CH 3

When Evan woke up (in true reality), he found himself lying in his own vomit.

He could see the black bread he had eaten the night before, some peas, and a large amount of sour beer in the mess. 

Damn it, he thought. I shouldn’t have drunk the sour beer even if it’s the only thing that tastes relatively palatable. The smell of his vomit was like hell because of it.

Evan opened his eyes and collapsed on the ground, motionless. He knew that he was currently in his ghastly dormitory full of moisture and poisonous insects, where the ventilation and lighting were no better than that inside a spittoon.

The fluorescent sand hourglass at the corner of his room emitted a ghostly green light, and the light that brightened and dimmed at a frequency not unlike breathing showed that it was now three quarters of an hour before sunrise — the time when low-level apprentices were supposed to head to their instructor’s rooms and perform chores such as cleaning the corridor and miscellaneous messes.

Evan knew that if he didn't get there in time and finish the damn cleaning, what awaited him would be a terrible punishment.

However, when he supported himself with an arm against the floor and teetered to his feet, all he did was wipe off the mess and dirt on his face with his sleeve before sitting back down with blank eyes.

He also knew that he should hurry up and clean himself, change into his apprentice robe, and rush to the instructor's room. There was still a slight chance of him escaping from punishment if he got lucky.

But he still didn't want to move.

His soul seemed to have been squeezed dry...

A certain line from a pulp novel he’d read suddenly surfaced in Evan's mind.

The sentence was hilarious, but it perfectly described his current situation.

Evan replayed everything that happened in the imaginary room in his mind: that black shadow, the horrible "thud, thud" sounds, and finally...

The caress he’d felt in his trance.

It seemed gentle.

Evan didn't know if he’d hallucinated the whole thing due to the excruciating pain he had been under, but he inexplicably felt that the thudding sound he heard right before he left the room seemed to contain other meanings.

Evan was instinctively refusing to delve into what the thudding sound and the shadow were — he could still clearly picture in his mind his roommate's hysterical eyes before the other had gone crazy.

Damn it, he really shouldn't have read that book.

And he definitely shouldn’t have tried the instructions within.

When Evan finally came to his senses, he found himself hunched over and crying, tears of fear and despair dripping down his chin to his chest.

"Hey, Evan—You're late!"

Someone yelled vaguely outside the door of the dormitory before thumping on the door kindly.

It was a young man who had just entered the tower. Evan couldn't remember his name. He could only recall that the other had rather bright red hair, and looked as tall as a small hill. In addition, he also had a pair of blue eyes that did not match his body at all.

The boy’s eyes were as gentle-looking as a puppy’s.

Probably spurred on by those eyes, Evan had once given the boy some pointers out of kindness so that the latter could survive the most terrifying stage of an apprenticeship — the beginning. However, this was also likely the reason why that new boy started to show Evan large amounts of undeserved friendliness.

"Evan?"

Noticing Evan’s stillness, panic crept into the boy’s voice.

"I... I'm fine..."

Evan swallowed the fatigue and disgust that suddenly surged in his heart, and gave a hoarse answer.

"I'll be right out," Evan added after a short pause.

"Hey, Evan, if you're not feeling well, I could help you..."

"No need for that."

Evan coldly rejected the person outside the door.

When he stood up, a wave of dizziness washed over him, but he still forced himself to wash up roughly at the corner of his room.

Evan thought that he would look miserable. After all, his temple was still aching with the pain of having his brain dug out. He was prepared to see himself with sunken cheeks and bloodshot eyes, just like how his sea dwarf roommate had looked before he went crazy.

However, to his surprise, his reflection appeared extraordinarily radiant.

Evan stared at the handsome young man with plump cheeks, shiny hair and emerald-like pupils for a long time, almost unable to connect that figure with himself.

Apart from how pale he was (like a drained corpse hanging upside-down on an iron hook), Evan now looked better than ever.

For a moment, a very short moment, Evan almost thought that the "room" within a cluster of stars, the visitor, and the shadow (and of course, that damn "thud, thud" sound) were all just a nightmare.

However, in the next second, Evan saw the mark.

It was a faint gray shadow on his cheek, as if Evan had accidentally gotten a streak of soot on his face.

However, when Evan saw the mark, he trembled involuntarily. He touched his face, and his fingers came away with something akin to dust.

It smelled faintly metallic.

When Evan smelled that scent, the sensation of being caressed by something vividly replayed in Evan's mind. He had to cover his mouth to suppress the urge to vomit, which was brought on by fear.

"It's just a speck of dust. It’s impossible to keep a rat’s nest like this clean, isn’t it?" Evan said softly to himself.

"Don't be a fool... don’t become one of those paranoid idiots. Don’t you know that this is just a figment of your imagination?"

Evan was almost on the verge of convincing himself.

The water mirror before him started to ripple, and his reflection started to distort.

"Fwoosh..."

In the end, the water mirror turned into a handful of clear water and splashed beside Evan's feet — his mental power was so unstable that he couldn’t even maintain the most basic water mirror technique.

Evan glanced blankly at the traces of water on the ground, taken aback. Soon, he heard that annoying voice speak up from outside his door again.

"Hey, Evan, you’re still not coming out?"

The red-haired, puppy-eyed guy murmured cautiously.

Evan couldn't believe it. That guy had been guarding his door the whole time?

"Are you really okay?"

His voice was filled with bizarre unease.

Evan silently massaged his temples in his room. Even his birth mother would not show him so much concern.

Of course, the concern was nice.

However, what Evan needed right now was time alone. Besides, even if he wasn’t embroiled in the matters concerning the "room", he would not want to have this big red-haired puppy glued to his heel due to his awful circumstances as a mage apprentice.

Evan turned around, walked to the door, and opened it.

The moment he saw those puppy-like eyes, Evan had the urge to cast "chains of despair" on him to express his irritation, though he ultimately suppressed it.

"Evan... y-you’re late."

Puppy Eyes showed a look of relief when he met Evan's gaze, but that soon turned into extreme worry.

"Yes, I know that."

Evan wiped his face and walked past Puppy Eyes, heading straight towards the instructor's room.

The moment he passed him, Evan keenly caught the faintly hurt look on Puppy Eyes’ face.

But that pitiful look only made Evan feel even more irritable.

The corridor connecting the apprentice dormitory and the instructor's dormitory had never seemed so intricate and long. The sky beyond the long and narrow windows had already turned a faint, dark blue hue.

This was an ominous color. Evan glanced out the window hurriedly, and finally felt himself return to reality.

Unfortunately, reality was a dreadful tragedy.

It was almost dawn, and Evan had no doubt that he had missed the cleaning session that was supposed to end before the instructor woke up.

Thinking of this, Evan felt as if his heart had turned into a lead weight, dropping right into his stomach.

The heavy and clumsy thudding of Puppy Eyes’ footsteps followed Evan from behind.

"Hey, Evan, I could help you with those things..."

He lowered his voice and murmured behind Evan.

Evan rolled his eyes.

"Mind your own business," Evan replied indifferently.

Come on. He was horribly unlucky, but he wasn’t evil enough to encourage another apprentice to die for him.

"I really..."

"Shut up."

Evan interrupted Puppy Eyes’ words and quickened his pace.

He really didn't want to pay any more attention to the big man behind him — every word of the latter reminded Evan of how terrible the things he was about to face would be.

However, Evan would never have expected that all his fear and nervousness would be for naught. 

The instructor did not punish him...

Because the old man had gotten himself into even greater trouble.

Before Evan could even approach the instructors’ dormitory, he noticed the unusual commotion nearby.

A crowd had gathered near the corridors and stairs and whispering drifted along the restless air.

A familiar stench wafted.

"Hmm?"

Evan subconsciously slowed down.

He sniffed the air fiercely and doubts surfaced in his heart.

Why was there a smell of tri-horned demon here?

As the unlucky keeper who’d barely survived his numerous interactions with the tri-horned demon, Evan believed that he would not misidentify this smell.

The sight that greeted him when he hurriedly cut through the crowd proved his judgment correct.

A highly deformed tri-horned demon was right there in his instructor’s dormitory room.

The instructor's pale and haggard body and the dark limbs of the tri-horned demon intertwined and moved constantly.

“Bleugh..."

The sound of retching came from somewhere in the crowd.

Evan was sure that it had come from a new apprentice — only the new ones would be so fragile.

Of course, this did not mena that the scene in front of him was not disgusting and terrifying enough.

Evan glanced at the situation in the field before involuntarily looking away. A sense of nausea surged up again, causing him to wobble on his feet slightly.

"Evan, are you okay?"

Someone held him up.

Evan couldn't help but look at Puppy Eyes.

He was a little taken aback at the latter’s performance, surprised at how this guy, who had a somewhat weak personality, had not been affected by the scene the instructor and the tri-horned demon made.

The hand he held Evan with was a little cold, but it was also very stable.

His eyes, which had remained on Evan from start to end, were calm, and seemed extraordinary cold at certain moments. 

Evan trembled involuntarily.

"Evan?!"

The eyes of the red-haired young man were filled with concern and panic. In the midst of this passion, the coldness Evan noticed earlier seemed to be no more than an illusion.