"...?"

  "...!"

  "What? How are we supposed to memorize all this?"

  "But... what about dinner?"

  The new students were shocked by Principal Pierre's shocking announcement.

  "Now... Freshmen, if you get even one word wrong, you cannot leave the cathedral. So if you don't want to skip dinner tonight, you'd better memorize everything."

  Principal Pierre wore a sinister smile.

  To Rumi, he looked like a witch's follower.

  "Now, before explaining each rule, I will first explain why we must follow the rules. Why must we follow rules so strictly? This is all because of the God of life Angelica's..."

  The mass began and Principal Pierre's fanatical sermon continued.

  The sermon was long and verbose from the start.

  His reasoning for why rules must be followed drew from scripture in ways that anyone could tell were forced.

  And whenever a point seemed unclear, he would repeatedly give various examples to explain it, gradually moving to more extreme cases.

  "...That's how you commit crimes without realizing it by forgetting the rules. According to scripture, the punishment for sinful humans is to have their souls forcibly possessed into dead things and abandoned. In this school too, if you cause another student's death, that student will be trapped in a statue to suffer. No matter how young you are, the punishment will be equally severe... Do you understand!"

  And it always ended with him calling out students who weren't paying attention.

  "Why does he keep repeating what he already said...?"

  Medina, nearly exhausted, muttered to herself.

  But the principal heard Medina's complaint again.

  "Miss Medina there, if you keep chattering and not focusing on mass, you'll be cursed with curse of ignorance."

  "Yes... ugh..."

  Medina, who had already been called out three times by the principal, looked like she wanted to die.

  Rumi was suffering just as much. Unfortunately, she had already found someone who talked more than Medina.

  But Raoul, sitting beside her, kept looking only at the rules.

  No way... was he already memorizing them?

  Though it looked like he was reading parts that didn't need to be memorized, that could mean he had already memorized all the rules.

  This Raoul guy seemed craftier than he looked.

  Rumi immediately opened the rules and started memorizing. She had no intention of falling behind.

  After who knows how long, the students finished the entrance ceremony mass with reading scripture passages, forcibly sharing their thoughts, and prayers.

  After the four-hour mass finally ended, the hungry students wanted food.

  But the new students couldn't go to the cafeteria.

  Because upperclassmen and teachers stood at the door and began testing whether the new students had memorized the rules and basic prayers.

  The new students had no choice but to remain in the cathedral and start memorizing the rules.

  Most students, unlike Rumi and Raoul, apparently hadn't thought to memorize the rules during mass. Fools...

  "Raoul, you memorized all the rules too, right?"

  Rumi asked with a relaxed expression.

  "Yeah, more or less. Looks like you memorized them all too."

  "Of course. How could I not in three hours!"

  "What? You guys, I kept getting scolded so I couldn't memorize them. Just wait a minute. Let me write this down..."

  Medina went under her chair and started making a cheat sheet.

  Rumi had no intention of waiting for Medina.

  "We're going ahead."

  Rumi brought Raoul to stand before the upperclassmen checking at the cathedral door.

  "Wow, looks like you already memorized everything. First recite the rules. If you make a mistake, come back in five minutes."

  The upperclassman looked at Rumi condescendingly.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Rumi started reciting the rules with an even more condescending expression.

  "The cathedral is the safest place in the school. If anything happens, evacuate to the cathedral without thinking. Don't forget to make the sign of the Y when entering the cathedral..."

  Having already memorized the rules during mass, Rumi and Raoul smoothly recited them and were among the first new students to leave the cathedral.

  After they left, the upperclassman from earlier gave Rumi and Raoul each a key.

  "Rumi and Raoul... here are your dormitory room keys. The dorms are right down the corridor in front. Get your luggage from the entrance, move it to your dorm, then go to the cafeteria for dinner."

  Each key had an assigned room number written on it.

  Rumi got numbers 49 and Raoul got 50.

  Coincidentally, it seemed Rumi and Raoul would be in adjacent dorm rooms.

  Rumi and Raoul first got their bags from the entrance and looked for their assigned dorms.

  Dormitory doors lined the corridor.

  The longest first-floor corridor in the school, starting opposite the cathedral entrance, seemed to be all dormitory rooms.

  But even at first glance, the dormitory doors were very strange.

  They had roofs and walls that jutted out slightly like tiny houses - a weird design that seemed to be trying to recreate a residential neighborhood indoors.

  Rumi first unlocked door 49 with its round window and looked inside.

  Bunk beds were attached to both side walls, and narrow stairs on the right led up to a loft level.

  Including the loft, it made for quite a comfortable space even for four people.

  Giving the dorm room a passing grade, Rumi threw her luggage down anywhere and came out.

  And ran into Raoul coming out at the same time.

  "How's the room? Is it okay?"

  Raoul asked.

  "Yeah, better than I expected... though it might be a bit tough sharing with three others."

  "Looks like you prefer being alone."

  "Of course, what about you?"

  "Same here."

  "Should we go to the cafeteria together then?"

  Raoul smiled at Rumi.

  "But where the hell is the cafeteria?"

  Rumi looked around. Then she saw a group of upperclassmen walking toward the end of the corridor.

  Meanwhile, Raoul opened the map in the booklet.

  Looking at the school map, it seemed the cafeteria was at the east end of the first floor.

  Then the upperclassmen must be heading to the cafeteria.

  "Looks like the cafeteria's at the end of this corridor. I think I can smell something too."

  "Seems so."

  "There was even a map in the booklet?"

  Rumi suddenly grabbed Raoul's map to examine it.

  First she saw the central school building, cathedral, and what looked like a circular stadium.

  Outside the school were the forbidden school zone and forest to the west, the Devil's Tower to the east, and in the far north, Saint angelicus' University and the dam.

  "Hmm... everything looks suspicious."

  "What does?"

  Rumi tried to identify any particularly suspicious places, but looking at the map, everywhere seemed suspicious.

  "No, just saying. Um... I hope the cafeteria food is good."

  Rumi started walking.

  'Bump'

  Just then, Rumi suddenly brushed shoulders with someone.

  Rumi was about to pass by without thinking, but felt like she'd bumped into something strange.

  Like she'd bumped into something without a head...

  "Do you know where Room Zero is?"

  At that moment, a small voice reached Rumi's ears.

  Getting goosebumps, Rumi turned around, but there was no one there except Raoul.

  "What's wrong, Rumi? Did something happen?"

  "Uh... no. I just think I bumped shoulders with a ghost."

  "Huh? With a ghost? It should be hard to physically bump into ghosts..."

  "I don't know... but I definitely bumped into something... didn't you see anything?"

  "No... I was putting away the map."

  "Ugh... what was that? Am I already being haunted?"

  Then Raoul approached Rumi and brushed off her shoulder.

  "No need to worry too much. Probably just a minor ghost playing pranks on new students. Still, better make the sign of the Y just in case."

  "Yeah..."

  Rumi made the sign of the Y, something she rarely did.

  "You're not hurting anywhere?"

  "Um... not really. But! Why are there so many ghosts in supposedly the most sacred place in North America?"

  "That's... strange even to me..."

  Rumi and Raoul started walking down the corridor again.

  And reached the spacious cafeteria at the end of the corridor.

  Looking at the faded chairs and aged exterior walls, it resembled school cafeteria from the 80s.

  Mostly upperclassmen were eating, with hardly any new students visible.

  But while looking around the school cafeteria, she saw another school ghost.

  A female student ghost was quietly sitting at a corner table, praying.

  "Wow, first time seeing a praying ghost..."

  Raoul smiled slightly at those words.

  "I don't think she's a ghost?"

  "What?"

  Rumi stared intently at the female student ghost.

  The girl praying with a devout posture had long black hair falling down.

  Her face was ghost-like pale and her dark circles were as long as if she hadn't slept for years.

  But her face itself was unusually pretty.

  Looking again, she thought maybe she wasn't a ghost after all, but honestly, since Rumi couldn't sense curse energy, it was hard for her to distinguish between ghosts and people by sight alone.

  But she could immediately tell the identity of this school's cook.

  The cook was a zombie.

  Rumi saw the large cook's green arm while getting tomato soup with her tray.

  Rumi slightly raised her head to look up at the cook's face.

  But the cook was looking down at Rumi with a very scary face. And peculiarly, she had red talisman-like writing engraved on her forehead.

  Rumi immediately lowered her eyes and looked elsewhere.

  But everywhere else in the kitchen was just as strange.

  The kitchen interior looked like a murder scene with blood splattered everywhere, and it seemed like she could hear children screaming.

  Rumi exhaled deeply after getting her food.

  "What the, the cafeteria lady is a zombie? Why is everything like this here?"

  "Looking at it, students not being allowed in the cafeteria after 7 PM... must be because of that."

  Hearing Raoul's words, Rumi checked the food. There was just mashed potatoes, tomato soup with unidentifiable meat, and a dried-out biscuit.

  As expected, since the world had ended, food seemed quite poor whether at school or anywhere else.

  "With such small portions, I hope there's nothing weird in it..."

  "..."

  Raoul was silent.

  As Rumi looked around for a table to sit at, she noticed again that ghost-like girl who was still praying.

  Rumi chose a spot near that girl. If something seemed suspicious, she planned to watch.

  So Rumi put a spoonful of tomato soup in her mouth.

  "Mmm?"

  Unlike its appearance, the food was delicious.

  Rumi tried the other foods and they were all tasty too.

  "Mm this is good."

  But nearby, the female student who hadn't even taken one spoonful was still praying.

  "But why is she praying for so long? She's been like that since before we came."

  "Maybe this kind of food is just unfamiliar to her?"

  Come to think of it, the girl was wearing an extremely elegant black dress.

  "Is she from some noble family too?"

  The girl's brow twitched slightly as if she heard Rumi and Raoul's voices.

  And soon she finished praying and picked up a biscuit.

  Then she took a small bite and slowly chewed it.

  Seeing her eat food, she definitely wasn't a ghost after all.

  Strangely, Rumi's eyes kept being drawn to that girl.

  It might have been entertaining to watch what looked like a rich princess trying common food for the first time.

  "Hey, you guys were here!"

  Suddenly a loud voice rang out.

  Damn, that voice was unmistakably Medina's.