No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 44

From now on, even if I keep getting beaten up, I’ll have to barely endure it by selling the honor of this moment! As I was thinking like the Little Match Girl, the principal approached me with big strides and yelled.

“Cassice, you bastard! Who told you to use a martial art that wasn’t even ordered?”

“Is it a problem?”

There was a lot to say about this. Most of my skills are active, but there are many friends in the world who have passive abilities. Wouldn’t they have a huge advantage when fighting with a stick, right? And the restrictions were only not to use energy on weapons and not to use magic, but I only concentrated Cheon Seogong on my eyes and sparred only with basic weapons……

“It’s not a problem. I wasn’t going to scold you in the first place! This bastard has a dirty personality and mind. Make it so he can’t say a word.”

The principal, who grumbled extremely long despite saying he would make me unable to say a word, eventually pulled my collar.

It was the judgment.

“The winner is, Cassice Demillang!”

Yeah……

This feels freaking good.

From that moment, as if they had been waiting, a shower of applause began. Someone even whistled, and a few people were alternately looking at us as if they were truly shocked. I gently shook off the principal who raised my arm and saluted them aristocratically and coolly.

With blood magic, I just stood still and squeezed out blood, and it moved on its own, but Cheon Seogong required moving muscles, so it was quite tiring. I wondered how long it had been since I ran so passionately.

“Your head has become refreshed.”

At that moment, someone placed a hand on top of my head. It was a grip with bones felt under rotten leather. Oh my gosh. A sandbag has walked in on its own to help me maintain the concept of Cassice Demillang, who has a strong obsession with cleanliness.

I took out a handkerchief, gently pushed away the bony fingers, and smiled neatly.

“Would it be as refreshing as the principal’s head?”

Then the bald zombie started rampaging. He was yelling something like that wasn’t what he meant, and it was to congratulate me on gaining a flexible way of thinking, but regardless, I decided to be immersed in gratitude.

Ah, it’s truly a damn good day……

But strangely, that night felt a little different from the day. Ryuseong fed me gruel, made me take the antidote, and covered me with a blanket, and while I leisurely fell asleep, I had a dream.

The contents of that dream……

‘It’s not erotic. Seriously not.’

……I’ll leave it to your judgment as to why the sentences don’t feel credible.

‘But it’s really not. It’s not……!’

Anyway, in my dream, I was standing in a strange place.

This place was a truly strange place in my opinion. Because everything in sight was bright red.

The ground was red and the sky was red. Heaven and earth were crimson. Red (赤) overflowed.

The sunset was fading.

And I was looking at a world made of redness.

Why am I looking at this? I wanted to turn my head, but my neck wouldn’t move. Around that time, I realized this was a dream. No matter how much I focused my eyes, I couldn’t see in any other direction. As if the dream didn’t allow movement, I was fixed in the original state.

But if it’s a lucid dream, I should be able to move my body, but there’s nothing that matches the characteristics of a lucid dream, is there?

Still, if I had to fix my gaze idly anyway, I wanted to change the scenery. This place was too red and everything was dazzling. No, rather than dazzling, it felt like the saturation of red was intensely engraving into my mind because only black and white were left in the world. It was almost to the point of hurting my eyes.

The few blacks were collapsed rafters. Soot and heavy smoke. Was there a fire? Every time I breathed, it felt like I stuck my nose in a pile of ashes. So was that why everything looked bright red? Something wriggled under the shattered blue tiles. I thought I shouldn’t put my gaze on it, but my body in the dream naturally shifted its gaze.

There was a person there. A person.

―Is it really a person?

At that moment, the glass in my head shattered. The ignorance that kept the scenery and me apart was broken. I didn’t want to immerse myself, but I understood everything, and I was trapped without being able to turn my gaze, so I couldn’t even vomit.

The nightmare grabbed my gaze. It pulled and nailed it down. Nailing a person was a clear torture, so like a person hanging on a cross and dying, I had to fully feel the blood cooling down from the ends of my limbs.

What I witnessed under the blue tiles was a person.

A person.

It was, once.

The being that had been defined as a human in the past was now defined as a corpse thanks to the long-standing tradition of morticians.

But on a battlefield with no living, the only morticians were pitch-black crows, so it was a lump of meat to be eaten by their beaks.

But it was alive.

No, it looked like it was alive. Because the ragged, torn mass of guts swaying in the wind reminded me of a child waving their hand.

Now I know that when an adult is cut in half, they become the same height as a child.

The smell of burning was pungent like when dalgona is overcooked.

The loosely swaying muscle fibers and nerve bundles couldn’t chase away the crows, so they couldn’t avoid being treated as a lump of meat by mere creatures.

So while looking at it, I thought, was it a person? In other words, being treated like that.

Is it really a person? And.

‘I thought, fuck.’

Blood. Mud. Full of filth.

A trash can. Not even as good as a sewer.

Creepy and disgusting.

‘Think of something else, you bastard. Don’t immerse yourself in a mere nightmare….’

Death was rampant. It spun around the stage in a mess like a ballerina, swinging an axe recklessly. If it’s an axe’s destiny to go up and fall down, was gravity designed to cut off legs? Blood drops flew and scattered, and screams ate themselves. When pain exceeds the limit, people can’t even scream, so crows cried instead. No, they laughed. The morticians invited to the banquet lowered their heads that they had raised like gentlemen while grooming their shiny black fur coats with their beaks.

And slowly pecked at the meat with their beaks.

It was innocent. They were. Because they were crows. Because they could do that. But I couldn’t do that. However, the unfolded death was endlessly innocent. Without being able to take my eyes off it.

‘What kind of fucking dream is this?’

The reason everything in front of my eyes was completely red was because everything was soaked in blood?

Then the mannequin-like things sprawled out to the horizon. Were they all alive? Once crying, complaining, smiling, and loving each other. That they were really people…?

‘Fuck, please, let me wake up from this dream.’

Even when I tried to wiggle my fingers to quickly wake up, nothing moved. Wow, fuck. This is the most cruel sleep paralysis I’ve ever experienced in my life, do I need to perform an exorcism? Lord God, Buddha, Allah. Gods of all mythologies, please save me. Ah. But there was a separate creator god here, I think.

I prayed while calling upon all kinds of gods, but my fingers didn’t move at all.

Rather, something else moved.

Squelch.

The sound of footsteps.

As if someone stepped in a puddle of blood.

Squelch, squelch.

The sound of approaching. Getting closer and closer. Getting louder and louder. Is it fast? It’s not. But.

Squelch-squelch-squelch-squelch.

The speed gradually increases. Getting faster and faster, getting closer and closer, my heart now beats heavily as if it’s about to burst. I didn’t turn around, but I can tell. Something is trying to grab me. And finally, at this most unwanted moment, my head that was stiff like a stone statue tries to turn. No, please. No matter what it is, I don’t want to see it. Don’t suddenly show me a ghost. I hate jump scares. And without my knowledge, unknowingly, the facial muscles move and everything-.

Crack, snap.

“-Ah.”

Everything changed. The vision was pitch-black and snow-white, but there was nothing rolling around like a mannequin. And it was dazzling. I could feel my eyelids trembling and moving. So can I move? I slowly raised my hand and covered my eyelids. It moved.

A sigh-like breath was exhaled.

I opened my eyes diagonally next to my grip. It was the same morning as yesterday. Sunlight was shining outside the window, and the mild sunlight was softly golden. The sky is sky blue. The second hand of the clock is moving regularly to the beat. There’s no crimson anywhere, and we’re falling. Next to me, Ryuseong’s breathing was rough as if pressed down, wrapped in a cozy blanket. So there’s really nothing that could be a problem.

Nothing……

‘Fuck, what kind of dream is this?’

Is this some kind of misfortune prevention? This won’t do. I need to find Shin Myohan. Since I had this dream, I felt like I needed to get a firm judgment that only good things will happen in the future. If not even that, it felt like it would ruin my mood too much. I know for sure I had sleep paralysis, but did my body become weak?

Well, it must have been weak. Since I had a match not long after being poisoned. So is this saying that a ghost took advantage of that gap and attacked me?

‘It’s fucking terrible, really….’

It would have been better if I had dreamed of being attacked by a ghost. I like the life of a ruined protagonist, but I’m not the kind of bastard who gets excited by snuff films. The disgusting scenes that were engraved in my mind were so vivid that I was angry enough to endure it.

Should I do some good deeds for fuck’s sake? If I pray that this kind of thing never happens to me again, huh? If they ignore that sincerity, they’re not even gods, fuck. I couldn’t just brush it off as if nothing happened because cold sweat was falling like rain all over my body.

So I did a good deed.

“Hey, hey, are you crazy.”

“What. Your sanity?”

When I committed the good deed and was about to go to class, the students seemed to no longer have the mental capacity to even give way to Cassice Demillang. Logan, who came to greet me in front of the room, seemed dissatisfied with that, but I stopped him.

At times like this, if one person cries out, everyone will know.

What I had done!

“The, the, an, answer key is out……!”