"Actually, this dance is the Dance of the Necromantic that you'll be learning today. It's usually taught to fourth-year students, so it might be quite challenging for you."

  "It doesn't look that difficult," Rumi commented offhandedly.

  "Well then, I look forward to seeing what you can do, Rumi," Senior Sariya responded with a gentle smile.

  "But before we start learning the dance itself, I'll teach you how to prepare for the ritual."

  Senior Sariya went to the back and brought what looked like a guitar case, taking out several items from inside.

  Candles, a lantern, a bottle of blessed salt water, a silver plate, and red thread.

  She brought these materials directly under the bell and began explaining the ritual preparation process.

  "First, before setting up the ritual, you need to know that no matter how dangerous it might be, this summoning ritual is best performed at night. The spirits can see the candlelight better in darkness."

  "The candles must be made from beeswax mixed with sacred oil, and you need to create a path for the spirit using salt water."

  Senior Sariya sprinkled the salt water on the floor, drawing what looked like an intricate map.

  "I'll draw this ritual map on paper for you later. By the way, this map represents a sacred site from the primordial lands once ruled by the God of Life."

  Senior Sariya continued her gentle explanation as she lit the small lantern hanging from the silver plate.

  As the scent of incense rose, the lantern floated up into the air before getting caught on the silver plate, preventing it from rising further.

  Now that she thought about it, the unique scent that lingered around Senior Sariya was similar to this incense.

  "The lantern needs to be secured to the silver plate with red thread so it doesn't float away, and then you place an item belonging to the spirit you want to summon on the silver plate. That's all there is to it.

  So, what you need to find is a possession that belonged to the spirit you want to summon while they were alive. The more attachment they had to the item, the better. If you can't find anything else, you can use a part of their body – hair, fingernails, or toenails."

  "Ah... is that so?"

  Rumi wondered if there might be anything useful among Medina's belongings, or more importantly, if she could even get hold of any of Medina's possessions right now.

  "Since we're not performing an actual summoning ritual today, I'll just put these delicious eyeball jellies on the plate. I'm planning to give them to whoever dances the best after practice."

  Senior Sariya placed a blue eyeball jelly on the silver plate with a playful wink.

  "..."

  The jelly didn't look particularly appetizing.

  "Now that we're done with preparations, let's learn the dance. Watch carefully and follow along, okay?"

  The senior stood up and began slowly spinning to the tune of the well-known hymn 'Following the Stream.'

  "The basic step involves spinning joyfully, like flowing water."

  The dance seemed to be primarily about spinning as smoothly as possible.

  Indeed, this was an incredibly spinning-intensive dance.

  And after following just one spin after Senior Sariya, Rumi realized she was absolutely terrible at this kind of dance.

  She tried hard to follow the dance moves, but whether it was her brain or her body malfunctioning, she couldn't follow a single movement.

  She even kept tripping over her own feet during the basic steps.

  "Aaagh!"

  Rumi cried out as she fell again.

  "Hey, isn't there a mirror? Shouldn't we at least be able to see ourselves while practicing?"

  "You must never use mirrors during a summoning ritual. Mirrors are only used in black magic."

  "...?"

  Rumi briefly remembered that she summoned the grandmother ghost with a mirror.

  Though she sighed, Rumi tried her best to follow the dance, but... she realized she could never properly dance this even if her life depended on it.

  And Senior Sariya was looking at her like she was some dirt... at least that's how Rumi felt.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?"

  Rumi snapped, feeling irritated.

  "I'd only heard about it, but I can't believe someone could actually be this bad at dancing."

  "...!"

  The only consolation was that Raoul provided some sense of solidarity.

  Raoul's dancing skills were just as poor as Rumi's.

  "Haha, Raoul. You're hopeless too."

  "Well... I still think I'm a bit better than you, Rumi..."

  "Tee-hee... You're kidding yourself."

  Rumi thought it might be the first time she'd seen Raoul unable to maintain his usual composed expression.

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  But the real problem was just beginning.

  Malcolm was dancing quite skillfully even with his sword still at his waist.

  Even though Malcolm's proficiency could be explained by his familiarity with physical movements from sacred swordsmanship, the real issue was Eve.

  Eve was in her element.

  "What's with you? Have you learned this before?"

  "No... this is my first time."

  Rumi couldn't believe her eyes.

  Eve seemed born to dance, practically floating through the air.

  Not only had she memorized the entire dance after seeing it just once, but her dancing was... seriously beautiful.

  She was tall and slim, with a pretty face, and now she was even smiling.

  "Wow... your moves are really beautiful."

  Senior Sariya patted Eve's head.

  "What's your name? I've never seen anyone pick up the dance so quickly."

  "I... I'm Eve."

  Eve smiled brightly for the first time while catching her breath.

  "Would you like to come here every week to learn dance? Though we usually start teaching dance from second year, I've never seen such a beautiful and natural-born dancer."

  "Ah... would that be okay...?"

  Eve's face turned red.

  Watching this scene, Rumi felt terribly annoyed for some reason.

  Of course, she felt awful about her own lack of dance talent, but this wasn't why she had brought Eve here – to make her happy.

  "I didn't know she could smile like that..."

  "Rumi, I understand if you're jealous... huff... but anyone would be a target of your jealousy. Huff puff..."

  Raoul suddenly started teasing while gasping for breath from dancing.

  "What? Raoul, I can't believe you're saying that. Hey, you're the only person I can't be jealous of."

  "I have no choice... but to be this bad... if I danced well too, you'd feel worse..."

  "You seemed to be trying pretty hard though."

  "You two should just skip the summoning ritual. That kind of dancing is practically black magic."

  Malcolm suddenly appeared and spoke seriously.

  "What's with you?"

  "...But Eve really is dancing well... honestly, I've never seen anyone dance this well."

  "Is this for real...?"

  Looking at it now, Eve's dancing actually appeared more beautiful than Senior Sariya's who had taught them.

  Senior Sariya's special class ended after the sun had risen quite high in the sky.

  In the end, Rumi, Raoul, and even Malcolm gave up on learning the dance and sat against the wall, watching Eve's performance like they were at a show.

  Even after the lesson ended, Senior Sariya and Eve talked for quite a while.

  Actually, it was mostly Senior Sariya showering Eve with endless praise.

  Finally, Eve approached Rumi, drenched in sweat and clutching her prize eyeball jelly.

  "Senior Sariya says It's almost wake-up time. Let's hurry down. I want to shower before attending mass."

  Eve's face was full of shy smiles.

  "You look really happy? Guess you don't regret coming here."

  "Um... it wasn't that bad..."

  Eve responded kindly for the first time, blushing.

  Rumi didn't like that face at all.

  "Are you going to eat that jelly now?"

  "No... do you want it?"

  "No thanks!"

  Eve looked at the irritated Rumi for a moment, then placed the jelly in Rumi's pocket before suddenly covering her ears.

  "Huh...?"

  'DONG!'

  Just then, a bell rang so loudly it felt like their eardrums might burst.

  'Dong... Dong... Dong...'

  "Ack!"

  Rumi hurriedly covered her ears.

  Being right under the bell, she thought her ears might actually rupture.

  "Sorry, kids. I forgot to mention the bell is quite loud. It's the wake-up bell, so hurry down now."

  When Rumi regained her senses and looked around, annoyingly, only Senior Sariya and Eve had covered their ears in time.

  At lunchtime, the kids gathered in their dormitory room.

  "Now that we've learned the advanced summoning ritual, we're going to summon Medina's real ghost tonight!"

  Rumi's eyes blazed with determination.

  After the long wait, today they would finally uncover the truth about Medina.

  "But can we do the summoning ritual without Eve?"

  Malcolm raised an objection.

  "Of course! You learned the dance too. And you said you'd teach Niel."

  "..."

  "Still, it might be better if Eve helps..."

  Raoul said quietly.

  "Ah, but she already said she won't..."

  Rumi had already asked Eve to help with the summoning ritual, but Eve had adamantly refused, saying she didn't want to die.

  From the atmosphere earlier, it had seemed like Eve might be persuaded, but Rumi had only been told she was crazy.

  "Then I'll take Eve to teach Niel the dance. If Niel wants to learn, it would be much better to learn from Eve."

  Malcolm said.

  "Whatever..."

  "Niel, let's go practice dancing."

  Malcolm left the dining hall, taking Niel with him.

  "Wait... what exactly happened this morning...?"

  Niel was dragged away by Malcolm before she could figure out what was going on.

  "Well... I'll go first."

  "Since when did those two get so close...?“

  Rumi muttered, watching them leave with annoyed eyes.

  "Rumi, let's go. we have work to do."

  Raoul stood up with his tray.

  "Yeah.“

  After today's discussion, the kids' plan was as follows:

  While Niel learned dancing from Eve and Malcolm, Rumi and Raoul would sneak into Medina's dormitory room to find some of her possessions needed for the summoning ritual.

  However, the problem was that Medina's dormitory room had been inaccessible since the day she died.

  The room had been completely sealed off due to the risk of curses, and the roommates who had been living there were moved to different rooms.

  So they needed to somehow break through the locked door and find something useful.

  Rumi and Raoul were pacing back and forth in front of Medina's dormitory room, occasionally hitting the padlock for no reason.

  But the padlock wouldn't budge.

  "We won't be able to pick this lock this way, Rumi... This needs professional lockpicking skills."

  Raoul said after hitting the padlock one more time.

  "Then let's try hitting it one more time, and if that doesn't work, we'll just break in through the window from outside."

  Rumi's eyes glinted as she spoke.

  "I think that would cause another uproar at school..."

  As Rumi and Raoul were having this conversation, two teachers appeared at the end of the corridor.

  Professor Francesca, famous as the witch teacher, and Professor Myers were walking side by side.

  And strangely, their footsteps were headed straight toward Rumi and Raoul.

  "Rumi, look over there. Those two teachers seem to be coming this way."

  "Oh... they really are... Whoa!"

  Rumi finally saw the overwhelming presence of Professor Francesca she had only heard about.

  Despite being a woman, she was almost as tall as Professor Myers, wearing a black dress with long, straight black hair.

  And she wore a black eye patch over her left eye – now Rumi understood why students warned each other to be careful of the witch teacher at school.

  "So that's the witch teacher they call Francesca..."

  As Rumi stood dazed, staring at the approaching teacher, Raoul grabbed her arm and quickly pulled her back.

  They positioned themselves in a corner of the corridor and began observing what the two teachers were going to do in front of Medina's dormitory room.

  Professor Myers unlocked the padlock and opened the door to Medina's room.

  Bowing his head, he passed under the red thread marking the room as off-limits and entered.

  "So that room really was their destination...

  But why are those two gloomy-looking teachers going in there?"

  Rumi started getting excited at the possibility of finding a chance to enter the room.

  Shortly after, the dormitory room door where the two teachers had entered closed slightly, and Rumi immediately ran to the door.

  "Ru... Rumi!"

  Raoul followed Rumi to the door and adjusted her rather obvious eavesdropping posture to make it less noticeable.

  "Rumi, be careful... people are passing by..."

  As Raoul whispered, Rumi put her finger over his lips.

  "You still haven't found Medina's soul?"

  Just then, Professor Francesca's rough voice, sounding like she'd smoked too many cigarettes, came through quite loudly from inside.

  "No, I apologize. I will find it and return it to the Purple Manor as soon as possible."

  This was Professor Myers' voice.

  "Yes, Professor. You absolutely must. Who knows what consequences we might face otherwise."

  Whatever their relationship was, the usually stern Professor Myers was responding quite submissively, as if he'd been caught doing something wrong.

  "Oh dear... to think my precious niece would become an evil spirit..."

  "Huh? Medina was that witch teacher's niece?"

  Rumi thought for a moment and suddenly understood exactly why Medina had turned out the way she did.

  "Ah... our poor Medina..."

  Despite what she’s saying, her voice was completely devoid of emotion.

  Rather than sounding worried, it had a slightly amused tone that sent chills down their spines.

  "Sob sob sob."

  But then the witch teacher suddenly started crying.