We Can Help

After I won, we went out to eat. Akiko bought me wagyu and congratulated me on my victory. It was nice to hang out with everyone again. We hadn’t done anything like that since Tsubaki and Haruki met Akiko. As fun as that was, I couldn't enjoy it to its fullest. Something gnawed at me the entire night.

It was what Gareth said. After defeating him, I would expect things to be a little less confusing for some reason, but things only got worse.

Why did he apologize? Why did he look so sad? Why did he ask me to protect Akiko?

Throughout the night, those same questions repeated in my mind. Then the doubt seeped in.

Was fighting Gareth the right move? Had I caused me and Akiko even more danger by not complying?

“Is something on your mind?”

Akiko’s question snapped me out of my thoughts, “It's nothing.”

“You know, I can tell when you’re lying right.”

I sighed, “Yeah, I know.”

“So, what’s on your mind?”

“I’ll tell you after we leave. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s mood.”

“Ruin whose mood?” Haruki leaned in.

“Mine because you’re taking a piece of my wagyu.”

“N-no,” he said with a mouthful. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Why little!”

As the night went on, I tried to push those concerns into the back of my mind. After all, this was a time for celebration; I deserved to enjoy this victory.

When we finished eating, all of us said our goodbyes and started heading back to our dorms. I offered to walk Akiko and Tsubaki back. My dorm was pretty close to the dining hall, so I wasn’t really worried about Haruki.

After we dropped off Tsubaki, Akiko leaned in closer to me, “So what was on your mind earlier?”

“I’d hoped you would forget and not ask me again.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

I sighed but ended up telling her everything. I did promise her that I would open up or whatever. As I told her, though, she didn’t seem surprised.

“That just sounds like him,” Akiko said.

“What, really?”

“Yeah, he’s always been overprotective about me, so I’m not surprised that he is ashamed of himself for losing.”

“I guess, but it’s the way he said it, he sounded scared, terrified even.”

“Do you think there’s something deeper?”

“I’m not sure…”

After that day, we just kept training to get stronger. A daily routine of training and going home, we were fixated on being stronger and winning the tournament. We wanted to survive and live our lives to the fullest in this world. We couldn’t waste our second chance. We knew that other people had the same mindset since a lot more of them started flocking to the training grounds. Luckily, we were always there first, so we didn’t need to compete with anyone for a spot.

Throughout the months, it felt like my bond with Akiko grew. Yeah, we had some awkward moments, which were probably caused by me, but being with her made me happy. I didn’t have that back in my old life, someone so close to me. A person whom I was excited to see every day, I’m just so grateful to have a friend like that.

This cycle of training was repeated for months. We would sometimes train with Tsubaki and her friends whenever they had time to stop by. And occasionally, we would run into a devil worshipper at night; all of them would end up blowing themselves up, so we wouldn’t be able to get any information out of them. But Akiko and I had been training to counter them. She’s been trying to “defuse" the explosion before it happens. She practices on me when I try to ‘blow myself up,’ and she tries to defuse it. At first, it was difficult for her to control negative mana when it was in someone else’s body, but after a few months, she finally got the hang of it. The only downside is that she has to maintain physical contact with her target, which could prove to be difficult and dangerous. But at least we got a way to stop them from blowing up now.

But by the time Akiko learned how to do this, the number of worshippers had declined, and it became rare to see one. Of course, Yuno would always try to bait them out, but he was never successful. Not recently, at least. On top of that, the last few worshippers we saw were unbelievably weak; even their explosion was weak. But with all of them gone, it must’ve meant we were winning, right?

That’s when I was proven wrong. Recently, Tsubaki’s friend reported that a lot of their classmates have been skipping class. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue because many people have started to skip class to train. The only problem is that the people they’ve mentioned haven’t been showing up to any of the training grounds.

So far, seven students are missing. Two from Tsubaki’s class, three from Kent’s, and two from Hinabi’s.

So far, there’s not even a single trace of them before they disappeared. What is even more concerning is that each one of them was exceptionally strong with unique and powerful blessings.

So it’s strange that so many powerful people were able to disappear without a trace. Throughout the months, there were no signs of negative mana anywhere. On top of that, we haven’t spotted anyone yet. The only thing we can think of is that they were tricked into going somewhere and were taken.

But who would betray their friends for the Demon King? It doesn’t make sense since it wouldn’t benefit them at all. We needed more information.

Akiko suggested that we talk to their friends to see if they knew anything. Each one of them asked but got no useful information. The strange part was that they all said the same thing, out of nowhere, they randomly started showing signs of being paranoid, and would frequently seem stressed out. Then they randomly started to skip class until one day they just disappeared.

One troublesome thing was that each one of the students became somewhat close to their professor before disappearing. The only thing to do now was to confront the professors. We decided to talk to Kenta's professor first, but at first, he seemed not to know anything. Throughout the entire interrogation, he kept placing his hand on my shoulder; every time he did, I felt a familiar sensation. Aside from that, he didn’t seem too suspicious. He was really adamant about not knowing anything either, to be honest, we would’ve believed him if it wasn’t for the fact that he kept touching me.

On the way out, Akiko said, “You sensed that too, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Sensed what?” Tsubaki asked.

“We’ll tell you later, just for the next professor, let him touch you.”

“What? Is this some weird thing you guys are into or something?”

“N-no,” AKiko denied, “Just trust us. We have a theory on how the students are being abducted.”

Akiko placed her hand on my chest and activated her ability.

“What was that for?” Tsubaki asked.

“You’ll know once we talk to the next professor.”

We then went to Hanabi’s professor. And she seemed clueless about this situation, too. She kept saying that she was more worried about her students than anything. But as she talked, she kept laying her hand on Tsubaki; it was the same thing as the first professor.

“Thanks for letting us ask you questions, ma’am,” Akiko said with a bow.

“Of course, and if you’re ever feeling stressed or tired, I’ll be here to help.”

While walking out, Tsubaki leaned over to me, “Can you tell me what your ability was about earlier?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet?”

“No, what was there to figure out?”

“Focus within yourself, do you feel a disturbance anywhere?”

“Uhm,” and stood still for a second. “Not really.”

I turned over to Akiko, “You think that we were able to pick up on it quickly because we’ve been training with negative mana?”

“That might be the reason. Tsubaki is a talented mage, so I would’ve expected her to pick up on this.”

“Can you guys tell me what’s going on?”

“The professor,” I said, “he cursed you.”

“What?”

“With the touch, he transferred over a small amount of negative mana into you, which was a curse. It was the same as when the first professor touched me too. I was able to pick up on the mana, but I recognized the curse right away because it was the same one when I was overly paranoid.”

“Oh yeah, I remember. That time when you were freaking out on us and tried to attack me.”

“Yeah, so how does this correlate to the disappearance?”

“Gather everyone and I’ll explain it.”

“Okay.”

We met up back at my dorm. Everyone was there: Kenta, Haruki, Yuno, Tsubaki, Akiko, and me.

“How did your guy’s patrol go?” I asked.

“We weren’t able to find any Demon Worshippers, so it was a complete dud,” Kenta said.

“Yeah, it sucks,” Yuno added, “I was really hoping to fight someone.”

“That’s fine, because I think I know how they’ve been getting the students.”

“How?” Hinabi asked.

“The professors are cursing the students.”

“What?”

“While we asked around, we found out that each one of the students who’d vanished was acting overly paranoid and stressed before they disappeared. Also, they were oddly close to their teachers, up to the point where the teachers would constantly touch them.”

“How does this relate?” Kenta asked.

“Each time they made physical contact, the teacher placed a curse on the students, using negative mana. This curse would cause mass paranoia and stress on the target. I know this because I’ve been cursed like that before. That’s all the facts, so from here it’s speculation. I think that once the students enter a state of insanity or a state of being overly paranoid and stressed, the teachers offer them a cure.”

“How did you come to that conclusion?”

“Before we left, one of the professors told us that if we were ever going through any press or paranoia, then she was willing to help. She described the exact conditions of the curse.”

“Don’t you think she’s just being a nice teacher?” Hinabi asked.

“You would think so at first, but that doesn’t explain the curse they placed upon me and Tsubaki. Luckily, we had Akiko here to cure us of the curse.”

“So what do we do from here?” Kenta asked.

“I’m not sure, it’s not like we can attack them and we don’t have enough evidence to get them arrested or punished.”

“How about we lure them out and attack them?” Yuno asked.

“That would be nice, but by the way the Demon Worshippers have been moving, I doubt they would be so careless as to be lured out by any of us. Especially since none of us has been cursed.”

“Uhm, I think I know someone who’s cursed,” Yuno said.

“You do?”

“Yeah, if everything you’re saying is true, one of my classmates is going through it right now. Out of nowhere, the professor became really friendly with her, and she suddenly became over paranoid and stressed. Up to the point her eyes are red from lack of sleep, and her limbs are constantly tense and shaking. Honestly, it looks like she could blow up at any given moment. Not literally, though.”

“That’s perfect, we would trail her then until he decides to ambush her.”

So that’s what we did. For every single day, we followed her around. This classmate of Yuno’s was also pretty powerful, so it seemed like they were trying to pick off the stronger students. She would wander around by herself a lot until one night she was approached by the professor.

“Come with me and I can cure you,” he said.

“Y-you can?”

“I promised you, didn’t I?”