Obligatory Visit

I, Hoshoujo Yuna, am the sole successor of the many properties my parents own.

They've told me that they will retire one day and that I am already capable of handling everything myself.

They believe that even at this young age of mine, I already have the rationality to become the new leader of their companies and that they will leave the rest to me.

However, out of everything, they couldn't let me choose a lover on my own. I wanted to choose a partner on my own, yet that won't let me.

Just as I thought that everyone had wanted that, my grandfather believed that it was wise to let me choose my love regardless.

Of course, my parents were against that they thought that I will find someone incapable and fall in love with his other redeeming qualities other than intelligence, which they didn't want.

They'd choose an intelligent and rude man rather than someone who will take care of me.

It's an idiotic idea.

So, my grandfather suggested that he made a school that would gather all the intelligent students in the country.

Be it, anyone, they can study in this school and become the best as they can be while showing themselves.

It was the best way to convince my parents to let me decide, as long as it was not the boy that I had meddled with before.

However, unknown to them, my grandfather had made it known to Najimi Kai that by sending an invitation to all students that were smarter than the average populace where an exam will determine their place in the school.

That school would be then built around the same library that the school only initially was, expanding throughout into a whole campus.

It was where we played before, and now it became another field for us to play our feelings.

Perhaps it was unethical, but this was necessary to bring back the old Najimi Kai.

To bring back the once happy and intelligent young boy that I loved.

I must not let this place crumble.

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Takeru: [Mistress, we've arrived.]

Hoshoujo: [About time. Don't tell my parents that I'll be visiting my grandfather. They dislike the idea of me being influenced by a real wise man.]

Takeru: [As you wish, Mistress.]

I arrived at the gates and with only a step away from the car, the guards opened the gate as my bodyguards followed.

I had four that were walking in all four points of direction, actively looking out.

My grandfather's office is just near so there was no need for them to follow me.

Hoshoujo: [You can wait here. I need to talk to my grandfather privately.]

I raised my hand before stopping them, letting them wait on the first floor.

Bodyguard: [B-But Mistress, if something happens to you——!]

Hoshoujo: [Nothing will happen. Now shut up before you raise too many flags.]

My parents won't even let my bodyguards take a rest even whenever I'm sleeping.

They worry too much. I'm not some gold you're supposed to value and protect.

I'm just human.

Hoshoujo: [...]

I went upstairs to the third floor, but to my surprise, my grandfather was already talking to someone.

As usual, he's wearing a large brown coat that fitted his tall and bulky height but I can't see who is he talking to.

He has his back facing me and his head seems to be lower a bit too, making me think that it should be someone my height.

Just who could it be at this time?

Hoshoujo: [———!!]

I tried to move and step forward, but as I did, the floor began to fall and crumble.

I was falling, and at that short moment, I knew, that I was going to die.

So, I closed my eyes.

If this is what my decisions led me to, then I'm sorry. It seems like I was incapable all along.

???: [Everyone's making me work so goddamn hard!]

Hoshoujo: [———?!?]

I opened my eyes, but as I saw everything once again, I was being carried by a young man.

The whole building was in ruins except for the other buildings.

It all happened too fast that I couldn't comprehend everything.

But I don't need to. I just need to accept everything.

???: [Y-Yuna! I told you to stay out of the academy!]

I was let down by the mysterious figure that saved me, letting me greet my grandfather who ran towards me with his arms open.

Eliot Hoshoujo, my grandfather, the dean of this academy.

He hugged me tightly before letting go, seeing as how my grandfather trembled at the sight of me falling.

I was trembling as well now that I've slowly begun to process what just happened. That I've almost fallen to my death, and that someone was able to save me.

I looked back at that young man but, it was an unusual occurrence.

His head was covered by a black fuzzy haze that I can't seem to see through.

In the first place, he was able to save me on the third floor, and land without even having a single injury.

Although the office was on the third floor, the height of each floor was by no means small.

Hoshoujo: [Grandfather... do you know who he is?]

I looked at my grandfather before pointing to the man from earlier, but as I did.

Eliot: [Who? There's no one here other than me.]

Hoshoujo: [——?!]

That's impossible! He was only a few meters away from us earlier! How could he not notice?!

Unless... this is something supernatural.

Thinking about it makes me shiver. I can't deal with anything that is too far beyond the logic of being smart.

Hoshoujo: [Anyways! Why did your office collapse?! Didn't you tell me that it always happens the next day at the same time?!]

Eliot: [Y-Yes but——Ah!]

Suddenly, grandfather seemed to have remembered something, and began to point in the direction where the library was.

Eliot: [T-There was a student who managed to get inside the academy. He asked me what my name was and rushed towards the Library!]

Hoshoujo: [——?!]

Suddenly, a flash of a previous recent memory would come back to me.

It was before when I was with Mendou and told him about the Academy collapsing.

He was running in the direction of the school and seeing how one student would be dumb yet skilled enough to enter this school, there would be no other student than him.

Hoshoujo: [——Mendou!]

That idiot of a servant!

Eliot: [——No! You're not going anywhere!]

Just as I tried to run, grandfather stopped me by tugging my wrist back.

Eliot: [It's too dangerous!]

I knew it was, but my body moved on its own.

Just as I looked back, Takeru and the bodyguards that I left seemed fine as they rushed to my side.

I wouldn't be able to know if it was truly Mendou who rushed to the library.

What would that person do in the library anyways?

Hoshoujo: [Tch...]

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Mendou: [Eliot Hoshoujo, 60 years old! Black hair and medium-sized figure!]

I ran and ran around the library like a maniac, searching for something.

I was riddled with sweat and I have been looking for it since I talked with the dean.

I remember it as clear as day that he said that his premonitions began to happen when he wrote a book, a story.

He said that he had written everything that could go wrong in a single book, but without details, he listen to the things he feared would happen.

It was a book of fears.

Mendou: [Little did they know that fear empowers the nightmares! That's why the whole school would collapse! That book should have writing where it says the school would collapse!]

I was searching high and low for that book. Every shelf and every table that the book could be sitting in.

I found the photo album of Hoshoujo and Najimi once again, taking it with me for safekeeping.

Mendou: [Gah! Where the heck is it?!]

I still can't find it, it should be somewhere here as he said that he left it here!

Mendou: [Screw it. Let's just cheat!]

Putting my hands together, I began to chant.

Mendou: [If you won't show yourself...]

The ground beneath would just begin to glow as a faint symbol appears. It's a magic circle that is unique to a magician, and until it rotates until it finally phases into its true form, the magic will then activate.

But for me, I can skip that phase.

Mendou: [Then I'll let you come to me.]

Mendou: [Apport.]

A light shockwave traveled from my feet to the surroundings.

Like a ripple in space, the first shockwave reached to the back, and as it hit something, the ripple would then come back, pinpointing the book that I was searching for.

Mendou: [Found you.]

However, just as I was about to dash to take it, three black fuzz-like beings materialized from the ground, stopping me from proceeding further.

Mendou: [——Nightmares!]

They looked like it, but rather, their form was ethereal and uniform, unlike the nightmares that have only a silhouette where you cannot distinguish its exact inner details.

They were different, they has details and they looked like they were people whose features were censored instead.

Mendou: [Heck! You're making me damn work hard here!]

???: [That's my line...]

Mendou: [——?!]

Suddenly, I heard my voice from the figure whose face was covered by that black fuzz.

And to my surprise, its body was the same as mine, only that its face was nothing more than an empty and redacted version.

Nightmare Mendou: [Tell me. Why am I feared?]

It was my own voice that echoed like an unwinding and broken music box.