Date: Start of Fourth Moon (Autumn's First Wind)
Location: Classroom, Northern Wing – Academy of the Seven Sigils
It's been three months since we arrived.
The leaves have begun to turn.
Normally, David leads the morning drills. Mireille oversees sword formations by noon.
But today, neither appeared.
Instead, a man walked in.
Wearing burnt ochre robes with frayed silver trim. His voice echoed oddly in the stone room — not because it was loud, but because it sounded like it didn't belong.
> "Professor Hank," he said. "You may call me Hank. I'll be your instructor… for now."
His smile was too wide. Too practiced.
Like someone who studied how humans act — and decided to mimic the worst parts.
When I glanced at Leander, he mouthed:
> "Who the hell hired this guy?"
---
No explanation. No letter from David.
Mireille's absence wasn't addressed.
We were told they'd gone to handle an urgent mission from the Academy's headquarters — nothing more.
But even Riya, usually the last to suspect trouble, leaned in and whispered:
> "Doesn't it feel… off?"
---
By dusk, the rumors began.
A student from Class D didn't return to their dorm.
Class E said someone vanished mid-run — their artifact necklace untouched, unsummoned.
No scorch marks. No beasts. No blood.
Just… gone.
And then the whisper passed my ear like a curse carried by wind:
> Corrupted God's Prayer.
Not a name I expected to hear here.
A myth told by wandering beggars and outland temple scribes.
A forgotten god who was once sealed for demanding silence instead of worship.
He doesn't want songs. He wants erasure.
To pray to him is to vanish.
To be remembered is to offend him.
---
We don't know who started the rumor — only that it spread fast.
Alice gathered the facts.
Yukari heard something in the Spirit Wind.
Leander tried joking it off, but even he quieted when the fourth student vanished.
No artifacts triggered. No bodies. No trace.
---
We couldn't focus in lectures anymore.
Hank rambled on about soul resonance and divine decay, but his eyes seemed to flicker — too often, too long — toward the doors.
I tried watching him closely. He noticed.
He smiled like he knew something I didn't.
---
I've started a list.
Of names.
Of times.
Of seats left empty and never filled again.
Lily noticed the chart on my wall.
She didn't ask. Just stayed longer in the library that evening.
For once, we didn't talk about magic.
We talked about fear. And how it changes people.
> "Some people vanish before they're ever gone," she said.
"Some people fight to be remembered."
I wrote those words down. They don't belong to her anymore. They belong to all of us now.
---
instructor David, where the hell are you?