The Academy’s Deceased Ate It All

When Yuna came back after finishing her work, there was no one in the ward except Yu Ji-hyuk.

“Hey, where are the others?”

He answered, hiding what he had in his hand.

“They left because the visiting hours were over.”

At his answer, Yuna was quite flustered.

Why didn’t anyone tell her, did she unknowingly get hated by the kids…? It was when she was thinking that.

“They called and texted you a lot. Didn’t you get them?”

“Huh?”

At Yu Ji-hyuk’s words, Yuna immediately took out her phone and checked.

As he said, there were many messages from missed calls to saying that they couldn’t contact her and that they would go first.

She felt embarrassed for some reason and her face turned red. She quickly sent a reply to them, apologizing for not being able to confirm and muttered.

“Maybe the signal was bad there because it’s a special place.”

“Oh, really?”

Did she concentrate so much that she didn’t even notice the calls?

She wiped her sweaty hands on her back and nodded.

“Well… then I should go too.”

“Yeah, be careful on your way back. Thanks for visiting today.”

“Thank you for what…”

I should be more thankful.

She swallowed the last words and pursed her lips.

“Hey, Ji-hyuk…”

“What?”

“How are you feeling, are you feeling better?”

“Uh… well, yeah.”

He nodded with a nonchalant attitude.

“You know, An Ju-hyuk is always checking and treating me. He’s one of the best healers in the world, so how can I not get better? Besides, this hospital is his place, you know? He said he emptied a whole ward for me, I feel sorry for him.”

“…”

She clenched her hand that was holding the door handle, looking at him smiling pleasantly.

He didn’t know that even the healer he said was one of the best in the world had given up on him.

‘No…’

That can’t be.

He must know.

He knows his own body condition best.

Especially someone like Yu Ji-hyuk.

He was just hiding it.

She asked quietly after finishing her thoughts.

“Really?”

“Yeah. And Evanjeline and Naraura also helped me recover… An Ju-hyuk said I’ll be fine soon if I rest for a while.”

She barely managed to stop herself from calling him a liar.

She thought she didn’t have the right to do that.

She had resolved her grudge with Yu Ji-hyuk, but she never forgot that their relationship started with a one-sided misunderstanding.

Why did she do that then?

She blamed herself and asked herself.

There were many excuses.

She had witnessed scenes that could be misunderstood several times.

She had said things that could be misunderstood, in situations that could be misunderstood.

She had been under mental pressure because of the debt…

But that didn’t change the fact that she didn’t trust him and pushed him away with her own delusions.

But does she have the right to do that now?

She knew why he was trying to hide his condition.

He probably didn’t want to worry everyone.

“…”

Han Su-yeong and Jin Ye-seul, who seemed to have a deep bond with him.

Choi Hyun-woo and Ivan Hunt, who seemed to be very close and trusted each other.

Lee Ye-eun, who didn’t care that they were half-siblings and cared for each other more than family.

…But, what about me?

‘How stupid.’

Yuna smiled faintly.

The answer was already there.

At best, a friend.

At most, someone who received a favor from him.

“Right…”

Yuna slowly turned her body and looked at Yu Ji-hyuk.

“…Are you really okay?”

He nodded at her question.

Then she smiled as brightly as possible and said.

“Yeah, then I’m glad.”

She chose to be silent and smile as always.

She believed that was the best choice and didn’t doubt it.

***

After Yuna left, I felt a strange sense of discomfort.

‘…What’s going on?’

She was smiling brightly, but somehow she seemed to be on the verge of collapsing.

I was already worried about her crying a few days ago.

She must have had something serious happen to her or a big change in her mind.

But Yuna, the Yuna I know, was a person who never showed it.

She was foolish enough to try to carry all the troubles and hardships around her, but she would immediately be wary if someone pitied or looked down on her. A hedgehog-like person.

That was the Yuna I remembered.

“Ugh…!”

I was about to lie down on the bed, but I immediately got up and lifted the blanket.

The paper crane I received for the conversation with Jin Ye-jung was still silent for some reason.

It might be none of my business, but maybe I could help her…

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.”

I stopped at the sound of a deliberately tongue-clicking sound from the window.

I turned my head and saw a woman sitting on the windowsill with her legs crossed, looking at me with contempt.

“Miss Belluna?”

“Yes, it’s Belluna.”

She was sitting on her knees, resting her chin on her elbows, and shaking her head as she looked at me.

“Hello, Yu Ji-hyuk?”

“Yeah, well… How are you, Belluna?”

“No.”

She frowned as if she didn’t like my question.

“I’m not well today, Belluna. Unlike what you know. I’m the Belluna who almost got torn to pieces by you, and also the mother who was deceived by her son’s friend.”

“…”

I was speechless at her words.

She smirked at me.

“Was that joke not funny?”

“Oh, yes. No. It was funny.”

“Then why don’t you laugh?”

“Haha…”

I couldn’t just laugh it off as she wanted.

If I had to name the most difficult and unpredictable being among the ones I knew, she would be one of them.

And considering the power and influence she had, I had to be wary of her.

“And what was that just now?”

“What?”

“That girl earlier. How could you treat Katarina Atkinson like that?”

“…Are you talking about Yuna?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Belluna nodded and looked at me with contempt.

“Yu Ji-hyuk… You are more dull and boring than I thought, and a donkey dung stamped by a camel’s hoof that doesn’t understand a girl’s heart.”

She shook her head.

“If you were my son, or if that girl was my daughter, I would have scolded you.”

I sighed quietly at her reproach.

“Did you come all this way to say that?”

“No? Of course not.”

She looked at me as if I was stupid.

“I came to talk to you about the children of Milted, and the beings who are allied with them.”

She began to casually tell me stories that were not to be taken lightly.

“The children of Milted will now openly target you. Because they noticed that you have the energies of Margo, Svengali, and Minerva in your body, and that you took what Milted had coveted for his whole life…”

“Wait, are you talking about the pendant?”

“No.”

Belluna lowered her head and poked my heart with her finger.

“Minerva’s heart.”

She blinked her eyes and looked at me.

“You devoured it all, didn’t you? The heart of Minerva that bleeds like no other in this world. The heart of the seven sins, the heart of the greatest dragon, my goodness.”

Belluna looked at my chest with her incomprehensible eyes as always.

“You don’t know how much Milted craved for Minerva’s heart. Even I, who was his subordinate in name only, knew that. Then what do you think his loyal followers who were truly devoted to him are thinking?”

“…They must be desperate to get it.”

“Correct!”

She clapped her hands and shouted in a cheerful voice.

“Actually, there was a lich hiding in the place where the final battle with Minerva took place.”

Of course, I taught him a lesson.

She muttered as if it was nothing.

“Anyway, you should be careful. The current top priority of the children of Milted is Milted’s resurrection, but aside from that, the remaining three are the kind of bastards who would do anything to get his favor.”

Belluna furrowed her brows as if trying to recall something.

“The lich, as I just said, sneaked into the battlefield with the determination to die. He got his skull smashed by me, but he probably didn’t die. But he’s weak, you know? The dragon captured weaker dragons and extracted their hearts to offer them as… um, what do you call it. Yeah, a kind of farm.”

“A farm?”

“Yes. A farm. No, rather than a farm, a barn would be more appropriate.”

Belluna shrugged as if it was nothing.

“It was a sight to behold, dozens of dragons hanging in a row like sausages, with their wings and legs cut off, and their eyes and ears blinded.”

“And he managed and bred those processed dragons and when the time came, he took their hearts… Bang!”

Belluna playfully tapped my chest and laughed pleasantly.

She laughed refreshingly for a while and then wiped the tears in her eyes with her finger.

“But the best was the vampire, her. She deliberately met and had many children with many races. Because she needed four skilled alchemists to break Milted’s seal.”

She was right.

To break Milted’s seal, four alchemists who had reached a lofty level were needed.

In the original work, I remembered that the condition was met by either Alice Blessbuck, Cass Lyle, or Isaac Macdowell or Evanjeline Roengreen.

The remaining one was filled by an unknown being, who was mentioned to have met the condition from a long time ago.

“But I heard that she killed almost all of them because she didn’t like them, and only left a handful of children… Hmm, I couldn’t understand it at all.”

I agreed with her on this one.

She closed her eyes and nodded, then blushed as if she was embarrassed.

“…Oh, I didn’t mean to recall the memories with him.”

She shook her head and looked at me, coughing.

“Anyway, do you understand now? I came to warn you, so please be careful.”

“Yes, thank you very much, Belluna.”

To be honest, I was sincerely grateful to her.

I didn’t know what she was thinking, but she was a spirit, not a human.

She liked what she liked, and hated what she hated.

And she lived as she pleased and did as she wished.

She left the organization she had been in for hundreds of years, and even annihilated her friends who she had known for thousands of years without hesitation.

I could tell how unpredictable she was by that.

Such a being came to warn me and worry about me.

…And she also brought me some important information, so I had to thank her.

“Hmm…”

Then Belluna started to stare at me.

She looked at me so blatantly that I felt uncomfortable and avoided her gaze.

She opened her mouth.

“It’s amazing, Yu Ji-hyuk. This is the third time I’ve been interested in a human.”

“Oh, yes…”

“He was the first, my son was the second, and you are the third. And all three of them… made me interested in different ways.”

I wonder why this is happening.

As she muttered that, something hit her head with a thud.

It was a crumpled piece of tissue.

“Oh my.”

“…!!!”

The one who threw it was obviously Raune.

And he was shaking his roots violently, looking furious.

She just smiled as if she found it amusing.

“Don’t worry, my fellow. There’s no way you’ll have anything to worry about. He was the only one I loved, and my son is the only one I have to give love to. Yu Ji-hyuk here is just a pure interest and curiosity…?!”

As she continued her words with a smug attitude, she suddenly gasped and stopped.

Then she slowly turned to look at me with a stiff expression.

“Could…it be?”

I had never seen her look so tense.

She sweated profusely and looked at me, then let out a short scream.

“I, I have to go, I have something urgent to do!”

“What?”

She fumbled to open the closed window.

I was dumbfounded by her sudden reaction, and before I knew it, she opened the window and sighed with relief.

“Then, see you later. Bye!”

“Wait, Belluna!”

She disappeared like a wind, ignoring my protest.

I wondered what was going on and looked at Raune, who was also trembling as if he had seen something scary.

“What is this…”

In this situation that made me feel like an idiot, I tried to move to close the window that let in the cold wind.

“Ah. Thank you.”

[…]

But before me, Henir’s shadow seemed to understand my intention and closed the window for me.

I thanked him and leaned back on the bed.

Then I gently put the paper crane, which was still silent, on the bedside.

[…♪]

I don’t know why, but Henir’s shadow looked unusually happy. I looked at him and slowly fell asleep.