I Became the Daughter of the Academy’s Villain

<166 - What Happens When You Don't Lock the Door>

With excitement, I returned to my room holding ink and finished drawing the magic circle I had been working on.

Using the knowledge of a veteran player to memorize the entire magic circle and gathering all the necessary materials, I diligently consumed the stat stones to channel my mana. Ta-da!

[Curse Magic Circle]

[Binding Curse - Binding of the Ring of Spirits]
[Distance Limitation Curse - Spirit Detachment Range Restricted]

[Titosso's Friendship Ring (Bound)]

Grade – Unique Grade 6

Description – A gift given by Ghost Papa to honor the unchanging friendship of Titosso. If the current ring wearer does not wish it, others cannot gain its effects even if they wear the ring.

Effect 1 – Life Gauge Check

Effect 2 – Life Transmission

Effect 3 – When within 20m of another ring holder, all stats increase.

Effect 4 – Disables Effect 1 to store a cluster of spirits (fake Lin) within the ring.

Effect 5 – Disables Effect 2 to prevent the cluster of spirits (fake Lin) from leaving the area beyond 20m around the ring.

Value – 150 Gold, 15,000 Points

After a complicated process, I bound the fake Lin to the item and tightened the moving range to a minimum.

The item grade decreased as a result, but it was obvious that a high-combat spirit wouldn’t be very helpful in replacing the life transmission function of the fake Lin.

“…Is 20m too far?”

I placed the ring in the corner of my room and sat in the farthest diagonal corner, barely exceeding 20m.

Slither.

The fake Lin emerging from the ring wobbled on two feet, repeatedly stumbling and falling.

As the distance limitation restricted the spirit’s walking ability like a spiritual chain, it looked as awkward as someone who had forgotten how to walk, crawling on the floor.

Push.

After feeling the pull of the chain on its ankle, the fake Lin could no longer advance.

“It’s 20m! If you roam too far, Sing will worry, so you have to stay within that range. Got it?”

The face of the fake Lin looking up at me with an expressionless face somehow looked a bit angry.

Thump. Thump.

“Hey! Stop hitting me! Don’t hit me!”

The fake Lin was thumping its own head with its fists.

Maybe because it had gained materiality from the life transmission, its punches had a real sense of impact, unlike a ghost that would normally swipe through thin air.

Since I wasn’t professionally trained in martial arts, it didn’t hurt that much, but it definitely wasn’t something I could call a “fluffy punch” or “soft punch”.

“Geez, if I don’t get enough sleep, I won’t grow taller!”

The fake Lin lifted one leg in defiance, trying to get me to loosen the chains.

Of course, I wasn’t going to do that, and I ended up being tormented by the spirit all night.

But as I stayed awake through the night, a pointless question suddenly popped into my mind.

‘Did I lock the door when I went out to get the ink?’

Nah, it should be fine.

If someone had come in, the Goo Mandragora would have cried Goo-Goo to let me know.

There’s no way anything happened.

*

Hestia wasn’t particularly skilled in cooking.

For mercenaries, quick cooking and high calories take priority.

Chucking the hunted beast meats and various ingredients into a pot and boiling them until they turned to mush is the signature soul food of mercenaries.

‘I want to treat Oknodie with a meal as a thank you, but this won’t cut it!’

Normally, she would have lived a lonely and solitary academy life without a single friend due to her berserker class traits, but thanks to Oknodie, the co-valedictorian, her academy life wasn’t that bad.

Even the fighter Lotto, who she once quarreled with, remained on indifferent terms, and she and her fellow group member Jigoku acknowledged each other as comrades.

“Be nice.”

“Suddenly? To whom?”

“To that little brat Oknodie who seems to look up to you quite a bit.”

Pirate Jigoku, donning a captain’s hat and a bored expression while carrying a gun and a sword, wandered around the academy.

Despite his gruff personality, he held a genuine fondness for Oknodie, just like herself.

“I know. I’ve gotten plenty of help from Oknodie. So I’m thinking of treating him to a meal I made.”

“Oh. You can cook? Let me taste it. I’ll give feedback.”

Hestia, filled with ambition, showcased the dishes she would cook when camping with ample time and resources.

Rather than the barbaric stew of dumping everything into a pot, she was preparing ‘grilled’ cuisine by cooking meat over the fire!

Sizzle.

The well-cooked meat was releasing a fragrant aroma.

She had added just a pinch of salt, but its quality was unavoidably poor compared to her culinary knowledge.

“I can eat it.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Do you think Oknodie will mind the taste? If it’s edible, he’ll eat it. He can even eat rocks.”

“…True.”

Encouraged by Jigoku’s tasting comment, Hestia prepared skewers of grilled meat in time for Oknodie’s return.

‘I want to see Oknodie eating something I made.’

Although she wanted to hand it directly to him, Oknodie had returned quite late.

Just when she thought he would be doing something weird outside, a chilling aura approached as a bone cart led by a skeleton horse stopped outside.

Holding a large sack, Oknodie stepped off the cart alongside a suspicious figure who sat quietly in the dark cart, waving goodbye to her and their friend.

“…What the heck did he do?”

There were countless questions she wanted to ask, but she feared Oknodie might not like it if she got too nosy.

In her timid heart, stuck between not knowing what to do, Oknodie went out again.

‘Sigh. I’ll just leave the food in front of the door.’

It was a hallway with upper-class students, so surely no one would dare to steal it.

Even if someone did take it, they’d be too tempted to return it after tasting it.

As she placed the plate in front of the door, she noticed that the door had been left slightly ajar as if Oknodie had forgotten to close it properly.

“What a scatterbrain. Where was his head at?”

Thinking about how one could easily forget after riding on that terrifying cart, she approached to close the door when an odd sight caught her eye through the gap.

A suspicious unfinished pattern drawn on the floor.

You shouldn’t barging into someone else’s room.

For sure, Oknodie would be mad.

Even knowing she shouldn’t, the human spirit often dares to defy taboos.

‘Just a quick peek. Just a tiny peek.’

Rationalizing in vain, she opened the door.

Upon seeing the exposed floor, Hestia was shocked.

There was a magic circle.

In a room piled with ominous-looking objects, an unknown and suspicious magic circle was drawn.

‘Oknodie… Are you trying to become a demon lord?!’

Hestia quickly entered the room and closed the door.

No one else should see this scene.

More importantly, she shouldn’t have done something like this.

A blatant suspicious magic circle.

Could it be a summoning circle for a demon?

She felt a chill run through her body.

The presence of a curse emanating from the room felt seriously unusual.

For it to radiate such a chilling energy without having been fully drawn!

Goo.

The sound came just after she had regained her composure and some time had passed.

In the dimly lit room, there was a suspicious liquid-filled bottle sitting in one corner.

Inside floated a strange creature with a human face, bobbing slowly.

Hestia covered her mouth.

If she didn’t, she would scream.

‘Oknodie… What on earth are you raising in here?!’

Mandragora was an ultra-rare plant.

Even someone like Hestia, who was considered a veteran mercenary, didn’t know what it looked like in real life.

Most mercenaries don’t even know how to safely harvest Mandragora.

Not knowing what it looks like is a blessing.

Those who know a bit are often overly ambitious, trying to harvest this expensive plant, only to end up bleeding from their ears and dying due to their misguided knowledge.

Either live without being greedy because they don’t know or greedily getting killed.

In this extreme dichotomy, Hestia belonged to the former.

To her, Mandragora was an unknown creature.

Something unimaginably inhuman that had a human face on a plant body.

“You… No, could it be you were a person? Were you a person trapped in that body?”

Goo.

“Say something!”

The Mandragora lifted its tendrils, pointing at something.

It was the plate Hestia had brought.

“This? You want this?”

Thump. Thump.

The Mandragora was urging her to place the plate quickly before it by tapping the surface of the liquid.

As Hestia set down the plate, she believed wholeheartedly that the Mandragora, munching on the skewered meat, was a person.

“Did Oknodie do this to you?”

Goo.

“No?”

Goo.

Though it seemed like they couldn’t communicate, Hestia roughly grasped the meaning of the Goo Mandragora.

When facing an unfamiliar monster with an axe in the wilderness, a mercenary who doesn’t learn to read the monster’s next moves or intentions won’t survive long.

[Skill - Estimating Distance]
[Skill - Hit to Guess]

Oknodie didn’t create this monster.

The Goo Mandragora’s response indicated that Oknodie had actually saved it.

However, where did Oknodie even get this horrifying experiment from, having once been human but now losing all semblance of a human body?

Hestia could only think of one possibility.

Visits.

Butler.

Foundation.

A dramatic scene unfolded in Hestia’s mind.

Late at night.

The butler who was said to have visited Oknodie.

Oknodie tilted her head and asked him.

“Where’s the friend who was supposed to come with you?”

With a bright smile, Oknodie nodded.

The butler, wearing a grim smile, pulled out a bottle.

“Ah… Is this what you mean?”

Before entering the academy.

A potential scholarship student who had also been raised in the same foundation as Oknodie.

However, unlike Oknodie who passed, this friend did not make it into the academy.

The cost of that… was this.

The horrific result of losing their human appearance.

In a pitiful heart, Oknodie could not contain her screams of despair.

To her, the butler’s cruel warning was…

“Do not go against the foundation’s will. Next time, you might end up like this.”

The butler left, and she began to live with the friend who had become a monster.

And she started to look for a way out.

Even if it meant boarding a suspicious cart, she vowed to break the curse placed upon her friend.

‘The ominous aura of the curse in the room, the suspicious magic circle, even closing the door so hastily at this late hour… All of it was for her friend!’

Hestia struggled to hold back her tears.

Splash. Splash.

Seeing the Mandragora set down the empty skewer on the plate, Hestia finally promised in a tear-filled voice.

“You wanted to eat meat, didn’t you? I’ll bring it again next time…”

Excited over food for the first time in ages, the Mandragora splashed around in the liquid.

Seeing its innocent demeanor, Hestia could not contain her tears and hurriedly dashed out of the room.

Goo.

And thus, this was the tale of what happened in one night because Oknodie didn’t lock the door!

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