The door to the club activity room locked with a distinct click.
The sound wasn't loud.
But in the deathly silent room, it sounded like a gunshot.
Horn was in the middle of adjusting that dark booster pump when his hand jerked, and the wrench he was holding slammed onto his foot.
He didn't dare cry out in pain.
Because Bell was leaning against the door, idly playing with a paperclip he had swiped from the archives.
His gaze was cold.
Colder than the night outside the window.
“Bell?” Horn shrank his neck, his thick glasses sliding to the tip of his nose. “Not going back to rest yet?”
Bell didn't say a word.
He walked over to the polished lab table and reached out to flick the needle used for detecting soul fluctuations.
“Horn.”
Bell’s voice was very soft.
“Instructor Leovet told me that your body is stuffed with thousands of wailing souls.”
“Like a jar full of kitchen waste.”
The air solidified.
The fake smile on Horn’s face froze, like a crack appearing on a low-quality mask.
He opened his mouth, wanting to defend himself.
He wanted to say it was a slander, that the instructor just didn't like him, or that it was a rumor from the Disciplinary Committee.
But looking into Bell’s dark eyes, which held no ripples of emotion.
All the lies got stuck in his throat.
They turned into heavy, ragged breaths.
Clang.
Horn slumped onto the floor, his back against the cold Soul Vibration Cannon.
The man looked as if his spine had been pulled right out of him.
“He... he saw through it, huh.”
Horn took off those thick glasses and tossed them casually onto the floor.
Without the lenses to shield them.
His eyes were exposed to the air.
The whites were bloodshot, and his pupils had shrunk to the size of pinpricks, radiating an extreme, suppressed madness and... hunger.
“It’s true.”
Horn hugged his knees, burying his head in his arms, his voice muffled.
“I’m sick.”
“Or rather, cursed.”
Bell pulled over a chair and sat down across from him.
He didn't draw his sword, nor did he mobilize any mana.
He simply waited quietly.
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been hungry.”
Horn looked up, clutching his messy hair, his nails leaving bloody trails on his scalp.
“Not a stomach hunger.”
“Here.”
He pointed to his own head.
“It’s like there are tens of thousands of ants crawling in my brain, gnawing, screaming.”
“Ordinary food can't fill it at all.”
“Only souls.”
Horn swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing violently.
That physiological craving made him look like an addict.
“Freshly dead souls.”
“The kind that still have body heat, that still carry emotional fluctuations...”
Bell frowned.
The paperclip in his hand was bent out of shape.
“So, you kill people?”
“No!”
Horn looked up sharply, his voice shrill.
“I’ve never killed anyone!”
“Not once!”
He frantically pulled a tattered notebook from his shirt and forced it open, thrusting it in front of Bell.
The paper was yellowed, covered in dense, meticulous records.
“I eat rats! Cockroaches! Or the residual souls of cattle and sheep I scavenge from the slaughterhouse!”
“I have records!”
“Every single meal, every time I even just took a breath of a freshly dead rabbit’s air, I recorded it!”
Horn was so frantic that tears were welling up in his eyes.
“I know it’s wrong.”
“I know it’s like being a cannibal.”
“So I try so hard to endure it.”
“When I really can't take it anymore, I go catch rats.”
“But I’m still so hungry...”
Horn slumped back down like a pile of mud.
“The souls of those animals are too weak. They’re barely enough to fill the gaps in my teeth.”
“I’m like a bottomless pit that can never be filled.”
“The hungrier I get, the louder the voices in my head become.”
“Leovet was right.”
“I’m just a trash jar.”
“The animal souls I’ve swallowed are screaming and going mad inside me.”
Horn grabbed Bell’s pant leg, his fingers gripping so hard his knuckles turned white.
“Bell, I didn't start this club to cause destruction.”
“I wanted to find a cure.”
“I wanted to understand what a soul actually is.”
“I wanted to see if I could create... an artificial soul, or some kind of energy block that could replace that hunger.”
“I want to live like a normal person.”
“Even if it’s just for one day.”
The only sound left in the room was Horn’s heavy breathing.
And the rustling of that tattered notebook being flipped by the wind.
Bell looked down at the man.
He was pathetic, cowardly, and even a bit disgusting.
If this were the world of his previous life, someone like this would have been sent to a psychiatric hospital long ago, or shot as a potential serial killer.
But this was a world of magic.
A freak who survived by eating the souls of rats, yet still dared to try and cure his own curse with science.
It was actually... somewhat...
Endearing?
Bell picked up the glasses from the floor.
He used the corner of his shirt to wipe off the dust.
“Leovet said you’re a hazardous object.”
“The Headmaster told me to stay away from you.”
Bell handed the glasses back.
Horn reached out with a trembling hand, wanting to take them, yet not quite daring to.
“And you?”
Horn asked cautiously.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Or hand me over to the Disciplinary Committee?”
Bell didn't say anything.
He took the glasses and helped Horn settle them back onto the bridge of his nose.
That mad, hungry gaze was once again shielded by the thick lenses.
He returned to being that submissive tech geek.
“Senior Horn.”
Bell stood up and brushed the dust off his pants.
“I’ve looked at your blueprint for that booster pump.”
“It has a fatal flaw.”
Horn froze.
His mouth hung open wide enough to fit an egg.
“If you output power at that level, this cannon will shatter your own soul before it even fires.”
Bell walked to the lab table and picked up a quill.
At the core position of the blueprint, he drew a circle.
“Here.”
“Add a soul filter.”
“Filter out all that messy noise inside you, and leave only the purest vibration waves.”
Horn stared blankly at Bell.
His brain couldn't quite process what was happening.
“You... you aren't going to arrest me?”
“Why would I arrest you?”
Bell turned his head, a slight curve appearing at the corner of his mouth.
“Did you eat one of my people?”
Horn shook his head violently.
“Did you sabotage my plans?”
Horn continued to shake his head like a bobblehead.
“Then that’s that.”
Bell tossed the pen back onto the table.
“Who in this academy doesn't have a few secrets?”
“I’m a so-called hazardous object myself.”
Horn’s tears finally fell.
He wiped his face, smearing snot and tears all over his hand, laughing and crying at the same time.
“Thank you... thank you...”
“Don't be so quick to thank me.”
Bell’s voice turned cold.
He leaned down, bringing his lips close to Horn’s ear.
His voice was low, carrying an unquestionable scent of blood.
“I’m trusting you because you’re still useful.”
“And because in those eyes of yours, besides hunger, there is a thirst for truth.”
“However.”
Bell’s finger lightly touched Horn’s carotid artery.
It was throbbing violently.
“If you ever dare harbor ill intentions toward the living.”
“Or if one day your hunger spiraling out of control.”
“I will personally dismantle you.”
“I’ll stuff you into this cannon.”
“As fuel.”
Horn shuddered.
But he didn't shrink away.
Instead, he looked up, meeting Bell’s gaze.
He nodded firmly.
“Okay.”
“If that day ever comes.”
“Please, don't hesitate.”
Bell straightened up and unlocked the door.
The cold wind from outside poured in, dispersing the heavy, stagnant atmosphere in the room.
“Alright, stop crying.”
“Hurry up and modify the blueprint.”
“The Academy Festival is only a few days away.”
“I want those people who look down on us...”
“...to hear a real bang.”
Bell took two steps out, then stopped.
He looked back at Horn, who was still on the floor wiping his tears.
“Also.”
“When you’re hungry from now on.”
“Don't go catching rats. They’re filthy.”
“Go to the Magical Beast Forest on the back mountain.”
“I’ll hunt some wild game for you.”
Horn stared blankly as the silhouette disappeared into the darkness.
He grabbed the blueprint on the table.
His hands were still shaking.
But this time.
It was from excitement.
He pushed up his glasses, and the hunger in his eyes behind the lenses seemed to recede slightly.
Replacing it.
Was a burning fire.
Horn grabbed a wrench and crawled toward that dark cannon.
His movements were faster than they had ever been.
“Add a filter... right... a filter...”
“And then that return valve...”
“Hehe...”
“I’ll blow you all to hell.”
Rate on N.U.
