Leveling Up by Executing Monsters

Chapter 149: Chapter 149: Popular Attraction

’Why would Sis receive a submission like this?’

Lloyd was genuinely surprised.

He had specifically looked up Mizkakotok University at the library earlier today, the one the Chief Judge had mentioned, but he only found a few tidbits of information.

Things like ’the highest institution of learning for which Extraordinary Beings yearn,’ ’a true temple of knowledge,’ ’at the forefront of Mysticism and the extraordinary,’ ’transcending the era, humanity, and reality’—it was laden with a ton of titles.

But there was no substantive content at all. After reading for a long time, Lloyd still didn’t know how big the place was, how many people attended, or even what subjects were offered...

All he knew was that everyone seemed to be scrambling to get in, but only the most brilliant geniuses were granted admission.

That’s why Lloyd had gone to the club to ask around later.

Judging by the manager’s reaction at the time, the place seemed truly mysterious—on the same level as the enigmatic Dream Theater, which only made Lloyd more curious.

But he wasn’t in a rush; he was just gathering information in advance. The Chief Judge had said his enrollment would be arranged after he advanced to Tier Three. ’The process sounds quite complicated. Does it perhaps require the intervention of a top-tier powerhouse like the Grand Judge?’

He just never expected his sister would actually receive a submission about that very place.

Lloyd quickly began to read it carefully.

And the very first sentence was rather chilling:

"If you are reading this letter, then I have likely already been burned to ashes..."

The rest of the text, from the perspective of a faculty member, described two ’strange incidents’ that occurred at Mizkakotok University.

The first was about a study hall that was never empty.

No one knew which specific building or floor it was in. Finding it seemed to require a bit of luck and fate.

That study hall, regardless of the season, whether in the dead of night or the early hours of the morning, was always occupied and always lit.

Sometimes there were two or three people; other times, there were as many as a dozen or more.

They didn’t really follow the study hall rules, always reading while muttering indistinct whispers.

But if you leaned in and listened closely, you would hear them discussing various school legends, mentioning all sorts of strange events that had happened in different places on campus.

Reading this, Lloyd’s gaze shifted down, and a line of shocking, blood-red words jumped out at him:

"Those legends are all true! All true!! All true!!! But don’t believe them! Don’t believe them!! Don’t believe them!!!"

This line took up nearly half the page, and the ink used was as red as fresh blood. It was quite frightening at first glance.

’But it probably wasn’t written with real blood. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so red; it would be dark and blackish.’

This self-contradictory statement—claiming they were ’true’ while shouting ’don’t believe them’—only drew Lloyd in, compelling him to read on.

Apparently, a few students had once stumbled into that study hall, believed the legends, and then foolishly ran off to investigate them.

They never came back...

Afterward, students would wander into this study hall every semester, and quite a few of them ’got lost,’ which eventually forced the school administration to issue a rule forbidding any discussion of the room on campus.

Yet students still encountered the study hall, unconsciously entered it, and then disappeared into some unknown corner.

"If you encounter it, do not enter. Keep your head down, close your eyes, cover one ear with one hand, and light a candle with the other. Then run, run in the direction the candlelight flickers. Run faster, before they catch up..."

And with that, the first story ended.

Lloyd’s scalp tingled as he read. The thought that he might be studying there in the future made him instinctively shuffle closer to Evelor.

But Evelor just chuckled mischievously and said:

"Hee hee, if Yi is scared, you can hide in your big sister’s arms, you know."

Lloyd paused for a moment, then reached out and gently tickled the sole of his sister’s foot, which was clad in a white stocking. As she reached down to protect it, he seized the opportunity to snatch the Hammerhead Shark Puppet from her arms. He hugged it tightly and went back to reading the second story.

The second story was about an old, established on-campus Association. It was a radical group dedicated to exploring the secrets of Mysticism, and it was very popular. Almost every student involved with Mysticism joined it.

But on the third day of a new semester, this Association suddenly vanished.

The members, their meeting places, the various journals they produced, and all the records they left behind—everything inexplicably disappeared overnight.

"At first, we assumed an accident had occurred during their overly radical Mysticism research. Such things are not uncommon in a place like Mizkatoke. All sorts of accidents happen here every day. It was once jokingly called the ’Academy of Calamity’ by students, until the school administration stepped in and explicitly forbade such an irreverent name..."

"But none of us ever imagined that this particular incident would nearly bring the entire university to Destruction..."

"On the fourth day of the semester, the day after the Association vanished, everyone began to feel an unsettling atmosphere permeating the campus... Some believed it was related to the missing Association, while others thought it was just another separate incident..."

"In any case, we took it very seriously and assigned three senior instructors to investigate the Association’s disappearance..."

The following section described the individual findings of the three instructors.

The first was the most senior and powerful instructor. He committed suicide by a lake on campus... by tearing out his own heart.

At his feet lay an investigation report, which included a sketch depicting what he had seen.

It was a realm like a paradise—brilliant, vibrant, and colorful. Everyone was gathered in a circle, joyfully singing and dancing.

Next was the second instructor. He suddenly went mad in his own dormitory, babbling incomprehensibly and trying to break his own fingers and arms. He became covered in blood, as if all the capillaries under his skin had burst at once.

But he didn’t transform into a Demon. He was just sent to a mental hospital and returned to teach at the start of the next semester.

He had just forgotten the details of the investigation, or perhaps he was deliberately trying to hide something.

As for the third and final instructor, he unearthed a pile of fossils at the Association’s usual meeting spot...

Human fossils...

Their skeletons, compressed by immense time and the heavy crust of the earth, were imprinted on a massive rock face. They were perfectly preserved—even clearer and more complete than processed fossil artifacts. You could feel their terror and despair before death from the positions of their bones.

And the exact number and genders of the figures in the fossil matched those of the missing Association members perfectly...

"This must be a coincidence. We all know that fossilization takes time measured in hundreds of millions of years."

"But that senior instructor was certain it was the missing Association and wanted to investigate further. However, he was forcibly stopped by the school administration, and that precious fossil was destroyed, smashed into a pile of fragments."

"This instructor was extremely dissatisfied with the outcome. He resigned on the spot, left Mizkatoke, and decided to continue the investigation on his own."

"By the end of the semester, I finally heard news of him again—he was dead. He died in a dark alley behind a tavern, robbed of all his valuables by a group of vagrants who then smashed his head in."

"From that day on, Mysticism became the most strictly controlled subject at Mizkatoke. Only the most outstanding students have the opportunity to take the course, and only the most powerful instructors are allowed to teach it."

The second story ended there.

At the very end, Lloyd saw a disclaimer:

"This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events is a great honor."

Followed by a tongue-in-cheek signature:

The Unofficial Temp.

Seeing this, Lloyd couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.

’Thank goodness it’s all fake. If it were all real, if Mizkakotok University was actually that dangerous and people just vanished for no reason, how could I possibly dare to go study there?’

’That makes more sense, anyway. After all, it’s such a mysterious, high-end, and prestigious place. Even if stories like that did happen, it’s not like someone would submit them to a public magazine, right?’

Lloyd mulled it over and evaluated the two stories.

He felt the second story was much better than the first, at least in his opinion.

’Mysticism is such a dangerous field, yet they dared to be so radical? It served as something of a warning: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.’

He hoped his sister would publish this story to warn the Mysticism enthusiasts in the city not to believe in things like ’love Divination’ or ’Change of Fortune rituals’.

Even though most of them were fakes, if even one turned out to be real, there was no telling what kind of chaos would ensue.

In truth, the reason Lloyd supported his sister’s hard work in running the magazine wasn’t just to support her choices and career; there was also an element of wanting to ’warn the world’.

He had always considered himself a passionate young man with a sense of social responsibility. He hoped that through these bizarre and grotesque folk legends, he could stop the bored citizens from constantly looking for ways to get themselves killed.

"This first story is great. Sis, are you going to publish it?"

Lloyd asked.

Evelor nodded and replied:

"Mhm, I quite like the first story too, especially its narrative style. It’s a very novel approach compared to many of the submissions I receive. And among the many submissions themed around Mizkakotok University, its story is the most unique."

"Huh? You mean you get a lot of submissions about that university?"

"Of course. In the world of folklore and urban legends, that university is as popular a ’tourist spot’ as Arkham."

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