The first period came to an end, and before long, the next class began.
Today, Class A had four shortened double-period lessons scheduled, and the second class was Spiritology.
"With spirit! Let's charge ahead with full spirit today toooooo!"
The man shouting at the top of his lungs from the middle of the classroom was Umbra Warframe.
He was a rather peculiar professor.
His body looked noticeably fainter than that of an ordinary person, and from the waist down, his legs were completely gone, leaving him floating in midair like a ghost.
Apparently, he had ended up like that after becoming overly immersed in phantasmic transformation magic and repeatedly traveling back and forth between the real world and the spirit realm.
To make matters stranger, he wore an extremely lifelike wolf mask over his face.
It was so realistic that among the students, all kinds of rumors had spread about him. Some claimed that was actually his real face, while others insisted Umbra was secretly a half-werewolf.
Naturally, with a subject like Spiritology—a field centered around soul-type beings known as Spirits—most students had expected a quiet, delicate, and rather mystical class.
But, they had been completely wrong.
"You all lack grit! Your spirit is rotten! Why are you already deciding that it's impossible?! Now, raise your arms!"
Umbra was the exact opposite of what anyone had imagined.
Despite his ghostly appearance, he was an intensely hot-blooded professor, overflowing with energy to an almost unreasonable degree.
Simon, who had been trying to focus on sensing the presence of a Spirit, kept getting dragged out of concentration again and again by Umbra's voice, which hit the classroom like repeated explosions.
At one point, a student finally raised a hand and asked, "Professor! No matter what I do, I can't sense a Spirit. What should I do?"
Umbra answered without the slightest hesitation.
"Feel it! Don't decide it's impossible—just feel it! Feel it no matter what! You're not trying hard enough! Put your strength into it! Put your heart into it! Pour your energy out!"
...It was not exactly the most practical advice. Still, it was not entirely wrong either.
The act of sensing a Spirit was not something that could be solved through brute force, knowledge, or technical skill alone. The sensitivity required to connect with souls differed from person to person, and whether someone could perceive a Spirit with only a faint degree of sensitivity depended heavily on their natural constitution.
And even Simon, who had never once lagged behind in anything related to talent—
...Why can't I feel it?
—was completely hopeless when it came to Spiritology.
He was currently seated at a round table together with several other students, spinning a spiritual tool known as a Ouija Board.
"It's my turn to chant the spell, right?"
Jamie spoke in a listless voice. Even the honorary class president of Class A, who excelled in nearly every subject, had yet to sense a Spirit.
That alone said enough.
The foundation of Spiritology was, naturally, the Spirit itself. If one could not even sense such a being, then almost everything taught in class became meaningless.
Because of that, Umbra had divided the class into two groups.
The first was the training group, made up of students who could already perceive Spirits and were therefore qualified to proceed with proper lessons on handling them.
The second was the preparation group. Since they still could not sense Spirits, they had no choice but to spend the entire class doing all sorts of bizarre exercises in hopes of awakening that sensitivity.
That meant spinning the Ouija Board endlessly, performing strange summoning rituals with occult tools while dancing in increasingly questionable ways, or even climbing into a coffin to meditate like a corpse. Naturally, anyone caught dozing off during that process was punished immediately.
In other words, the class had become a repeating cycle of deeply suspicious behavior.
"No grit!"
From time to time, Umbra would leave the training group to the assistants and come personally inspect the preparation group.
"Put more spirit into it!"
As five students held the planchette and spun the Ouija Board together, Umbra suddenly reached over and grabbed the handle himself with one enormous hand.
"Grip it with more strength! Like this! Like this! Spin it with all your heart!"
"Yes, sir!"
He was so absurdly strong that he overpowered all five students by himself.
"Your voice is too soft!"
"Yes, sir!!"
Jamie squeezed her eyes shut and began reciting the summoning incantation at full volume.
Apparently satisfied, Umbra nodded and turned elsewhere.
"You there! What do you think you're doing?"
This time, his attention fell on Cami, who was currently drenched in sweat while clumsily going through the ritual dance.
Startled, she nearly tripped over her own feet.
"S-Sorry, Professor!"
"Lift your legs higher! Higher! That's it! A soul-summoning ritual is not child's play! Make your movements bigger!"
"Y-Yes, sir!"
With her knees flying upward and her motions growing more and more exaggerated, tears began gathering at the corners of Cami's eyes. Sweat soaked her from head to toe.
Honestly, it was not the kind of dance any girl would willingly want to perform.
It was not even something elegant or mystical. There was no graceful swoosh-swoosh to it. It was more like violently shaking one's head, rolling the shoulders, and flinging both arms around like a pair of agitated cobras.
No one had the faintest idea how any of that was supposed to summon a Spirit.
By this point, the students had already given it several nicknames.
The chicken-feed dance.
The squid courtship dance.
Simon watched with pity in his eyes.
...Poor Cami...
"Assistants! Time to rotate!"
"Yes, sir!"
At Umbra's order, the assistants quickly approached Simon's table.
"Leave everything as it is and stand up. You'll be switching to the ritual dance now."
At last, it was their turn.
Simon let out a deep sigh and moved toward the back of the lecture hall, where sheets had been spread across the floor for the ritual practice. That happened to be the same place where Cami had been suffering moments earlier.
There was even a formation to it.
The students had to stand facing one another with a bit of space in between. And standing directly in front of Simon was none other than Jamie Victoria.
"I trust all of you have memorized the dance by now. Begin."
The assistants started playing strange instruments decorated with skulls.
An eerie flute-like sound echoed through the room.
Bee-dee-dee-dee~
Just empty your mind, Simon told himself.
Because honestly, this was not a dance that any sane person could perform while remaining mentally present.
So he emptied his thoughts and simply moved the way he had been taught.
His leg shot forward, then rose so high his knee nearly touched his chest. His arms flung outward, his torso dipped and twisted, and his whole body bent and turned with unsettling flexibility, like some kind of determined mollusk.
A few students who had been secretly glancing around to check Umbra's reaction ended up letting out muffled chuckles instead.
Why the hell... is he doing it so seriously?
He's really good at anything physical, huh?
Simon, having completely shut down the thinking part of his brain, moved with almost perfect unity between body and motion.
At this point, he had essentially reached a kind of enlightenment.
Even Umbra looked deeply satisfied and burst into hearty laughter.
"Excellent! Very good! Even if you still can't sense a Spirit, that kind of persistence and effort is exactly what you need!"
At that moment, Umbra silently decided that he absolutely had to bring Simon to the upcoming weekend event commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Goliath's death and hire him part-time as a Soul Dancer.
His dancing really was astonishingly good.
...I think that was praise, but I don't feel happy at all.
Still in the middle of dancing, Simon cautiously opened his eyes.
Directly in front of him, Jamie was flailing through the chicken-feed dance with stiff, awkward movements that looked nothing like dignity and everything like suffering. The moment their eyes met, her face flushed bright red with embarrassment.
And then, to make things even worse, her gaze shifted slightly—
and met Knox's.
"P-Please don't look this way..."
Of course, not everyone in the room was suffering equally.
Some, somehow, were surviving this class far more leisurely than the rest.
While there were students like Simon, Jamie, and Cami who could not sense Spirits at all, there were also those on the opposite side—students who had successfully perceived them and had already moved on to the actual academic portion of the lesson.
Knox, Cindy, Claudia, Merida, and even members of Group 7 such as Meilyn and Rick fell into that category. Cindy, in particular, who hoped to pursue Spiritology/Necromancy looked completely thrilled, like a fish in water.
"Yippee!"
"Soul Spear!"
"Pow, pow!"
As expected of someone whose grasp of necromantic arts already stood well above the norm, she formed a Soul Spear without much difficulty, gathering spirit entities into a clean, stable shape before launching it forward in one smooth motion.
Right beside her, Claudia was doing much the same, enthusiastically gathering Spirits and shaping them into a spear of her own. The difference, however, was still obvious. While her control was solid, the power behind it remained somewhat lacking compared to Cindy's.
Surprisingly, Rick had also managed to sense Spirits from the very first lesson and was diligently attempting to form a Soul Spear as well. The problem was that, unlike Claudia or Cindy, his concentration was far too unstable. The moment he threw it, the spear would lose its shape mid-flight, unraveling into scattered spiritual fragments before it could even properly reach the target.
Not far from the noisier side of the classroom, Knox was helping Merida with her control.
Unlike Cindy, who had thrown herself into Spiritology with almost frightening enthusiasm, Merida's approach was much quieter. She had managed to sense Spirits without much trouble, but shaping them properly into a stable form was another matter entirely. The moment she tried to impose structure on them, the gathered spiritual energy would loosen again, slipping apart before it could fully take shape.
Knox stood beside her and guided her in a calm, patient manner, occasionally adjusting the angle of her hand or pointing out where her focus was wavering.
"It's not that your control is bad," he said. "You're just letting it disperse too early. Don't try to force the whole shape at once. Gather it first, then compress it a little more before giving it form."
Merida looked at the faint cluster of spiritual energy hovering above her palm and narrowed her eyes in concentration.
Like that?"
"A little more," Knox said. "You're close."
Merida adjusted her focus again, and this time the shape held for longer than before.
Knox gave a small nod.
"See? You can do it." At the same time, a thought crossed his mind.
As expected from the future Fourth Legion Commander. The legion specializes in ghost summons.
Merida stared at the unstable but recognizable form in her hand for a second before quietly muttering, "Troublesome."
Knox let out a soft laugh.
"Well, yes. Spiritology seems to enjoy making everything troublesome."
Before long, Cindy, who had apparently finished having the time of her life, came over together with Claudia.
Cindy still looked as though she had just discovered the greatest subject in the world, while Claudia wore a more conflicted expression, somewhere between admiration and disbelief.
"Knox," Claudia began, letting out a small sigh, "although this is probably a useless question, I still want to ask."
Knox turned his head slightly toward her while still keeping half his attention on Merida's practice.
"Hm?"
"For Cindy, it makes sense," Claudia said. "She aspires to major in Necromancy, so being talented in Spiritology is only natural. But you..." She paused, then sighed again. "How are you also this talented in Necromancy? Seriously, is there anything you can't do?"
Cindy immediately nodded in agreement.
"Right? Right? That's what I'm saying too!"
Knox glanced at the two of them, then smiled lightly.
"Hmmm... should I say thank you for the compliment~?" he said. "As for the answer... how should I put it? I guess I've been a bit sensitive to spirits since I was little."
Outwardly, that was all he said.
But inwardly, Knox already knew the answer was probably much simpler than that.
Well, I mean... if anything, my so-called talent in necromancy is probably thanks to Newtype.
It was not as though the skill had been meant specifically for necromancy. But heightened perception, abnormal sensitivity, and an instinctive awareness toward presences that others overlooked made it much easier for him to notice and grasp things related to souls and spiritual entities.
Besides, Newtypes are often closely connected to the concept of the soul.
Just look at Kamille Bidan, who managed to gather souls into a giant blade, or Amuro, Char, and Lalah… the ones who ended up as cosmic ghosts in the end.
In that sense, Spiritology had simply happened to overlap with an area where he was already unfairly gifted.
Cindy puffed her cheeks a little.
"That still sounds unfair."
Claudia gave a helpless smile.
"I knew it. You really are ridiculous."
Knox only laughed softly at that while Merida, still focused on the spiritual energy in her hand, muttered in her usual flat tone—
"Unfair monster."
That made Cindy immediately point at her.
"See? Even Merida agrees!"
Then Knox placed a hand over his chest and spoke in an exaggeratedly wounded tone.
"Unfair monster?! How rude. At the very least, say unfair handsome cool monster."
Claudia, Cindy, and Merida all looked at him in complete deadpan silence.
The three stares were so flat, so utterly unconvinced, that even Knox could tell his statement had been rejected on arrival.
For a brief moment, he paused.
Then, as if deciding there was only one move left, he cleared his throat.
"Ahem. If you keep looking at me like that, then the next time I cook, I'll feed all of you so much food that you'll end up fat like little monsters."
The effect was immediate.
The three girls visibly stiffened.
For girls, the word fat was less a word and more a direct attack.
Cindy gasped.
Claudia blinked in genuine alarm.
Even Merida's sleepy expression sharpened by a tiny degree.
Knox, realizing his so-called threat had landed perfectly, smiled in satisfaction.
And right on cue, the praise came flooding back.
"R-Right, right! Handsome monster!" Cindy said at once.
"Very handsome," Claudia added with suspicious speed.
Merida looked away for a second, then muttered in a flat voice, "Cool monster."
Knox immediately brightened.
"See? Now that sounds much better~"
Cindy puffed her cheeks.
"That was a dirty trick!"
"It was a very effective one," Knox replied.
Claudia let out a helpless laugh, while Merida, still holding the unstable spirit form in her hand, murmured quietly—
"Threatening girls with food is low."
Knox placed a hand to his chest again as if deeply wronged.
"I was offering a culinary experience."
"That's not what it sounded like," Claudia said.
For a brief while, the four of them remained gathered like that, their corner of the Spiritology classroom somehow feeling much lighter than the bizarre rituals and suffering happening elsewhere.
Then, after Spiritology class finally came to an end—and after thoroughly witnessing Simon, Cami, and Jamie get mentally tortured to death by embarrassment—Cindy turned toward Claudia with obvious curiosity.
"So, what's the next class?"
Claudia answered without hesitation.
"Haematology."
It was the very class that had been postponed again and again due to Sillage's schedule and various personal matters.
And today—
for the first time—
Class A was finally going to take it.
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Character Voicelines · Cindy: About the Strongest Ghost
Cindy: Hey, Knox! Do you know what kind of ghost can be called the strongest? I mean, if I had one as my summon, wouldn't that be super cool?
Knox: Well, she'd probably have two buns at the back of her head, wear a long yellow dress, have dark skin, and act like a mother figure to a blond man who lost his mom early. Oh, and she has a crystal on her forehead that can fire cosmic rays strong enough to rival a saintess attack!
Cindy: ...( ˙꒳˙ )?
P.S. If anyone's confused, this is a reference to Lalah Sune from the Gundam series, hehe.