"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it...!"

Orca wiped the cold sweat from her brow as she paced the hallway.

Hide and seek. Treasure hunting.

She had been relieved, thinking she wouldn’t hear those words again since she hadn’t heard them since she was a child.

...I shouldn’t have come. I only followed because I was curious about what that woman was up to.

Orca closed her eyes, desperately trying to forget the horrifying memories.

But the more she tried not to think about it, the more the memories came flooding back.

Her mind was overwhelmed by memories from her childhood.

The terrible memories of that day.

"Huff, huff..."

They say that sometimes people erase certain memories from their minds to avoid facing truths they can’t handle.

Orca truly wished that such a miracle would happen to her again.

But it seems that the desires of someone with a demon inside them aren’t something that God is willing to grant.

As she was struggling with the memories of her past, someone’s hand came to rest on her shoulder.

"...!"

"Are you okay, Orca?"

"How... how did you get here... What about the children...?"

"I told them I was taking a short break. Ugh, handling those kids is exhausting. They have so much energy. It’s been over an hour, and they’re still going strong."

An hour?

Has it really been that long?

Orca realized that her sense of time had completely collapsed.

"Are you alright? You don’t look well."

"Damn it, I’m fine, so leave me alone!"

The headache wouldn’t go away, and she lashed out in frustration, waving her hands to push the teacher away.

There’s no way I can talk about this. This is a secret that I can’t tell anyone.

I’m already shunned just because I’m a demon-possessed person. If they found out what I did, what would happen then?

Orca had no intention of ever telling anyone.

"Teacher, stop being so... nosy..."

"Tell me what’s going on. Right now."

"Uh, well... it’s the memories... they’re coming back."

"I thought so..."

Her mind was foggy, and she couldn’t think straight.

I’m sure I looked into the teacher’s eyes... and then...

...What was I doing?

"You’re receiving counseling from me. You were just about to tell me a secret you didn’t want to reveal. That you told me is something you won’t forget."

"Won’t forget..."

"Now, tell me. What happened in the past?"

...That’s right. I was in the middle of telling the teacher about that horrifying incident from my childhood.

Orca stared blankly at the teacher and began to speak.

"...Where did I start?"

"Well, if you don’t remember, it might be best to start from the beginning."

"Yeah, alright..."

The village I lived in was a very peaceful place.

Honestly, it was a backwater. Far from the city, with not many people living there. It was a dying village, with the older siblings leaving to find work in the city.

And during that time, a war broke out. From young men to middle-aged men, anyone with limbs was sent to the front lines as cannon fodder, and anyone who could use mana was conscripted as a soldier.

The village was constantly worried. Even as a child, I could feel the gloom in the air, so you can imagine how the adults in the village felt.

But even during those times, the villagers were tightly knit. In fact, because of those times, because there weren’t many people, the villagers supported each other and endured the hardships.

...If it weren’t for the incident I caused, they probably would have continued to endure and, after the war ended, would have returned to their normal lives.

As always, a disaster begins with something trivial.

One afternoon, when I was very young, I was bored—really, really bored.

There wasn’t nothing to do, but... with no one left to earn money, we had to conserve what resources we had. We couldn’t waste mana or electricity on useless things like games.

My parents had gone off to war and hadn’t been heard from since, so the neighbors were raising me, which made me feel uncomfortable staying at home.

So, with nothing to do and feeling out of place at home, what do you think I did? Of course, I called my friends and went out to play.

I was pretty popular among my friends back then. I’m not sure why. Was it because I was pretty? Ha, who knows. It doesn’t matter now.

There were quite a few empty houses in the village. With people leaving, there were houses that hadn’t been dealt with.

So, there were plenty of places for us to play. We could mess around in those abandoned houses without anyone scolding us.

But I made a really stupid decision back then.

While discussing what we should do for fun that day, I suggested we go to the house that was rumored to be haunted.

My older siblings, even the elderly, avoided that place.

But foolishly, we made our way there.

Ignorance is a sin, they say. I completely agree with that now.

If I had taken the adults’ warnings more seriously, if I had known even a little about the dangers of that house, I wouldn’t have done what I did.

Tragically, the village kids all agreed with my idea. Maybe they thought it wouldn’t be scary if we were all together?

Even more tragically, the village adults never imagined that we would go to that house.

They probably just thought we were playing in the village square as usual.

In the end, we all went into that house.

The game we were playing that day was treasure hunting. Besides the ghost stories, there were also rumors that the house contained hidden treasures.

Now that I think about it, that was such a stupid story. How could anyone know there was treasure in a place no one had been to?

Even if it were true, wouldn’t the person who spread the rumor have already taken the treasure?

Maybe it was just a wild guess that the ghost was guarding something valuable?

...Well, anyway. Most of the rumors about that house were true.

There really was a ghost and a monster living there, and they were guarding something.

The only thing that differed from the rumors was... we couldn’t see the ghost or the monster.

Looking back, it wasn’t a ghost at all. It was a mechanism designed to keep people from disturbing whatever was sealed in that house.

But I guess a lot of time had passed. It had become so old and worn out that it had lost most of its functionality and was now just something that wandered aimlessly.

It had become something like the ghosts people talked about. And just that was enough to scare people away from the old house, whose construction date was long forgotten.

Yeah. If we hadn’t gone there, it might have just been forgotten.

The ghost was guarding the monster in the box. And unfortunately, I was the one who found it.

Filled with curiosity, I opened that box... and the monster entered my body.

I screamed so loudly that it echoed through the hallway. I felt like something that wasn’t me had entered my body.

Of course, the kids who heard me scream came running, and...

I made another stupid decision. I didn’t know what had happened, and in my confusion, I just brushed it off as nothing.

I said I thought I saw a ghost, but I must have been mistaken.

The kids teased me a lot. I would have done the same, saying I got scared by a ghost.

That night, I stayed up all night. Sweat poured off me like rain, and my body felt as cold as ice.

Sitting on the bed, I cried softly. I felt like something was coming toward me.

It wasn’t just a feeling. The demon was coming for me—not my body, but my mind.

I couldn’t fully understand what was happening, but I had a gut feeling.

If this continued, something terrible was going to happen.

So I dragged my heavy body back to that house.

Tragically, my actions only caused more concern among the village adults.

They began to worry. What’s wrong with Orca? Orca looks really sick.

The strong bonds in the village ended up leading to a bad outcome.

It would have been better if the adults hadn’t cared about me.

The adults thought that if something was troubling Orca, her friends would be the best ones to comfort her, not them.

They were good people. I’ll say it again—it would have been better if they were bad people.

Naturally, my friends, who were close to me, confidently stepped into that house again.

They’d already been there once and had decided the rumors were just that—rumors.

They said, "Orca, are you okay?"

"Orca, if something’s wrong, tell us."

They came up to me, drenched in cold sweat, and sincerely worried about me...

And at that moment, one of them dropped dead.

In a daze, I had no choice but to tell the others in a strained voice,

"Please run. I don’t feel like myself."

"It feels like there’s someone else inside me. Please. It feels like I’m bigger than my body and smaller than my body at the same time."

What kind of nonsense was that? I didn’t know. It just felt that way at the time.

Of course, with one of their friends suddenly going berserk, the kids tried to run. But the door wouldn’t open.

Looking back, maybe that was the final barrier? If the seal weakened and the demon was released, at least it wouldn’t be able to leave the house.

Think about it. The box inside the house was that old. Naturally, the house itself would be just as old, right?

The seals must have been layered. But time had caused them to break.

The kids, now completely panicked, hid throughout the house. The places where they had searched for treasure the day before became hiding spots.

I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. The demon had temporarily taken over my body.

One by one, the kids lost their lives at my hands.

Some of them shouted,

"Please stop, Orca. You’re scaring me. Stop playing around."

Those kids couldn’t accept it until the very end. They couldn’t believe their friend would do something like that.

But I couldn’t find a way to control or stop the terrible power within me.

...Until all my friends were dead.

Damn it, that’s right. They should have been scared of me. Because in that moment, I wasn’t in control—the demon was.

How much time had passed?

I wandered aimlessly through the house. Blood was everywhere, and nothing was left alive. Nothing but me.

If it had ended there, it would have been just another tragedy.

But the adults began to worry. All the kids had disappeared at once.

They figured the kids must have gone to the haunted house, and though they were terrified, their determination to find the kids made them open the door.

The door that couldn’t be opened from the inside.

And then? ...Ha. What do you think?

Why do you think I’m still here, standing in one piece?