“Yeah, so what do you need?”
When Kyle D’Baicia lifted himself off the sofa, his massive frame came into view. He was wearing a rumpled academy uniform, completely disheveled, and he wasn’t wearing a tie.
At Basamiel Academy, the color of a student’s necktie indicated their year: yellow for first-years, blue for second-years, red for third-years, and green for fourth-years—this was a well-established school rule.
The yellow tie for first-years had its own intended symbolism, designed by the academy itself, but among students, it was simply associated with being a clueless fledgling.
In any case, Kyle wasn’t wearing a tie to show his year. But judging from how close he seemed to be with Hans, Adrian guessed he was probably a second-year.
“Hello. I heard about you from Hans-sunbae…”
“Wow, Hans! You’re a sunbae now?”
Kyle suddenly lit up and gave Hans a loud thwack on the back.
“Ugh, why don’t you just graduate already?”
Hans winced and replied with a pained expression, rubbing his forehead. The two of them looked very close. From that comment, Adrian figured out Kyle’s year. If Hans was telling him to hurry up and graduate… then Kyle must be in his final year.
And he’s just lounging around in the club room, sleeping?
Adrian glanced at Kyle, briefly looking at him with a mix of disbelief and pity, before speaking again.
“The reason we wanted to meet you was because of that strange door.”
At those words, a glimmer flashed in Kyle’s eyes. Oh? A sound of interest escaped his lips. He pushed himself up from his lazy sprawl on the sofa.
“The weird door… you mean the one under the main building?”
He muttered under his breath, folding his arms. Hmmm— He seemed to drift into thought, his brows furrowing slightly as he considered something.
“So, you guys saw it too.”
“Yes. What about you, sunbae?”
“No different from anyone else… Wait—did you go through it?”
“Yes.”
“…What?”
Kyle’s voice jumped an octave, clearly rattled. Someone had actually entered that door? These kids had no fear.
“How long were you in that forest?”
At his question, Adrian tilted his head.
“The place we went into… it wasn’t a forest.”
“No? Then where was it?”
“A lava lake.”
A lava lake?
Kyle turned to Hans to check his expression. It was a subtle move to confirm whether the freshmen were messing with him. Hans nodded slowly. Kyle saw that and grinned broadly.
“Wow—these new kids really have balls, huh?”
Even if it had just been a forest, no sane person would have entered that door without hesitation. But they’d seen a lava lake and still went in?
“That door… yeah, our Ordinas has a long, twisted history with it.”
Kyle tapped his fingers a few times against his arm as he stood there, still cross-armed. Then he suddenly turned his head sharply.
“Hey, where’d we leave that thing?”
From across the room, a man lounging by the window and smoking a cigarette slowly exhaled a cloud of smoke before replying.
“…What?”
“You know, our herb garden journal.”
“Oh, that?”
The man raised his free hand and pointed lazily toward one of the cluttered corners. He looked like he was about to get up and help.
“Should be over there, probably.”
“Alright. Nah, I got it. You do your thing.”
Kyle waved him off with a slight shake of his head. The place the man had pointed to was a dusty pile of scattered parchment, haphazardly dumped in one corner of the room.
“Alright, let’s dig.”
He rolled up the sleeves of his academy uniform, muttering under his breath. Then he turned and shot a look at Adrian and Mikhail.
“Well? Don’t just stand there. Help out.”
“…Okay.”
Adrian, who had been zoning out, was the first to move. Mikhail followed reluctantly, dragging his feet as he stepped into the dusty mess.
Kyle shot a glance in Hans’ direction, the only one still standing off to the side, as if to say, What, you’re just gonna stand there and watch?
“…What? Me too? I just came to introduce them.”
Hans mumbled defensively, but Kyle waved him over with a lazy flick of his hand, not even bothering to argue.
“You were curious too. Come on and help.”
With a sigh, Hans finally gave in and joined them.
***
A little while later, Hans grumbled.
“Is there even anything else in here?”
He stared hard at a piece of parchment in his hand, only to realize it was irrelevant. He tossed it toward the pile of useless documents.
The four of them were sitting on the dusty carpet floor, surrounded by stacks of parchment. The papers were divided into two uneven piles—those possibly related to the strange door, and those clearly not. Unsurprisingly, the irrelevant pile towered much higher.
The “possibly related” stack only had a few pieces, aside from the “Herb Garden Log” they’d mentioned earlier. The rest were scraps scribbled like afterthoughts.
“I’ve been wondering about something for a while.”
Adrian tossed the parchment he was holding onto the irrelevant pile—another dud.
“What exactly does the herb garden log have to do with that strange door?”
“Oh, I didn’t explain that?”
The three students digging through the parchments all turned to glare at Kyle with an expression that screamed, You didn’t explain a damn thing before dragging us into this. Adrian and Mikhail looked just as annoyed.
“That door… the other side is different for everyone who goes through it.”
Kyle gathered the relevant pieces and stood up. Gesturing for them to follow, he said, “Come here,” and walked over to the large table in the center of the Ordinas clubroom.
Crash!
In one sweeping motion, he cleared the table with his arm, knocking over cups and papers.
“What the hell now?!”
A student who had been enjoying some quiet time in the corner sprang to his feet with a scowl.
“Dude! You broke my cup! Are you insane?!”
Another student near the window hurled the book he was reading in their direction. Thud! The book flew in a high arc before landing on the floor with a loud slap. Kyle just gave them a small shrug, completely unfazed.
“Yeah, yeah. My bad. Sorry.”
Adrian nudged a shard of glass at his feet with the tip of his shoe. He finally realized what those bits of glass he’d stepped on earlier must’ve been from.
After clearing the table completely, Kyle tossed the few scraps they’d found on top. He picked up the one that looked like a proper record—something resembling a thin journal—labeled Herb Garden Log. As he flipped through the pages, the others saw him nod occasionally at what he read.
He gestured for Adrian, Mikhail, and Hans to grab seats nearby, and they each took a chair around the table.
With a loud smack, Kyle opened a specific page and laid it flat on the table. Adrian leaned forward slightly to read it.
“You all know our club manages the academy’s herb garden and greenhouse, right?”
“Yes.”
“We run the whole club using the profits from those gardens. We even use that money to fund members’ activity stipends.”
And? Adrian lifted his head from the journal, silently asking for the point.
“You felt the earthquake before entering that door, right? Every time that damn thing opens, Basamiel Academy experiences tremors—some minor, some serious. That fucking earthquake!”
Bang! Kyle slammed his fist down on a section of the journal. The commotion earned him a few more curses from the club members nearby.
The boys looked over at the place he struck. The entry for that day was scrawled in a rushed, angry hand.
· ──── ·????· ──── · July 9th (Wednesday) All Kevish saplings we planned to harvest this year toppled due to the earthquake. · ────── ·
“Do you know how delicate Kevish saplings are?”
Kyle, despite his massive frame, moved his fingers with exaggerated elegance to illustrate the word delicate.
“And do you know how expensive they are? The fruit from those saplings is our club’s main source of income… and thanks to the earthquake, they’re drying out and withering. It’s heartbreaking, seriously…”
He buried his bear-like hands in his face, overcome with theatrical grief.
That’s when it happened.
Adrian raised his hand high into the air. The Gold Dragon didn’t care about Kevish saplings in the slightest. He had a different, far more pressing curiosity.
“…What now?”
“I have a question.”
What could he possibly want to ask in the middle of all this? Kyle paused, clearly caught off guard.
“Sunbae, how much is the Ordinas club’s activity fund?”
A flicker passed through Adrian’s warm, honey-colored eyes. Spending time in a quiet, elite greenhouse rarely visited by humans, researching the mysterious door, tending to herbs… and even earning Tilons while doing it?
The Gold Dragon couldn’t afford to miss such a golden opportunity.
