Chapter 44
A translucent shadow stretched out long on the gymnasium floor, like hair.
There were puddles of blood here and there on the floor, though it was unclear whose blood it was.
The entity didn’t run away. It was as if it wanted us to come and try to take its ball.
[That thing… What is it doing?]
Senior Noah questioned. I spoke as I ran up the stairs of the spectator seats.
“The ball seems to be the medium. Doesn’t it look like it wants to play?”
[You’re not even surprised anymore, so calm.]
“It’s survival instinct.”
More accurately, it’s the power of love. The power of my love to protect Raven.
[Let’s skip the details. We should make a plan first.]
“Do you have something in mind?”
[Since it’s defending itself like a translucent shadow, we should first try to lure it into revealing its true form.]
Although he was in a cat’s body, it was reassuring to have Senior Noah with me.
After all, Noah was rarely flustered by anything.
If there was a problem, it was that I couldn’t read his mind, but at least he wasn’t the type to backstab me, and he generally seemed to know everything.
“I have a plan in mind too.”
Senior Noah, hearing my proposed plan, smirked in his cat form.
“Wow. What’s with that sneer, senior?”
[It’s cute. Well. That method might work too. Let’s add this to it…]
Senior Noah mocked me by calling me cute, then added to my plan.
The senior could be annoying sometimes, but he was definitely reliable enough to make an unconditional ally.
Thump— Thump—
Then, the sound of the bouncing ball is heard again.
[Move, Melody.]
“Don’t order me around. I was going to.”
I replied without taking my eyes off the ball. I could feel the cat’s gaze on my profile, but I ignored it.
I was almost upon it. I was close enough to touch it.
As I reached out towards the ball bouncing on the floor, the translucent shadow raised its head.
It had no eyes, but I felt as if our eyes had met.
It grinned.
As I said, the entity looked like a translucent shadow, so its features weren’t visible, but somehow I felt like I could see its expression.
At that moment when I flinched at the eerie feeling.
The entity took the ball and bolted.
“……?!”
I almost fell over.
[Be careful, Melody!]
I couldn’t fall even if I wanted to because of the cat standing on two legs trying to support me from below.
As if that cotton ball could support anyone…!
[Focus.]
Senior Noah quickly followed the entity down the stairs. Tap-tap-tap-tap- The sound of the cat’s jelly paw pads echoed.
I soon followed the black cat student council president down the stairs. The entity went down to the multi-purpose hall of the gymnasium.
Unfortunately, my physical strength was garbage.
[If I weren’t in a cat’s body, I could have easily dealt with it.]
“The problem is that if it were your original body, you wouldn’t be able to see it, right?”
[Sometimes, pretending not to know the truth and empathizing with the other person’s feelings can help develop social skills, Melody.]
“Social skills won’t solve this problem right now, will they?”
[The perfect score transfer exam taker seems to think differently from the start. Impressive.]
“You’re impressive too, senior. You’re the top student, after all.”
[You never back down.]
“…Huh? Were we fighting?”
I asked because I really didn’t know, and Senior Noah looked at me with a bewildered face.
He looked at me as if I was hopeless, then burst into laughter.
[Never mind. Just focus on that.]
Senior Noah shook his head and turned his gaze. I also focused back on the gymnasium spirit.
Since the senior was in a cat’s body, I had to play the most important role.
‘I have a heavy responsibility.’
It would be nice if Easton could help, but being a doorkeeper was an important role in its own right, so I’ll have to do as much as I can on my own.
………..
…….
….
Huff. Huff.
I shouldn’t have said I’d do it. I should have been the doorkeeper instead…!
Even if I’m the only one who can eliminate evil spirits, this is just too hard!
Thump-thump-thump-thump—
The translucent shadow was bouncing the ball quickly and running around the hall as if mocking me.
I wanted to sit down, but I couldn’t.
I had to humor it as much as possible so it wouldn’t run away and stay here, giving me a chance to snatch the ball.
Huff.
But this is too hard even so.
I scanned the surroundings just enough so the entity wouldn’t notice. Senior Noah was nowhere to be seen.
Of course, I knew where he had disappeared to. He had his own job to do in my place.
Splash. The floor was somehow flooded with water.
Senior Noah, in his cat form, had struggled to turn on all the faucets in the gymnasium’s inner sink area and was letting water flow onto the floor.
Bang— Splash!
The entity bouncing the ball seemed to sense something was off and tilted its head.
Of course, I did my best to try and snatch its ball so it wouldn’t think of anything else.
And after quite some time passed, so much water had pooled on the floor that the ball could no longer bounce.
Plop—
The ball didn’t bounce and settled in the water.
Seeing this, the evil spirit seemed to get very angry, and the translucent shadow was becoming clearer.
‘W-what is this.’
An enormous amount of hair was filling the water-covered gymnasium floor.
It belonged to the gymnasium spirit. Its true form was revealing itself.
[Melody. You need to move.]
Senior Noah snapped me out of my daze. I came to my senses and moved.
The gymnasium floor was completely covered with the entity’s hair. The problem was that if you touched the hair, it would react.
If you stepped on the hair, it would react and immediately try to wrap around your feet.
So I had to move by stepping on the bare floor while avoiding the hair, but at that speed, it was difficult to catch up with the entity.
It was an even bigger problem because my stamina was already poor.
This is bad. I didn’t think of this.
After running around continuously, I was now on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion.
Creak—
At that moment, there was a sound of a door opening from the direction of the gymnasium shower room.
Puzzled, I turned my head to see a familiar face of a male student coming out from there.
The male student walking towards the multi-purpose hall with sleepy eyes was definitely Dante Abe Wellington.
He soon saw me running around in the hall and looked surprised.
“Why are you here…”
I was curious too. Why on earth was Dante here at this hour?
Splash. Splash.
He naturally turned his head at the sound of the ball bouncing on the water. He opened his eyes wide with an astonished face.
Can he see it?!
No, that’s not it. Anyone would react like that seeing a ball bouncing happily on its own.
‘Wait, come to think of it…’
I remembered that Dante was a sports specialist student.
“You need to snatch the ball without stepping on the hair!”
At my shout, Dante moved almost reflexively. He seemed to react to the word ‘ball.’
Like a trained sports machine.
He ran quickly. My warning about not stepping on the hair seemed to register as he moved his feet swiftly, avoiding the hair strands at an incredible speed.
Dante quickly reached the evil spirit and stretched out his hand towards the ball. The spirit, seemingly excited, bounced the ball and avoided Dante’s grasp.
Dante immediately twisted his body in a different angle and reached for the ball again.
For a while, a back-and-forth of snatching and avoiding continued.
You could feel how excited the evil spirit was even without seeing its expression.
Splash-splash-splash—
But amazingly, Dante continued to chase the ball and run around without tiring at all. It was incredible stamina and agility.
The evil spirit seemed a bit flustered that Dante wasn’t losing his energy when it should have been time for his tension to drop.
For a very brief moment, its speed slowed down.
Seizing that fleeting moment, Dante immediately snatched the ball.
“Aaaaargh—!”
🐈⬛
Thank you for reading! ♡
