Vinny was certain that when he had passed through the Academy Commercial Street that morning, there had been no notice board there.

Had it been put up around noon? Or sometime that afternoon?

Vinny stepped closer and read it.

“According to Academy observations, the double-moon phenomenon will descend after nine tonight. Because it contains unusual and unknown power, all students are advised to remain indoors whenever possible, lest they be affected and come to regret it when the Chosen One Granted by God Tournament begins.”

So it was simply a notice telling students to return to their dorms and not linger out on the street?

Even now, there was no conclusive explanation for the double-moon phenomenon or its exact effects. The differences between individuals were simply too great.

For most people, it had no visible effect at all. But everyone gathered here was a supernatural with mana flowing through their body. And when it came to supernaturals, anything was possible.

Vinny seemed to remember seeing something in the materials distributed earlier: once, in Carillian Academy's history, a student had developed “mana-rampage syndrome” after the double moons appeared. Yet the Academy had stood for over a thousand years, and there had only been a few such extreme cases. It was impossible even to say for certain whether the double-moon phenomenon had caused them.

It was like the side effects of medicine in his previous life. A drug might have only a 0.1 percent chance of causing an adverse reaction. If you took it and suffered that reaction, you had practically hit the jackpot.

But the side effect would still be printed in the instructions, because 0.1 percent did not mean impossible.

So this notice was only a precaution. If the double-moon phenomenon really could inflict severe negative effects on people, hiding at home would never be enough to avoid them.

Still, a wise man did not stand beneath a crumbling wall.

First-years might not yet understand what the Chosen One Granted by God Tournament truly meant to them, but the third- and fourth-year upperclassmen were different.

They had waited for this once-in-a-lifetime tournament as if they had accumulated good karma over several lifetimes just to earn the chance. It was being held at the period most favorable to them, when they were at their strongest.

If some unexpected mishap ruined everything and left them unable to compete, they would regret it even more bitterly than the upperclassmen who had graduated just in time to miss the Tournament.

Those who had graduated before it came around had merely been unlucky. But anyone who threw away their own opportunity because they had refused to take basic precautions would have only themselves to blame.

When they grew old, they would probably wake up in the middle of the night just to curse themselves. Why had they been so useless back then? Why could they not simply stay home and behave?

Vinny looked down the dim Academy Commercial Street ahead.

In the daytime, it glittered with light and bustle. Yet tonight, it felt as though he had stepped into the Academy Commercial Street of another parallel world. The yellowish lights fell across the road, making everything look old, fractured, and faintly unreal.

Tch.

Seriously.

Fennia's nonsense had gotten to him. He was starting to treat even familiar scenery with suspicion.

All right, get a grip. He was not a child anymore. Why was he acting as though he were afraid of ghosts?

Back where he came from, even the five- and six-year-old kids next door had never been scared of this stuff.

And besides, what could possibly be scarier than going hungry?

Vinny entered the Academy Commercial Street.

It was quiet all the way through. For some reason, everything that had looked so familiar during the day now carried a faintly mysterious, uncanny air beneath the double moons.

Why did it suddenly feel so cold?

The icy wind made his heart flutter with unease.

It had to be Fennia's fault. Why had that idiot said such absurd things when she had nothing better to do? Now he was getting paranoid for no reason!

Vinny grumbled inwardly.

The wind was strong tonight.

And cold.

Under the dim lights, Vinny's vision blurred for a moment. From the corner of his eye, he caught a white shape drifting in the air.

He instinctively looked over at once.

It was only a tattered strip of white cloth hanging from a flagpole, snapping in the wind.

Vinny quickened his pace.

It absolutely was not because he was a little scared of walking alone at night.

He simply missed Shicodale.

He missed home.

He just wanted to get back faster. Was that not allowed??

Thud!

“Ow!”

As Vinny walked, he suddenly fell backward for no apparent reason.

“What was that??”

Startled, Vinny looked around. Just now, it had felt as though something had crashed into him.

But there was clearly nothing nearby. Only the bitter wind kept sweeping past him, and there was nothing on the ground that could have tripped him.

Vinny got to his feet and stared blankly at the familiar yet unfamiliar street. He rubbed at the goosebumps on his arms.

Too strange.

This was seriously too strange. He should get home already.

Wait.

Could he possibly be the one and only victim of the double-moon phenomenon??

Before long, he reached the middle of the Academy Commercial Street. The road to the east led toward his dorm. Once he left this street, he would be able to see the dorm area.

Yet Vinny did not immediately take that road.

He stopped.

A cherry-pink figure at a distant intersection caught his eye.

Was that...?

Seeing that figure in a place like this left Vinny somewhat stunned.

Why was she here?

If he remembered correctly, Margaret had told him that she was helping at the church, assisting the priests and nuns with treating injured students.

Why would she be alone on the deserted Academy Commercial Street so late at night??

And something about her looked very wrong.

She swayed as she walked, weaving crookedly from side to side as though her body might give out and collapse at any moment.

She was too far away for him to see more than a silhouette, but it had to be Margaret.

He was in a hurry to get home, but he should still check on her. Something about the way she looked was deeply off.

Vinny frowned. No matter what, he could not just ignore someone in that condition.

Just as he kept his eyes on Margaret, she passed a corner—

—and abruptly crumpled to the ground.

“Margaret?!”

Vinny could not wait any longer. He hurried toward her.

After all, he had already noticed that Margaret had not seemed well when school ended.

Vinny took the road straight ahead and ran all the way to the corner where Margaret had fallen.

But when he arrived, she was gone.

The surroundings were empty.

“Margaret?”

Vinny called out again, but received no answer.

Creak. Creak.

A bleak gust of wind blew through, making an open door groan on its hinges. The sound was sharp and low, almost like a roar rising from the bottom of a well.

Listening more carefully, Vinny realized it was only the rusted hinge of an old door.

“That is...?”

The storefront before him looked familiar.

Vinny stared at it for a moment before recognizing it.

Was this not the shop belonging to that crazy old man who sold mirrors?

The sign over the entrance still bore the words “Forest of Mirrors” in huge letters. Yet it looked far too old. Vinny did not remember it appearing so worn the last time he had come here.

Had the place become this run-down after only a few weeks?

And this late at night, the door was not even locked. It had been left open, allowed to creak in the wind.

Vinny studied the shop, unable to suppress his unease. He leaned closer and peered inside, only to find no light at all.

Had the owner already gone to sleep?

But if the shop was closed, why had the door been left open?

It was almost as though no one lived here anymore.

Vinny also noticed that the lock on the door was broken. The bolt had vanished entirely.

That was far too strange.

The last time Vinny had seen the odd old mirror seller had been nearby. The man's hair had been disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, and his expression near-hysterical as he rummaged through the grass and shouted that his mirror had disappeared.

At the time, Vinny had only thought the old man was crazy to begin with. For all he knew, the man had been putting on some strange performance just to mess with people.

Besides, it had only been some worthless broken mirror. Losing it should not have mattered much, so Vinny had not paid any attention to him.

Had something strange happened?

Vinny looked at the desolate storefront and could not help wondering.

Where had that crazy old man gone?

Was he still here?

If he had moved away, why were so many mirrors still displayed outside?

That was right.

The pavement display outside Forest of Mirrors was still filled with all sorts of mirrors, much as it had been last time. It had barely changed at all.

Yet the shop itself had changed completely.

Even the signboard had started to lose its paint.

Vinny could not tell whether it had already looked like that the last time and he simply had not noticed, or whether something had happened since then.

Come to think of it...

Vinny looked around.

This stretch of road had few shops. It was one of the quieter corners of the Academy Commercial Street, and few people normally came here. Most of the shops on this street had no one in them, while some had already closed for the night.

Only this mirror shop still had its door open.

Vinny walked up to the entrance and craned his neck inside.

The interior was pitch-black. Faintly, he could see light reflected off the mirrors arranged on the shelves.

Strange.

Was no one here?

If the owner had moved away, why had the merchandise been left behind?

Vinny instinctively felt that something was off. He looked down the alley where he stood.

“Margaret, where are you?”

Only gust after gust of wind answered him.

There was no path farther down this alley. It was a dead end, and he could see all the way to its end at a glance.

If Margaret were here, there was almost nowhere for her to hide. He could not possibly fail to see her.

Could it be...?

Vinny frowned and looked at the pitch-black mirror shop before him.

Why would Margaret come to such a strange mirror shop in the middle of the night??

Vinny could not make sense of it.

He recalled what Luna had told him before, then stepped toward the pavement display and looked at his reflection in the countless strange mirrors.

The Vinny in the mirrors stood against a dim, gloomy background, as though he had appeared in an old yellowed photograph. Even his present expression seemed shadowed.

Vinny felt the hairs on his body rise.

He could not shake the feeling that every reflection in those mirrors was staring at him.

The sensation made his skin crawl.

He frowned.

All the Vinnys in the mirrors frowned with him.

Yet their expressions looked strangely exaggerated, almost as though they were trying too hard to imitate him. Their faces were twisted into harsh grimaces.

Was it because the background was too dark??

Vinny glanced back at the dim mana streetlamp behind him.

It flickered on and off, as though its power supply were unstable or its connection had gone bad.

Was it because of the double-moon phenomenon that all these strange anomalies were appearing?

He looked into the shop again and hesitated for a moment.

“Margaret, are you in there?”

The shop answered with an eerie silence.

Vinny stared into the darkness within, an indescribable sense of wrongness rising in his heart.

Too strange.

He should wait and see for now—figure out what was going on before deciding what to do next.

Clatter.

Just then, a sound came from inside.

It was like something had fallen from a shelf, struck the floor, and rolled several times.

Vinny's attention was drawn toward the interior.

He did not notice a long, slender black shadow slowly stretching out from the display mirrors behind him, creeping toward his back.

“Who—?”

By the time Vinny sensed something behind him, it was too late.

Before he could turn around, he was shoved into the shop.

Boom!

The door that had just been creaking in the wind slammed shut at once.

It held fast. No matter how Vinny pushed, it would not open.

“Damn it!”

Vinny realized he had been trapped.

He just had not expected something like this to happen inside the Academy.

Luna had mentioned that mirrors and the double-moon phenomenon might be connected. But she had also said it might have been nothing more than one of her ancestor's theories.

Perhaps it was connected only to the Demon Pillar artifact called Nahidagon's Original Sin Mirror.

After all, mirrors were everywhere. Every household had them. There should not have been any danger in them.

So what exactly was going on?

A prank??

Who would target him with a prank like this?

The first people Vinny thought of were those Church brats.

After all, this was Carillian Academy. In theory, no genuinely dangerous enemy should be able to appear here.

“I say, everyone outside,” Vinny called through the door after clearing his throat. “This prank has gone far enough, has it not?”

“It is only a broken door. Do you really think this young master cannot get out? I am merely giving you a chance to avoid being caught red-handed and embarrassed later.”

“If you have read the Academy rules, then you should know the punishment for confining a fellow student. What you are doing already counts as confinement. I will count to three. If you still refuse to open the door, and this young master has to break it down himself, then the nature of this matter will be entirely different.”

Trying to pull bullying tricks on Camella Royal Capital's notorious young master?

What a joke.

Everyone in the Camella Royal Capital knew how hard-headed and difficult to provoke he was.

There had only ever been one person who took advantage of others.

And that person was the Royal Capital's notorious young master.

After Vinny counted to three, the other side of the door remained silent.

There was no sound.

No movement.

Strange.

Could this really not be someone's prank??

Vinny hesitated, but still spoke.

“All right. Do not say this young master did not give you a chance.”

He removed his ice-crystal earrings and gave them several sharp shakes.

An ice-crystal spear materialized amid swirling snowflakes.

Fierce waves of cold curled around its tip as Vinny brought it down hard against the door.

Crack!

A fissure split across the door.

Yet it did not break in half as Vinny had expected.

Vinny's surprise deepened.

Something was wrong.

How could an iron door be this hard?

It had taken a strike from a high-grade [Magic Tool] weapon and merely cracked instead of splitting apart.

What kind of iron could be that tough??

Then something even more shocking happened.

The crack began to close at a visible speed.

“Cough, cough! Something is wrong! Why is the smell in here suddenly so strong? Ugh!”

Vinny abruptly heard the voice of the [Radiant-Cross Holy Shield] within his Sea of Mind.

“A smell? What is wrong? What smell?” Vinny asked.

“This smell... it is the smell of a Demon Pillar!” the little angel said in disbelief.

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