“I know what those monsters are.”

  Laura’s words leave me with a mix of relief and anger. It’s always a good thing to know what you’re facing, but… what if her deduction is better than mine? Is she going to eclipse my excellent detective skills right after I revealed the truth behind the impossible incidents?

  I, the Great Mad Rat Detective can’t accept it!

  But without anything to use as an argument, I approach the demonic professor’s corpse and inspect the dead worm that popped out of his neck.

  “These worms… they’re called Sin Parasites,” says Laura. “They infect an ally and give it a very powerful boost… until they inevitably die. It’s a death sentence. I remember hearing they were a high-level unit from the Wicked Legion. That’s why I didn’t recognize them, I can’t unlock them yet.”

  On the screen that appears when I inspect the dead worm, I immediately identify what she’s talking about. It’s a skill called Sinful Blessing.

  “The worm’s stats are shit, but this skill… Oh, man, this skill…”

  I start salivating at the prospect of getting my hands on one of those worms. Figuratively speaking, of course. It isn’t like I can increase – or decrease, for that matter – the amount of drool passively produced by my Champion. For that, I’d have to edit it using the character editor.

  From what I can read, this skill, Sinful Blessing, is kind of a one-time buff. The affected unit will receive a large boost to its stats, but it’ll soon die. What’s worse, since it’s the Max HP that’s reduced instead of taking damage, there’s no way around it. The affected unit can’t be healed, and once it reaches 0, the unit dies permanently. Not even skills like Resurrection can bring it back to life.

  Now I understand why, borrowing the Imp’s words, ‘the victims have regrettably been lost forever’.

  But those are just minor drawbacks. The possibilities are endless! I’m sure I can use them for amazing gimmicks, it’s just a matter to time the parasitizing properly, to maximize the buff usefulness…

  “Hey, stop daydreaming!” Laura awakens me with a smack on my head. “Did you listen to what I said?”

  “Uh… No?”

  She sighs. “I was saying that the worms coming out of the victims must be the same as the one that infected the professor, just larger.”

  Is that so? I quickly look around. While we were fighting the demonic professor, all the spasming students died. I observe the last remaining worm as it enters the ventilation system through the vent, and surely enough, it’s similar to the dead one.

  “Are they… Enlarged?”

  “I think so,” Laura nods. “But where are they all going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  When a male student gets infected, the worm sucks him dry and grows into an ‘adult’. Otherwise, if the infected is a professor, he resists it and starts spreading the larvae. Of course, this isn’t what actually happens, but it’s what the dungeon owner wants us to believe.

  Is it because the students are humans and the professors demons? The demons, who don’t have ‘sins’ are mind-controlled instead and used to collect more ‘sins’ from the humans? Then, when the worms grow, they return to wherever they come from with the gains…

  We share our thoughts to decide what to do next.

  “I knew there was something in the basement. Isn’t it too much of a coincidence that the professor ran amok right when we were going inside?”

  “It could be.” I shrug my shoulders. “But more importantly, isn’t anyone going to come? Such a crazy event, but no teachers or staff are coming?”

  “Now that you say it…”

  Other than us two, the only sign of life is the student sobbing over her boyfriend’s corpse. I understand that the students ran away from the danger, but shouldn’t someone come check what’s going on?

  That is, unless something else is keeping them busy…

  “...No way.” I shake my head, running to the classroom’s door. Laura follows me, and we both emerge into the corridor.

  The door leading to the basement is located at the end of the corridor. This means that this classroom, the closest to the door, is near a dead end. Nobody would come here by chance.

  We hear screams coming from the end of the corridor. We didn’t pay attention to them until now because we’ve been hearing shouts since we came into the school. But now that we’re outside the classroom, I can feel the difference between those painful cries and the despair-filled ones we're hearing now.

  If before they were ‘It hurts!’ shouts, now they’ve turned into ‘I’m truly going to die!’ ones.

  “Save me! Somebody save me!”

  “T-they’re everywhere! There’s no escape!”

  A group of male students rush past the corner, only to come back the way they came right after. They desperately look around, searching for an exit, but when they see this is a dead end, they lose all hope.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “N-no…! We’re done!” One of the students falls to his knees. “They’ll catch and eat us…! We’ll all end like Jack and Peter!”

  Another one of the students stands on the windowsill and opens the window. “They won’t catch me alive. I’d rather jump from here, aaaaaaaaaah!”

  He jumps.

  “I-I… I’m coming with youuuuuuuuu!” Another student jumps after him.

  The remaining students show surprise faces. They ultimately decide to scatter and hope for the best, rushing past us and hiding inside the ruined classroom.

  Why are they so stupid? This is the first floor. They just need to jump like the other two and escape this infernal school… Wait, why didn’t I hear the students hit the ground? And why were their shouts so long…?

  For the first time since we came inside the school, I approach the window and look below. Until now, I just paid attention to the sky.

  What I see is a bottomless cliff.

  “I didn’t expect this.” It does make sense that there’s no escape, literally, from a school created to punish sinners. If they could run away, I’m sure they would have tried it long ago. Still, isn’t this too much?

  But to choose such a death over the worms… Yep, I understand them. I too would have jumped.

  Laura and I exchange a look and nod. We’ll observe what’s going on before taking any action. With the assurance of having the basement door right behind us, in case we must go there to solve the case, there’s no need to take unnecessary risks.

  Two demons come from the main passage. One from the left, one from the right. They must be the professors the students were running from.

  They groan, their moves a bit clunky. They remind me of the professor we just defeated.

  “I don’t want to repeat this…” I complain. I had enough running around while being chased by a weird demon that’s trying to put something inside me. And now there are two of them!

  “Do you think they’ll follow us if we go to the basement?”

  Is Laura suggesting we run away? I’m all in for it.

  “I hope they won’t...”

  Suddenly, we hear an explosion and the passage where the two demon professors are is engulfed in flames.

  “You don’t deserve to work in this honorable institution!” The Imp’s voice makes the whole school tremble. He sounds powerful. And angry. “You allow yourselves to be dominated and hurt the students you’re supposed to instruct? Failures! All of you are failures!”

  No, in any way you look at it, I don’t think the professors wanted to be infected and controlled until their deaths… Permanent deaths, at that.

  “Die and repent in hell!” Another explosion threatens to collapse the whole school, and even more flames fill the school’s corridors.

  …aren’t they in hell already? I want to retort.

  Luckily for us, we’re in a side passage. The fire goes straight from left to right and we’re unscathed. I can’t say the same for the two demonic professors that were getting ready to attack us, though.

  I’m sure this wasn’t the Imp’s attack. It’s impossible an Imp could kill two stronger monsters in a single attack. I don’t know where the fire came from, nor do I care. All I care is that we didn’t have to fight them.

  “Whew! One less problem to worry about,” I swipe my non-existent sweat. “Well, two problems. I’m glad I didn’t kill him earlier. I never expected that annoying Imp could be this useful.”

  Laura sends me a deadly glare before sighing. “You’re still going on about that? You should never kill NPCs in quest dungeons!”

  “Yeah, yeah… I won’t.” Until I do. “Anyway, it looks like Mr. Director has the school and students covered. Shall we check the basement?”

  “Yes. There must be something important there.”

  We turn around and the dark gaping mouth to the subterranean level greets us.

  …I’m not scared. Nothing will happen to my nether regions. I know it was all a trick and I’m completely safe. I keep repeating those words to convince myself of the truth.

  “Do I go first like before? Or do you want to do the honors?” Laura makes an angelic (demonic) smile when she asks. I’m sure she noticed my shaking legs.

  “You go first.” I succinctly reply. I won’t give her the pleasure to play with my feelings.

  We start going down the stairs. With every step we take, the boards creak and the light grows dim. The shouts and screams from above become muffled, until silence prevails. We continue going further into the earth when Laura asks if I have any light. I don’t so we have to continue without.

  When we reach the bottom of the stairs, we see a large door in front of us. We pull it open and enter a large room.

  A few lamps illuminate the darkness in a pink tone. Their light is tenue. Outside their immediate vicinity, the light they give is about the same as the moon during the night. Tendrils of mist move around as if they were alive, giving me the illusion that the shadows are moving.

  There are statues on both sides, creating a central passage. And behind them, large sarcophagi.

  “This is creepy… Hey, Lily. Are you sure we’re still in a demon dungeon?”

  She nods beside me. “You’re right. Except for the pink lights, it does look like an undead dungeon.”

  So I’m not turning crazy yet. It’s nice to know.

  I observe the statues as we walk forward. They’re too old and have degraded over time. It’s hard to imagine what they looked like in their original forms, with missing arms and heads, and all the details faded into blurry masses.

  But even then, an expert mind like mine can identify what they signify. Most of the statues showcase at least two persons. And their positions are too… too explicit to be confused. Only an adult would recognize what the statues are doing, but at the same time, an adult can’t mistake them for anything else.

  I peek at Laura’s expression. She’s observing the statues with eyes wide open while covering her mouth with one hand. When she notices my gaze, she asks in a seductive tone.

  “Do you want to try some of these? Later, with me. You and I, alone… You know what I mean, right? Fufufu!”

  Instead of replying, I turn my head away and ignore her.

  “You didn’t refute it… Fufufu…!”

  Unexpectedly, as we walk further in, the atmosphere changes. Crates and burn-out candles appear on the ground, as well as thick, ancient books. A few red magic circles drawn on the ground, with what I presume to be blood, quickly catch our attention. We hasten our steps, knowing we’re near our objective.

  Further ahead, we find a colossal magic circle of at least ten meters in diameter. Right in the middle of it, there’s a massive sarcophagus. Gold engravings adorn its top and sides. On the golden letters in front of the sarcophagus we can read: Queen Isabella shall rule for all eternity.

  “Um… Are you sure we’re still inside the demon dungeon?”

  “Don’t ask the same question twice!” Laura smacks my head. Ugh, how violent.