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Chapter 6
The Maze of the Bear
“Welcome to the dormitory hall of the Maze of the Bear!”
The winged sparkle standing beneath an old chandelier clapped his hands.
The sound echoed sadly through the completely silent space.
Clap, clap, clap, clap…
“……”
Crazy school.
Daisy looked up at the long gray spiderwebs hanging from the chandelier.
Seriously, how did they think it was okay to put children in a place like this?
The damp stone walls were covered in moss.
The stone floor was uneven.
A leather sofa covered in blue mold sat along the cracked walls.
The fireplace looked like it had never been lit even once.
Even the lighting was gloomy and dim.
If the winged sparkle hadn’t called it a dormitory hall, Daisy would have thought it was a dungeon.
“It used to be a dungeon.”
“……”
“It was remodeled into a dormitory hall 176 years ago.”
Hearing that, Daisy instinctively reached into her pocket.
Where’s my phone?
I need to report this to the education authorities immediately.
The graduates of the Maze of the Bear keep becoming villains?
That’s obviously because of their environment.
If you spend years in a dark dungeon with no sunlight and barely any ventilation, how could you NOT go crazy?
Meanwhile, the winged sparkle raised his glittering arms toward the ceiling.
“The dormitory hall of the Maze of the Bear is a truly wonderful place!”
“……”
“……”
The new students remained silent.
Even if they were future villains, they still had eyes.
Calling this place “wonderful” was a serious exaggeration.
But the winged sparkle looked completely different as he gazed around.
His eyes were almost filled with wonder, and his entire body sparkled even more brightly.
“When the great founder of the Maze of the Bear, Ursus, first showed me this place and told me it would become a new dormitory hall, I thought it was absolutely horrible…”
“But I never imagined it would become such a proper dormitory hall… I’m so moved.”
“……”
“……”
“Why is someone that handsome so completely blind…”
Daisy deeply agreed with the student who whispered that.
That winged sparkle must have put all of his sense of beauty into his own appearance.
Otherwise, there is no way he could look at this ruined place with such emotion.
Wait.
Daisy’s eyebrow rose as she suddenly realized something.
If Ursus personally showed him around this place, how old is this guy?
She was staring at the winged sparkle’s face, which looked no older than twenty-five, when he suddenly laughed.
“Hehehe. Of course, you won’t actually be living here. This is only the dormitory hall.”
Phew.
Several students visibly sighed in relief.
“Your actual dormitory is inside.”
The winged sparkle pointed toward somewhere.
The new students turned their heads in that direction…
And rubbed their eyes.
There was a small, ominous entrance.
The arched entrance was pitch-black inside, like a huge hollow hole. Nothing could be seen beyond it.
The new students naturally looked at the old, rusty brass sign hanging above the entrance.
[↓ Entrance to the Maze Dormitory ↓]
Clatter!
Suddenly, one of the nails holding the sign came loose, causing one side of the brass plate to fall.
Creeeeak—creak—
The sign dangled from a single nail for a while, swinging back and forth while making an unpleasant, eerie sound.
“……”
“……”
“Sniff… sob…”
Someone started crying.
When Daisy turned around, she saw that Lydia’s former companion was crying again.
That girl is really fragile.
“Oh dear. There’s no need to cry. You’ll all become stronger while living in the maze, I mean, the dormitory.”
“……”
“……”
Pick one.
Is it a maze or a dormitory?
While the new students were thinking that, the winged sparkle spoke in an unbelievably cheerful voice.
“Now, it’s time for questions and answers! All questions are welcome! Yes, you there. Go ahead!”
“How can we change to another dormitory?”
“Except that question! Welcome! Next!”
“How can we cancel our assignment to the Maze of the Bear?”
“Changing the wording doesn’t make it a different question! Next!”
“How can we change our dorm supervisor?”
“From now on, you’re not allowed to ask questions!”
“……”
“……”
“Then… how do we get through there?”
“Ah! Finally, a proper question!”
The winged sparkle clapped his hands happily and answered.
“You figure it out yourself!”
“……”
“……”
The new students, especially the young nobles who had rarely ever had to do anything by themselves, stared in shock with their mouths hanging open.
“Y-You’re not going to take us there?”
“Ah, I’m afraid I have something urgent to do.”
The winged sparkle checked his empty wrist as if looking at a watch and spoke regretfully.
“But don’t worry. Your seniors all made it safely to the dormitory.”
Safely?
Daisy raised one eyebrow at that suspicious choice of words.
Does that mean they might NOT make it safely?
The winged sparkle looked at Daisy with an amused expression.
“You can do it! I believe in all of you!”
“……”
“……”
“Now, walk forward proudly! Breathe in the damp, gloomy, evil air!”
I’m off now!
With that cheerful farewell, the winged sparkle suddenly disappeared.
“……”
“……”
The dormitory hall was left completely silent with only the group of new students remaining.
Daisy slowly closed her eyes as her blood pressure rose.
These crazy people, seriously…
“……”
“……”
The new students gathered in a semicircle around the entrance to the maze.
They couldn’t see even a single light inside.
For a while, nobody could say anything.
That was only natural.
The entrance looked like the kind of place you would enter and never come back out of.
“It’s probably just a maze, right?”
A gentle-looking student with light green hair asked hopefully.
“You think it’s JUST a maze? Look at it. Obviously, all kinds of strange things are going to be inside.”
A red-haired student with sharp eyes replied irritably.
“Sniff… sob…”
The quiet crying that had been coming from behind them gradually grew louder.
“Hey, you’re annoying.”
“I-I really don’t belong in the Maze of the Bear…!”
“Of course you do. Your name tag is pitch-black.”
“No… Sob…”
The students ignored the brown-haired girl stomping her feet and gathered together again.
“Should we just sleep here?”
“What, for the whole semester?”
“Fuck, who said the whole semester? I’m just saying that because I’m exhausted.”
“Wouldn’t sleeping here make you even more tired?”
“Then you go inside!”
“Everyone, calm down and let’s make a plan.”
A girl with long purple hair spoke calmly.
“Ha. A plan, my ass.”
The red-haired student sneered with a cynical tone that sounded far too mature for his age.
“What did you say?”
“You still don’t understand? They call us ‘unclassifiable’ to make it sound nice. We’re actually just trash.”
“The Maze of the Bear is a garbage dump.”
“……”
“……”
“There aren’t even bedrooms. They just want us to wander around the maze until we collapse and sleep there.”
“……”
“……”
After that harsh statement, a deep silence settled over the group.
It was broken by an unexpectedly cheerful voice.
“Wow, you’re really extreme.”
A cute-looking male student had fluffy brown hair that bounced as he moved.
“What did you just say, you bastard?”
“Typical Maze of the Bear.”
“You’re in the same dormitory too, you know?!”
“Oh. Right.”
The purple-haired girl stepped between them and tried to calm them down.
“Instead of arguing, why don’t we gather some information first?”
“What information? Are you planning to send out a scout or something?”
“That could work.”
“Are you crazy? What idiot would risk their life by going first?”
That was when it happened.
“Upsy-daisy.”
What the…?
The new students turned toward the strange sound.
There was a girl standing there.
She was small.
Her platinum-blond hair fell long down her back.
Her long eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings.
Her emerald eyes were gentle and slightly drooping.
She had a refined nose and thick red lips like cherries.
Her clear, flawless features were so beautiful that people couldn’t help admiring her.
Her neatly arranged, old-fashioned school uniform reduced some of her charm, but even so…
It wasn’t difficult to guess who she was.
There was only one platinum-haired student among the new students.
Daisy Sableheart.
The only daughter of the Count of Sableheart.
It wasn’t exactly a secret that, unlike her talented brothers, she was rumored to be stupid and overly gentle.
And now she was holding something.
“…A poker?”
One of the new students rubbed his eyes and muttered.
Grrrrrrk.
A terrifying scraping sound rang out as metal dragged across the stone floor.
To everyone’s surprise, Daisy Sableheart was dragging a rusty fireplace poker from the fireplace toward the entrance of the maze.
As if she were about to beat someone with it.
The girl’s red lips slowly opened.
“Kill.”
What?
“Oops. I should act normal…”
She adjusted her grip on the poker to make it look slightly less threatening.
“Let’s just hit it once.”
That sounds exactly the same as “kill.”
The new students of the Maze of the Bear couldn’t bring themselves to say that.
The smile on the girl’s face looked a little too frightening.
That’s right.
Daisy Sableheart was currently…
extremely pissed off.
