Rumi looked at Raoul beside her, who was also frowning as if he still didn't understand what he had heard.

  "Going back to the story of Lucian, the girl from the magical kingdom,

  When the girl was successfully expanding her territory by invading the whole world, she invaded Japan.

  However, when occupation proved difficult due to the iron-cd defense of Japanese bck magicians, she infiltrated alone and met the father of healing rituals who was in Japan at that time.

  It is said that the girl, upon discovering the healing rituals, became completely obsessed with it. and she killed a Japanese dark sorcerer, and went into hiding to perfect the healing rituals on her own.

  But in the midst of this, she was betrayed by her close associates, and the healing rituals was leaked to the outside. From then on, her magical kingdom of Hylence began walking the path of decline.

  While witches and warlocks who learned these healing rituals ran rampant sughtering humans, the girl herself remained obsessed with researching the healing rituals.

  Around the time, when rumors spread that the once-brilliant magical kingdom of Hylence had fallen, the White Witch - the beginning and end of all curses, the worst of them all - appeared.

  The White Witch indiscriminately massacred and absorbed the souls of all humans and creatures she saw from the moment she appeared, and it's estimated she alone killed nearly 3 billion people while traveling around the world.

  And of course, this White Witch's identity was Queen Lucian of the fallen Hylence.

  Lucian had researched the healing ritual alone until she perfected it, and as soon as she completed it, she awakened as the White Witch.

  And ironically, from this point on, tragedy befell the witches.

  All six witches who continued hunting humans lost their sense of self from absorbing too many souls, becoming mere specters endlessly wandering the world to absorb more souls.

  Even at this moment, the six witches are roaming here and there looking for the nearly extinct humans.

  And we living humans barely manage to hide our bodies in sacred nds like Saint Angelicus’ Vilge to avoid the witches."

  "..."

  A long silence fell in the principal's office, which was as rge as a stadium.

  Rumble CRASH

  Eve was now sitting just one seat away from Rumi.

  "Why... why has this story become something that no one talks about, like it's a secret?"

  A student asked.

  "That's because there was someone in this vilge who absolutely must not hear this story."

  "What...?"

  The kids felt a slight fear about this unknown being.

  "What I'm going to talk about now is the Witch Wandering Era that you've all heard about, at least once.

  The period when a witch suddenly appeared 57 years ago and wandered near the vilge for about 30 years.

  Now this witch has disappeared far away, but everyone had to keep quiet because no one knew what kind of massacre might occur if stories of the past reached the ears of a witch who had lost all her memories and her sense of self."

  "But, why are you telling us this story now of all times?"

  "As I said before, I'm telling you this because we need to know the witches better to defeat them. The timing doesn't matter.

  Any other questions?"

  "Professor, there's one thing I still don't understand at all. What about the witches in Scripture Part 1? What about those 6 disciples? They don't seem to have any connection to the 6 witches that appeared 400 years ago."

  Raoul asked.

  "Those 6 disciples were only the first witches. Witches die and are reborn over time.

  It would be the correct interpretation to say that all witches disappeared at the beginning of Scripture Part 2, 2400 years ago, and then witches reappeared 400 years ago in the form I described."

  "..."

  "If there are no more questions, I'll wrap up the story. With weather like this, something terrible might happen if we talk more."

  But at that moment, one question kept circling in Rumi's mind.

  "But... how do you kill a witch?"

  Principal lifted his head as if startled by Rumi's question.

  "Is the student who asked that question Rumi? That's a very good question... A witch is ultimately a being made up of countless mixed souls.

  Just as you can't destroy souls, there's no way to destroy a witch who is soul itself."

  "..."

  "But there is one way. That is to merge all five witches into one witch through the most powerful White Witch. When that happens, the curse will end."

  Rumi couldn't understand what it meant to merge witches. Actually, it just sounded preposterous.

  Raoul beside her also had an uncomfortable expression, as if he didn't understand.

  "Then how exactly can we merge the witches?"

  Rumi asked, as if expressing her dissatisfaction.

  "That... I'm not sure..."

  "..."

  Principal Pierre sat down heavily in his chair, looking somewhat tired.

  "Then let's end today's lesson here. Everyone, please be especially careful today."

  Rumi thought she might have gained some useful information from this bizarre history lecture to fulfill Bertin's st wish.

  At least she learned the only way to kill witches was to somehow have the strongest one absorb the rest...

  However, even that method seemed so far-fetched that she had no idea how to actually carry it out.

  Spring was ending and summer was beginning.

  The days were getting longer and hotter. Summer had arrived - the season when they say only the toughest ghosts roam around, able to endure the lengthened daylight.

  Rumi and the kids hadn't gone out at night since the day they found the doll.

  Rather than it being dangerous, it was because Medina's corpse hadn't appeared at night.

  In the end, Rumi could only quess whether those two witch cult members hadn't appeared because they had problems from not finding the doll.

  If they had appeared, Rumi was definitely pnning to track that boy ghost.

  But no matter how fearless Rumi was, she couldn't deny what Eve had said.

  The ghost had already seen Rumi and Eve's faces, and if they acted suspiciously for no reason, they could die unexpectedly.

  So it was clearly a time when they needed to exercise maximum restraint.

  Instead, the kids were desperate to figure out what the doll was hiding.

  Medina wouldn't talk about the doll's purpose even if she died - no, even though she was already dead.

  Raoul went to the library whenever he had a chance to research about dolls, and today he called Rumi to the library, perhaps having found something.

  Rumi waited at the library, and Raoul appeared looking tired, carrying several thick books.

  "I stayed up all night reading these books yesterday, but I think I've finally found some useful information."

  Raoul showed the title of the thickest book he had brought.

  'The Origins and History of Dark Relics'

  It looked like a forbidden book just at a gnce.

  "Isn't this a forbidden book? How did you get it?"

  "I just picked it up somewhere. It wasn't even hard to find. Even if it's forbidden, at least it's not cursed. Anyway, I found a doll very simir to Medina's doll in the section about dark relic dolls."

  Raoul spoke while showing a doll photograph from the book.

  The doll in the photo looked like a very ancient doll.

  "This doll was a very special doll that had strange abilities despite being a relic without any ghost possession. For example, it could speak, walk, swing weapons, and draw cursed pictures."

  Raoul put away the thick book and pulled out a thinner book.

  "And in this book, I found out this doll's identity. What's interesting is this book isn't even forbidden."

  Raoul continued speaking while showing another book.

  The title was 'The Golden Age of Automata'

  "Automata?"

  "Yeah, this doll is an automaton made in Europe very long ago. An automatic robot that performs predetermined sequences of actions.

  So you could say automata are closer to robots than dolls."

  Rumi saw a doll in the photos whose insides were made up of complex mechanical devices.

  "Wow, that doll also had such complex insides."

  "Yeah, so I'm almost certain that doll is also an automaton, but the problem is...

  Usually automata are powered by clockwork mechanisms, but I can't see any such mechanism anywhere in that doll."

  "Huh? Then is that doll really an automaton?"

  "Looking at the internal structure, it's almost certain. The inside is all mechanical devices and the joints are made to move.

  And when these automatons were made it was the peaceful era without curses, so they just used clockwork for power,

  but Medina's doll probably doesn't use clockwork or anything like that.

  Plus, as Eve said, if that doll is the Mora family's secret doll that's been passed down for nearly 300 years, it probably gets its power through some method reted to curses."

  "Then we need to find out how to power it... but how do we do that?"

  "Well, that... it seems we'll need more time to either research or examine the doll's interior more closely."

  "Ugh... damn it... if only that damn Medina had spilled what it is, we wouldn't have to go through all this trouble."

  "That's true."

  Rumi started considering whether she should threaten Medina using somewhat extreme ways.

  Rumi had been hearing first-year kids whispering since morning mass started.

  "You know the Spiritualism csses start from today, right?"

  "Yeah, I heard that witch professor is teaching it... it's going to be horrible, right?"

  "No matter how horrible that css is, wouldn't it be better than the principal's torture css?"

  "Yeah... that's true."

  The Spiritualism css taught by Professor Francesca, Medina's aunt.

  Upper-css students spread horror stories about Professor Francesca killing students during css, and everyone was afraid.

  The kids were happy that Principal Pierre's special lectures had finally ended while also worrying about the witch professor's new css starting.

  To be honest, Rumi felt the same way.

  After morning mass, the kids stood in front of the notorious second-floor Spiritualism cssroom.

  And when Rumi took the lead and opened the door, a pungent smell wafted out and strange ritual music could be heard.

  "Ugh... what's this smell?"

  "It smells like burning corpses or something!"

  "Have you actually smelled that before?"

  "Isn't it obvious?"

  Rumi quickly looked for Eve then.

  And watched her face.

  The pained expression of the usually germaphobic Eve was indeed worth seeing.

  The cssroom was dark, dirty, and smelly.

  All sorts of potions and their ingredients were chaotically stuck all over the walls, making it feel like they had entered a witch's hut.

  The kids looked around nervously and sat in chairs and desks that looked like they hadn't been cleaned for 10 years.

  And the highlight of this cssroom, Professor Francesca's appearance, was truly overwhelming.

  She was leaning back in a huge sofa covered in animal hide, smoking a long cigarette.

  And the old, creepy ritual music pying in the background sounded like vilin introduction music.

  Thus all the first-year students were frozen, unable to say a word.

  "Heheheheh, the cute freshmen have arrived."

  Along with a creepy ugh, Professor Francesca's voice was elegant yet somewhat androgynous.

  The witch teacher stood up from her seat. Indeed, she was incredibly tall just like when they saw her before.

  And looking at that face with the eye patch, she looked not like a witch professor but like a witch herself.

  "The first Spiritualism css for new students..."

  The teacher paused after saying this, then suddenly frowned her heavily made-up face.

  The kids widened their eyes in surprise.

  "Today I'll teach you how to make rotten water."

  The witch professor suddenly swept her hand across a desk, gathering a handful of dust.

  "First, gather a handful of dust from the room."

  Then she lit the gathered dust in her hand with a long lighter.

  "Second, gather the dust in one pce and burn it."

  The witch professor held her hand up until all the dust burned, as if her hand wasn't even hot.

  Then she brought a beaker filled with some unknown liquid and poured the burned dust into it.

  "Third, pour the burned dust ashes into water."

  Tapping cigarette ashes into it was a bonus.

  Then the witch professor started stirring the beaker with her impossibly long pinky fingernail.

  "And finally, wait quietly until the water rots. The end."

  "Now make it right away, kids."

  "...?"

  A bewildered silence fell over the cssroom, and the kids looked at each other trying to gauge what they should do.

  "The st one to finish will be punished by having to drink this rotten water. Hehehe..."

  The professor said while licking the rotten water off her fingernail.

  Seeing this, the kids all started gathering dust from around them at once.

  Rumi also quickly gathered dust while watching others.

  Meanwhile, beside her, Raoul was looking through the textbook for what seemed like a much more complicated method of making rotten water.

  The kids all concentrated on gathering dust from their desks, then burned it using beakers and electric stoves.

  And so Rumi also very quickly made rotten water.

  Honestly, since the process itself was simple, the kids who had finished making rotten water were waiting to see who would make it st and receive punishment.

  And the student who made rotten water the slowest was Niel.

  She had broken her beaker while making the rotten water and had to start over.

  In the end, Niel was called up by the witch teacher and stood holding the rotten water the teacher had made.

  Seeing her roommate Niel in trouble, Rumi felt amused in a while.

  "Professor, are you really going to make a student drink that rotten water?"

  Just then, Eve stood up from her seat far away and shouted.

  "What? You want to drink it too?"

  "No-no!"

  Eve flinched in fear.

  And Niel was holding the beaker of rotten water with her eyes squeezed shut.

  "Ugh..."

  "Student, stop wasting time and drink it quickly!"

  That's when Malcolm suddenly raised his hand.

  "Professor."

  The attention of the kids and Professor Francesca turned to Malcolm.

  "What is it?"

  "Could I drink it instead of Niel?"

  Professor Francesca looked with interest at Malcolm who had stepped up as Niel's white knight.

  And Rumi likewise watched the situation with even more excitement.

  "Oho. Unlike that student earlier, you're quite reliable. Why not, come forward."

  Malcolm came forward and took the beaker Niel had been holding.

  "Malcolm... are you sure you'll be okay...?"

  "Yeah."

  But when Malcolm lifted the beaker to drink the rotten water, suddenly the beaker turned red hot and burst with a 'pop', spilling the water below.

  "Oh my! The beaker suddenly broke... Does this mean you got lucky?"

  Professor Francesca seemed to show a slightly flustered look.

  "What... what happened? Professor, should I drink the rotten water I made instead?"

  Malcolm said.

  "No need... both of you just go back to your seats..."

  Professor Francesca sent Niel and Malcolm back to their seats and stood quietly in pce.

  Then she suddenly shouted.

  "Alright, today's lesson is done! Now it's free time."

  "...?"

  The witch professor ended css in barely 20 minutes.

  "... ..."

  But the kids only made coughing sounds and kept quiet.

  Moreover, Professor Francesca was standing completely still with a sinister smile, not moving a muscle.

  The kids started panicking as they watched the teacher standing there for a long time without even blinking.

  "Wh-what? Is that teacher suddenly paralyzed?"

  Dave cried out in shock.

  But then the witch professor suddenly opened her mouth like a robot reactivating.

  "Everyone, it's free time - don't you want to do anything? If you don't have anything else to do, should I tell you the secret of Spiritualism?"

  "...!"

  "Any Answers...?"

  "... ..."

  "No answer, kids?"

  "Yes... Professor Francesca. Please tell us the secret."

  "Yes, that's better. Now repeat after me, kids. Spiritualism is not Spiritualism."

  "Sp-spiritualism is not Spiritualism!"

  "Spiritualism is Necromancy."

  "Spiritualism is Necromancy...?"