coughing is coming out, *cough cough*.”
Though Jay complained of discomfort again, Carl seemed to have no intention of examining him. It seemed he had finally decided to properly play his role. Indeed, that argument from the previous day must have been necessary.
“The infirmary professor of Connubium is me, not you. You’re just tired, so at least drink this.”
He tossed a tonic bottle to Jay as if giving charity. The medicine bottle rolled on the desk. There seemed to be no room for compromise in his coldly spoken voice. In the end, Jay glared fiercely at Carl, then turned around and came out.
“This is really too much……”
Upon coming out to the corridor, sharp gazes like daggers stabbed at Jay. Following the gazes, a professor whose name he didn’t even know was staring blankly at Jay. Even though Vinoshu had proven Jay’s alibi after the corpse was discovered, many professors still suspected him.
Jay fled from the suspicious gazes as if escaping.
“I’m definitely sick somewhere……”
His body, which grew heavier day by day, didn’t get better even with rest. Since it was a side effect of Persona, there was no way it would get better no matter how much Jay rested. Jay felt his limbs were like lead. Sometimes his limbs would go numb for no reason and he had to massage them.
“It’s not like I ate something wrong. My body isn’t even strained. I’m sleeping on time……”
Jay’s voice was full of grievance. Since his meals weren’t poor and he rested on time, he couldn’t think of an appropriate cause.
“Is it stress……?”
The most common reason one could think of was, after all, stress. Jay sighed deeply enough to sink into the ground. Because if the cause was stress, there was no way to solve it. It was difficult to leave the school right away, which was the main source of stress. Still, Jay’s hope was that the contract would soon end.
“Whew……”
Behind his fleeing steps, people’s ominous gazes followed to the end. Jay wanted to escape somewhere without gazes. However, since it was close to free time, whether students or professors, there were one or two people wherever he went.
Jay eventually searched for a secluded place without people and dragged his heavy body. He desperately wanted to get some air before writing his report. His staggering appearance was pitiful.
The place he headed to was the trail where Ivan had collapsed before. Though there might be one or two people, still not a single person passed through that place.
Ivan, who took classes at Nokeum Hall, had often collapsed on this trail even after that. Since Jay had given Ivan a blanket several times, this trail was somewhat familiar to him.
“This place is still quiet…… *Cough, cough*.”
Relieved that there were no sharp gazes, Jay, who plopped down beside the trail, looked ten years older. After coughing several times without stopping, the exhausted Jay sighed deeply.
“Haah…… Next time, even if I need money urgently, I shouldn’t work in a place like this……”
However, Jay always had the setting of being short on money. Even if he suffered like this, in a situation where every penny was precious, he didn’t have the capacity to be picky about conditions. Hekkarkel climbed up Jay’s cheek and licked it.
The sound of shuffling footsteps echoed on the trail where only Jay’s monologue had been floating. Jay immediately heard that sound and sighed deeply. Because he desperately wanted to rest while getting more air.
If another person came, he would have no choice but to return to his private room. Now, if not this trail, the only place to avoid people’s gazes in this school was his private room.
“Ah…… Scotilino. What brings you, *cough, cough*.”
“……Professor.”
The person who came to the trail was Ivan. Jay felt relieved that it was at least Ivan. It wasn’t just professors who suspected Jay. Students also occasionally suspected him. Among them, some seemed to expect the reward points they would receive for finding out and reporting the culprit who killed the professor.
Fortunately, the students Jay was in charge of didn’t seem to suspect him. Jay was aware of that too, so he breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Ivan.
“Didn’t you go to the infirmary? If you foolishly endure it, your illness will only get worse.”
Though Ivan expressed concern, he frowned as much as possible as if annoyed. Jay answered with a weak smile.
“Haha…… He said I’m healthy. *Cough*, by the way, did you come looking for a quiet place?”
“……Well, yes.”
Ivan plopped down in a spot slightly away from Jay. Even though the weather was getting warmer, he looked stuffy wearing long-sleeved clothes.
On the other hand, he also looked unreal. Even though he could see him clearly there, it seemed like he would disappear if one blinked. It was due to his sickliness to the point where no vitality could be felt, and also because his pigmentation was particularly pale.
Jay recalled his first meeting with Ivan and felt somehow touched. He was happy that he seemed to have opened his heart to some extent by now sitting beside him without hesitation. Thanks to that, his face had some color and looked lively.
“The school has been noisy lately.”
“……Yes.”
Since a professor had died, there was no way it could be quiet. Though the professors were strongly controlling the students, it wasn’t working properly. The brutally butchered corpse and the phrase written on the paper shook the students’ hearts.
The students had implicitly regarded professors as beings higher than themselves, whom they couldn’t do anything about. It was because violence had tamed them. However, since such beings had been cut up like livestock, cracks appeared in their thinking.
And what completely shattered those cracks was the phrase on the paper.
‘Ordinary humans.’
The students realized that the professors’ firmly established power was like an illusion. In the end, it was inevitable that attempts to control the students weren’t perfect. It was a natural result. And if they couldn’t control them properly now, their disobedience would intensify further.
“Still, the students, *cough, cough*. Ahem. The students don’t need to worry.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, it doesn’t seem like students are the targets of the crimes.”
If students had been included in the crime targets, phrases openly targeting professors wouldn’t have been written. So Jay thought it was highly likely that the culprit was a student.
However, the professors, who thought of students like fish in a fish farm, didn’t even consider the possibility of it being a student. At first, they briefly suspected it, but as time passed, the opinion that it couldn’t have been done by students was dominant.
Ivan fell silent after hearing Jay’s words. He was somehow detached from this entire situation. He, who usually didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm for life, seemed indifferent even to matters involving life and death. On that face, lethargy resembling death was draped like a veil.
“So it’ll be fine. No way the professors will just sit still. Everyone is desperately trying to catch the culprit—”
“Professor.”
Ivan cut off Jay’s soothing words, in case he might be anxious. His face was coldly stiff. Realizing that he wasn’t anxious, Jay awkwardly scratched the back of his neck.
“Yes, what is it?”
“……What do you think of that phrase, Professor?”
“Hmm…… Which phrase?”
“‘Obtain the Holy Grail and seize victory, loser.'”
Even though it was what he himself said, Ivan dry-heaved several times as if disgusted. At that sight, Jay was startled and tried to check on him, but Ivan raised one hand to stop his approach.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m healthier than you, Professor. So, what do you think?”
Ivan looked at him like an executioner waiting for an execution. His two eyes, sharp like knives, were a vivid blue-green that matched summer, yet evoked winter with harsh winds blowing. Jay couldn’t say anything for a moment, as if frozen by that gaze.
“That…… I don’t really know.”
Jay was silent for a moment, but soon came to his senses and answered.
Strictly speaking, Jay was far from the loser that Connubium spoke of. In the first place, his setting value wasn’t in an environment where winners or losers could be discussed.
“Well, I’m from a fallen noble family. The title was mine……”
That’s when it happened. A sharp pain assaulted him as if a nail had been driven into his temple. Tinnitus rang noisily in his ears. Since Jay felt the pain I was experiencing in full, he clutched his ears and curled up his body.
“I…… I……”
That family he had seen in a dream once. The family from before possession whose faces he couldn’t even remember. Memories mixed dizzily and screamed as they stabbed at me.
In the middle of being unable to easily regain his senses like a person swept away by a tidal wave, Hekkarkel licked my cheek. At that moment, all thoughts were blocked as if shutters had been lowered. The pain tormenting me disappeared and Jay was also liberated.
Jay’s face turned pale white like a blank sheet of paper. Without a trace of blood, he looked as if his vitality had been drained.
“Anyway…… I don’t really know.”
Ivan looked at such a Jay as if he didn’t understand. He retracted his hand that he had awkwardly extended toward Jay.
“I……”
Then he brought the retracted hand to his chest and clenched it into a fist. That hand, subtly rubbing his thumb and index finger, somehow looked cold and at the same time seemed to feel regret.
“That statement is really disgusting and unpleasant.”
Jay’s eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected answer. I was also surprised enough to momentarily forget the pain I had just experienced.
Ivan’s crumpled lips conveyed the emotions he was feeling as they were.
“I was stripped of all qualifications from birth and ended up stuck in this place……”
Ivan, who was grumbling, scratched at his ear several times as if hearing auditory hallucinations.
