WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

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◈ Mistaken for a Masked Monster

Chapter 016

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Someone's Trace

Alice.

Timid by nature. A girl who looked like she might snap at the slightest pressure.

Stumbling onto someone's secret was pure chance.

'He helped me...'

A fear of people. Of contact with others, of the outside air itself.

Alice had enrolled at the academy under the headmaster's care, but a space packed with children her own age was practically poison to her. She had refused to attend even after the semester began.

The reason she'd ventured outside that day was a passing whim. Not wanting to worry the headmaster, she had steeled herself and left the dormitory.

'My, my necklace... the one I got from Yeriel, where, where did it go?'

Her first real outing alone produced only the worst result. She had lost something more important to her than her own life. An irreplaceable keepsake.

Close to tears, she was rummaging through the bushes when it happened.

-Hello there.

A boy reached out his hand to her. The top student of Class E, her own class. Viktor, she thought his name was. A boy distinguished by the strange mask covering his face.

'H-He's scary...!'

After the entrance ceremony, Alice hadn't come to school for several days. Even so, she had used her ability to check in on the academy from time to time, so she had at least a rough sense of the class's mood. By her assessment, Viktor was someone to fear. She knew he bullied the other students in their class.

So she panicked, too quick to let fear take hold. She warded the boy off with her eyes and let her dread show plainly.

-Let's calm down first, shall we? I can tell you've had quite a fright.

-Ta-da. Here, dry your eyes with this.

-The flower's a gift.

Contrary to what she'd expected, though, the boy didn't treat Alice harshly or roughly. A gentle voice, a handkerchief offered with care, even a little balloon flower. He handled her like she was made of glass.

-Please don't be so wary of me.

-I'm very well-disposed toward you, Alice-yang.

The thorns she'd put up inside herself slowly folded flat. Her wariness dissolved without her noticing.

Alice barely managed to settle down. The boy didn't stop there.

-Would it be all right if I asked what you've lost?

-Don't worry, Alice-yang.

-Viktor and his friends will help you find it.

He even gathered people and they searched together until the necklace turned up.

-It's fine. I only helped because I wanted to.

-You did say we're classmates. We're connected now, somehow. How could I not help?

No matter how she tried to express her gratitude, he just waved it off. When Alice kept fretting over it, he tossed out a single line to ease the weight of it.

-Then how about this. Let's be close from now on.

Be close.

Such a long time since she'd last heard those words. Perhaps the first time in her life.

-The semester hasn't been going long, after all. I hadn't found anyone to get along with myself, so I was looking for someone to spend the term with.

-Well. Or do you not like me, Alice-yang?

Her difficult life had never allowed room for relationships with others. Alice herself had never resented it.

'Loner.'

She had accepted it as natural. Something she was fated to carry alongside her nightmares forever.

Other people's goodwill felt unfamiliar to her, sometimes even frightening.

But.

-See you tomorrow, Alice-yang.

The boy stepped right over that line without a second thought. Surely it had been an offhand gesture, meaning little to him. But that offhandedness left a ripple in Alice that wouldn't settle.

Goodwill directed at her.

Even after returning to the dormitory, the girl was still drifting in its wake.

"......"

Alice lay quietly on her bed, staring at the ceiling, but her mind was somewhere else entirely.

"His name was Viktor, wasn't it..."

Just.

Strangely, she couldn't stop thinking about him. Someone who had offered kindness so readily at their first meeting.

Frightening but kind. That was how she'd remember him.

"Hmm..."

The hour was getting late.

She hadn't meant for it to happen. Somewhere between waking and sleep, her ability activated on its own.

異形一夢, Dream Sight.

Looking into another person's world through the window of dreams.

'Even if it activates, there's no way it'd work on someone like him...'

The conditions shouldn't be met. Just because she felt warmth toward him didn't mean the feeling was mutual. She'd had neither the time nor the opportunity to earn his goodwill.

Normally, she shouldn't have been able to see anything.

And yet.

'...Huh?'

She could see.

The ability activated, and when her eyelids fell closed, an unfamiliar view appeared.

Two figures walking down a dark corridor, one with black hair, one with silver. Their backs turned to her.

The scene was somewhat blurry, but one of them was unmistakably Viktor. The unusual mask made him easy to identify.

'H-How is this happening? How am I sharing someone's sight...'

Confusion. Alice wavered, but even so she found herself peeking at the scene. It had already activated. She'd watch just a little.

The boy crossed the dark corridor with long, purposeful strides.

'Where is this... wait, warning signs?'

Sign after sign as they walked past. Only then did Alice realize she was looking at the underground dungeon called Purgatory.

'P-Purgatory? And floor 70? Wasn't it supposed to be off-limits? How did he get in? No, more importantly, I need to stop him...'

There were no faculty members with them. Beside the boy stood only a silver-haired girl who looked roughly the same age.

While Alice was still floundering, the boy flung open the door to the 70th floor.

Strides without the slightest hesitation.

"Oh...! No, stop...!"

He was going to die.

Someone was going to die.

Alice jolted upright in bed. Before she could even think, she was sprinting out of the dormitory.

'This is impossible... the master of that floor, that, that's something you can't survive...'

The master of that room was a dragon.

A dragon that radiated an overwhelming presence even reduced to undeath.

The warning signs flashed through her mind. The official raid party had failed multiple times. Over the academy's long history, countless members had lost their lives, faculty-level fighters swept away alongside everyone else.

'I have to tell someone! But, but who? The headmaster? Javert-unni? Or anyone...'

She had to get word out. Had to get help. That was all she could think as she scrambled toward the dormitory exit.

Then the vision flowing through her flashed white.

"Ugh...!"

Her brow creased. Roughly two minutes had passed since the boy entered the room.

When she saw what came next, Alice had no choice but to stop dead.

"......Huh?"

Gone.

Half the dragon.

"Wh, what, what, what...?!"

A single moment.

The boy snapped his fingers. The form was cleaved in two. The massive body shrank, dark liquid spreading in every direction. Without a single cry, the dragon was done.

"Wh-What...?"

What had she just seen.

Dead.

He'd killed it.

One gesture. The owner of the 70th floor, a dragon, split exactly in half. Like he'd been playing with it.

"......"

Something inside Alice rejected what was in front of her. Everything she understood was being refused.

The boy, regardless, went on calmly tending to the aftermath. A scene like this was nothing to him at all.

That was when things seemed to be winding down.

"......?"

Their eyes.

Met.

"......What?"

Not her imagination.

Through the blurry view, the eyes behind the mask.

Staring directly at her.

-Heh heh.

Laughing.

The mask was grinning, grotesque as ever.

Alice couldn't breathe. She felt certain the smile would tear apart any second, and hundreds of tentacles would come crawling out. That a writhing death would close around her throat.

"Hah, hah..."

She'd been seen.

And he was laughing at her. As if he had known she was watching all along.

The mask.

He grinned.

"Hk...!"

The vision snapped shut.

Alice had to gasp for air.

The murderous chill felt like it was still crawling up her spine.

Panic set in.

"My, my eyes met his...? How? This has never happened before..."

Her pale blue eyes trembled wildly.

A person who had split a dragon with a single gesture, a single glance.

Of course a monster like that could see right through her.

'I've been spotted.'

The boy had been hiding his strength.

But why? What was his reason?

Had he infiltrated the academy on purpose?

Why settle in as the top student of Class E?

Why raid Purgatory?

What was his goal in hiding his power?

Questions flooded through her, but none of that was what mattered to Alice right now.

"H-He noticed me...!"

Whatever his reasons, this was a suspicious person who had concealed his strength. She had learned his truth. And she'd been caught knowing it.

Before the vision cut off, she remembered the smile the mask had turned on her.

"Ah, aah..."

In a situation like this, there was only one thing that could follow.

She had learned too much. Alice was now marked by him.

"I'm, I'm going to die... I'll be killed, silenced before I can speak..."

Tears streaked down her cheeks.

The girl's face had drained of all color.

"Hic, what do I do..."

Her trembling didn't stop for a long time.

***

The next morning.

The faculty had also taken notice of what happened on floor 70.

An emergency had been called among the professors since early dawn.

"What? The 70th floor of Purgatory was cleared overnight? What kind of nonsense is that?"

An emergency meeting convened immediately. The professors sat with faces pale as sheets.

"Does this even make sense? Floor 70 of Purgatory was a sealed floor!"

"And it was cleared successfully... what on earth is going on?"

"How did someone even get into Purgatory? Were the guards asleep?"

The meeting room was in an uproar, everyone raising their voices at once.

"I find it impossible to accept. Even the official raid parties have failed time and again. Over this academy's long history, far too many members have lost their lives."

"And that's exactly why we made the decision twenty years ago. Seal the 70th floor."

"And yet... that same 70th floor was suddenly cleared in a single night?"

"What in the hell is going on..."

Floor 70 had stood unchallenged throughout the academy's history. The longer a staff member had worked there, the harder it was to swallow. They knew the floor's reputation all too well.

"Purgatory is the most heavily guarded area in the academy. It's difficult to believe anyone forced their way through the front. The head guard reported that last night there were no visitors, no intruders at all. Not even an ant crawled through the entrance, apparently."

"Then what? Are you saying there's some secret passage that leads into Purgatory?"

"Ridiculous. We've been conducting regular inspections out of exactly that concern, for the entire history of this academy. There is no secret passage leading to Purgatory."

"None of this adds up..."

Baffling beyond words.

Floor 70 had been cleared, yet no one had entered Purgatory. Not faculty, not anyone, all night long.

"I trust you've all reviewed the materials."

There was more.

A screen was provided to each of the faculty members.

"......"

What appeared on it was the wreckage of the 70th floor.

At its center, a massive chunk of flesh lay strewn across the ground.

The professors couldn't hold back their gasps.

"Good lord, the dragon is split in two..."

"Professor Rekan. Could you do something like this?"

"Me? You couldn't manage it even if you brought in the head of the Imperial Knights."

"Is it definitely a dragon?"

"Yes, the autopsy has been completed. Reduced to undeath as it was, a dragon is still a dragon. The cause of death is as you see on the screen. It appears to have been cleaved in half in a single strike. The other half has vanished without a trace."

"Lord above, good heavens..."

The faculty's eyes went cold.

A spine went stiff. Someone swallowed audibly.

"Which means..."

"There's someone at this academy right now. Someone who can breach heavy security and infiltrate Purgatory, and on top of that, cleave an undead dragon in half in a single strike. That kind of person might be hiding somewhere in this academy right now."

"......"

Spelled out plainly, the gravity of it hit differently.

While the faculty floundered, an old man with white hair finally spoke.

The headmaster, who had been watching in silence.

"For now... we will not be informing anyone outside. Until we understand the situation, all information regarding Purgatory is to be controlled."

"Yes, sir!"

"And... I ask that each of you conduct your own investigation. We need to identify whoever did this and determine whether they pose a danger to the academy. Not a single suspicious detail is to be overlooked."

"Understood!"

The faculty answered in sharp unison.

Among them, only one person's attention was elsewhere.

Chief Investigator Javert.

"......"

Through the fall of red hair, pale green eyes blinked in silence.

The woman said nothing, eyes fixed on the screen. Several times her gaze shifted between it and a profile she held in her hand, comparing the two.

An expression devoid of emotion.

Scratch, scratch.

Additional notes were written over the profile.

On the stiff file cover, a name was written.

[Viktor]

The boy who wore a mask.

Even as the faculty meeting concluded, Javert stared at it in silence.

***

A bright morning.

After last night's work, a day without a care in the world. The weather was clear and I was in a good mood for no particular reason.

'Got the dragon's scales, and the refining materials too...'

Things were going smoothly.

All that was left to wait for was the Freshmen Welcome Exam, now one day away. No lectures today, so I could lie back and rest. Just wait for tomorrow's schedule.

"......"

Right.

That was all I needed to do.

"Viktor-student."

"Yes, Professor Javert."

Or so I thought, before things turned out like this.

The red-haired woman had appeared around lunchtime. She sat in the chair across from me, eyes flat and mechanical, staring my way.

Green eyes with no warmth in them at all.

"I'll ask you directly."

"Go ahead."

"Was it you? Clearing the 70th floor of Purgatory."

"......Hm?"

I could only stare back, dumbfounded.

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