Chapter 06
“Welcome to the Maze of Bears dormitory hall!”
The winged sparkle standing beneath the old chandelier clapped his hands.
Then, in the deathly silent space, a mournful echo rang out.
Clap, clap, clap, clap……
“…….”
What a crazy school.
Daisy looked at the long gray cobwebs hanging beneath the chandelier and thought.
Seriously, how did they come up with the idea of cramming kids into a place like this?
Damp stone walls covered in moss.
An uneven stone floor.
A leather sofa covered in blue mold along every crack.
A fireplace that looked as though it had never been lit even once.
Even the gloomy, dim lighting.
If the winged sparkle hadn’t called it a dormitory hall, Daisy would have thought it was a dungeon.
“It’s a dungeon.”
“…….”
“It was remodeled into a dormitory hall 176 years ago.”
At the sparkle’s words, Daisy instinctively felt around her pocket.
Where’s my phone?
I need to report this to the education authorities immediately.
The graduates of the Maze of Bears kept becoming villains?
That was simply the natural output of the input they were receiving.
How could anyone not go insane after spending years in an underground dungeon with no ventilation and no sunlight?
Meanwhile, the sparkle stretched his glittering arms toward the ceiling and said,
“The Maze of Bears dormitory hall is truly a wonderful place!”
“…….”
“…….”
The freshmen fell silent.
Even if they were villains, they still had eyes.
Calling this place “wonderful” was a serious stretch.
But the expression on the winged sparkle’s face as he looked around was completely different.
His eyes were half in a state of ecstasy, and he glittered even more brightly.
“When the great founder of the Maze of Bears, Ursus, first showed me this place and told me it was going to be a new dormitory hall, it was truly horrifying…… But to think it would become such a proper dormitory hall… I’m so touched.”
“…….”
“…….”
“He has such a handsome face, so why are his eyes so terrible…….”
Daisy deeply sympathized with the freshman who whispered those words.
The winged sparkle had clearly invested all of his aesthetic sense into his own appearance.
Otherwise, there was no way he could look at this ruin with such overwhelming emotion.
‘Wait.’
At that moment, Daisy’s eyebrow lifted slightly as she realized something.
‘If the founder personally showed him around, how old is this guy?’
Daisy was staring at the sparkle’s face, which looked no older than twenty-five at most, when the sparkle chuckled.
“Of course, you won’t actually be living here. This is just the dormitory hall.”
Phew.
Several students visibly sighed in relief.
“Your actual dormitory is inside there.”
The sparkle pointed somewhere.
The freshmen turned their heads toward it… and rubbed their eyes.
There was a small, ominous entrance.
The arched entrance was pitch-black inside, like a gaping hollow, so dark that nothing could be seen.
The freshmen’s gazes naturally shifted toward the old, rusty brass plate hanging above the entrance.
[↓Maze Dormitory Entrance↓]
Clunk!
At that moment, one of the nails fell out, causing one side of the brass plate to drop.
Creak— creak—.
Hanging from a single nail, the brass plate swung for a while, producing an eerie, nerve-grating sound.
“…….”
“…….”
“Sniff, sob…….”
Someone burst into tears.
Daisy turned her head and saw Lydia’s left-hand woman crying again.
What a timid child.
“Oh, dear. There’s no need to cry. Students become stronger inside the maze, I mean, the dormitory.”
“…….”
“…….”
Just pick one. Is it a maze or a dormitory?
That was what the freshmen were thinking when the winged sparkle spoke in an absurdly cheerful voice.
“All right, now it’s time for questions and answers! All questions are welcome! Yes, you there, go ahead!”
“How can we transfer to another dormitory?”
“Except for that question, you’re welcome to ask anything! Next!”
“How can we cancel our assignment to the Maze of Bears dormitory?”
“Changing the wording doesn’t make it a different question! Next!”
“How can we change our dorm supervisor?”
“From now on, you’re banned from asking questions!”
“…….”
“…….”
“Then… how do we get through that?”
“Oh, finally, a proper question!”
The sparkle clapped his hands and answered with a delighted expression.
“You just have to get through it on your own!”
“…….”
“…….”
The freshmen, especially those from noble families who had rarely done anything by themselves, stared in shock with their mouths hanging open.
“Y-You’re not going to take us there?”
“Ah, I have an urgent matter to attend to.”
The sparkle checked his empty wrist as though he were looking at a watch and spoke regretfully.
“But don’t worry. Your seniors all made it safely to the dormitory.”
Safely?
Daisy raised one eyebrow at those ominous words.
That meant they might not make it safely……
The sparkle looked at Daisy with an amused expression and said,
“You can do it! I believe in all of you!”
“…….”
“…….”
“All right, then walk forward proudly! Breathing in the damp, gloomy, evil air!”
I’m off!
With that cheerful farewell, the sparkle disappeared with a pop.
“…….”
“…….”
The dormitory hall, now containing nothing but the group of freshmen, became deathly silent.
Daisy closed her eyes tightly as her blood pressure rose.
These crazy bastards, seriously……
“…….”
“…….”
The freshmen gathered in a semicircle around the maze entrance, where not a single ray of light could be seen, remained silent for a while.
Naturally.
The place genuinely looked like somewhere you entered and never came back out of.
“It’s… probably just a maze, right?”
A gentle-looking freshman with light green hair asked hopefully.
“Do you really think it’ll be just a maze? It obviously looks like there’s going to be all kinds of weird stuff inside.”
The red-haired boy with sharp eyes answered irritably.
“Sniff, sob…….”
The crying that had been quietly coming from somewhere grew louder.
“Hey, shut up.”
“I-I’m really not supposed to be in the Maze of Bears……!”
“You are. Your name tag is pitch-black.”
“I’m not… sob…….”
The freshmen ignored the chestnut-haired girl stamping her feet and gathered their heads together again.
“Should we just sleep here?”
“What, for the entire semester?”
“Fuck, who said the entire semester? I’m just saying it because I’m tired as hell.”
“You’ll probably be even more tired if you sleep here.”
“Then you go inside!”
“Why don’t we all calm down and come up with a plan?”
A girl with long purple hair spoke in a calm voice.
“Ha, a plan, my ass.”
The redhead sneered with a cynicism beyond his years.
“What did you say?”
“You still don’t get it? To put it nicely, we’re ‘unclassifiable.’ In reality, we’re just garbage. The Maze of Bears is a garbage dump.”
“…….”
“…….”
“There aren’t even bedrooms to begin with. They just expect us to wander around the maze until we collapse and fall asleep.”
“…….”
“…….”
The deep silence that followed those scathing remarks was broken by a surprisingly cheerful voice.
“Wow, you’re really extreme.”
A cute-looking male student’s fluffy brown hair bounced up and down.
“What did you just call me, you bastard?”
“Typical Maze of Bears.”
“You’re in the same dormitory too, you know?!”
“Oh, right.”
The purple-haired girl stopped the two of them and said,
“Instead of doing this, why don’t we gather some information first?”
“What information? Are you thinking of sending a scout or something?”
“That could work too.”
“Are you crazy? What lunatic would risk his life and go first?”
That was when it happened.
“Uff-cha.”
What… was that?
The freshmen’s gazes turned toward the strange sound.
There was a girl standing there.
A petite figure.
Long platinum-blonde hair.
Long eyelashes fluttering like butterflies.
Gentle, drooping emerald eyes.
A refined nose and plump, cherry-red lips.
Her pure and flawless features were beautiful enough to draw admiration.
Although her neat, almost old-fashioned school uniform took away some of her charm……
It wasn’t difficult to figure out who she was.
There was only one platinum-blonde student among the freshmen.
Daisy Sableheart.
The only daughter of Count Sableheart.
The rumors that, unlike her brilliant brothers, she was stupid and pathetically meek were hardly a secret.
And she was holding something.
“……A poker?”
One of the freshmen rubbed his eyes and muttered.
Grrrreeeeek.
A vicious scraping sound rang out as metal dragged across the stone floor.
To everyone’s surprise, Daisy Sableheart was dragging a rusty fireplace poker from the fireplace toward the entrance of the maze.
As if she were about to beat someone over the head with it—
The girl’s red lips gently parted.
“Kill.”
What?
“Oops. Ordinary…….”
Adjusting her grip on the poker to make it slightly less threatening, the girl said,
“Let’s just hit them once.”
‘That sounds exactly the same as “kill.”’
The freshmen of the Maze of Bears couldn’t bring themselves to say that.
The smile appearing on the girl’s face was rather ominous.
That was right.
Daisy Sableheart was currently—
pissed as hell.
