Chapter 1207: Who's Behind This?

Chapter 1207: Who's Behind This?



The mystery behind the bracelets not working was quickly resolved by yours truly, as I was able to easily detect weird barriers outside of the Nightmare Realms' main dungeon area.

Right outside, where the Nightmare Void is located, was where I found the barriers. I had noticed them slightly on our own Realm exploration, but I think I ended destroying it on my battle against the Nightmare Demon.

Nonetheless, the rest of the Realms all had them, which were composed of roughly a hundred Nightmares of Lesser form, mixed together by clearly someone that knew how to do this.

"I think this means that someone else... made these before the students entered, maybe yesterday," I explained. "Someone in this academy is planning to kill the students."

When I explained this to the professors, they all felt slightly shocked.

"This is... although that's a possibly, let's start by not pointing fingers at one another, Maria." "Indeed, let's calm down... This is too much to process after all."

"Three students died, we did expect some to get wounded, I mean, this is not an easy job, we can't always guarantee everyone was going to make it but.. at the beginning? This is indeed disheartening."

"Hahh... Thank you for your help, Maria. Without your help, many more would have died, we owe you a lot." Professor Frederica Eastbern said, readjusting her glasses as she tried to smile, even though she looked devastated.

"That's right, you're a student after all, so please go rest," said a burly man, Professor Hendrick Constance. "You've done more than enough for today, Maria. The rest is all up to us, we'll investigate things thoroughly and find clues. Authorities are here now, and they'll remain around the academy for better protection. Rest assured that your safety is our priority."

"Okay then..."

I guess a student, I couldn't really do much myself at the end... Wait no, I can do a lot! But the thing is, I need to play along as the student.

I'll investigate more on my own or with my family later.

For now, we should go rest, they weren't wrong at telling me that, too many things have happened, and everyone needs to rest, especially me.

The first of these seven days wasn't so bad, it was full of a lot of fun, even this was a bit fun and interesting, though those three students died... is very gruesome.

I wish I could have known beforehand about all of this; I might have been able to prevent it.

"Ugh, what are we going to do now?" wondered Alma. "Is someone trying to kill us? But why? What have I done to anybody?"

"It's not that," said Sofia. "It simply means that the Nightmares are targeting us now... That Nightmare Demon that Maria fought, maybe there's more like that. Intelligent Nightmares are rare, but the Demons are among the smartest. Without doubt, I bet it's them!" "Well, maybe," said Emily. "I guess they got something to do. But if whole Nightmare Demons would have infiltrated this place, we could have already been able to tell, right? They aren't the sneakiest, their presences alone release a lot of Soot into the air."

"That's... not wrong," muttered Sofia. "But that Nightmare Demon definitely knew something, talking all smart about us, like she knew us!"

"Right... T–That's right! Do you remember something else, Maria? I know you talked with her..." said Alma.

"A bit, she did say something about knowing us all..." I said, trying to act like I didn't knew much. "But through the majority of the fight she didn't want to talk, and would continue screaming angrily like a monster... I had to eliminate her."

"Oh..." Alma sighed, looking a bit disappointed. "W-Well, I don't think we'll be able to figure out much anyways, right? Pointing fingers at other people without having any proof it was them either... Maybe a professor did it, or maybe a student, or maybe none. Without clues, we can't do much."

"Yeah... So we have to just find our clues, right?" Sofia smiled.

"Sofia... are you suggesting we investigate the whole school?" asked Jonathan. "Don't you think that's a bit excessive?"

I guess he didn't want the students to get involved with this whole thing, it was better if we did it on our own.

"Yeah!" my daughter suddenly said. "It's a bit excessive, big sis Sofia!"

"We should rest for now, it's getting late after all," Arachne commented. "Right?"

"Yeah and I'm hungry!" Celes nodded.

"E-Eh? Ah..." Sofia felt a bit overwhelmed as all the children started bothering her. "Okay, okay! I understand! L-Let me go already! Ack!"

It was better if Sofia didn't get strange ideas into the other girls' heads, trying to investigate on their own will only lead to their deaths. Whoever is behind this, might be an incredibly powerful person... or Nightmare.

And I am sure that talking head I got might be happy to reveal us some of the things she knows once I can get the time to talk to her.

Anyways, once the day came to an end, we went to eat at the large cafeteria, the food of this world, very similar to modern Earth, was quite superb, so we ate a lot.