Chapter 9

“Let’s go back……!”

“Shh.”

Daisy covered Milo’s mouth as he tried to go back to the previous crossroads and listened carefully.

Skreee!

Gregor had already passed the crossroads and was coming down the curved path.

Tap, tap, tap.

Hearing the distinctive footsteps of an insect’s legs hitting the stone floor, Daisy looked around.

“Damn it, there has to be somewhere we can hide…….”

Then—

Clink.

A clear, cheerful sound came from somewhere around her knees.

Daisy looked down.

There was a small, old brass plate attached to the wall.

[↓ Hiding Place ↓]

“Huh?”

Skreee!

“Daisy! Daisy! Daaaisy!”

Milo screamed as if he were about to lose his breath and pointed somewhere.

Gregor Samsa, who had apparently become a cockroach after waking up one morning and was furious about it, was standing at the end of the curved corridor.

Yes.

He was standing there.

Did you know?

Cockroaches are even more disgusting from underneath than from the back.

Skreeee!

The level of detail is insane…….

Barely holding onto her consciousness, which felt ready to pass out, Daisy slowly lifted her leg and touched the brass plate.

Slide.

The stone wall shook.

Looking more closely, Daisy realized it wasn’t actually a stone wall.

It was a curtain designed to look like a stone wall.

“Daisy, Daisy…….”

The puppy’s voice trembled.

“I think I’m going to throw up…….”

Me too…….

Daisy covered her mouth with a distant look in her eyes.

She had found a hiding place.

But it was useless.

She had already made eye contact with Mr. Gregor.

If they went inside now, it would be no different from kindly telling him, We’re going in here.

They had to distract the cockroach.

“Oh! What’s that?!”

“What?! Where?!”

Only the puppy fell for it.

Daisy awkwardly lowered the hand she had pointed into empty air and started thinking of something else……

Skreeee!

……when Gregor charged at them.

What terrible manners, Mr. Gregor!

As the enormous cockroach rushed toward them, Daisy instinctively grabbed Milo and pulled him into her arms.

At that moment—

BOOM!

A deafening explosion shook the area, and a huge cloud of dust rose into the air.

What just exploded?

But there was no time to figure out what had happened.

Daisy realized something.

This was her last chance.

She reached out blindly, grabbed the puppy’s fluffy head, shoved him through the curtain, and then rolled herself inside.

Fortunately, neither of them was very large, so there was plenty of room behind the curtain.

“Dai—”

“Shh.”

Daisy covered Milo’s mouth and held her breath.

Through the chiffon curtain, she watched the blurry scene outside.

Hissssss……

Along with the disgusting smell of something burning came the sound of footsteps.

Tap, tap, tap.

Mr. Gregor’s enormous legs kept moving around near the curtain.

Suddenly.

The end of a shiny brown leg slipped through the curtain and brushed against Daisy’s leg.

“……!”

Daisy swallowed a silent scream.

Please, please go away! It’s not our fault you became a cockroach, Mr. Gregor!

At that moment, the giant cockroach stopped.

As if it had somehow heard Daisy’s thoughts.

Whoosh.

Then it began to shrink.

Down to the size of an actual cockroach.

It was obviously planning to search for them by becoming smaller.

Damn it, it’s smart too.

The tiny insect scurried around.

Sometimes it stayed in one place for a while, as if it were smelling the air.

Then……

The cockroach’s antennae turned toward the curtain.

Scuttle, scuttle.

Does it really have to be this intelligent?

The cockroach approached the curtain without making a sound.

Gulp.

Milo, clutching Daisy’s clothes, swallowed nervously.

Then, just as the cockroach’s long antenna poked underneath the curtain—

“Die!”

BANG!

Daisy raised her foot with lightning speed and stomped on the cockroach as hard as she could without even taking a breath.

“…….”

“…….”

“D-did it die?”

Daisy carefully lifted her shoe.

“…….”

“…….”

Well, rest in peace.

Trying not to step on any remaining traces of the cockroach, Daisy came out from behind the curtain.

She took off her shoe and rubbed it against the stone wall.

Ugh.

Milo crawled out after her, burst into tears, and hugged Daisy tightly.

“Daisy!”

“Okay, okay.”

“As soon as we entered the maze, I was suddenly all alone……!”

“Don’t cry.”

“I thought you died……!”

“I didn’t die.”

“You fell underneath the dormitory hall, and I thought you had been crushed under the rocks until there wasn’t even a trace of you left! So I thought I had no choice but to bury an empty coffin and hold a funeral for you. Then every night, you would appear in my dreams, grab me by the collar, and scream, ‘You were supposed to be the advance party, you bastard! You’re actually the rear party!’ And then you’d tell me, ‘Find my body right now!’ And I’d have to find it! And then a giant cockroach appeared…….”

“…….”

What kind of daytime nightmares do you have……?

Daisy sighed and patted Milo’s back.

Then she suddenly smelled something burning and pushed the puppy away.

“Hey, wait……”

And then she saw Milo Everett.

“Wow. You look like some crazy scientist whose experiment went wrong.”

His face was completely black with soot, and his curly hair was burnt into a mess of tight, twisted curls.

“So you’ve been causing explosions without even realizing it since you were little?”

“Yep.”

“And then you blew up half of your mansion.”

“Yep.”

“And your family disowned you.”

“Yep…….”

“And you just caused another explosion without realizing it.”

“Yep!”

His answer was energetic.

But his bright light-blue eyes, shining through his soot-covered face, held a hint of anxiety.

It looked like he was worried Daisy might avoid him after hearing his story.

Daisy stared at him for a moment.

Then she reached out and gently ran her hand through Milo’s curly hair.

“Good job.”

“…….”

“Thanks to you, we survived.”

Then Daisy suddenly realized what she was doing and pulled her hand away.

Oops. He’s not actually a puppy, but I’m treating him exactly like one…….

“Do it again.”

“…….”

Ruffle, ruffle.

Seeing Milo’s satisfied expression, Daisy decided that if he liked it, there was no harm in it.

“But how did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That there was a hiding place there.”

There had been a sign stuck right there.

“Daisy, you have really good eyes!”

“No, I—”

“You’re good at catching cockroaches too!”

“That was because I was trying to survive.”

“You’re so cool!”

“…….”

“You were cool when you took me and ran from the dormitory hall too!”

“…….”

Milo’s eyes sparkled.

Instead of telling him no, Daisy simply ran her hand through his hair again.

The puppy happily purred.

“Well, anyway……”

Daisy looked around and sighed.

Where the hell are we?

They had run around so frantically that she had no idea where they were or which direction they had come from.

She had turned right at the crossroads where they had failed earlier, at least……

“Wow, Daisy! Look! It’s chocolate!”

Milo picked something up from the floor and shouted excitedly.

It really was a chocolate bar wrapped in plastic.

“Puppy, don’t just pick things up and eat—”

“Nom.”

Ma—

“Wow, it’s yummy!”

Well, you’re not actually a puppy, so I guess you won’t die from it…….

“Daisy! There’s more over there!”

Following Milo as he moved from one piece of dropped chocolate to another, Daisy shrugged.

Fine.

We already saw a 180-centimeter cockroach. How much worse could things possibly get?

“Puppy.”

“Yeah!”

“From now on, don’t pick up things like chocolate and eat them without thinking.”

“Yeah!”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Running away from the thunderous noise behind them, Daisy thought,

Crazy academy.

We dealt with a 180-centimeter cockroach, and now it’s a 280-centimeter giant?

She glanced back.

A one-eyed giant was charging toward them with a club in its hand, its massive body pounding down the corridor.

It wasn’t particularly fast.

But its strides were so huge that the distance between them was shrinking rapidly.

“ROOOAAARGH!”

Apparently annoyed by how narrow the corridor was becoming, the giant swung its club sideways.

Whoooosh—! CRASH—!

The club tore through the air with a terrifying sound and smashed straight through the supposedly sturdy maze wall.

I feel like I’m going to be smashed like that next.

“Daisy!”

“Keep running!”

Even the steel-like stamina of a teenage body was reaching its limit by now.

Caught between the faint hope of Surely they aren’t actually trying to kill their students?

and the despairing thought of Yeah, this crazy school probably really is trying to kill us, Daisy kept running.

Damn it, I’d rather have Mr. Gregory!

Skreeeek!

At that moment, a giant cockroach appeared from the opposite end of the corridor.

No! Not both of them at the same time!

“Daisy! Chocolate!”

“That damn chocolate!”

“No, there’s chocolate over there!”

Just as Milo said, a chocolate bar was lying in the middle of the corridor.

Come to think of it, all the chocolate they had seen so far had been placed only at crossroads.

Realizing this, Daisy looked up.

There was a narrow side passage beside the corridor.

It looked too small for even one of the giant’s legs to fit inside.

“Go in first!”

Daisy sent Milo in first, then squeezed herself into the side passage and looked back.

Skritch, crunch!

The cockroach that had tried to enter the passage was mercilessly crushed under the giant’s foot.

Cold sweat ran down Daisy’s back.

The giant stared intently into the narrow passage with its enormous single eye.

Then it slowly turned around.

It seemed to have decided that even if it destroyed the passage, it couldn’t get inside.

“Phew……”

Daisy watched the giant disappear and finally relaxed.

……

Then she suddenly realized something.

Wait.

Was this passage always this narrow?

“Daisy!”

Milo, who had gone ahead, spoke in a frightened voice.

“The walls…… The walls are getting closer……!”

“They’re shrinking, you idiot!”

Crack, crack, crack!

The two walls of the side passage were slowly moving inward.

Daisy and Milo ran desperately through the narrowing passage, which looked like it was about to crush them both.

A thin gap appeared ahead of them.

An exit.

“Puppy, jump!”

Milo’s small body flew through the opening.

“Urgh, damn it……!”

Daisy, almost running sideways because the passage was squeezing her body, instinctively reached toward the exit.

And then—

Pull!

Someone yanked Daisy upward like they were pulling a radish out of the ground.

“AAH!”

BOOM!

Behind her, the side passage completely closed.

If she had stayed there for just one more second……

Cold sweat broke out at the thought.

“Are you all right?”

At that moment, Daisy heard a polite but somewhat sarcastic voice.

She looked at the person who had pulled her out.

The boy had a large, sturdy build and short blue-gray hair.

His expression was cold, and he wore sleek, thin silver-rimmed glasses.

Daisy instinctively asked,

“Name.”

The boy pushed his glasses up slightly.

His cold, sharp eyes narrowed.

“Stroud Burnham.”

“Burnham…… Wait. The Burnham Trading Company?”

“How do you know that?”

“…….”

Because your family goes bankrupt…….

Daisy quietly swallowed the rather inappropriate thing she wanted to say to her lifesaver and looked up at the ceiling.