Surviving in a School of Ghost Stories

Thirty minutes before discovering the Crown Prince...

Noah and I were standing in the empty theater, trying to assess the situation.

The Duke and Duchess of Eglinton had entered the theater before us, but there was no one inside. Not just them— the ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) entire theater was empty.

"It seems like a ghost story has begun. I can feel their energy strongly," Noah said. Though he couldn’t see them, he had a keen sense for such things, so his instincts were usually accurate.

We were standing in the second-floor seating area, and even as we looked around, no one was in sight.

Hee-ing—

That sound, one you’d expect from ghosts, echoed.

Turning my head, I saw the ghosts peeking from underneath the seats, their heads barely visible as they watched me.

The ghosts were trembling, looking at me with sorrowful eyes. It almost seemed like they were silently asking for protection, as if begging for help.

“There’s something under the chairs, but it doesn’t seem aggressive,” Noah said, quickly identifying the position of the ghosts.

The ghosts continued to gather around me. They seemed like they were fleeing from something.

‘There must be evil spirits nearby.’

When ghosts react like this, it usually means that evil spirits are involved.

I turned around and pulled on the door leading to the lobby.

Clunk— clunk—

As expected, the door wouldn’t open.

If the ghost story had begun, I would have to find the source in order to open the door and leave.

‘Huh? What’s this?’

Then, I noticed something on the floor. A few opera tickets and a mask.

Looking at the opera ticket labeled The Black Nun, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the black nun on the ticket had made eye contact with me. Why did this feel so wrong?

“What’s this?”

Noah approached my side, quickly glancing at the ticket before picking up the mask from my hand.

“Hm. Looks like someone dropped it. The energy it’s giving off doesn’t seem human,” he said.

Noah’s ability to sense energy was quite useful.

We had clearly entered a ghost story. That meant the strange items around us were likely associated with spirits or evil spirits.

“Good timing. The mask’s red, too.”

The spirits couldn’t perceive the color red very well, so why was it a red mask?

After a brief pause, I collected the ticket and mask.

What could be the medium in the opera theater? Could it be the opera itself?

While I was deep in thought, Noah’s voice cut through.

“Hold on, Melody. I think we should head over there.”

I looked in the direction Noah was pointing— the left side of the second-floor VIP seats. There, I saw a familiar face. The Crown Prince, Joshua.

“Is that a human?”

“Yes, he’s human.”

I felt reassured by Noah’s response and slowly approached that way.

However, the Crown Prince’s reaction to the ghost story, like ours, was a bit odd.

Whatever he had seen, he had turned pale and was frantically pulling on the door handle in fear.

‘That’s...’

And then I saw it. Evil spirits had gathered near the Crown Prince.

The problem was that these spirits were gripping his feet tightly.

Helplessly, the Crown Prince was being pulled towards the second-floor railing.

Just a little more, and he would fall.

“Wait? It’s dangerous...!”

Before I could finish, Noah moved quickly.

He instantly reached out and grabbed the Crown Prince, pulling him away from the railing, throwing him to the floor.

The Crown Prince collapsed, gasping for breath, his face as pale as death.

Noah sighed, looking at me as he glanced up.

His eyes were shifting between red and blue, as if they were battling each other.

I took out the holy water I always carried and threw it towards the evil spirits gathering near the Crown Prince.

Then, reciting a prayer for liberation, I used a cross to banish them all.

I was so tense that I almost lost my balance and stumbled.

Noah, with his blue eyes, extended his hand to me. I wasn’t sure whether I should be relieved or not that it wasn’t Vidar.

I quietly accepted his hand.

“Are you okay?”

Noah nodded, answering my question.

“It’s not over yet. Don’t let your guard down.”

As he said, even though we had banished the spirits, we hadn’t found the source of the ghost story yet. It seemed like there were still more evil spirits around.

Recognizing this, I quickly put on the mask and turned to face the newly gathered audience.

They didn’t appear to be evil spirits or ghosts.

At first glance, they looked like ordinary humans. Despite the opera having just begun, the atmosphere now felt like the performance was restarting.

“We’re checking the seats. Please take your seats, the show will begin shortly.”

At that moment, a staff member approached us to check our tickets.

‘Wait, maybe...’

I remembered picking up the tickets that had fallen on the floor, so I showed them to the staff member.

The staff member stared at the ticket for a long time.

I swallowed nervously as the staff member checked it.

After what felt like an eternity, the staff member returned the ticket to me and said, “Please take your seat.”

Relieved, we sat down.

“Doesn’t it smell like humans?” asked a man sitting next to Noah.

Noah and I shrugged nonchalantly, but the problem was with the Crown Prince.

The man sitting next to Noah smiled as he saw the Crown Prince, who was still pale and trembling, just mumbling.

“He’s human.”

I quietly removed the mask from my face and placed it on the Crown Prince’s, just as the man’s eyes lost their focus in an instant.

He didn’t recognize the Crown Prince, tilting his head in confusion before calmly sitting back down and facing forward.

I sighed in relief and looked at the Crown Prince. He was still rigid, clearly nervous.

“The mask should be worn by you,” I said to the Crown Prince.

He rubbed his stiff neck and nodded in response.

“Why aren’t you panicking, Lady?” he asked awkwardly.

“Such strange and eerie things happen frequently on this island. Don’t let your guard down until you leave the island,” I explained.

“What does that mean...?”

“Let’s stop the conversation here. It feels like it’s getting dangerous if we continue,” Noah interrupted.

As Noah had said, I could see the second-floor audience whispering and staring at us.

Reluctantly, we fell silent and observed the situation. We still hadn’t identified the source of the ghost story, so it seemed like we needed to wait and watch.

Then, the curtain rose.

The opera had begun.

Leonard sat in front of the piano and took a deep breath. The atmosphere among the orchestra members was tense.

He had missed the rehearsal because he had to greet and attend to the Eglinton family and various political figures.

However, most of the orchestra members who had attended the rehearsal had experienced something strange.

“We didn’t overlap with the actors’ rehearsal times. The final rehearsal was the only time we could match the music. The actors were all supposed to be practicing in the rehearsal rooms, and we were the only ones in the theater, right? But while we were playing, someone started singing along with us. The lyrics didn’t match the performance we were doing. So when I turned to see where the sound was coming from, there was a woman standing in the corner of the stage.”

“I saw her too. At first, she was standing alone in the corner, but when I looked back, she was getting closer. She was wearing a black nun’s habit. Since our performance is about Sister Gloria, I thought maybe her outfit was just slightly different. But the closer she got, the less she looked like an actress. She was just staring at us while singing.”

“Everyone in the orchestra probably saw her? I was so freaked out that I almost put my cello bow down, but the conductor kept shouting for us to keep playing, so we couldn’t stop the music. That nun was standing among us, swaying her body in rhythm with the music, and it was so eerie I thought I was going to die.”

“I heard from the conductor later that it’s a common phenomenon that happens around the time of the Night of the Departed. If you ignore it and act naturally, the spirits won’t bother you.”

Leonard listened to the orchestra members’ eerie rehearsal tales and felt a sense of unease.

If it had been any other time, he would have dismissed it as just a ghost story. But recently, with Melody, he had confirmed that such stories were real.

A bad feeling washed over him.

Sitting in front of the piano, Leonard glanced at the audience.

The first-floor seats were packed with people. The second floor, when he looked up, was the same.

‘What is that?’

At that moment, an unusual sight caught his eye near the VIP seats where the Crown Prince and the Pope should have been seated.