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The Ghost of Millie Marl Haunts the Abandoned Storehouse – Part 02

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Translator: Kell

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Kazuya parted ways with Avril. As he walked down the hallway, a golden, pointy head came from the opposite direction. It was Inspector Grevil de Blois.

He was accompanied by his two men, wearing rabbit-skin caps and holding hands. When he spotted Kazuya, he struck a pose.

“Hey there, Kujou!” the inspector greeted. “Have you, uhm, seen…”

“Seen what?”

“I dropped something, you see. No, never mind.” He decided to ask a different question instead. “I’m so busy these days. As soon as the mummy case was solved, I got another one. Do you know of a man named Ciaran?”

“Nope. Never heard of him.”

“Ciaran is a famous master thief who struck all of Europe. No one has ever seen him, and no one knows what his real name is. He’s been lying low for the last seven or eight years. They say either he’s retired, living an easy life somewhere, or he died in an accident.”

“But you see, Kujou,” he continued. “Recently there’s been a bit of a commotion in Saubreme over a thief who calls themselves the second Ciaran. Apparently, they’re very young. We received information from the Saubreme Police Department that the second Ciaran was headed to this village. Someone spotted them getting on a train. I don’t know the details, but what would a master thief be doing in a village in the middle of nowhere? There are only vineyards, apple orchards, and the mysterious St. Marguerite Academy.” Inspector Blois cocked his head. “I’m absolutely clueless.”

“So am I,” Kazuya said. “Though if I tell Victorique about it, she might be able to figure it out immediately.”

The inspector pretended not to hear what he said. Kazuya stared at his face.

He wondered what the connection was between this eccentric aristocrat and that incredibly strange girl on top of the library.

Inspector Blois was in charge of investigating the case of the decapitated motorcycle rider, which Kazuya was involved in, and the case of the mummified knight, and he solved both cases with the help of Victorique. He knew where Victorique was, and how smart she was, and despite needing her help, he made sure never to talk to her directly.

Victorique, on the other hand, did not seem to care about Inspector Blois. She just snubbed him.

How did these two people know each other? And why did they get along so badly?

“That reminds me,” the inspector said, “Millie Marl, the culprit in the mummified knight case. Your homeroom teacher, Cecile, used to be a student at this school.”

“I see…”

“Now get this. Cecile was a student eight years ago. Do you follow? She and the late Millie Marl were classmates.”

Kazuya’s eyes widened in surprise.

Ms. Cecile never said anything about that when she entered the crypt or when the body was found.

“I saw her a few minutes ago when she came out of the infirmary. When I told her that Millie Marl was the culprit, she seemed quite shocked.” Inspector Blois pointed to the flowerbed behind the school building. “She wandered off over there. I think she was crying.”

Inspector Blois then walked down the hallway with his men in tow.

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Unsure what to do, Kazuya made his way to the flowerbeds behind the school building.

He spotted Ms. Cecile near the flowerbeds, looking depressed. She was squatting down, poking at the ground with a twig she found, sighing.

Kazuya wondered what to do. Before he could speak to her about the incident, his eyes were drawn to what the teacher was holding under her arm.

It was, to Kazuya’s surprise, the purple book that he lost.

“That book!” he gasped.

Noticing Kazuya, Ms. Cecile stood up.

“Why do you have that book?”

Ms. Cecile blinked. “You mean this? I found it lying behind the flowerbed. Is this yours?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“You should treasure your books more. What kind of a book is this anyway?”

Kazuya stammered as he took the book. He couldn’t possibly tell her it was a book about raising the dead.

She found it behind the flowerbeds? What does that mean? Avril hid the book, I found it, then while I was carrying it, someone attacked me. How did the book end up in a flowerbed?

He suddenly thought about Victorique. She was reading the book with great enthusiasm, but then suddenly lost interest and left.

What in the world is going on here?

Kazuya was at his wits’ end. Ms. Cecile regarded him perplexedly.

Kazuya collected himself. “By the way, Inspector Blois told me something.”

“Oh, what did he tell you?”

“He said you and Millie Marl were classmates.”

Ms. Cecile looked astonished. “That’s right.”

“Were you close?”

“Yes. So I was very shocked to learn the truth.”

Ms. Cecile’s face dimmed.

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Kazuya and Ms. Cecile left the flowerbeds and strolled through the garden that spread across the campus.

Ms. Cecile’s forehead creased. “I really didn’t want to go to the crypt alone, because that’s where Millie was laid to rest. I get sad. So I decided to ask you and Avril for help.”

“I see…”

“And then that happened… I can’t believe Millie actually killed someone.”

Kazuya realized that they were now near the storehouse where he was knocked out earlier.

He pointed to the storehouse. “That’s where I was earlier.”

“You were sleeping there?” Ms. Cecile said, appalled. “Why?”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” Kazuya slowly approached the storehouse. “Avril told me that students don’t come near this place. She said that there’s a story about the ghost of a female student—Millie Marl—dragging people to the afterlife, or something.”

“Really?!”

Ms. Cecile peered inside the storehouse, holding Kazuya’s arm with both hands. She felt a little scared.

The inside of the storehouse was dusty. Behind the pile of old desks and chairs was a dirty spiral staircase that seemed to lead to the basement. It was dim. Sunlight streaming through the door made motes of dust glitter.

A moan seemed to come from deeper inside—no, from the basement.

Kazuya and Ms. Cecile exchanged looks. They listened closely, but heard nothing now.

“I thought I heard someone,” Kazuya said.

He glanced over his shoulder and was shocked to see Ms. Cecile’s face. The droopy, puppy-dog eyes behind her large, round glasses were filled with tears, and her shoulders were shaking.

“I’m scared!” she cried.

“…What?”

“I’m scared! I’ll get mad!”

“At me? Why?”

“Because I’m scared!”

Ms. Cecile was quite the scaredy-cat, it seemed. Now that he thought about it, back in the infirmary, she left with a bunch of excuses as soon as Avril started sharing some ghost stories.

Her gentle demeanor from earlier was completely gone. She poked Kazuya repeatedly with her forefinger, urging him to go inside first.

A cold wind caressed their cheeks.

A loud rattle came from an empty space.

Ms. Cecile shuddered and stuck close behind Kazuya. “Let me know if there’s something, okay?” she said. “I took off my glasses, so I can’t see anything! Not even ghosts!”

Kazuya glanced back again. She had indeed taken off her glasses and was looking at Kazuya blankly. Her brown eyes, which looked much larger than when she was wearing her glasses, darted around restlessly.

She tripped on a fallen wooden box and yelped like a child.

“Just put on your glasses,” Kazuya groaned. “Or you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

Clicking her tongue, Ms. Cecile put on her glasses.

“…elp.”

A voice echoed.

They exchanged glances and shook their heads.

“Help…!”

It was the voice of a girl.

They turned, and saw the upper body of a pale girl in the darker part of the storehouse. She had short blonde hair, and blue eyes, large and bright. She had a rather pretty face, but her skin was pale and her cheeks were hollow.

“It’s a ghost!” Ms. Cecile screamed.

There was a strange sound, and the girl’s figure vanished.

“She disappeared?!” Ms. Cecile screamed again. With trembling hands, she took off her glasses and firmly handed them to Kazuya. “Now I can’t see anything!” She then stumbled out of the storehouse with a tight grip on Kazuya’s arm. “Noooo!”

“T-Teach?!”

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Ms. Cecile ran away screaming, but her stride was so short that Kazuya caught up with her by just walking fast.

“Teach, your glasses!”

When they were far, far away from the storehouse, Ms. Cecile finally stopped, took the glasses from Kazuya, put them back on with both hands, and then, in a firm tone, said, “Don’t tell the other students, okay? If you do, I’ll fail you.”

“I won’t! And I don’t fail. Anyway, what do you think that was about?”

“I-I-It was a ghost,” she said, keeping her eyes shut.

“There are no such things as ghosts, Teach.”

“But it wasn’t Millie Marl.”

“…What?”

Ms. Cecile opened her brown eyes. “It was a ghost, but the ghost of another girl. Her face was different from Millie’s. I’ve never seen her before.”

Baffled, they exchanged looks.

“Whose ghost was it, I wonder?”

A chilly wind blew past them.

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