"That stupid Kira… I can't believe his attitude…" Nieza muttered to herself as she walked back toward her classroom.
"…Niezalezny… Konets Sveta will arrive in three minutes…"
The man's voice echoed, fragmented, inside Nieza's mind. She recognized it instantly—Aliniere.
"Aliniere…?! Is that really you?" Nieza whispered urgently, scanning her surroundings.
There was no reply. She realized that at her current level, she could not engage in two-way communication with Aliniere.
Suddenly, her gaze shifted through the third-floor corridor window toward the school field. A black dome appeared at the center of the field, its surface covered in hieroglyph-like symbols, spanning a radius of fifty meters. The dome continued to expand, swallowing the entire school. The sky darkened.
Diablo's eye appeared.
Konets Sveta had arrived.
"Class 3-D… one person… in danger…"
Aliniere's voice sounded again.
Nieza tied her long hair with her black ribbon and rolled up part of her blazer sleeve. She immediately sprinted toward her classroom.
"Sunt un reprezentant de Aliniere!" Nieza shouted as she ran.
Blue flames surged across her body. Black gloves bearing a moon-and-star emblem formed over her hands, and dark brown combat boots materialized on her feet. Nieza lifted off the ground, flying straight toward her classroom.
"BRAM!"
She burst the door open.
The classroom was darker than usual. Her classmates sat frozen like statues in their seats. From their final postures, Nieza could tell what they had been doing—chatting, sleeping on their desks, studying, staring absentmindedly out the window.
Small points of light clung to each of their uniforms.
Nieza approached one of them to examine the source.
The glow came from Lumina's charms.
She stared in disbelief. How could charms with no visible mechanism emit light when Konets Sveta arrived?
"CRACK!"
The sound of something snapping echoed from the back-right corner of Class 3-D. It was too dark to see clearly.
Then moonlike light poured in through a shattered window—soft, neither blinding nor dim.
Nieza froze.
A shirtless man in jeans was strangling a frozen student at the back of the room.
"CRACK!"
The sound echoed again. With a grip like that, any ordinary human would die. The man lifted his victim off the ground with one hand clenched around the neck.
"…Stop!" Nieza shouted, disgusted by the sight of someone torturing a helpless victim.
The long-haired man turned toward her. His eyes glowed bright red. His teeth resembled the fangs of a carnivorous beast—stained with dried blood from previous victims.
"…Nieza… Lezny…" the man rasped.
His bare feet scraped the floor. He looked like a zombie—half-naked, feral, like a deranged vagrant.
Suddenly, he screamed—a roar that seemed to shake the entire school. Then he lunged straight at Nieza.
Calmly, Nieza drove her fingers into the floor. With her magic, they pierced the surface effortlessly. She calculated the size of the slab, then ripped it upward and slammed it forward—pinning the zombie against the classroom wall.
"BRAM!"
Perfect timing.
The zombie's body—everything except its right arm—was crushed between the wall and the lifted floor slab. The arm narrowly missed Nieza.
Black blood spilled as the creature dissolved into black sand.
Nieza approached the student who had just been attacked.
It was horrifying.
Seeing her classmate strangled so brutally made her stomach twist. After Konets Sveta ended, the victim would fall into Apathy Syndrome.
Who was that zombie?
Was he the man Nieza had been searching for?
"CRASH!"
Shattering glass snapped her out of her thoughts.
Fifteen zombies stormed toward Class 3-D from every direction—through doors, broken windows, even smashing in from outside. They sprinted straight for her.
Nieza dashed to the center of the room and took flight. Rough zombie hands clawed at the air beneath her, desperate to tear her apart—but none could reach her near the ceiling.
"You lunatics! You need to be taught a lesson!" Nieza snarled, forming a massive blue fireball.
She hurled it downward.
"BOOM!"
The explosion, spanning a twenty-meter radius, obliterated desks, chairs, and windows. Zombies were blasted out of the classroom, engulfed in blue flames. Others melted instantly.
Their burning bodies disintegrated into black sand.
The floors, walls, and ceiling of Class 3-D were scorched black. The whiteboard was completely incinerated. Blue flames spread across the ruined classroom.
Yet—despite the devastation—not a single frozen student was injured. Their desks and chairs had burned away, leaving them lying stiffly on the floor.
Nieza dared to fight like this because Aliniere had explained it before: attacks from Engill representatives do not harm ordinary humans—only Monsters.
Then—
Heavy footsteps echoed from the front of the classroom.
Each step boomed like an elephant's stride. Something massive was approaching from the neighboring Class 3-C.
Nieza braced herself.
Silence fell. No sound. No vibration.
"BRAM!"
A gigantic man in a black coat and pants smashed through the wall separating Class 3-C and 3-D.
He stood two and a half meters tall, his body grotesquely muscular beyond human limits. Thick clothing covered most of him, leaving only his face and palms exposed. His skin was tough—like a rhinoceros's hide.
His head was bald. His left eye was sewn shut. His right eye was huge and glowing red. His mouth stretched wider than a human's, filled with the same monstrous teeth as the other zombies.
The giant zombie roared at Nieza in threat.
Panicking slightly, Nieza began forming another blue fireball to annihilate the monster.
The giant extended his right hand.
Its fingers elongated grotesquely, stretching toward Nieza.
Too sudden.
The extending fingers wrapped around her body completely, binding her tight. The blue fireball vanished.
"Ugh…!"
Nieza's movements were completely sealed. She felt herself being crushed and choked by the giant's finger-bindings as it stomped toward her.
Each step shook the classroom violently.
This was bad.
Nieza realized that if the giant closed the distance any further, it would beat her to death without hesitation.
Help…!