Su Yao pushed open the door and walked into the classroom, her sleep-deprived head still foggy.
The feeling of unease had kept her awake almost all night.
She wasn’t someone who went to bed early and woke early, but she had almost never experienced sleep deprivation from being unable to sleep.
Su Yao could only drift through the first class in a daze.
The bell rang, like a signal of relief, and her tense nerves finally relaxed a bit.
Su Yao lay down on her desk and looked out the window.
The layers of dark clouds that she hadn’t seen before entering the school had already covered most of the blue sky.
“It’s going to rain again. I didn’t bring an umbrella,” Su Yao said lazily.
“Well, the rainy season just ended. I brought an umbrella. Yaoyao, didn’t you say Brother Xiangyang is away for a few days? Come stay at my place tonight.”
Zeng Yan, sitting in front of Su Yao, turned around after hearing her friend’s complaint.
“By the way, I heard there’s a transfer student coming today…”
Before the two could finish, the bell for class rang again.
However, standing at the door was not the familiar teacher, but two unfamiliar faces.
“Hello, students. Your math teacher will be away on business for a few weeks, so I’ll be substituting for the math classes from now on.”
Chen Ye’s voice rang out clearly.
The old grumpy man replaced by a young and beautiful female teacher—naturally, the students in the classroom had no objections.
“And coincidentally, our class has a transfer student today.”
As she spoke, Chen Ye turned around, and behind her stood Su Wanyue in her uniform.
When everyone in the classroom saw Su Wanyue’s appearance, they were instantly shocked.
No one expected the transfer student to be such a cute girl.
Under everyone’s gaze, Su Wanyue clutched her skirt with both hands, her cheeks uncontrollably flushing red as she slowly spoke: “H-Hello everyone, my name is Su Wanyue. I hope… I hope we can get along well.”
‘Ahhh! So embarrassing.’
If Su Yao knew that the person in front of her was her brother, Su Wanyue even felt that listening to Serafica and fleeing to the Void Realm wouldn’t be unacceptable.
“Su Wanyue, there’s an empty seat behind Su Yao. Please sit there.”
“Now, let’s begin class.”
Chen Ye pointed to the seat behind Su Yao, then opened her textbook and started the lesson.
***
At the podium, the new teacher was lecturing endlessly about math problems, the sound of chalk scratching against the blackboard clearly audible.
Although Su Yao knew this was disrespectful to the new teacher, it was as if a fog had wrapped around her ears, and she couldn’t take in anything.
Su Yao’s attention had been fixed on the new transfer student, Su Wanyue.
She was beautiful like an exquisite doll, like an angel who had fallen to the mortal world.
Su Yao clearly knew she couldn’t possibly know her, but why did she feel a strange sense of familiarity from her?
The friend in front, Zeng Yan, suddenly poked Su Yao’s arm with the tip of her pen, making her realize she had been spacing out too obviously.
One last time, just one last time, Su Yao turned to look at the transfer student.
But with that one look, Su Yao’s heart suddenly tightened.
The seat behind her was clearly empty.
On the other side, Su Wanyue’s consciousness gradually cleared.
She tried to move her body but found she couldn’t.
‘Was it a premeditated ambush? Magic? Or the ability of another Erosion Beast?’
But Su Wanyue simply didn’t believe that the Great Witch Serafica, who wielded the authority of the [Heavenly Book] and possessed omniscient and omnipotent power, could be completely unaware.
Su Wanyue repeatedly called out Serafica’s name in her heart, over and over, but received no response at all.
‘It’s the authority! The existence of Su Wanyue has been extracted!’
‘It seems this is not the real world.’
“Hey, new Miss Wanyue.”
Su Wanyue followed the voice.
What came into view was a thin woman, her figure slender to the point of being frail, but on her face hung a sinister smile.
‘A witch. It seems she’s the witch hiding in this school.’
Su Wanyue suddenly realized why she had been completely unaware of her existence: because she wasn’t in the real world at all.
But this place wasn’t the Void Realm either, so everything could only be caused by her ability.
“It seems you’ve regained consciousness. Then we can begin our experiment.”
“Experiment?” Su Wanyue asked subconsciously.
“Yes, an experiment! A great experiment! For myself, and even more for this world! I am the savior of this world!” Her voice was filled with madness.
“For you? For the world? Why?” Su Wanyue kept her talking while scanning the surroundings with her eyes.
Hell.
She saw hell.
Objectively speaking, using that word was reasonable.
Or rather, it might not be accurate enough.
All around lay corpses that could be seen at a glance to have suffered inhuman treatment before death.
“Oh, them… they’re just insignificant sacrifices in this great experiment.”
‘What a terrifying witch,’ Su Wanyue cursed in her heart.
“Then let’s begin…”
“Idiot, idiot, wake up!”
Serafica’s familiar voice drilled into her ears, and Su Wanyue suddenly opened her eyes.
This was the classroom.
Su Wanyue moved her body.
She could move.
It seemed she was back.
“Idiot, you’re not dead yet.”
“Serafica, don’t say unnecessary things,” Su Wanyue said.
“These aren’t unnecessary words.” Beside her, Serafica laughed casually, her tone carrying a hint of mischievous danger, “If you really die, I’ll just take over your body and destroy this world for fun.”
“Which of the Seven Great Witches is that witch?” Su Wanyue said as if she hadn’t heard Serafica at all.
“It seems all my previous deductions were wrong. She is not any of the seven Great Witches. To be precise, she doesn’t even count as a witch.”
“What does that mean?” Su Wanyue pressed.
“At first I thought it was the [Heavenly Eye] witch, but her authority’s manifestation doesn’t match at all. That way of twisting existence and influencing reality is, after all, just a large-scale spell.”
“But to release magic of this scale at such frequency, even a real witch couldn’t sustain it. So she’s probably just acting as a mana converter. However, I don’t know her mana source yet,” Serafica continued.
“But since she’s not a Great Witch, if we find the entrance to that world and you hand your body over to me, then defeating her won’t be too difficult…”
“Serafica, you know that’s impossible,” Su Wanyue immediately refused coldly.
Having said that, Su Wanyue turned to look out the window, letting Serafica beside her complain endlessly.
Outside the window, thunder exploded and a torrential rain began to fall.