It seemed as though someone was laughing softly.
Under the bright lights, someone stood in front of him, laughing quietly.
Then, beside him, someone was kneeling on the ground, their body trembling without stop. Sweat, tears, and snot were continuously streaming down.
There seemed to be some other people standing nearby as well—people who were also laughing quietly, whispering something in low voices.
Then the person standing in front of him slowly spoke, opening their mouth with a very pleasant voice and saying slowly:
[Now, I order you to gouge out your left eye.]
The person kneeling beside him began to tremble. He seemed to want to scream, yet he could not control his body. He could only slowly raise his hand and reach toward where his eye was.
In the next moment, Miko heard the sound of blood splashing.
[Very good. Now gouge out your right eye as well. This time, make sure to rotate your fingers a couple more times inside the eye socket.]
The person with the pleasant voice issued the command again, a faint trace of suppressed laughter hidden within the voice.
Dark red liquid splattered onto the ground.
There was no scream.
Although the person kneeling on the ground was trembling all over, and his body was becoming increasingly stained red with blood—making it seem as though he might collapse at any moment from being unable to endure it—he never made any sound. He did not cry, he did not scream; he merely trembled and continued to maintain his kneeling posture.
[It actually works!]
Someone at the side spoke in surprise.
[Just now we told him to shut up, and he really couldn't say a single word. We told him not to move around, and he really didn't move. Now he can even gouge out his eyes—this is amazing! Hahaha, he can't even cry!]
Another person could not help but whistle as he spoke, his voice filled with excitement.
[Try something else—right, can he walk in a straight line if we tell him to? After all, he can't see anything now.]
Someone else began to egg things on, shouting happily.
Then more people began to join in, calling out all sorts of different commands, laughing as they offered various ideas.
Meanwhile, the person who had issued the commands simply stood where he was, standing in front of the kneeling person who had reached out and gouged out his own eyes. Once again he let out a low chuckle, then slowly spoke.
[Stand up.]
That person issued his third command.
And so the person who had lost his eyes staggered to his feet.
Then he fell to the ground again.
The loss of vision seemed to have greatly worsened that person's sense of balance, to the point that he could not remain standing.
But his body no longer seemed to be entirely under his own control. Struggling and twisting, he forced himself upright again—only to sway and fall to the ground once more. Then he stood up again, then fell again. After repeating this three times, he finally managed to stand upright, his whole body trembling.
[Spin in circles. Don't stop until I say stop.]
The fourth command began.
The eyeless person began to spin in circles, then fell to the ground again.
Then, under the effect of the command, he stood up again, began spinning again, and fell again.
Just like a clown performing a farcical act, he repeatedly performed this spinning motion—falling again and again, struggling on the ground again and again, standing up again and again, spinning again and then falling once more.
The people watching around him burst into laughter.
One after another, they laughed loudly while watching the struggling person.
They truly seemed to be very happy.
Everyone laughed loudly and without restraint.
Until the person who had been spinning in circles could no longer climb back up.
Until the figure collapsed in a pool of blood, with only the faint strength to tremble remaining.
[Ah, that's it already? How boring.]
[Looks like when someone's about to die, the commands stop working.]
[Forget it, forget it. This one's already broken. Let's switch to another toy.]
[What about the one next to him?]
[That one's a Delinquent Student, not a Bad Student. We can't play with him to death—we'll have to think about it carefully.]
Then those people slowly turned their gazes and looked toward her.
Eh?
Miko froze for a moment. Only then did she realize that she herself was now also maintaining a kneeling posture.
Everyone had surrounded her in the middle.
They were smiling. Every one of them was smiling, smiling at her.
That smile made Miko shiver with fear. It made her feel as though her breathing was about to stop.
[Not a Bad Student, huh? Tch, how boring.]
Someone spoke in a low voice.
[But even if she's a Delinquent Student, there are still plenty of ways to play.]
Another person spoke eagerly.
[Looks like class is about to start. Let's finish this quickly—we can't make the teacher angry.]
Yet another person spoke slowly and unhurriedly. The indifference in his tone made it seem as though Miko's life or death was even less important than the matter of attending class.
She couldn't move.
No matter what she did, her body would not move.
It was as if some kind of power had imprisoned her, locking her firmly in place so that she could not move even the slightest bit.
'What… is happening to me…'
An uncontrollable fear spread through her heart.
She began to tremble—slightly, with small, faint shivers.
This seemed to be the only thing she could do now.
And as if they had noticed her display of fear, the laughter of those onlookers suddenly grew louder.
[Then let's gouge out the eyes again. Come—use your hands and dig out both of your eyes. Make sure to take them out as intact as possible.]
The person giving the command let out another soft chuckle, then slowly spoke to Miko.
She couldn't make a sound.
Miko could only widen her eyes as she watched her own hands rise uncontrollably, watched her fingers extend and aim toward her eyes, the distance between them shrinking little by little.
No…
Struggling with all her strength only resulted in her body trembling slightly.
'No… no…'
Even though she screamed and begged desperately in her mind, she still could not change the movement of her hands.
She could only watch, little by little, as her fingers moved closer toward where her eyes were.
It seemed that at this moment she saw something.
Among those students, behind them, the figure standing at the very outer edge.
Golden long hair…
She seemed to be able to feel that person watching her.
It even seemed as though she could hear that person's laughter, hidden within the laughter of those people, yet for some reason she could still distinguish it clearly.
'Have I heard that kind of laughter somewhere before?'
Amid a strange sense of familiarity, the voices of the surrounding onlookers were becoming louder and louder.
Finally, Miko's fingers had already pressed against her own eyes.
She could not close her eyes.
Some inexplicable force was controlling her eyelids, forcing her to keep her eyes wide open and watch her own hands press toward them. Even when her fingers had already touched her eyeballs, even when she had already felt intense discomfort, she still could not close her eyes, nor could she release her hands.
'Am I going to… die here…?'
Despair spread through her heart.
And the girl's hands had already begun to apply force, about to press into the eyeballs.
Step—
At that moment, a tall figure appeared beside Miko.
The force controlling her body suddenly vanished.
And the laughter of those students abruptly stopped as well.
[Class is about to start. What are you doing?]
A cold voice rang out.
[Good morning, Teacher!]
All of the students bent their waists at that moment, looking toward that figure as they greeted him.
[What's the point of playing with this kind of thing? Go study properly. Don't waste your identity as Outstanding Students.]
That tall figure, wearing a sheep-head hood, spoke in a muffled voice as he reprimanded the students.
[Sorry, Teacher. We were just playing around.]
The students apologized.
Only at this moment did Miko regain control of her body and look around. Then she realized that she was inside a small classroom decorated very luxuriously. There were only twelve student seats in this classroom, and the number of students was…
[Alright. You—and you—come here.]
The sheep-headed man pointed first at the student who had given the command, then pointed at Miko.
The sensation of having her body controlled by something struck again.
Miko stood up stiffly, then walked step by step toward the sheep-headed man, following him until they stopped beside the classroom door.
[Teacher, is there something you need?]
The student standing beside Miko spoke with a smile. His voice sounded pleasant, gentle, and very polite.
It was as if the person who had just ordered a Bad Student to gouge out his own eyes and spin in circles was not the same person as this courteous and amiable individual.
[I only wanted to tell you a principle.]
The sheep-headed man said in an indifferent voice.
[Please instruct me, Teacher.]
The student spoke respectfully, the smile on his face becoming even brighter.
[First, even the most noble person may one day fall into misfortune. Therefore, leaving a margin in one's actions is the way to take responsibility for one's own life.]
As the sheep-headed man spoke, he reached out and adjusted the student's collar.
[Thank you for the instruction, Teacher.]
The student continued smiling, remaining where he stood without moving.
[And the second thing—mental pollution, mental erosion, and the assimilation and transformation of identity. I have already experienced such things more than once. So if you think you can quietly kill me with this trick, without anyone noticing, I think you're being far too optimistic.]
In the next sentence, Takumi reached out and removed the golden badge hanging on the student's chest.
The student who had been smiling just a moment ago suddenly changed in the next instant, turning into a blood-soaked figure whose two eyes had been gouged out. Opening his mouth, he let out a shrill scream.
Snap!
Takumi's other hand reached out and directly switched off the lights in the classroom.
Darkness instantly enveloped everything.
The student who had just been about to pounce forward disappeared in the next moment.
The twelve students in the classroom reverted to the twelve corpses lying on the ground, and the beautiful little classroom beneath the lights returned once more to its shattered ruin.
Turning around, Takumi took the badge—seemingly made of gold—and pinned it onto Miko's collar.
Then, before the shadow appearing outside the window could break through the glass and rush in, Takumi turned and inserted a blood-red key into the classroom door.
In the next moment, Takumi and Miko opened the stall door of the restroom and returned to the restroom beside the archive room.
"Are you alright?"
Takumi did not immediately remove the sheep-head hood. After taking out the key and closing the door, he quickly looked toward Miko beside him.
"Mm… I'm fine, I'm fine…"
The girl collapsed onto the floor and leaned against the stall door, sitting there while taking long breaths.
The nightmare-like experience from just a moment ago was still extremely vivid, so vivid that it made her feel as though her heart might stop beating.
Those twelve students were all Outstanding Students. They… had killed each other in the classroom…
Miko closed her eyes and recalled the scene in the classroom at the moment when Takumi had switched off the lights.
At the beginning, the number written on the blackboard had been 12.
Then, after those students began killing each other, the number written in chalk started to change—11, 9, 6, 4… and finally 0.
No… the final number was 1.
But clearly all twelve students had died. Clearly there was not a single living person left in the classroom. So why hadn't the number returned to zero?
Could it be that… there was actually still one more person?
Rustle—
Miko felt something beside her make a faint sound.
She lowered her head and discovered that from the gap beneath the restroom stall she was leaning against, a black gel pen slowly rolled out from inside the stall. It bumped against her clothes and then stopped.
Why was there a gel pen here?
Puzzled, Miko reached out and picked up the pen.
In the next moment, she seemed to hear someone's soft laughter coming from the stall behind her.
Slightly stunned, Miko slowly lowered her head and looked through the gap beneath the stall door into the stall.
Then she saw those eyes hidden inside the stall, looking at her from within.
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