Vol 1 Chapter 2.2 (1/2)

[2]

That morning, Kazuya exited the boys’ dormitory at exactly his usual time and headed toward the cla.s.sroom building, walking with perfectly straight posture.

It was a sunny day. A sweet scent wafted from the riotously colorful flower beds that dotted the campus, which was built in the style of a French garden. Normally, Kazuya would have rushed straight to cla.s.s, but this morning he couldn’t help but slow his steps and admire the flowers and green-leafed trees.

As Kazuya approached the front of the building, a feminine voice called out to him. “Um, excuse me…. You must be the boy who sits next to me; Kujou, I think it was?”

He turned around and saw a familiar figure standing there. It was his cla.s.smate, Avril Bradley, who had just arrived from England a few days ago. She was a beautiful, vivacious young girl with short blond hair and long, st.u.r.dy legs.

“Hey, let’s go inside together!” Avril ran up alongside Kazuya, taking no heed of his shy body language. A jovial, unclouded smile beamed across her distinctly mature-looking face. “So you’re a foreign student too, Kujou?”

Kazuya nodded, feeling slightly tense. “Y-yeah…”

Walking next to Kazuya, Avril looked very tall for a girl. She was as tall as he was, and bore a robust physique that seemed more suitable for an adult woman than a girl.

Kazuya suddenly felt suspicious of whether this girl was really fifteen years old. But Avril was oblivious to his silence, and instead continued talking on cheerfully.

“You know, this school is pretty weird. It’s been around for a long time, so the buildings, the gardens, and the dorm all look really old. The school I went to in England was newly built, so I find this a pretty refres.h.i.+ng change. Hey, did you know that the students here have a bunch of ghost stories about this place?”

“…Are you referring to the ‘reaper who comes in spring’?”

“What’s that? No, the one I heard was called, ‘don’t step on the thirteenth stair’. They said that there’s a teacher who hanged herself on the thirteenth step, and she tries to drag people into h.e.l.l. Ha, ha, ha!” Avril’s lovely face dissolved into laughter. “Why would a spirit still be hanging around the world of the living? That’s so stupid; who could possibly believe that?”

Apparently, this girl was not the sort who believed in ghost stories or superst.i.tions.

“But it’s still kind of fun, you know? I get excited. This is where Avril starts her adventure, ’cause my grandpa was an adventurer, too. Have you ever heard of Sir Bradley? He traveled across Africa in a jeep, and crossed the Atlantic in a hot-air balloon.”

The name sounded somehow familiar to Kazuya. Perhaps he had read it in a newspaper article before.

“Although, he did end up disappearing somewhere with that balloon….”

Right, that was the article.

“My dream is to become an incredible adventurer just like my grandpa. Right now, what I want is a license to fly a plane, plus a motorbike, although I could use some new dresses, too….”

The image of Avril floating away in a hot-air balloon, screaming, rose unbidden in Kazuya’s mind.

Then, in a flash, her expression turned serious. Now she seemed like a completely different person from the cute, bubbly schoolgirl she was before. An ominous cloud pa.s.sed over her features as she lowered her voice. “Actually… I came to this school to look for something. Something very important to me.”

“What would that be?”

“It’s … a secret!”

“Oh…?”

As he chatted with Avril, Kazuya took a careful look at her hand.

The fingers on her right hand were wrapped in a white bandage.

A murder case had occurred nearby only a few days before. Kazuya had been mistaken for the culprit, but thanks to Victorique, the tiny genius detective, the case had been solved and the real killer arrested … or so he thought.

But there was one issue that refused to leave Kazuya’s mind—namely, a certain characteristic of the killer. According to Victorique, the culprit was a pretty blond-haired girl with injured fingers. Sure enough, a girl matching that description was later apprehended, and she confessed to her crime.

But Avril, who had enrolled in school immediately afterward, also happened to be a pretty blond-haired girl with injured fingers….