The seniors looked at me like I was a bomb about to go off.

I pressed my lips into a straight line and wondered how I was supposed to explain this.

To be honest, I wasn’t even sure an explanation would earn their trust. I still couldn’t tell whether this situation was truly happening or if it was just my hallucination.

The one thing I did know for sure was that I wasn’t dreaming.

“You need counseling.”

Sophia broke the silence.

“I didn’t realize it had gotten this serious.”

“I should’ve paid closer attention.”

Carl added quietly.

“I already knew you were unstable, but...”

“Wait.”

I cut in first to prevent a misunderstanding.

Though I wasn’t entirely sure it was a misunderstanding either.

I took in the seniors staring holes through me, and Kyle, who had tilted his head as if checking my reaction.

“This... this ghostlike Kyle that only I can see—I don’t know whether he’s a hallucination or not.”

“Hilde, didn’t you say you don’t believe in ghosts?”

Ami asked.

The brightness was completely gone from her voice, and that honestly scared me a little.

But I forced myself to answer.

“Right. Which is exactly why I honestly can’t be sure whether this is a hallucination or not either. But I think it’s worth trying to verify.”

“How are you going to verify it?”

Sophia asked in disbelief.

Ricardo, who had been staring straight through me, let out a long sigh.

Then, without saying anything, he slowly looked me up and down, and somehow that reaction was even scarier. Sharp words would’ve been less frightening.

Yun only narrowed his eyes and kept studying me too.

‘No trust at all.’

I ignored Kyle’s scoff.

‘Why are you so scared of those pathetically weak things?’

“It’s not like there’s no way to confirm it.”

Click.

With the sound of a lighter, a candle flared to life.

Yun had climbed out of his sleeping bag and lit the candle in the middle. As several more candles caught flame, the fifth floor was washed in orange light. The seniors’ faces became even clearer.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to look at their expressions properly.

Keeping my gaze lowered at an angle, I muttered,

“To be honest, I want to confirm it too.”

“How? Are you going to call the Ice Dragon?”

“...What?”

You can’t summon the Ice Dragon over something this trivial.

I blanked for a second at Ami’s question, then quickly came back to myself.

“No. I’m going to try another way, not magic.”

“What, divine power?”

“No. Ami, stay where you are and write something on paper. Make sure it’s at an angle I can’t see. Then if ghost Kyle reads it out to me, I’ll tell you what he says. If it matches, then doesn’t that mean Kyle isn’t a hallucination?”

“Oh! Hilde, that’s smart!”

Ami brightened instantly.

Ricardo and Carl both lifted their brows.

Sophia still looked at me like I was out of my mind.

“You really think what you’re seeing isn’t a hallucination?”

“It doesn’t hurt to test it.”

Sasu, who had been standing silently beside his sleeping bag, cut in before Sophia could continue.

“Try it.”

I checked on Kyle.

Thankfully, he still hadn’t disappeared. If anything, he was already walking through empty air toward Ami.

Long black hair trailing down.

I stared blankly at the translucent man crossing the fifth-floor depot—

until Ricardo tapped the back of his hand against the floor.

Tap, tap.

“Focus.”

I looked up into sharply narrowed green eyes.

“...Sorry.”

‘This flea writes ridiculously tiny too.’

While my attention had been on my senior for a moment, Kyle had already moved behind Ami.

Ami had already pulled out paper from her pack and was busily scribbling something down. I found myself absurdly relieved that she still had paper and a pen in her gear.

Then something struck me as odd.

“Flea?”

I muttered it almost to myself.

“Are you talking about Ami?”

Ami’s head whipped up.

Her eyes were wide as she stared at me. The fear and shock in them startled me enough that my own eyes widened.

“What?”

I asked reflexively.

“Ami, what’s wrong all of a sudden?”

“You said flea?”

Ami repeated blankly.

“The ghost did?”

Kyle, who had been looking down at what Ami was writing, lifted his head.

I looked at his sullen face and nodded.

“Yes. Why?”

“He called me Flea when we met on the battlefield.”

The round-eyed senior murmured.

“Only Jack and I ever heard that...”

The war.

Right. The seniors had faced Kyle during the war.

Of course there had been deaths on both sides. Losing Richard Green had been especially devastating. I knew very well that not only the special-duty staff but even the office workers were still grieving him. Hadn’t I heard that Jason Trevain was doing his best to fill the void he left?

Should I have just pretended not to see Kyle?

No. There was no way the seniors would’ve believed that.

Still, maybe insisting on proving it had only made them more uncomfortable.

‘Should I go?’

As if he’d guessed what I was thinking, Kyle asked quietly.

‘Once I wake up, I’ll probably disappear from in front of you anyway.’

“Don’t go.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them.

The seniors’ gazes snapped back to me.

Carl and Sophia, who had been turning their heads to follow my line of sight, turned sharply too. Ricardo, who had been watching Ami, did the same.

Yun never once took his eyes off me.

But I couldn’t bring myself to look back at any of them.

And I didn’t have the courage to take back what I’d just said.

As I only bit down on my lip, Kyle stared at me with yellow eyes and let out something like a sigh.

‘Let’s just play ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) the guessing game.’

He dropped his gaze back to the paper in Ami’s hand.

Then he bent slightly and looked at it.

‘But what is this. An apple?’

“Did you draw something like an apple?”

I continued a little blankly.

“He says, ‘What is this. An apple?’”

“What do you mean what is this?!”

The dazed look vanished from Ami’s eyes in an instant.

“It’s obviously an apple!”

“Choi Ami. Stop doodling and just write a sentence.”

Yun said flatly.

“Your doodles are hard to recognize sometimes.”

Ami didn’t protest.

She just nodded, bent over, and started writing something diligently.

To make the test completely certain, I backed all the way up to where the stairs began.

‘She picked up seashells by the seaside and sold them.’

Kyle said in a bored tone.

I faithfully repeated it.

“She picked up seashells by the seaside and sold them.”

“Aaah!”

Ami shrieked.

“It really is a ghost!”

The seniors who had been staring at me all turned their heads in slight surprise.

Then they looked toward the back corner behind Ami.

In other words, the spot where Kyle was standing.

I could see Kyle clearly, rolling his eyes, but apparently to everyone else there was nothing there.

Their eyes all shifted back and forth in astonishment.

Only Yun kept the same expression as he crooked a finger.

“Carl. You write next.”

“Yes.”

Carl answered quickly and took the paper and pen from Ami.

Kyle tilted his head toward Carl.

‘He’s drawing a falcon.’

Kyle muttered quietly.

‘Unlike the ground-flea, he’s actually pretty good at drawing.’

“Are you drawing a falcon?”

I said it without even looking toward Carl.

“And apparently he says your skill is pretty good.”

Carl lifted his head and stared straight at me.

But before he could say anything, Yun had already switched the next person in.

Sophia and Ricardo each took the pen once too. Both wrote words instead of drawings—Sophia wrote candle, and Ricardo wrote a tree with oranges.

I got both right, and the pen never even made it to Yun.

Instead, everyone just fell silent, their gazes drifting somewhere into empty space.

A silence settled over us for a moment.

The rain was still falling.

Kyle didn’t say anything either.

Shaaah...

The one who finally broke the stillness was Ami.

“I’m glad Hilde isn’t crazy after all...”

“Seriously.”

I murmured in a dazed voice.

“To be honest, even I wasn’t sure.”

“That still doesn’t change the fact that you were talking to someone who wasn’t there.”

Ricardo said it without turning to look at me.

I pressed my lips into a line again.

After steadying my tangled thoughts, I answered,

“That was more like talking to myself.”

“Even if it’s not a hallucination, you still need counseling.”

Sophia added cynically.

Yun, who had been standing there with both hands in his pockets, finally spoke too.

“So why did that thing come here?”

His dry eyes rolled toward me.

“It does seem like the cause was what you did before the end. We’ll return and look into that step by step.”

“I don’t think it’s voluntary. Based on the few situations I’ve seen, it seems to happen when one side is asleep and the other is awake.”

“We’ll need to report it to the Commander-in-Chief.”

Yun said it indifferently.

“And to Yehyeon too.”

At that moment, Kyle whipped his head around.

He frowned and stared at Yun.

A dark emotion surged in the man’s golden eyes.

Plain, unmistakable resentment.

He had reacted to Yehyeon’s name. Rei must’ve come to mind.

Kyle knew the Commander-in-Chief Yehyeon by name, and he also knew Rei had died impaled on my sword while it was in Yehyeon’s hand.

If the emotions in Kyle’s eyes had been complex before, now they were frighteningly simple.

Hatred.

The sheer, burning intensity of it made it hard to breathe.

“So...”

The moment I bit down hard on my lip, Ricardo’s voice cut in.

Startled, I turned and met his green eyes.

“So... what is that bastard saying to you after suddenly showing up...?”

I stared blankly at my senior.

Then I realized there was a faint trace of hatred in his voice too.

I blinked and turned my gaze.

Carl and Sophia were both staring at the place where Kyle should have been standing.

Naturally, their expressions were just as clear.

Hatred.

How could it be anything else?

When the war with Kyle broke out, they had all stood on that battlefield.

Creatures had swarmed mercilessly, and people had died. Of course they hated Kyle.

Honestly, maybe it would’ve been easier on everyone if I had just been hallucinating.

Maybe some of them had wanted it to be that.

Looking at all of them wrapped in hatred, I finally understood.

The only one here who was actually happy to see Kyle again... was me.

Because of my selfishness, I’d put everyone in this uncomfortable situation.

Kyle hated the seniors.

And seeing me probably hurt him too.

None of us would ever be able to forget Rei.

And as for the seniors, what more was there to say?

If I hadn’t just been standing here blankly, they probably would’ve all gotten up and unleashed cutting words already.

The only reason they were holding back was because of me.

...

‘What.’

“Hilde?”

“Kyle.”

I stared at Kyle without moving for a long moment.

After engraving his face into my eyes as deeply as I could, I quietly called his name.

I took in Kyle turning to me with a frown at the unnaturally long silence, and the seniors doing the same.

My voice came out rough.

“You should go now.”

The air tightened instantly.

Even Yun, who had been tapping at the communicator, turned and stared straight through me.

I ignored all the sharp gazes pouring down on me.

“I’m sorry.”

I had to force myself to be brave.

“It has to be hard for you to look at me too...”

Kyle disappeared.

Gone in an instant.

As if he really had been nothing more than a hallucination everyone had somehow shared.

He vanished without a sound, and I couldn’t properly see what expression he had made right before he disappeared.

Still, trying not to be startled by the suddenly empty air, I muttered,

“He’s gone.”

He probably won’t try to come back again.

“I’m sorry for making everyone uncomfortable.”

Ricardo and Ami shot to their feet at once.