Damn Academy chapter 89

89 – Shadows (12)

When it was time to return to the dormitory after training, Lilith got up from the stump after training.

Her clothes are stained with dust, and some are scorched by the aftermath of her magic.

She wiped the sweat from her cheeks and staggered out into the woods.

This arduous training will continue tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

Compared to the geniuses of Eternia, her talents were few and far between.

So you must be born again day by day.

I will now sort out the untrue relationships one by one. They just eat up time.

The pleasure you get from the eyes and attention of others is only fleeting. If you give your mind to indolent pleasure, you will pay a heavy price in the future.

I already knew this because I had a heartbreaking experience.

Even if there are people who want to help, they will be treated as baggage without being able to do anything.

When you come across something you really want, you don’t even get a chance and it’s taken away by someone else.

As I was walking, lost in thought, I tripped on something and fell to the floor.

“It hurts….”

She struggled to her feet and picked up one of the remains of Plantera that was caught at her feet. She looked around for signs that someone had been there.

Twenty paces away were strewn with footprints, powdered bark, and shattered plantera.

Looking closely at what I picked up, it’s not magic. The joints were neatly disassembled.

She went to the battle site and checked it closely. It wasn’t just one. Most of the dozens of Planteras in front of him were like that.

“This is…”

I knew a person who used this unique way of swordsmanship.

Lilith traced back the faint footprints of a man on the dirt floor.

Is it still nearby?

Her heart raced and she started running until she was out of breath. Soon after, the light of the sunset, hidden by the forest, shines on her face.

After following the trail for a while, the forest disappeared and a small hill full of flowers appeared.

She stopped at the edge of the forest.

My pupils got bigger and bigger.

The other day, it was where she met the students from the art department.

***

In the carriage heading to the mansion.

The rattling that others might feel uncomfortable gave Trisha a subtle thrill.

I left my shoes in a carriage. He also took off her socks and threw them on the seat next to her. Her shoe was turned inside out from the wagon’s shaking, but she didn’t care.

Trisha sang a song of her own choosing from random words that popped into her head. As she did, she sat across from her barefoot and tapped Damian on the shin.

Like it or not, Damian was lost in thought as he watched the evening sunset.

He doesn’t mind trivial provocations. Sometimes it seems that he is not looking at a person, but a tree that has endured for decades in one place.

Thanks to that firmness, Trisha was able to show her true self to Damian. If Damian had been a prolific human being like himself, he would probably have had a hard time becoming friends with each other.

Although sometimes the downside was that he was so indifferent to the people around him that he forgot what he said.

“Demi Damian. Damian says he’s an idiot who doesn’t even know what he said.”

It was a different kind of pleasure to see him panicking. Of course, he didn’t want to be swayed by anyone else. It was meaningful only if it was shaken by Trisha herself.

“….”

Damian looked at Trisha with a puzzled look in her eyes.

Then he calmly opened his mouth.

“Trisya.”

“Yes, yes!”

“I have a question for you.”

“Is there anything you want to know about me?”

Damian’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“You… Are there times when you hate the very existence of being a man?”

Trisha thought for a moment about the intent of her question, then said.

“Of course!”

“When is it like that?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“When she says she is pretty but can’t remember a thing.”

“….”

“Again, when you secretly try to stroke my hair like a pervert at night and get away with it in the morning.”

Damian looked out the window again without any change in expression.

Then she was silent for a few seconds before speaking.

“It deserves to be hated.”

Strangely and saddened after she said it, she crossed her arms and snorted.

“Huh.”

Is that the end even if you kindly explain the reason? Her now brazen attitude was also subtly unlucky.

Trisha squirmed and moved her seat diagonally between Damian and her.

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

Damian spoke shamelessly as if she hadn’t heard.

“Let’s ask another question.”

“….”

“I heard about it today. There is something called ‘drawing friends’ among the art department’s assignments.”

“….”

“Each member has to invite a friend… so i need you Can you come?”

As a friend of Dori, these were words I couldn’t bear to ignore. She closed her eyes once, then opened them and pouted.

“… Where should we go tomorrow?”

“I’m fine right now. I’ll let you know after the joint class.”

Then you will have to wait at least ten more days. Realizing that she had been swayed by Damian, she lashed out at her.

“Then you can tell me later. Why tell me now!”

Then he picked up the socks she had left beside her and threw them all at Damian.

He casually knocked the stocking off her body and said.

“It is unclean. Put it away.”

“It doesn’t smell because I wore it for a while!!”

Trisha was exhausted and lay down on her seat in the carriage with her arms outstretched.

“Annoying….”

Damian spoke again, not paying attention to her reaction.

“Trisya.”

“Why, why!”

“Then have you read the book ‘The Canary and the Clown’?”

“Yes.”

Damian’s voice became quite serious.

“Tell me what it is. It’s important.”

Trisha glanced at Damian’s face and replied curtly.

“It is a story about a princess suffering from aphasia and a clown traveling together. Do you want to hear more?”

Damian nodded.

“Thanks to the clown’s foolishness, the princess regains her smile, and eventually heals her aphasia. I hate that story.”

“Why?”

“After the princess is healed, the clown leaves for wandering, and the princess eventually marries the prince. What is that, you should marry a clown.”

Trisha glanced at Damian again.

“But why all of a sudden?”

He didn’t answer.

***

“Not today.”

After a quick meal at her mansion, Damian subtly stopped Trisha from sneaking into her room.

She asked, widening her eyes.

“Why?”

“There are things I need to do alone.”

“Are you going to lie down without disturbing me?”

He shook his head.

What should I do alone? He didn’t appear to have made up any stories. Damian had been clinging to something all day long from the wagon.

He didn’t seem to let me in even though he begged and swarmed.

“What is it? Can’t I help you?”

“Yes.”

With a decisive cut, Trisha put on her disappointed expression and said,

“What are you hiding from me? Can you share it with me? I am a friend.”

On the one hand, it was sad to be absorbed in something alone without saying anything.

Damian shakes his head.

Is it about the play I asked about earlier? Are you interested in theater?

He went into the room and shut the door before Trisha could ask.

She went back down her hallway with her shoulders drooping.

***

Damian entered his room.

And as he leaned against the door for a moment, he thought of Luna.

Luna, who closed the door to her heart, imagined what she would lose in her future life.

Since he hates half of Eternia, he won’t even be given a chance to meet normally. Because of that, she won’t get sweet memories with the opposite s*x either.

Damian liked the energy of Eternia. When she walks on campus, she always hears laughter from somewhere. It had the power to shake off her worries.

And the more he faced that bright vitality, the contrast of Luna’s moaning in the shadows struck Damian’s chest.

Damian believed that Luna’s should also be in those laughs.

The play that Luna reads when she wakes up. She thought about ‘The Canary and the Clown’.

It’s very painful to live trapped in trauma, but some people don’t want to get out of it. No one like that can come and help.

What he wanted to know was simple.

Does Luna have the will to change?

Are you willing to hold her hand even if she stretches it out?

And just from what I heard today, the answer came out.

Damian was willing to be a clown.

He knew what to do now.

The only clue left.

An alchemist who was captured by a warlock and turned into a ghoul.

A record left by a person related to the Warlock.

It was to decipher Zverev’s research text.

Eagerly hoping that it contains information about the ‘black spirit’.

Damian went straight to bed.

Then he lifted one of the floor tiles under the bed. And he took out Zverev’s research notes hidden under it.

Then he sat down at his desk and opened the book. A total of 4 recipes. And the first was the Griffin Potion.

Since the first one was written in the common language of the continent, there was no major difficulty in deciphering it.

The problem is then. The second was not a single recipe, but rather a book of experiences and essays, some of which were written in common languages and others in languages I did not know.

The 3rd and 4th were all in an unknown language and hieroglyphs, so it took a long time to decipher them.

There was also a reason why I couldn’t entrust the interpretation of this study to someone else.

Damian checked again the warning written in the first section of the second recipe.

[…] By the time these recipes end up in someone else’s hands, I’ll probably be dead. The recipe is everything to an alchemist, and losing it means death.]

[I would like to recommend this recipe to the next owner, whether it be an investigator of the Magic Society or a petty thief. These are not for the public good. Be extremely careful when sharing recipes. If you can’t afford it, burn it. I recommend burning it, but if you can’t, be sure to monopolize it. Someone’s desire might burn you alive instead of a recipe.]