Saria rustled beneath the covers before slowly emerging from the blanket.
“…?”
Still drowsy from sleep, she blinked groggily and scanned her surroundings.
For a brief moment, she felt a sense of unfamiliarity.
But it didn’t take long for her to recall the events of the previous night, prompting her to let out a small sigh.
“Nothing was caught, huh.”
The curse she had placed on Si-woo’s dorm—one that would leave an irreversible mark on any intruder—had failed to react.
“Did they not even try because I was here?”
It was a strong possibility.
During the entrance exam, Saria had demonstrated her Curse of Reflection ability.
If the culprit was indeed a student at the Academy, as Si-woo suspected, then they would also be aware that Saria specialized in curses.
To ensure accuracy and efficiency, she had chosen to stay overnight.
“Maybe next time, it would be better if I wasn’t here.”
As she adjusted her pajama top, which had become slightly disheveled in her sleep, an unsettling sensation crept over her—like a bug crawling across her skin.
Her expression twisted in discomfort.
“What is this? Did I forget to remove my makeup?”
It felt exactly like waking up after crashing into bed without washing off a thick layer of foundation.
The irritation was especially noticeable around her forehead, leaving an odd, persistent itch.
Frowning, Saria walked toward the mirror.
She had taken a shower last night.
She had only applied minimal skincare—nothing that should be causing this level of discomfort.
“Then what the hell is—?”
Her breath hitched.
The moment she saw her reflection, her pupils dilated.
At first glance, her face looked no different than usual.
Her hair was a little messier than normal from sleeping, and her half-lidded eyes gave her a slightly sluggish appearance.
Nothing seemed out of place…
Except for the bold, glaring text written across her smooth, pale forehead.
“T-this is cheating…!”
Frantically, Saria rubbed at the writing on her forehead.
It wasn’t permanent marker—thankfully.
As the ink smudged and melted away with her sweat, she let out a relieved sigh.
But that relief was short-lived.
Her lips pressed together tightly, and her crimson eyes burned with fury.
‘This… is a declaration of war.’
The audacity of the intruder sent a surge of anger through her.
A pulse of mana rippled through the curse circle she had embedded in the room.
Sensing its master’s will, the dormant curse on the floor awakened, reacting to the sheer focus and intensity of Saria’s mana.
It began its search—digging into the past records of the room.
It hunted for any trace of an uninvited guest who had stepped inside without permission.
‘…No manifestation point?’
But nothing appeared.
In magic, every action required a cost.
If someone had entered and triggered the curse, there should be a trace, a reaction—anything.
Yet, the spell simply returned her mana, undisturbed.
“T-this can’t be right.”
Refusing to accept the outcome, Saria reconstructed the magic circle.
She hadn’t made a mistake.
The curse had been completed and fully embedded into the ground last night.
All she had to do now was trace its records and identify the target.
And yet—nothing.
Again and again, she reset the spell from scratch.
She even resorted to chanting aloud, something normally unnecessary, just to refine the spell’s accuracy.
The magic circle was now perfect.
Even if there had been the slightest anomaly, this level of precision should have revealed something.
“Hah…”
But the result remained unchanged.
The curse failed to activate.
It had no target.
The spell fizzled out and returned her mana, as if the intruder had never existed.
“So… I really couldn’t find them?”
“Ugh…!!”
Saria clenched her fists, gritting her teeth in frustration.
The quiet of the room was broken by Si-woo’s voice.
He had woken up to the repeated activation of Saria’s magic, his expression tinged with a faint bitterness.
It was clear she had put everything into trying to track the intruder.
The lingering mana that hadn’t returned to her magic circle and the sweat clinging to her skin were undeniable proof of her efforts.
Si-woo let out a small sigh and decided to expand his own mana detection.
Using the traces of mana Saria had scattered throughout the room, he widened his search range more than usual.
But the result was exactly as expected.
‘Nothing at all.’
The only human presences he detected were himself and Saria.
There were faint traces of other lifeforms, but they were nothing more than insects and wild creatures—beings incapable of holding mana.
If not for the writing on Saria’s forehead, left behind so boldly by the intruder, neither of them would have even suspected someone had entered the room.
That was how perfect their concealment was.
“Not even a trace?” Si-woo asked.
Saria, biting her lip in frustration, forced herself to calm down and refocus.
Detection. Search. Extraction.
Normally, she would have skipped a step or two, but this time, she followed the full process without cutting any corners.
Instead of trying to curse a target, she focused on retrieving past records.
She rewound the room’s history, scanning for any anomaly.
But what she saw was too clean.
If an intruder had been present, her curse would have reacted—disturbing the recorded past and revealing their presence.
Yet, there wasn’t even the faintest ripple.
It was as if nothing had ever been there to begin with.
Saria’s breath hitched in disbelief.
“Hah… Is something like this even possible?”
“Of course it is.” Si-woo’s voice was calm. “That’s just how engravings work, isn’t it?”
Engravings—the supernatural abilities that had emerged alongside gates—had never followed the rules of common sense.
Even after the emergence of gates, mana, and supernatural phenomena, one fundamental truth had never changed:
Magic and enhancement skills could be explained through science.
But engravings?
They were true miracles.
Before an actual miracle, common sense was meaningless.
And now, Saria was experiencing that reality firsthand.
“The only solid clue we got… is that the intruder is a woman.”
“Wait, you actually saw that?”
“Yeah. When she wrote on my forehead, her hand was the only thing that physically manifested.”
But even then, the curse hadn’t reacted.
It wasn’t just the curse—the world itself had failed to recognize the intruder as a living being.
Something had been there, yet at the same time, it hadn’t.
Her hand had existed, yet the world insisted that nothing had been there.
For the first time, Saria had encountered an ability so absurd that she found herself scoffing in disbelief.
With a sigh, she dispelled the curse engraved on the floor—it was useless now.
“No matter how strong an engraving is, does this really make sense?”
“It does. You’ve seen it firsthand, haven’t you?”
“Urk…”
She had forgotten—no, she had been ignoring it.
Because the perfect example of an engraving-defying human was standing right in front of her.
Si-woo’s own existence was already something that should have been considered beyond the norm.
“…At least we learned something important.”
“And what’s that?”
“If we keep going like this, we’re never going to catch them.”
If they kept chasing only the intruder’s traces, they could easily waste the entire semester following a phantom—only to end up in summer vacation empty-handed.
“So, we need to take drastic measures.”
“Drastic measures?”
“Yeah. We’ll use the Academy’s resources—without officially asking for their help.”
Si-woo pulled out a phone.
But it wasn’t the one he normally used.
It was a different phone—one from his days as a host.
His original second phone.
‘I should’ve transferred their numbers while I had the chance.’
Unlike Se-ah, he had never expected to cross paths with those two again.
Holding down the power button, he waited for the screen to light up.
After nearly a month of being powered off, the second phone finally lit up.
‘Let’s see… calls and messages…’
Riiing—!!!
Of course.
There was no way he wouldn’t have missed calls.
A flood of messages and notifications poured in, all from familiar numbers and names.
However, compared to the early days, the volume had significantly decreased—only one or two people had continued to persistently reach out.
“Looks like a couple of them are still clinging on.”
One name, in particular, stood out.
Si-woo ignored the incoming call from that person and instead opened his contacts list.
“Uh… are you sure it’s okay to ignore that?” Saria asked hesitantly.
“If I pick up, it’s going to become an even bigger hassle than you can imagine.”
The three women who had become Academy instructors were one thing, but this person?
She was on a completely different level.
Her self-control was questionable at best.
Or rather, it was practically nonexistent.
‘And the crazy thing is… she wasn’t even affected by my engraving.’
Just the thought of that woman made Si-woo’s skin crawl.
Even compared to his most obsessive customers, she had demanded a crushing level of devotion.
Shaking off the memory, he quickly saved the numbers for Baek Eun-seol and Kitsunezawa Wakamo in his current phone.
And with that, the second phone returned to eternal rest.
“So, do they have a lecture right now?” Saria asked.
“Who are you calling?”
“Kitsunezawa.”
If she was in the middle of class, he’d just leave a message.
With that plan in mind, Si-woo pressed the call button.
Ding—!
The dial tone didn’t even last a second before it was abruptly cut off.
“Hello?”
“…Wait, you actually picked up?”
Kitsunezawa’s voice came through the line, completely unfazed.
Si-woo let out a long sigh and shook his head.
“I’m going to politely decline whatever joke you’re about to make.”
“Joke? I’m not joking.”
“…That just makes it scarier.”
“Fufu. So, what’s the reason for this call?”
“You wouldn’t be calling me first unless you needed something, right?”
At Kitsunezawa’s playful remark, Si-woo got straight to the point.
He explained everything—how someone in the Academy was stalking him, how Saria’s curse had failed to track them, and how they were now out of options.
After listening quietly to his explanation, Kitsunezawa finally spoke up.
“So… what you’re telling me is… you spent the night with Saria?”
“We slept in separate rooms.”
“Mmm… That’s all I needed to know.”
Click.
The call ended abruptly.
A second later, Si-woo’s phone vibrated with a new message.
<Kitsunezawa: Wait 10 seconds ♥>
Si-woo stared at the screen, his face unreadable.
Then, he slowly turned to Saria.
“Saria… do you want to run while you still can?”
Saria sighed in resignation.
“It’s already too late, darling.”
7 seconds later.
KNOCK KNOCK.
Kitsunezawa was already standing at Si-woo’s door.