Just then, she felt the light in the cabin within the painting flicker ever so slightly.

  “Professor, you didn’t... possess the painting, did you?”

  Rumi wasn’t sure what kind of bck magic had been used, but she was certain the professor had possessed the painting. She began searching for Professor Francesca inside the painting.

  “Ru... Rumi, please... just leave...”

  The professor’s voice trembled.

  Rumi realized that Professor Francesca was performing some highly illegal bck magic ritual. If caught, the professor could lose her job—or worse.

  So Rumi stood her ground.

  “Then tell me what was written on that paper. I can’t wait until tomorrow morning.”

  “...”

  The professor’s panicked silence continued.

  Finally, she spoke.

  “The paper said... blood and flesh... Whose blood and flesh, I... I couldn’t tell. It just said blood and flesh... Now, really, leave...”

  “Blood and flesh? But the sentence seemed longer than that.”

  "Flesh and blood means flesh and blood, Rumi. Don't say anything unnecessary. I won’t take it any longer."

  The professor’s voice grew even more serious.

  Rumi decided it was time to back off.

  “Ah... okay, Professor, thank you... I’ll leave now. Please don’t punish me tomorrow.”

  Now that she had her answer, Rumi suddenly felt afraid of facing Professor Francesca the next day.

  But she knew she had to act strong in situations like this.

  “You won’t punish me tomorrow, right? I won’t tell anyone about what happened here. Not even about you hiding in the painting.”

  "You... how dare a mere student try to threaten me!"

  "Oh, no. Professor, this isn't a threat. It's just loyalty between teacher and student..."

  Rumi kept pushing.

  “You won’t punish me, right?”

  “If you tell anyone, you’ll disappear without a trace. I’ll really kill you.”

  “Ah, got it. I won’t say a word. I’ll leave now.”

  “Wait, Rumi, you said you found that paper in the library, right? Do you know who wrote it? The handwriting seems familiar...”

  “Uh... how would I know? I just found it lying under a bookshelf.”

  “Hmm... really?”

  Rumi finally felt a twinge of fear and backed out of the cssroom.

  “Goodbye...”

  Once she was far enough from the Spiritualism cssroom, Rumi began to worry that the witch professor might retaliate. She repeated the words written on the paper.

  “Blood and flesh... blood and flesh...”

  If blood and flesh were additional ingredients needed to brew the curse essence, whose blood and flesh was she talking about?

  That night at 9 p.m., Rumi was observing the ghost-infested night sky through a telescope.

  She was attending the only css held after sunset: Astronomy.

  “Student, how’s it looking? Can you see anything?”

  Professor Himmelberg, the old astronomy professor, floated over.

  “Blood and flesh...”

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing. What did you say?”

  “I asked if you can see any moving stars.”

  "Professor, I can't tell if what I'm seeing are stars or ghosts."

  "Hohoho, student, you must look for moving stars—you can't just stare mindlessly through the lens."

  "But if it's moving, couldn't it be a shooting star?"

  "Shooting stars move too fast to see through a telescope like this. You need to look for things moving very slowly."

  "That's what I'm saying, I can't tell the difference between stars and slowly moving ghosts in the sky."

  “You’ll see if you compare them to real stars... By tracking their movement, you can figure out where the witches are. The ghosts high up in the sky are the ones chasing witches.”

  “Really...?”

  Rumi looked through the telescope again with a bored expression.

  Following Professor Himmelberg’s advice, she focused on what clearly looked like stars and watched for any movement.

  Sure enough, she saw a few white dots moving eastward.

  "Just now, east! It moved slightly eastward!"

  "Miss Lucy, look more carefully. If you look very carefully for a very long time, you'll realize the ghosts are actually moving in circles. That means..."

  “Professor, I’m not Lucy. I’ve told you my name is Rumi, like, a hundred times.”

  As expected, Professor Himmelberg's memory was no better than a goldfish's.

  This astronomy css was different from others in many ways.

  First, the astronomy teacher was the only earthbound spirit professor at the school.

  This ghostly professor had severe short-term memory issues, so students had to remind him of the lesson pn every css—and their names.

  "Then Miss Rumi, might I borrow your soul for a moment?"

  “No, you can’t.”

  This was a question Rumi had been hearing since the first day of css.

  “Why do you keep asking me that?”

  “Oh? Have I asked you that before? Ah, yes, I think I did. Maybe 30 years ago...”

  “No, it wasn’t that long ago.”

  "Hohoho! Is that so? Miss Rumi, your body looks very pure. It's the kind of body ghosts would love to possess."

  “Huh?”

  Rumi wondered if Professor Himmelberg had noticed her curse immunity.

  And she wondered if the reason so many ghosts were drawn to her was because they could see she was curse-immune.

  “Professor, I have a question. Why are ghosts always so eager to possess me? Is there something different about me?”

  "That's because curses don't seem to affect you much, Miss Rumi. When possessing someone, it’s natural to choose a cleaner body that seems like it will live longer."

  “But why do ghosts want to possess bodies in the first pce?”

  “Ah, Miss Rumi. that’s a good question. We seek bodies because we’ve lost our way.

  Originally, dead souls would always move toward the God of Life, but that path disappeared completely after the White Witch appeared.

  So we seek human bodies, the only pce we can go.

  The souls floating high in the sky are the same.

  They’re very old souls... They’ve wandered so long they’ve lost their sense of self and only seek a pce to rest.

  Even if that pce is a witch’s body...”

  “I see... But Professor, you’re an earthbound spirit, right? You’ve already possessed this pce.”

  “Oh, that’s not enough... With such a pure body like yours here, I’d be willing to possess it anytime.”

  “What?”

  “But Miss Rumi, that’s the tragedy of ghosts. There’s no pce for dead souls in the living world. No matter how tempting the body, in the end, it will die and corrupt.

  A body without a soul becomes a monster, and a soul without a body becomes an evil spirit.

  You can’t live without one or the other.

  Do you know why? Because the soul and body are one.

  In other words, ghosts crave bodies, dolls yearn for souls, and humans long for death."

  “...”

  At that moment, Rumi remembered hearing something simir during her first Necromancy css.

  Blood and flesh... the body and soul are one... and dolls yearn for souls?

  “...!”

  Rumi finally realized what “blood and flesh” meant. The answer was so obvious.

  That night, strange singing could be heard from dorm room 49.

  "Medina, you woman of sin-filled lineage. You're bound to be cursed and turn into an evil spirit... There's a reason you lost your life at such a young age..."

  Anyone could tell it was Rumi’s voice.

  Medina, feeling an even more ominous aura than usual, phased through the dorm wall.

  “If only I could bring Medina back to life... so I could kill her with my own hands next time... Hehehe.”

  What Medina found on the other side of the wall was Rumi, singing a curse-filled song about her in an overly excited voice.

  Rumi was stirring a bubbling cauldron with a gss rod, looking like a witch cackling as she cooked kidnapped children.

  Even Eve, who would normally have said something, was too stunned by Rumi’s crazed appearance to speak.

  "Kekeke, just wait till you come, Medina, hehehe. Hehehehe..."

  Medina, in shock, couldn’t help but speak up.

  “Have you completely lost it? Do you really need to go this far? Do you think I’m not telling you the recipe just for my own sake? It’s for you, for everyone...”

  Rumi, ignoring Medina, slowly turned her chair to face her.

  In Rumi’s hand was a pair of scissors.

  Rumi held up the scissors and gave Medina a sinister look.

  “Wh-what are you doing?”

  Rumi brought the scissors to her own head and snipped off a chunk of her hair.

  “Eek!”

  Medina screamed as if her own hair had been cut.

  “Hehehe, the soul and body are one. To make the curse essence, you need to add the blood and flesh of the person who’s going to use it.”

  Rumi tossed the cut hair into the cauldron.

  “St-stop!”

  Medina reached out to Rumi with a look of despair.

  But Rumi didn’t stop there. She used the scissors to cut her fingernails and dropped them into the cauldron.

  “Stop, stop it!”

  Finally, she pricked her finger with the scissors.

  She squeezed out some blood and mixed it into the potion.

  “Ahhh! You’re insane! Don’t add blood! Ugh, you’re crazy! How did you even figure out the blood part?”

  Medina waved her hands in the air, trying to stop Rumi, but her ghostly form passed right through.

  “What can you even do? You’re just a ghost.”

  Rumi gave the curse essence a final stir, then transferred it into a bottle to check the color.

  A thick, deep purple curse essence. It matched the sample perfectly.

  “Finally, it’s done. This is the ultimate essence!”

  “Wait... wait, Rumi. Listen to me. Actually... I was going to tell you from the start that just adding hair would work...

  But the person who adds their hair gets cursed, so... it’s dangerous... I was doing it for you, okay?”

  “Hah, funny. I’m curse immune.”

  “...!”

  Rumi ignored Medina and brought the bottle of curse essence to the doll’s mouth.

  This time, the reaction was completely different from the start.

  The doll began drinking the curse essence on its own.