All the smiling figures had an arrow pointing downwards next to their foreheads. It was their profiles.
Chen Mo opened one:
[Name: Arden Lionsworth]
[Threat: C rank]
Then another:
[Name: Katerine Mangle]
[Threat: C rank]
[Name: Faith Hanningst]
[Threat: C rank]
Three was enough of a pattern for Chen Mo to conclude that every apparition within the pool was C rank. It didn't matter if some of them weren't; Chen Mo's F rank self wouldn't stand a chance against even one of them.
Amelia, in a bikini, skipped over to Chen Mo. "What are you waiting for, Xiao Bai? Let's swim."
"Wait. I need to change into my swimsuit." Chen Mo wished to stall. The apparitions seemed unable to leave the pool, giving him ample time to scheme.
However, since his second task was to enter the pool and spend ten minutes in there, eventually he would still need to swim with the crowd of dark figures.
"How about you raid the cafeteria while I change?" Chen Mo suggested. The cafeteria wasn't a risky choice; all schools should have one.
"Ehhh?" Amelia tilted her head curiously.
"Yeah, I'm a bit hungry. Maybe something to eat before we dive?" Chen Mo kept his expression unreadable.
"Normally people eat after... well, whatever. You actually brought up a good point anyway; I miss the cafeteria's pudding." Amelia tapped her chin and looked up as she pondered that long-lost taste of sweetness.
"Get three?" Chen Mo asked.
"Three?" Amelia shook her head, confused.
"Yeah, three." Chen Mo conveyed greed through his eyes.
"Alright then." Amelia was still as carefree as ever. Just like how she never noticed Jack, or anything strange about Mrs. Smith, she also never noticed the occupied pool.
She left the hall without another word.
...
Then returned with three palm-sized cups of chocolate-flavoured pudding. She handed two to Chen Mo with the brightest grin, but Chen Mo gestured for her to place the second cup on the bench instead.
Chen Mo was now dressed in swim trunks that weren't his, but rather his character's.
The two sat next to each other, bare shoulders brushing, while they spooned pudding into their mouths.
Amelia ate with pure enjoyment. "Mmmm~" She held her cheek, savouring the heavenly, nostalgic flavour.
Chen Mo had less of an appetite; it was hard to muster one with a crowd of smiling apparitions staring at him from the pool.
Next to him, that third cup of pudding sat untouched atop the bench, beside Jack's notebook.
———
The empty, weathered cinema hall.
The raven-haired lady asked Sean, still leaning against his shoulder, "What's this level, master?"
"As far as I'm aware, there isn't an alternative solution to this one." Sean's eyes suggested a lack of hope. "It's just a chase. Dip your toes in the pool, then get out before you're caught. Rinse and repeat that with your NPC until an accumulated ten minutes. It's tricky even for a B rank player, and takes a hell of a lot of luck for a C rank to survive."
"D rank and below can't survive?" The raven-haired lady's voice remained soft and polite.
Sean sighed in disappointment; his streamer was going to meet his end. "This beginner minigame is diabolical, isn't it? I think there was only one case of a D rank surviving, and he did it by sacrificing the NPC he's supposed to protect. Without the babe secured in the beginner minigame, he was never awakened. The unawakened ultimately die late-game, no exception."
On the big screen, Amelia and Chen Mo had finished their meal and were approaching the pool.
Sean summoned a cup of coffee out of nowhere and sipped. "And as for E ranks, or in our case, the hopeless F rank... No, I'm certain there wasn't a single case of anyone of those ranks surviving this level—"
SPLASH!!
"Pfffft!!" Sean spat out a mist of caffeine as he rejected what his eyes had just registered.
Chen Mo and Amelia dove straight into the pool. And the apparitions, rather than catching them, evaded.
"What the fuck?!" Sean exclaimed.
Chen Mo and Amelia began swimming. Amelia seemed more enthusiastic, but Chen Mo calmed her down by wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling the two of them into a romantic embrace while treading above water.
They were dancing in the pool, and the apparitions just watched from a distance.
"What the hell is happening?" Sean leaned forward, prompting the raven-haired lady to lift off his shoulder. He strained his eyes, trying to find anything on the screen that might explain the abnormal behaviour.
Then—
"Fascinating."
An unfamiliar voice caused Sean to jolt. Someone else was seated, a bespectacled someone, and he had somehow gone unnoticed by Sean despite sitting right beside him.
"Who are you?" Sean spat.
"Read my goddamn username, dumbass." The bespectacled stranger retorted, though his attention remained fully fixed on the big screen.
Sean extended the stranger's profile:
[Userame: WillowTheodon (Age: 25)]
[CT: Walking Encyclopedia (Support-class)]
[Power: 51 (C- Rank)]
[Guild: In-game Wikipedia (Member)]
Oh... In-game Wikipedia... Sean thought with disdain. This guild was a collection of the biggest game nerds the world had ever seen. They barely played themselves; they only wrote articles about interesting minigames or players.
But his presence was actually welcome this time. "Explain what's happening, bro." Sean gestured at Chen Mo and Amelia, still tightly embraced while swimming in sync in the pool.
"I will not blame your low intelligence, Sean Anthony Teo, as this is indeed a new line in School of Apparition." Theodon pushed the temple of his glasses, radiating superiority.
"Urgh..." Sean grimaced at that statement as he waved the raven-haired lady away. "Get away from that nerd, Eleanor."
Theodon summoned a notebook out of thin air, flipped it open, and began analysing. "He wiped Jack's desk earlier, didn't he?"
"You were here since then?" Sean was more concerned about how he hadn't noticed Theodon's presence all this time.
"Why, yes." Theodon nodded confidently with a smirk. "I think there are actually four lines to the first level of this minigame."
"Elucidate." Sean blinked rapidly.
"The three known lines were leaving the classroom, erasing the name, and apologising. But apologising only pacifies Jack. By cleaning his desk for him, I believe Xiao Bai befriended the apparition." Theodon tapped his chin as he explained, both to Sean and himself.
"Befriended Jack?" Sean wasn't convinced.
"Yes." Theodon held out a finger and dragged it from right to left.
The footage on the screen rewound, all the way back to when Chen Mo and Amelia had just emerged from hiding in the janitor's room. Chen Mo had glanced down briefly then, and on the floor were—
"Footprints. See that?" Theodon pointed, then rewound even further. "It's chalk and dust."
He rewound again to the first classroom, when Chen Mo had just laid his shirt flat on the hallway floor.
"That. His dirty laundry. He used it to determine if Jack was following him." Theodon continued, "Xiao Bai befriended Jack with his kind act, then confirmed that he had befriended him through the footprints trailing him."
"Okay. Very cool and all, but that still doesn't explain..." Sean returned the stream to live. The apparitions were still repelled by the two like magnets. "...That!"
"It perfectly explains it." Theodon insisted. "Those apparitions in the pool were all victims of the school shooting. They died by Jack's hands; they're afraid of him."
Suddenly, the dots connected in Sean's head. He squinted at the livestream and spotted faint, white-grey footsteps beside the pool; Jack had dived in with Chen Mo and Amelia.
"Oh... OHHHHH!" Sean shouted in realization. "Jack is swimming with them right now!"
"Yes. Impressive. But I'm not done." Theodon cleared his throat. "Befriending Jack is risky, because the NPC is clueless about everything supernatural in this minigame.
Back in the janitor's room, the NPC enraged Jack. Xiao Bai kept the notebook to track Jack, and thus knew the NPC had done so.
So he—"
"The puddings!" Sean began connecting the dots himself. "He told his NPC to bring three cups, and told her to place one at—"
Sean rewound the stream again, back to when Chen Mo and Amelia were still enjoying pudding on the bench.
Amelia had placed the third cup right where the white-grey footsteps ended, and her name subsequently disappeared from the kill list.
"This is unprecedented..." Theodon remarked, eyes gleaming. He knew this would make headlines in in-game news, and he would be the one writing it.
"Hahaha..." Sean scratched his head. "F rank's got potential?"
———
Chen Mo held Amelia as close as possible throughout the swim. Amelia would've preferred to move more freely, but faced with her man's pleading eyes, she couldn't help but yield and remain in his arms.
Chen Mo had to keep her close, because although she was no longer Jack's target, she wasn't Jack's ally. Only Chen Mo had reached that status; Jack was only protecting him.
Amelia was in a pink and white striped bikini, while Chen Mo was in his navy blue swim trunk. Neither was wearing anything else; their bare skin massaged eachother.
The apparitions around them were still grinning wide, but none dared approach their own killer.
One was clever, however.
It dove underwater and reached for Amelia's outstretched leg.
Just a tiny bit outside Jack's protection radius.
It grasped it—
then tugged down.