He had heard many things about Millennium. A place where science and technology were far more advanced than other academies, with a significantly larger number of clubs. He also heard they had a tradition called the Millennium Prize, where they exhibited what achievements their clubs had accomplished.
The exhibits there were mostly said to be amazing. An exploding coffee machine, a robot vacuum cleaner that pours out bullets, a spray that changes color just by shaking it, etc. Even the items from the Millennium Prize he saw on the black market were full of fascinating things. The air conditioner with all sorts of functions from the kindergarten he stayed at as a child was also a Millennium product.
‘I heard it wasn't that famous in the past.’
Back when Kenji was staying at Trinity, the most influential academies in Kivotos at the time were only Trinity and Gehenna. The name Millennium was only heard occasionally. But that academy grew into a giant academy standing shoulder to shoulder with Trinity and Gehenna in just a few years. It was a tear-jerking growth story.
-Next stop, Millennium. Millennium. Please check for any belongings you may have left behind before getting off. The doors on the right will open.
He arrived at Millennium while lost in thought. Kenji picked up the smartphone he had placed on the seat next to him and got up. As he got off the train, bright sunlight poured down as if greeting him. Kenji slightly frowned at the light covering his vision, then sent a message to Ha-yul.
[I've arrived.]
A reply came back immediately.
[Teacher: I'm still on the way. I just got on the train not long ago.]
[There aren't many trains going to Abydos to begin with. More importantly, will you be okay alone?]
[Teacher: Of course! Don't worry, I have Arona~]
[Alright. But if you have an emergency, contact me. I'll come right away.]
[Teacher: Yeah, Kenji, you contact me too if you need me.]
[Okay.]
Kenji gave a short reply and put his smartphone in his pocket.
He raised his head. The overall scenery of Millennium came into his view.
It was a mostly white landscape. It wasn't enough to remind one of Greece, but most of the buildings erected were pure white. Their heights were all different, but one particularly tall building that looked like a landmark definitely boasted the dignity worthy of being called one of the Big Three academies. Is that where Yuuka works? No idea. I'd need a way to know.
Kenji adjusted the position of the mask on his face and slowly moved his steps.
His attire was quite different from usual. Wearing a mask was the same, but the clothes he wore weren't his combat uniform, but just a simple shirt with a tie, suit pants, and a lightly draped thin leather jacket.
It was an ordinary outfit without bulletproof functions, but since he wasn't visiting for combat, he judged it wouldn't matter much and left his combat uniform at Schale. If this were Gehenna, he would have brought that outfit too, but this is Millennium, the academy of reason and science, isn't it? It's unlikely a riot would suddenly break out in the streets or robbers would storm in.
"It better be like that."
Muttering such to himself, he arrived at the entrance of Millennium. Instead of going straight in, Kenji looked around and started searching for the guide the client said they would send.
'They said a student with peculiar attire and pink hair...'
Millennium's uniform is basically a suit-like form. So a student in neat attire probably isn't the guide.
Then who is it? Ignoring the gazes of those looking at him and whispering, Kenji sighed and looked around. Then, a girl came into his view. A pink-haired girl slumped in a chair with an ice cream in her mouth.
Even at a glance, her attire was unusual. A leather scrap that couldn't be told if it was clothing or a bra was covering her chest, and a white shirt that had slipped down reached her forearms. Why she was wearing a black coat she wasn't even wearing was a mystery, and due to the high ratio of apricot-colored skin, the gauze on her knee and the bandage on her shoulder stood out.
'What the? Is she crazy?'
Kenji blinked and stared at her blankly. Sensing his gaze perhaps, the head of the girl sitting in the chair turned towards Kenji. The corners of her eyes narrowed slightly.
"......Ah."
After a brief standoff, she let out a small sigh and got up. At the same time, the melted ice cream went straight into the cleavage of her exposed chest. She frowned and opened her chest to wipe off the sticky ice cream. Kenji let out a hollow laugh at the insane sight.
Did I perhaps fall into a gender-swapped world without knowing? The spectacle she was showing was so great that such a thought came to mind unintentionally. But regardless of Kenji's thoughts, she strode up to him and peered at Kenji's mask.
"You're the one from Schale, right?"
"......The guide you were sending?"
"Yep. Izumimoto Eimi. A member of the Superscience Special Department. Nice to meet you."
"Okay... but why are you dressed like that...?"
"......? It's hot. Why?"
Eimi tilted her head and asked back. No self-awareness, huh. Well, if she had any, she wouldn't dress like that. Kenji shifted his gaze from her chest, which swayed like waves, and looked at the entrance to Millennium Academy.
"No... more importantly, can we just go in?"
"Yep. Follow me."
Eimi nodded and began walking ahead towards the Millennium autonomous district. Kenji tapped his mask with his finger and followed her.
Superscience Special Department. A club that tracks and researches phenomena in Kivotos that cannot be scientifically explained, as Eimi explained. Having already roughly guessed from the club name, Kenji showed no particular reaction other than nodding. Eimi said the current club president was appointed for other reasons too, but that didn't really matter to Kenji. What was important was the supernatural phenomenon.
What is a supernatural phenomenon? Isn't it a term that generally refers to various urban legends that cannot be scientifically proven?
For example, playing rock-paper-scissors with a mirror and winning, a ghost appearing in a photo, hearing a human voice from an empty place, etc. Urban legends usually use creepy and eerie ghost stories as a medium. Of course, since ghost stories themselves are often lies based on eyewitness accounts or experiences, most ghost stories are dismissed as just scary tales. It was the same in Korea too.
But not here. Ghosts existed in Kivotos. Kenji had too many stories he experienced to dismiss it all as just ghost stories.
It was roughly... half a year ago? He visited an abandoned building for a request received on the black market. It was a building with a clean exterior but a dirty, strange shape inside, and the client had requested he bring a certain CD placed in the basement of that building. Kenji accepted the request without much suspicion and went down towards the basement of the abandoned building.
There was no particular danger during the process. Since it was an abandoned building, no one lived there, and there were no signs of homeless people staying. As is typical of all abandoned buildings or houses, there were letters written in red paint on the stairs, but since it wasn't anything special, Kenji at the time hummed a tune and arrived at the building's basement. Then he turned on his smartphone light and searched the basement thoroughly.
But the CD the client mentioned was nowhere to be seen. Thinking it might have gone under the bookshelf, he moved the bookshelf, but it wasn't there either, and the same went for under other furniture. An ordinary form of CD did not exist anywhere. Just as he was about to leave the basement, thinking he had accepted a scam request and cursing inwardly, the monitor in the basement, where not even the lights worked, turned on with a pat.
At the same time, a noise sound that seemed to tear the ears was heard, and a blue light poured from the monitor. It wasn't an ordinary light. Sensing that intuitively, he smashed the monitor, but the crackling sound didn't disappear. So he destroyed the speakers and the main unit too. Only then did the light disappear and the sound stop.
In the silence that followed, a single CD popped out of the broken main unit. The moment he bent down to pick it up, Kenji realized.
The monitor wasn't even connected to the main unit, and the power cord wasn't plugged in. The speakers were the same. There was no way electricity would be supplied to an abandoned building in the first place. The moment he realized this, Kenji only grabbed the CD and hurriedly left the building. His back was drenched in cold sweat.
But the CD he brought never reached the client's hands. In just one night, the client who had entrusted the request to Kenji had disappeared. As if they were never a person of this world from the beginning. Kenji confirmed that and immediately burned and destroyed the CD he brought.
What exactly was the reason the monitor that shouldn't have been on turned on? Why did sound come from the speakers? What was the identity of the CD, and who was the client who requested it be brought?
He hadn't figured out a single thing, and it was a story he would never know forever.
An unsettling ending.
It was a ghost story Kenji experienced.
"Interesting."
Eimi stroked her lips after hearing Kenji's story. Kenji chuckled and shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Got any idea how such a phenomenon happened?"
"......It can't be explained unless it was auditory or visual hallucinations. The monitor and speakers. They're all electronic devices. It's nonsense for them to turn on by themselves without electricity and without power cords plugged in."
"Right? But I was perfectly fine, you see."
"Really?"
Kenji nodded.
Back then and now, he wasn't suffering from any mental illness. If his mental strength had been weak enough to develop a mental illness, he wouldn't have survived until now anyway. Were any of the things he experienced easy? Abandoning loved ones, enduring the pain of his whole body being mutilated, getting bullet holes in his body. Not a single one was easy. If he were going to develop a mental illness, he would have done so long ago.
But he was fine, and he had never experienced auditory or visual hallucinations even once. Yet he just happened to have a mental breakdown only inside that building at the perfect timing? That's nonsense. If we reason like that, everything in the world would be no different from being decided solely by coincidence and luck.
And isn't it called a ghost story precisely because a clear definition cannot be given? Kenji tapped Eimi's shoulder, who was trying to dig into the details of the incident, and spoke.
"Don't think too deeply. It's all in the past anyway."
"No. Think about the complaint we sent to Schale. We're trying to find out the rumor related to the old school building, right? Your experience might have the answer."
"I don't think so. Is there even such a thing as an answer in the first place? If a ghost shows up, I'll just beat it up."
"How do you hit a ghost?"
"It works?"
"......? You've met one?"
"A few times. I even personally sent them to salvation."
"Tell me about that experience too."
"It's nothing special. Just happened to run into them, and since they tried to harm me, I beat them up and sent them to the Lord's side. That's all."
It really was a story of nothing special. Eimi pouted her lips and muttered.
"Maybe I should bring a gun......"
While talking, they arrived at the Superscience Special Department's club room.
The way here was quite complicated. Thanks to Eimi, there was no hesitation, but the club room of the Superscience Special Department was so thoroughly hidden that one might think they would get lost if they came alone. It seemed impossible to come back alone if asked.
"The president is waiting inside. Let's go in."
"That... the super-genius sickly beautiful girl written in the complaint? She's the president?"
"Don't call her that in front of her."
Eimi said with a sighing voice. Kenji nodded, feeling bewildered.
Knock knock.
Eimi knocked on the club room door.
"President, it's me. I brought the guest from Schale."
As soon as she finished speaking, a voice came from beyond the door.
-The world's greatest genius and sickly beautiful girl is?
"President, we don't use that kind of password."
-The answer was Akeboshi Himari. Would the wicked subordinate of Rio imitating Eimi please disappear from here quickly?
"President, if you keep this up, I'll wrap you up in a blanket and leave you in front of the air conditioner like last time."
-Gasp!
A sharp intake of breath was heard. Immediately after, the closed door began to slide open naturally. Eimi let out a deep sigh and glanced at Kenji. It meant to go in. Kenji took his hands out of his pockets and followed Eimi into the club room.
The scenery of the club room was quite familiar. Like the rooms of hackers often seen in movies, the walls were full of monitors, and holograms were floating everywhere. Kenji let out a short exclamation and looked around the room. Then, the voice that had come from beyond the door was heard.
"Huhu, nice to meet you. Person from Schale. I thought the Teacher would come originally, but I didn't know their assistant would come. Still, I'm grateful you came."
Kenji turned his head towards where the voice came from. There, sitting in a wheelchair of an unfamiliar design, was a girl with a confident smile. Her hair, a gray close to white, and her pointed ears like an elf seemed to grant her a sense of mystery.
Kenji was reflected in her lavender-colored eyes. Likewise, Kenji also looked at her.
"Let me introduce myself. I am the most beautiful, elegant, noble, cute, antique, pretty, pitiful, smart, brilliant, and amazing super-genius sickly beautiful girl hacker in the world. I'm Akeboshi Himari."
What an excessive number of modifiers. Kenji forced a calm smile and bowed his head slightly.
"Schale-affiliated, Park Kenji. Nice to meet you."
"You can speak comfortably. Huhu, this super-genius sickly beautiful girl specially permits it."
"Ah, okay......"
Kenji nodded with an awkward expression. Regardless, Himari, still with a smile, reached out towards a 'Yokai MAX' can placed on the desk.
"You must have had a hard time coming. So, let's take a short break andㅡ"
"Ah, President. That's the one I shook and left earlier."
"Huh? What do you mean... Kyaah?!"
Drink sprayed out from the can Himari opened. She shook her head, apu apu*, from the drink spraying on her face and called Eimi.
"E, Eimi!"
"Yeah, President. Why?"
"Why?! Give me a towel quickly!"
"No. It's punishment for playing a prank on me earlier."
"Th, that's! This cruel and wicked...! But the super-genius sickly beautiful girl me can't collapse from something like this...!"
Even though the can had already calmed down. Himari wriggled her whole body with a determined expression to wipe off the drink on her face. It was amazing she couldn't notice the towel hanging behind the wheelchair.
'And this is... the Superscience Special Department?'
Kenji let out a sigh.
It seemed like the work ahead was going to be rough.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register