Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: A Stage Without Actors (1)
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I can say with absolute certainty that I harbor no grudges whatsoever against Arthur Usher.
The haughty attitudes of the young lords at Aegis Academy stem from their noble births—arrogant, acquired traits that aren't particularly unusual.
In short, even if young Master Arthur Usher glared at me with those sharp eyes of his, it wouldn't spark the slightest urge to kill him.
*Click.*
...Or so I thought.
But when Arthur Usher leveled the gun barrel at me, his eyes dark and sunken, my heart truly plummeted.
Was this really happening in a dream?
Had my worsening delusions crossed some line, now manifesting as an attempt at murder in reality rather than just sleep?
"Arthur Usher."
Shirley's hand—long and slender yet surprisingly firm—closed over my own trembling one.
"Stop it."
From the weight I felt, both rounds were loaded in the chamber.
Pulling the trigger would definitely fire them.
What was strange was the situation itself.
Me, trying to kill Arthur Usher—the academy's top swordsman and a Swordmaster no less—with a small self-defense pistol pointed at him.
"Shirley..."
She wedged herself bare-handed into this bizarre standoff, staring quietly at Arthur Usher.
His crisp uniform, different from the academy standard, looked impeccably neat despite the circumstances.
But those eyes. The near-pale gray irises held a chilling stillness that didn't feel human.
"Senior."
Shirley tapped the back of my hand twice while staring at Arthur, who hadn't budged from his spot.
It was the first time I'd seen her do this, but somehow I instinctively knew it meant *run*.
It felt like events from some entirely different world had merged into my own reality.
"No."
I shook my head, even at Shirley's secret signal.
No matter what, all of this had to happen by my hand.
I knew Arthur Usher's weakness, knew that this was the precise moment when even the mighty Swordmaster Arthur Usher was at his most vulnerable.
Shirley hadn't botched everything or sacrificed precious comrades more valuable than life through wrong choices.
I had.
*Bang!*
In the end, my bullet pierced Arthur Usher's heart.
Even then, he gazed down at his chest with an eerily impassive expression, devoid of energy.
Crimson blood trickled down his black uniform, the flame of life clearly flickering out.
"-Watch out!"
In that instant, before I could even lower the gun, Shirley shoved me aside.
I was hurled back from where I stood.
I might accidentally pull the trigger—my thoughts didn't even reach that far before I tumbled clumsily and came to a stop on the floor somewhere.
"Shir—"
The unfinished "Shirley" lingered on my lips.
A concussion brought on a fierce wave of dizziness.
I barely managed to push myself up, and there—
Ah, what a farce.
Shirley and Arthur Usher's souls were no longer in their bodies.
I approached Shirley, slumped with what could hardly be called armor clutched in her hands.
In the end, this was inevitable. We'd forced each other to mutual destruction.
Was this really a dream?
I decided to use the last bullet on myself.
*Bang!*
***
"Shirley...?"
Aftermath of the dream, or deepening delusion.
I opened my eyes, recalling the tragedy that had just unfolded.
A domed ceiling adorned with splendid frescoes came into view.
"Damn it..."
It felt like I'd been possessed by a demon.
*The chapel.*
Light streamed down from the ceiling in long shafts, fractured by the tall, geometric grille patterns.
The chapel's heavy air, the scent of incense ash, and a strange fishy odor permeated everywhere.
And... I lay sprawled on the altar at the front of the chapel, like some sacrificial offering in a secret rite.
*Theodore White, Judith Taylor, Shirley Spencer, and Arthur Usher.*
The names of the four people I'd killed in the dream (definitely not just a dream) flashed through my mind one by one.
Even trying to comprehend what was happening to me had become an exhausting ordeal.
I rubbed my face with both hands, hoping to shake off the sleep.
But feeling an unpleasant stickiness, I checked my palms—and nausea surged up.
"-Urk..."
If it wasn't an illusion, my palms were soaked in blood.
Even in the darkness lit only by moonlight, the blood gleamed unnaturally red, partially coagulated and tacky after some time since spurting.
My stomach churned, and a sharp pain throbbed near my chest, likely from the dream's aftershocks.
"This, this is..."
I frantically wiped my palms on my pants and sat up.
Had I really caused this mess?
There was no other way to explain this horrific scene.
Every exposed inch of skin, aside from my clothes, was splattered with blood.
*What did I use... to do this?*
Habitually, I checked the holster at my side, snapped open the pistol's cylinder, and confirmed the chamber and my ammo count.
As expected, academy classes never involved loading live rounds, so I should always have exactly two bullets.
Whether misfortune or fortune, the chamber was empty, and I still had two rounds.
Naturally, my pistol couldn't have painted the altar like this.
Not just the pooled blood, but the splatters arcing high up the walls clearly came from a long blade like a sword or axe, not a gun.
"No way."
I didn't even know how I'd ended up in this chapel in the first place.
I'd clearly fallen asleep in my room.
Rubbing my blood-soaked face only made the hardening crust pull my eyelids together.
That was when the chapel door creaked open.
*Creeeak.*
"Ah."
Perhaps I should have secured favorable evidence—or at least the bodies that had sprayed this blood before vanishing.
Right now, I looked every bit the murderer caught red-handed at the crime scene.
"Oh, oh no."
"Arma Cruise..."
*Damn it, of all people.*
The face was unfamiliar to me, but he clearly knew me.
Before I could stammer an excuse, the student who'd unluckily stumbled into the chapel at midnight screamed and fled.
No bodies, no murder weapon—my legs gave out, and I slid down against the blood-smeared altar.
*Tap, tap, tap.*
My head drooped lower with each receding footstep.
Why wouldn't this headache fade? What the hell was happening? I had no clue, and no strength left.
It was like I'd been drugged.
The more I tried to clear my foggy mind, the blurrier my vision grew, and the nausea I'd suppressed once welled up again, twice, three times.
*Creeeak.*
The chapel door, slammed shut amid screams, reopened shortly after.
I forced my heavy eyelids up.
My vision was hazy, unfocused, but one thing stood out in sharp clarity.
A black eyepatch over the right eye.
Theodore White.
"Theodore..."
"...What happened?"
"I don't know."
The altar faced the chapel's main entrance straight on, but it was quite a distance away.
Theodore could have easily ignored me in my dire straits and run, but he didn't.
"If you don't know, you probably should..."
"I really don't."
No one craved an explanation more than I did right now.
Theodore's crisp shoe clicks soon turned to sticky squelches as he stepped into the mess.
Yet he didn't stop.
"Did you do this, Arma Cruise?"
"You're talking to your senior like... No, forget it. Hoo..."
I wondered if Theodore White had always been this insolent, but this wasn't the time.
I was nearly prone, strength draining from my entire body in real time.
"Just go."
It was almost resignation.
Truth be told, I had no long excuse to offer Theodore anyway.
But he approached step by careful step, scanning the surroundings.
Moonlight through the stained glass offered no help in the dim interior, yet his sharp eyes seemed to perceive a different scene entirely.
Just before my eyes fully closed, as I began to collapse onto the floor back-first, Theodore grabbed me and asked something.
"The bodies?"
"No idea..."
"The weapon?"
"It wasn't me."
"Yes, so where's the weapon?"
"I don't know... It wasn't my pistol."
No sooner had I spoken than Theodore rummaged through my pockets.
Moments later, he checked the pistol I'd inspected myself earlier in the exact same way, holstered it, and dragged my limp form to properly lean against the altar.
*This guy has no fear... Or is he just a massive weirdo?*
Mages were anciently eccentric.
Theodore White, a black mage standout among them, made it a very plausible guess.
Wielding supernatural forces far beyond natural laws might excuse it, but strolling into a murder scene with such a pristine appearance wasn't sane.
"Am I strange?"
"...A little."
"Muscle relaxation, loss of pupillary reflex, agitation mixed with drowsiness, partial spasms... Based on the estimated time of the incident and your current vital signs, Arma Cruise, you're in no state to have committed this."
A intellect that shone in crisis.
I didn't understand most of it, though.
As expected of the academy's black magic specialist, deemed closest to death itself—his reality sense was clearly somewhat numbed.
"Sword, or maybe an axe."
He'd undergone the same or more rigorous training as me, so his deductions wouldn't differ much, but I shared mine anyway.
Theodore nodded and added,
"Or farm tools like a scythe or pickaxe."
"Yeah, right..."
"Don't sleep."
"I think I've been drugged or something..."
"Yes, don't sleep."
Our conversation hadn't meshed properly for a while now.
Whether my judgment was clouded by the drug as I'd guessed, or due to Theodore's cryptic speech—I couldn't nitpick in my less-than-peak condition.
"You idiot, don't you know about preserving the scene..."
And that wasn't all. The prime suspect sat right beside Theodore.
Yet he diligently paced the crime scene, searching for the obviously missing bodies and weapon.
*What a weirdo.*
It went beyond blind faith into spine-chilling self-assurance.
I subconsciously realized this young lord would be a nightmare if he became an enemy—an utter fanatic.
Finally abandoning the search, Theodore returned and asked,
"Any enemies who might hold a grudge?"
"I don't think so... Probably..."
Even last summer, when scandals blazed around me against my will, I hadn't made any students bear a grudge.
Most involved were single or mature ladies who laughed off the rumors with me.
"These two rounds are all your ammo?"
"No gunshot wounds..."
"But you'll be the first suspected at the scene, Arma Cruise."
"You're in the same boat now."
Theodore nodded faintly at my reply.
In that moment, overwhelming sleepiness swallowed me again, but he clapped loudly in front of my face, snapping me awake for the time being.
He seemed to ponder in silence, then spoke.
"It seems we've both fallen into a trap, Arma Cruise."