Chapter 74: The Vanishing in the Old School Building

Shudder

In the pitch-black interior of the old school building, where no lights reached, the five of us walked down the hallway, each in our own way.

Amid the darkness, my body trembled from fear.

Indirectly, that is.

To be precise, it wasn’t me trembling but Yuri, who was clinging tightly to my left arm and shaking so much that her trembling was transferring to me.

I imagine Celie, who was holding onto my right arm, could also feel the vibrations.

Creak, creak.

In the silence of the deserted old school building, every step we took caused the warped wooden floorboards to emit an unpleasant sound.

“The old school building has five floors, according to the map.”

At the front of the group, Presia held the Academy-issued map of the old school building in both hands, guiding us.

This role was originally mine, but since I’d lost the use of both hands to Yuri and Celie, Presia had taken over.

“Anne! If you keep wandering around like that, you’ll get lost.”

Anne, meanwhile, was excitedly exploring various rooms in the old school building as if it were a playground.

“Come on, I’m not a kid. I’ll be fine!”

If I told her that her actions and appearance made her look like a child, she’d probably punch me.

Whoosh.

As I was thinking about unnecessary things, a chilling sound filled the hallway.

“Eek! Wh-what was that…?”

“Maybe it’s just the building creaking from old age?”

At the ominous, reverberating sound that seemed to resonate through the entire structure, Yuri jumped in fright, clutching my arm even tighter.

Meanwhile, Celie let go of my arm for a moment and walked toward one of the hallway’s windows.

“It looks like the sound came from wind blowing through this open window.”

Sure enough, as I approached the window she indicated, I saw it was wide open, letting in a breeze.

I closed the window and secured the latch.

“Anne? Exploring is fine, but don’t leave windows open like this, alright?”

All the other windows were locked from the inside, except for this one. Clearly, someone had deliberately opened it.

Among us, the only person who’d do such a thing was Anne, who’d been enthusiastically running around since we entered.

Leaving windows open could let wild animals from the Academy grounds sneak in, so I called out to Anne to remind her.

“Anne?”

No answer came. Turning to look for her, I realized Anne was nowhere to be seen.

At first, I thought she had wandered off again without saying anything. But I couldn’t hear the sound of her footsteps either.

Anne wasn’t the only one missing. Presia, who had been leading us, had also vanished without a word.

“Celie? Did you happen to see where they went…?”

Thinking they might have gone ahead while I was distracted by the window, I turned to Celie to ask.

But Celie, who had been standing beside me just moments ago, was also nowhere to be found.

That was when I realized something was wrong. But by the time I noticed, it was already too late.

Suddenly, my left arm, which had been restrained by Yuri’s tight grip, became free.

Turning my head, I saw that Yuri, who had been clinging to me since we entered the building, was gone as well.

Now aware that everyone else had disappeared, I realized the hallway around me looked unfamiliar.

The dilapidated hallway still showed signs of age, but it was undoubtedly different from the one we had been in earlier.

Even the view outside the window, which I had just closed moments ago, showed a height of four or five stories.

…Weren’t these spirits supposed to be harmless, Presia?

After some wandering, I noticed that the room numbers in this area all started with “500,” indicating I was on the fifth floor.

But that was all I could figure out.

There was no trace of the others. They must have been relocated elsewhere in the old school building, just like I had.

The only consolation was that the situation didn’t seem immediately dangerous.

Of course, I couldn’t be entirely certain. But based on my instincts, it didn’t feel like the spirits intended to harm us.

If they had such intentions, they would have attacked after splitting us up.

Instead, the spirits’ actions seemed limited to shutting windows to prevent me from jumping out, knocking over random objects, slamming doors loudly, and occasionally whispering creepy noises like “Hehehe” near my ears.

They were more mischievous than malicious.

Still, considering they were entities formed of negative energy, it wasn’t surprising that their behavior was so petty.

This kind of prank wasn’t enough to scare me, though.

Growing up in less-than-ideal conditions, I had experienced far worse.

When I was younger and easily frightened, our decrepit hideout would constantly creak ominously. Wind would blow through broken windows, slamming doors shut, and the older assassins in training would use stealth techniques to jump out and scare me.

In other words, the antics of these spirits were nothing new to me. They were things I had faced countless times, over a decade ago.

Still, it’s kind of fun, reminiscing about the old days, even if they weren’t exactly fond memories.

“Guys!”

I called out just in case, but only my voice echoed back through the halls, with no response from anyone.

Given how quiet it was, my voice should have carried far enough to reach them, but the lack of reaction made it clear this was another trick by the spirits.

“No luck, huh?”

After checking dozens of rooms, I finally managed to search the entire fifth floor.

Griffin Academy had expanded significantly in recent years, and even the old school building was quite large, so it took a fair amount of time.

Having confirmed that no one was on the top floor, I decided to head down to the lower floors.

As I descended the stairs and reached the fourth floor, the thought of having to search the entire floor again made me feel overwhelmed.

Then, a thought occurred to me.

What if the others had already regrouped at the entrance?

With that in mind, I skipped the fourth floor entirely and headed down to the first floor.

“El’s here!”

At the entrance, Anne’s voice greeted me cheerfully.

“You’re so late.”

Presia’s voice came next, scolding me lightly.

“If there’s any place to regroup after getting separated, wouldn’t it obviously be the entrance where we first came in?”

Celie added, pointing out the obvious.

She was absolutely right, and I couldn’t argue. I had wasted time running around the fifth floor in vain when I should have just come straight to the entrance.

“Wait… where’s Yuri?”

At the entrance, there were only the three of them—Anne, Presia, and Celie. Yuri was nowhere to be seen.

“Well… Yuri hasn’t shown up yet.”

Yuri wasn’t the type to forget the idea of regrouping at the entrance. If anything, she was the one most likely to think of it first and get there ahead of everyone else.

However, this wasn’t an ideal situation.

From the moment we entered the old school building, Yuri had seemed frightened.

It was possible she was stuck somewhere in the building, unable to move, trembling in fear.

If the mischievous spirits were drawn to reactions, they were probably surrounding Yuri, who had the biggest response.

There was also the possibility that, like they had tried to keep me from leaving through the window, they had confined her somewhere.

“Let’s go find her.”

Even if Yuri came to the entrance after we left, it wouldn’t be a big issue.

Presia used her magic to leave a note floating in the air that read, “Stay here and wait.” There was no chance the spirits could erase it—it was far too stable for that.

“So, where should we start looking?”

“Well, I already checked the entire fifth floor, so we should begin with the floors below.”

“There are four of us, so let’s each take one floor. I’ll go to the fourth floor.”

“Then I’ll take the third!”

“There doesn’t seem to be any real danger, so splitting up should be fine. Presia, please take the first floor. I’ll handle the second floor. Once you’ve finished searching your floor, return to this spot.”

“Understood…”

To accommodate Presia, who had the least stamina among us, we gave her the easiest task of searching the first floor.

While the difference in speed and stamina might vary among us, the fact that we were each covering one floor meant the overall time taken wouldn’t differ much.

With that, the four of us split up again, this time voluntarily, to search for Yuri.

Leaving Presia on the first floor and watching Anne and Celie head upstairs, I began my search of the second floor.

Despite thoroughly checking every single room on the floor, there was no sign of Yuri.

I returned to the first floor as we’d agreed and found Anne waiting for me.

Judging by her personality, she’d likely run through her floor energetically, flinging doors open as she searched.

“Did you find her?”

Anne immediately asked when she saw me. My shake of the head caused her to droop in disappointment.

Now, all we could do was wait for Celie and Presia to return.

However, even after Celie came back and Presia finished her search, there was still no sign of Yuri.