The trail had been open for a little while now, and the instructors had gotten to catch glances of the ghosts on many occasions at this point, including the ‘special’ spirits. They were called as such due to the obvious fact that they were completely different from the rest.

  They weren’t translucent and looked more like corpses risen from the dead than non-corporeal entities. Most importantly, though, they were the ones most often responsible for injuries on the trail.

  That group of ghosts was simply better at inflicting fear, surprise, and throwing people off their game in general. So, in a bizarre twist, they were the favourites of the instructors, being the greatest hurdle of the trail by far, and thus, the ones responsible for training the bravery of trainees the best.

  Knowing all of this, the two knight instructors tensed up. It wasn’t confirmed, but it was pretty obvious that they didn’t simply scare people like one would imagine. They didn’t simply sneak up on you and scream. There was something else at play… They were seemingly capable of instilling unreasonable fear within the hearts of their victim.

  For the purposes of the trail, this was fantastic. Even the sort to be unfazed would have to learn to deal with their emotions betraying them, something of tremendous importance, as even the toughest could be overwhelmed when it came to killing or seeing others die.

  Right now, however… This was terrible news. The instructors only had mild interactions with the spectres. They knew how to keep their emotions in check, but could they truly do it as well if the source of the emotions was the power of a ghostly being?

  That thought alone… Made their hearts grow uncertain, and in turn, it only made them more susceptible to the very thing they worried about.

  “Aherm… We were merely looking around for some lost trainees, but we didn’t really find anything conclusive, you know?”

  One of the instructors employed one of the golden rules of their establishment’s code of chivalry. Namely, that a fight was better won without having to draw your sword… Many trainees assumed that this implied being strong enough to not even need a weapon, but it was obviously about being capable of diplomacy.

  Knights were warriors, but they were supposed to be more refined warriors than the rest. They were supposed to know how to read and write in an elevated prose. They were supposed to be capable of using non-violence just as much as violence.

  A knight who only sought to fight and defeat was no knight at all.

  One of the ghosts, whom the instructors believed to be the leader of the bunch, tilted her head completely to one side, her ear pressed against her own shoulder.

  “Do… We… Look… Deaf… To… You…?”

  “I think they were listening to our conversation…”

  Whispered the other man.

  “You don’t say?!”

  The instructor groaned and raised his hands in the air.

  “Listen, we just want to retrieve our trainees. They have families to return to. They have parents. Some of them seek to become knights in view of asking their beloved’s hand in marriage… Some of them might seem like idiots, but it’s just because they are still young! Basically kids… They don’t deserve to be harmed… So please, if you know where they are, might you tell us?”

  Listening to the little speech, the other instructor was quite impressed… And although the blonde spectre did not seem all that receptive, she and the others did show some reactions to certain parts of it.

  “They…They… They-Do-Deserve-It!”

  Unfortunately, something that had been said must have been rather upsetting to the ghost… That was the problem with beings that were bound to roam the world after death. There was a reason for it, and more often than not, even slightly reminding them of it would lead to rage.

  “I didn’t mean to make you angry…”

  “Shut… Up… Big… Sister… Killed… Them… All… Already…”

  “If… She… Did… It… Then… It’s… Justified…!”

  They got their confirmation. It seemed that Binibelle had been correct. The trainees had already met their demise.

  The instructors did not lose their temper, however… Hearing that young trainees had been massacred was painful, but they were used to people around them dying. Such was the burden of being a warrior.

  “May we… May we at least retrieve their remains?”

  The blonde, who had remained rather expressionless until now, gave them the creepiest smile they had ever seen. It was not normal. It was like his cheeks were opening up to allow for the manifestation of a thin, crescent-shaped, toothless grin.

  “Nothing… Left…”

  “Wasting… Food… Is… Wrong…”

  The instructors frowned.

  They didn’t have the slimmest clue who or what that so-called ‘Big Sister’ was… They guessed that it might have to do with the rumour about a ‘Mother Beast’, but shouldn’t the supposed sister of ghosts also be a ghost? They felt like spectres who ate flesh weren’t exactly a common thing.

  To their right, there was The Runner. She was responsible for a good chunk of the injuries on the trail, though the observation of many instructors, it had been figured out that the unreasonable fear she could inflict normally weaker than the rest, but could get many times more powerful than her fellows, the faster she was running, and also the larger distance she covered before doing her scare.

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  Which was why she stood further away than what could be assumed to be her sisters if they all called that unknown creature ‘Big Sister’.

  To their left, there was The Hitter. This tomboyish-looking redhead seemed to be the only one out of the bunch that was willing, or capable, of physically interacting with objects and people. Apparently, she preferred to hit rather than scare, and presumably, due to being a vengeful spirit, her right and left hooks hurt a lot more than her frame might suggest.

  After all, each of these ghosts appeared to be that of a young woman. None of them looked like they could be much of a physical threat, especially to trained knights… But them being phantoms changed things.

  Behind them, they could spot a blueish figure of The Laugher. The smallest of the bunch never got too close. Instead, she seemed to exert her ability to frighten from a distance. She was seemingly capable of forcing a deep sensation of unsettlement within her victims by staring at them, but she could also seemingly force people to direct their attention in her direction by giggling.

  It was strange, but trainees and even some instructors, if they weren’t paying attention, would find their gaze naturally flicker straight toward the source of the laugh and simply stare for several seconds absentmindedly.

  This might not sound like much, but having your head emptied of all thought and eyes stuck looking at one place… It wasn’t surprising that many trainees had run straight into trees or tripped because of her.

  They did not know where she was, but they knew that The Creeper was here. She was rarely spotted, and if someone noticed her, that ghost would immediately disappear. What she did was often more subtle than her peers.

  She could instil fear within the hearts of people, but when making the noise of someone being strangled, she seemed to also be able to make someone paranoid. This heightened the susceptibility of the victim to the other ghosts.

  And lastly, right in front of them, The Leader. She stared straight at them with her blue eyes. That ghost was the most mysterious. The instructors or trainees hadn’t noticed anything special about her in particular.

  She simply inflicted fear, like all the others could. If anything, it looked more as though she was the strategist who devised the plans more than anything else.

  The two men were surrounded, and one mistake. Just one second of weakness, and their emotions would become their own enemy. They knew that the moment they couldn’t keep their heart steady, things would get exponentially worse for them.

  All that was needed for them to do was keep calm and ignore the spectres.

  But these were not the only ones, all around them, descending from the foliage of trees, phasing out of the ground and trunks… Were many more of the translucent apparitions, some reassembled nothing but amorphous blobs, some were somewhat humanoid, and some were somewhat animalistic, but they all stayed completely silent as they surrounded the two knights.

  These spectres could all interact with the physical plane as far as the instructors were aware, but they were individually fairly weak… However, there were many of them right now. It was a swarm.

  “Hey…”

  “No need to say anything, I know we are waist-deep in shit”

  “Don’t think about it, don’t let them rattle you for even a second”

  Both knights unsheathed their swords and swiftly coated the blades with mana. Swords might be ineffective against spirits, but energy could harm them.

  If a mage saw the way in which they used mana, the poor bloke might pass out. The way knights tended to use energy manipulation was primitive and pretty much the equivalent of stacking a bunch of heavy items on something to prevent it from being flung away by the wind. It was ungraceful, a sore to the eyes, but it worked as inefficient as it may be.

  Slowly, they walked away, focusing their breathing, keeping their heart rate steady. The key was to not give a single window for the quintet to use their abilities. If that happened, things would turn ugly.

  Their alertness spiked as they heard the sound of a wooden hatch being flung open. Their first instinct was to look toward the one they had just been at, but it remained shut.

  The sound began playing all over the place, some quieter, some louder.

  A bead of sweat trickled down the temple of one of the instructors. The Leader was giving them a death stare, her head slightly hunched forward.

  One of the instructors was beginning to visibly enter a state of apprehension, or in other words, he was starting to behave as though a fight was inevitable and searching for the best way to go about it.

  This wouldn’t normally be anything of note, but in this context, the sharp focus caused by the worry of an attack was a weakness the enemy could exploit.

  “Get a grip!”

  “Fear… Spreads…”

  The blonde muttered something under her breath, and before they knew it, they felt a drilling stare in the back of their heads. Unsettlement was taking root, followed by a giggle that managed to distract them for a mere handful of seconds.

  But by then, the orange-eyed spectre was already sprinting straight at them, whilst the redhead closed in from the other side.

  “Fuck this shit!”

  The initially tense instructors took a swing at the redhead, but she stayed out of range, and the running ghost also made a sudden stop. Somehow, the sudden stop made the two men feel worse than if the spirits had attacked. It did not feel right at all.

  That was exactly the point of the manoeuvre. However, the concern they felt, the scenarios that ran through their minds–When the sound of someone being strangled rang out so close behind them that it was like the person was dying right next to their ears, the paranoia hit them like a chariot at full speed.

  The Runner and Hitter howled at them, infecting their bodies with fear as the translucent ghosts began screaming all around them.

  None of them actually moved in to attack, but the knights swung nonetheless, hitting nothing as their targets deliberately refused to get close.

  The Leader’s mildly disinterested gaze brightened up as she saw the knight be engulfed in fear and paranoia. Truly, just as their big sister had said, enduring the flames of the furnace was worth it. They had been able to develop their own powers to the point of being able to make themselves useful.

  It was strange, the blonde once felt like she held incredible resentment toward the name ‘Nebulo’... It was no longer the case. Her big sister was the person she loved and admired the most in the world.

  …Though the powers they had each developed were rather different.

  Annie had incorporated the infliction of fear that they could all do into her near-obsessive love for running.

  Gigi, whose favourite game was hide and seek, had developed an ability that could be used whilst staying far and hidden away.

  Nessa’s was reliant on her remaining unseen, but seemingly because of this restriction, it had become especially potent.

  Elowen had instead acquired the ability to interact with the physical as well as brute strength that far outclassed that of the translucent ones.

  And she, Poppy, well… She was definitely the strongest.

  “...Breathe…”