Knight | Celeste Academy Series BK #1

51st Chapter ♣ Demon's Attack

The news about Courtney's challenge had already spread throughout the entire academy by the end of the day. It was the hottest topic of discussion among the student body. People were wondering about what Valeriana was going to do now that Courtney had returned.

This information was basically the truth and it was inevitable to be the center of everyone's attention.

However, the thing that appalled her about the rumors was it said discomfitting things. She knew that people had the tendency to misinterpret—and exaggerate—what they saw, but the extent of the stories circulating was so disturbing it made her want to ram her head against the wall.

Although Courtney did have villain potential and a bad temper, she wasn't as narrow-minded and hard to get along with like some other people . . . maybe.

She wasn't aiming to please anybody, but she wanted peace. That would not come unless people viewed her in a positive light.

"What?" the other girl whispered. "I heard Valeriana had plans her own! Someone told me that she and that girl sticking around her—what was her name? Some said they tried to kill Courtney!"

"Really?"

Valeriana was aggravated. "Who's killing who?" she asked.

The gossipers were startled. They turned to her with round, wide eyes. Their fingers visibly trembled, knees knocking together. Both gave her a brief bow and a nod of acknowledgement before scurrying off.

Valeriana had always been a willful girl, albeit a reclusive and strange-minded one. Although she wasn't antisocial, she disliked having to unnecessarily put up with people she didn't like—which was most of them. People loved gossips, but they were blind to the truth. It didn't seem very different in this world.

As they all left, she sighed to herself.

The day felt as though it would never end.

It would've been easier if Chavi was there with her, but once again, the girl was nowhere to be seen. They last met during lunch. She disappeared sometime after Alchemy and wasn't anywhere to be found.

Right now, she was headed to their Demonology class.

Groaning, she reached for the familiar door and pushed through it. She went inside without thinking and looked around, expecting to see the usual classroom scenario, but was horribly disappointed by what greeted her instead.

Decaying ash-colored walls with blotches of stains the shade of brown and black. She could taste the air and that horribly disgusting, putrid scent that wafted under her nose. There were no chairs or tables—not even a board for lectures. There was only a dug-out hole at the far side portion of the room—which was unbelievably large in size—where it went as low as ten feet deep. There was a dark cage with rusting bars at the farthest corner.

Her jaws dropped.

Valeriana's face turned beet red as all eyes turned to her. She backed away from all the unfamiliar faces and tried to leave. However, unfortunately, the teacher arrived looking very disappointed and somewhat upset.

This wasn't her teacher.

These weren't her classmates.

Heck, this wasn't her class!

She tried to apologize, but was glared at by the teacher. "Uh . . ."

"You were late five minutes."

"I—" She tried to reason out that she got lost—while daydreaming—and wanted to rush out of the door as fast as she could, but the teacher looked as though she wasn't going to allow that any time soon.