It wouldn’t do much good, but I carefully checked my house again and then lay down on the bed.
The chilling sight I had just seen kept flashing in front of my eyes. It was the strangest thing I had ever encountered.
Sleep just wouldn’t co.
‘How can this be real?’
When I had talked to the Student Council President, I had been arrogant.
I don’t think I fully believed the villagers weren’t human.
In an age where science has advanced so much, who would believe in ghosts? I wasn’t so child shivering with fear reading ghost stories.
That’s why I thought I could escape the village unhard. How arrogant of .
But facing the bizarre Lady Lanatte made all my confidence evaporate, leaving behind only shock and worry.
‘The villagers were really ghosts.’
Disturbed, I tossed and turned on the bed for a while, then finally got up and sat at the desk.
Since I couldn’t sleep, I figured I might as well make a rough plan for what I needed to do next.
I grabbed a pen and scribbled in my notebook.
How can I et Raven?
= I can take the transfer exam for Saint Gloria Private School and get into the school, then I might be able to et Raven there.
Right, the transfer exam.
For now, this was the only option I had.
This damn school was a closed-off place that wouldn’t easily open its doors, even if the parents were # Nоvеlight # nobles.
Students weren’t allowed to leave until graduation unless they were the top or second-best in their class or had special scores.
Plus, Raven hadn’t replied to any of my letters since enrolling. So, there was no real way for us to communicate.
In the end, I had to go into the school myself.
Once I wrote down the things I needed to do, another question arose.
What about the Student Council President, who has the mysterious ability to turn back ti?
He didn’t make a deal with a demon, did he?
I couldn’t be sure he was human. The Student Council President could have been a ghost too.
It really felt like I was haunted by a ghost. What if the shock of losing Raven and the return to the past was all just a long dream?
...But now wasn’t the ti for such thoughts.
‘Right now, I need to focus on escaping this place.’
I had to leave Chesswind tomorrow, no matter what.
The ti I had was only tomorrow morning, during the village’s nap ti.
The villagers would all be asleep then. That was when the "unseen" forces of the villagers would be weaker.
Before that ti, I needed to act like usual. I couldn’t let them know I was planning to escape the village.
I cald my trembling hands and organized my thoughts.
‘It’s fine. I’ll survive. I can’t break down from sothing like this.’
My strengths are my ntal toughness and quick thinking. I’m fairly sharp, so I can find my way through this situation.
I can do it, lody.
The next day.
As soon as I opened my eyes, a terrible stench greeted .
I pinched my nose and searched for the source. It was the strawberry pie on the kitchen table.
To be precise, it wasn’t a strawberry pie. It was a pie soaked in blood. That horrible shape contained sothing unidentifiable.
I couldn’t bring myself to examine it further, so I threw the whole plate into the trash outside in the garden.
I didn’t even want to think about what the pie really was.
Turning my back on the trash, I went into my room to pack. It was then that I noticed sothing strange in the mirror hanging on the wall.
‘Huh? A star-shaped mark under my eyes?’
A star-shaped tear mark had appeared under my eyes.
‘What’s this? It doesn’t seem like a stain. Why did this suddenly appear?’
Then, I rembered what the Student Council President had said.
“If you go back a year, you’ll get a mark, Miss Hastings. That mark will give you ‘eyes to see things others can’t.’”
“What’s this mark? And what are the things others can’t see?”
“It’s a mark that shows you made a deal with . As for the things others can’t see... You’ll understand once you see them yourself.”
Is this star-shaped mark the mark he ntioned?
What are the things I can see that others can’t? I still didn’t fully understand what he ant.
But I didn’t have ti to think about this subject right now.
I decided to put off thinking about the tear mark and grabbed my packed bag and the can of red paint, heading out the door.
‘It’s from one o'clock, when the villagers will be napping. I just have to hold out until then.’
I recalled the instructions the Student Council President had given as I walked toward Lady Lanatte’s mansion.
“When you go to the mansion, mark an X in red paint on the front gate. They can’t read the red writing that you, Miss Hastings, write.”
“Why an X?”
“No questions. Ghost stories are beyond the comprehension of the human mind.”
He had said that ghost stories couldn’t be understood by human minds.
‘How can sothing like this not be understood?’
There must be a reason why he told to do this.
With that thought, I placed the can of paint in front of Lady Lanatte’s mansion wall.
After scanning the area to make sure no one was around, I quickly marked an X on the front gate.
Then I hid the paint can among the bushes, opened the gate, and hid the bag in the bushes beside the gate.
“lody, good morning.”
“lody’s here!”
“How are you today, lody?”
As soon as I entered the mansion, the servants who had arrived before greeted .
This was it.
I smiled as naturally as I could and answered.
“Good morning.”
The mont I replied, the servants froze in place.
Then they all simultaneously turned to look at . Their eyes t mine, and there was no expression on their faces—yet that made it even more terrifying.
I didn’t understand why they reacted like that after just greeting them.
Did I do sothing wrong?
Then the servants all tilted their heads to the right at the sa ti.
‘C-Couldn’t they be...?’
They swayed back and forth like rusty hinges about to fall off, before they turned around and walked backward toward in a creepy manner.
I couldn’t help but step back, startled by their strange behavior.
"Ji-gat-dieo-neun-di-ro-l."
"De-neun-na-ga-se-naem."
It sounded like they were calling my na, but it was hard to understand since they were speaking backward.
"Humans feel fear when they are powerless. Ghost stories belong to the unknown realm. That’s why people are afraid of ghost stories. But the truth is, it’s not like that, lody. There is no problem in this world that can’t be solved. Always rember that."
I closed my eyes tightly and then opened them again, recalling the Student Council President’s advice.
Now, it was certain that the ones moving before were not humans.
Now that I had confird the truth, I needed to tell them I would be stepping out for a while.
"I’m going to et my younger brother at the school. It’s vacation, so I’ll be leaving the village for a bit."
"Oh, it’s lody, is it?"
"Has the ti really co already?"
"Say hi to Raven for us. We’ve never seen his face, but..."
The servants laughed brightly, responding to my words.
It was hard to believe they were the sa people who had approached with eerie expressions just monts ago.
‘I’ve told three of them. I just need to tell two more.’
The Student Council President had said I needed to inform more than five villagers that I would be stepping out.
“Where’s Lady Lanatte?”
Honestly, I didn’t want to et her. The woman I had encountered last night was too frightening.
"Na-gu-wat-di-ro-l."
Just then, a chilling voice called out to . I spun around in shock.
There, Lady Lanatte was staring at , her face inches from mine.
She was smiling with her eyes wide open, her mouth stretched into a sinister grin, and she stared at .
I had to stay calm.
I still hadn’t finished telling them I was leaving.
"I’m going to et my younger brother at the school. It’s vacation, so I’ll be leaving the village for a bit."
Lady Lanatte’s expression changed in an instant.
The eerie look disappeared, and her face softened with a bright smile.
"Really? Well, Raven hasn’t co to the village even once. Of course, if soone wants to see him, they should go."
Lady Lanatte shook her head as if resigned to it.
Then she patted my head.
"You’ve been through a lot. You’re still just a little child who needs protection."
For a mont, I felt a lump in my throat. It was the first ti I had ever heard such words.
I couldn’t understand why I was hearing them at this mont.
I couldn’t say anything for a while. Lady Lanatte held tightly in her arms.
Then, a mont later,
"lody."
Lady Lanatte whispered in my ear while still holding .
"Do you still want to run away?"
I froze. She gripped my collar tightly.
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