The teachers’ common room at the main building was empty that morning, except for the only teacher entering the room. A short, ashy green-haired teacher who had a few bandages on his arms.

“I don’t believe I still have to work,” Mine grumbled, placing his bag on the nearest chair.

His back was much better than the previous days but carrying his bag around the campus triggered a faint numbness on his most affected shoulder. He sat on the couch and sighed, not ready for the workday to start.

Mine opened his bag and picked up book by book, placing them on the table. Fortunately, no books were lost in the train incident and his precious gem – a book about Angelic energy and Pure Mana – was in perfect state… However – and again – he wasn’t ready to start his morning work.

“I don’t want to work…” Mine grumbled, turning the book’s first page.

Mine only had classes in the afternoon, so, he had a long time to prepare for the upcoming more complex classes about Heavenly Spells used in exorcisms. Also, he didn’t need to socialize that morning with anyone. Every teacher was busy with their own classes, so he had the whole teachers’ common room to himself until lunch.

Even while reading his favorite book, Mine’s mind wandered now and then. Sometimes it went blank, a wave of sleep trying to pull him away from his work, and other times it drifted back to his now-empty home. He caught himself missing Umbra’s purring and kneading, as well as Addai’s pestering and bickering. Mine hadn’t realized how deeply he was living in silence and loneliness.

Remembering the last time he changed the bed sheets brought a strange, comforting warmth. Umbra’s fur drifted through the air, and the faint trace of Addai’s musky perfume still lingered. A smile — a silly one — curved on his lips, and the tips of his hair flushed a soft pink as he read a couple of boring pages.

Soon, it felt like Addai’s scent and warmth were wrapping around him, just as it had during those feverish, delirious nights.

Reality and memory blurred in Mine’s mind. Slowly, his senses dulled, and his head sank onto the open book, a faint, peaceful snore slipping from his parted lips. Sleep and daydreaming took him from his workday.

Mine’s soul drifted into dreamland, with no worry about returning to work. The medicines left him terribly drowsy—he could always use that as an excuse later.

He felt light, with nothing to worry about, no pages to read, and classes to prepare.

Everything was fine—until he heard stomping.

“Hm…?” Mine opened his eyes a little bit.

He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or if he was awake. The only thing he knew was that the room was awfully dark.

He lifted his head too fast. His vision blurred and then sharpened, but his body felt strange. His stomach burned with hunger, and his mouth was as dry as his cracked lips.

What’s this...? Mine’s thoughts spun wildly, but no sense came from them.

When Mine looked to his side, he saw a woman sitting next to him. She didn’t look very well, but her eyes burned with a mix of feelings that made her aware all the time. Somehow, Mine didn’t sense danger around her.

“Are you okay?” the woman asked and turned to him. Her crimson eyes pierced his soul, but it didn’t burn – actually, that gaze was gentle.

Mine looked at her. He didn’t know who she was, but somehow… he felt like he knew her. So, he nodded involuntarily, not minding the metallic flavor in his mouth and the same liquid on the woman’s hand, oozing as she tried to make it stop.

“That’s good,” the woman faintly smiled and covered Mine’s eyes. “Pretend to be passed out. My blood will suffice your thirst for a while.”

Grunts in a guttural, broken language filled Mine’s ears. His heart slammed against his ribs, faster and faster, as a cold sweat broke over his skin. He was scared, but why and about what?

Rough but gentle pulled him closer, while another covered his eyes. A faint metallic scent from the woman filled his nostrils.

“What do we do now?” Mine heard himself ask—only it wasn’t his voice. The sound of it startled him.

“We… wait. I’ll protect you,” the woman said, holding him even tighter. “I’ll find a way for us to escape. For now, rest. Focus on staying alive,” she whispered, almost pleading.

“I trust you, Belial,” Mine’s mouth answered before he could think.

The name hit him like a blade, followed by the woman’s crimson eyes looking at him. Her striking and decaying beauty with blood complemented the burgundy color of her hair. A faint smile formed when she heard what Mine said, and a pair of fangs showed.

“That means a lot to me,” Belial smiled.

Something tore free inside him, dragging his soul back, back into the cold shell of his body.

Mine woke with a brutal gasp. His lungs seized, and he coughed so hard his whole body jolted. A black clump dropped from his mouth, hitting the floor with a wet, sick sound.

Blindly, he wiped at his lips, staring at the dark thing on the floor. His body trembled uncontrollably. His mind spun, unable to piece together dreams from reality.

The room was real. The sickness was real. But his body felt wrong, his skin crawling like something inside him didn’t belong.

“Shit...” Mine croaked, voice ragged, wiping the spit and bile from his mouth. “The hell was that…?” He coughed again, only to clean his throat.

Mine shook his head hard, trying to clear the fog from his mind, and exhaled. He was definitely back from that weird dream. He was back to reality, but what was that thing on the floor?

He crouched down slowly and leaned in to inspect the thing on the floor.

It was small, about the size of a dragon’s scale, but its surface was slightly different from one. With a pencil, Mine poked that weird scale and saw small, crosshatching patterns all over its back. Also, a thin thread of dark miasma leaked from it, writhing lazily into the air before dissolving.

“Something is fishy…” Mine pondered, taking that little scale with his bare hands.

Quickly, he locked the room door. Turning his head to the windows, he lowered the curtains and closed whatever contact the exterior could have with the room.

He rushed to his bag and grabbed a pencil case. From its insides, he took two pieces of chalks – one black and the other red. There was only one thing missing, and it was inside a specific teacher’s locker.

“Ajal… Ajal… Aha! There it is!” Mine surveyed the teachers’ locker tags until he found Ajal’s.

He placed the chalks and the scale on the desk then took a clip and picked open Ajal’s locker. There, he took a small bottle of purple liquid which he dipped his thumb in, and drew patterns on the floor.

Next, he took the chalk and layered more and more lines onto the design, finishing by marking a diamond shape on his forehead with the purple liquid.

“Ajal… may God bless you and your illegal little enhancer…” Mine mischievously chuckled, sliding the bottle back into the locker and locking it again as if nothing had happened.

The purple liquid was nothing less than a mana enhancer, used to boost one’s mana usage and capacity. Illegal? Kind of, but highly effective. After the train incident, Mine’s mana had been fragile; attempting a recognition spell in his condition could have landed him in the hospital for months— or even a visit to Chronos depending on how reckless he could be.

Carefully, Mine placed the scale in the center of the pattern drawn on the floor and clapped his hands together. His arms were filled with golden drawings, some in a diamond shape and others following how his mana was flowing through his body and veins.

“Haha! I missed this so much!” Mine marveled at how well his mana was flowing. His hair shimmered gold and began to lift, weightless in the charged air.

He aimed his hands at the scale, murmuring a few foreign words as the room gradually became hotter. The drawn pattern then ignited, blazing red and black. Mine steadied the fire crawling through the lines, guiding it toward the scale, pulling the miasma flames inward until they stabilized around it.

 Mine lifted the fire pattern with his finger, making it float in the air. He blew it and three major symbols appeared on it. He leaned in and hummed.

“Name… Belial… Affiliation House… it’s quite hard to tell, but I think it’s Wrath… hm…” Mine rubbed his chin, turning the last symbol around. “Location unknown… but it’s not inactive… and there’s another signal within it…” he turned his gaze to another faint symbol beside the major ones.

Mine guided that smaller symbol closer and expanded it with the other hand as if zooming in on a screen.

He squeezed his eyes and rubbed his chin again. “Foxian… female… but it’s way too hard to read… and she has traces of the same miasma found at the Wishing Well?!!”

Mine gasped and the patterns flickered as well as his own glowing. His mana was depleting, and the enhancer’s effects were wearing out way too fast. He needed to stop before he got hurt.

“What a way to interrupt things…” Mine grumbled and clapped his hands twice.

From his hair to the patterns – the ones floating and the other on the floor – all of them came back to their natural state. Mine drew the same pattern on the back of his hand in the air and touched his forehead. A faint bell sound echoed and he exhaled. The room was properly equalized.

“None of this makes sense…” Mine muttered, taking the scale and incorporating it into his own Chronos essence. “I’ll bring this up to Mr. Abannak later… but let me write it down first.”

Mine took some papers from the stack near the printer and started writing on them. From the weird dream to the scale and demon’s name, he wrote it all. But the more he wrote, the more things didn’t add up at all. He scratched his head, feeling hopeless.

He was so focused on the papers he barely noticed his phone buzzing until, in the third buzz, he took it and checked its notifications.

[ᴀᴅᴅᴀɪ – 10:00 ᴀ.ᴍ.] ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ᴛᴀᴋᴇ ᴀ ꜱᴛʀᴏʟʟ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴇʀʙᴏʟᴏɢʏ ᴄᴇɴᴛᴇʀ?  

[ᴀᴅᴅᴀɪ – 10:01 ᴀ.ᴍ.] ɪ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴄʜᴇᴄᴋ ᴀ ʀᴇqᴜᴇꜱᴛ ɪ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʟʏᴅɪᴀ, ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ᴀʟꜱᴏ ᴏʀᴅᴇʀᴇᴅ ᴀ ꜱᴀᴍᴘʟᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴀ ᴘʟᴀɴᴛ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ.  

[ᴀᴅᴅᴀɪ – 10:02 ᴀ.ᴍ.] ꜰᴏʀᴡᴀʀᴅᴇᴅ *ɪᴍᴀɢᴇ ᴀᴛᴛᴀᴄʜᴇᴅ*  

[ᴀᴅᴅᴀɪ – 10:02 ᴀ.ᴍ.] ꜰᴏʀᴡᴀʀᴅᴇᴅ *ɪᴍᴀɢᴇ ᴀᴛᴛᴀᴄʜᴇᴅ*  

[ᴀᴅᴅᴀɪ – 10:03 ᴀ.ᴍ.] ʟᴏᴏᴋ ʜᴏᴡ ᴘʀᴇᴛᴛʏ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴀʀᴇ (´ ꒳ `) ♡

Mine stared at the message. His curiosity was picking the best of him, but he needed to focus on the papers! He couldn’t be distracted by that!

…

Since when was Mine easily distracted when it came to Addai?

“Foolishness!” Mine blushed and unlocked the cellphone screen. He hesitated for a few taps. Writing, erasing, writing, erasing again. He planned to decline the event, of course. He needed to focus!

[ᴀᴅᴅᴀɪ – 10:06 ᴀ.ᴍ.] ?

[ᴍɪɴᴇ – 10:20 ᴀ.ᴍ.] ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴜᴄᴋ ᴀʀᴇ ʏᴏᴜ?

[ᴍɪɴᴇ – 10:21 ᴀ.ᴍ.] ɪ’ᴍ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴘᴏᴛ, ᴅᴜᴍʙᴀꜱꜱ. ᴄᴏᴍᴇ ʙᴇꜰᴏʀᴇ ɪ ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇ ᴍʏ ᴍɪɴᴅ.