The Simulacrum

Not all people are born equal. It was an oft-contested truism, but in the World of Mystics, there was no debating its validity. One's ancestry often superseded whatever individual talents one might have possessed. After all, while a Magi could ostensibly use their own brand of magic to imitate and reproduce the effects of Celestial harmonics, doing so by naturally singing them into existence was beyond their grasp. Neither could a Draconian perform the somatic spells of an Abyssal, nor a Celestial chant the spells of the Magi.

There was a clear delineation between the major races of the World of Mystics, but there existed a further hierarchy even within their ranks, and even among those sharing the same bloodline, the differences could still be stark. For even the most pristine ancestry and sterling potential couldn't shine if one lacked the individual talent to use it.

In short, not all people were born equal, and few were more clearly aware of this than Fiia Talvipäivänseisaus.

Currently attending Red Lake Elementary in Timaeus under her mother's maiden name, as Fiia Säännöllinen, she was an entirely unremarkable girl born from a remarkable bloodline, which only made her more of an anomaly among her peers. Being related to an arch-mage of the Assembly, the most prestigious position a Magi could hope to achieve, was a matter of some respect. In the small, insular community that made up the Assembly and its many Schools, having the last name Talvipäivänseisaus alone was enough to open many doors.

And yet, the girl in question was, for all intents and purposes, a nobody, with a magic potential that was, to put it gently, below average. Born as the daughter of Tavallinen Talvipäivänseisaus, younger brother of the famed Taika Talvipäivänseisaus, arch-mage and designated successor of the Tower of the School of Illusion in Glasgow, it wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say that, as long as she had at least nominal talent, her future was secured.

But her talent was precisely just that; nominal at best. She could perform the most rudimentary of spells, and even then, with some difficulty. Anything more complex than that was beyond her capabilities. Her mother, a not particularly exceptional Magi herself, had long since given up on her daughter ever following in her aunt's footsteps. In a different time, she would have most likely grown up sheltered at home, raised to become a minor administrative functionary within the Assembly, if not for a single factor that threw her future onto an unexpected path.

Her age.

The whole World of Mystics watched with bated breath as Leonard S. Dunning, a man of many grand titles and even greater accomplishments, succeeded in a scheme of impossible proportions that not only brought all the antagonistic, if not outright hostile, powers of their world to a single negotiating table, but also opened the gates of the Abyss in a rather literal sense. What was previously a troublesome yet politically inconsequential fraction of the World of Mystics suddenly became a key player in the global scene, and with the Draconic Federation throwing its considerable support behind the newly founded New Abyssal Noble Alliance, there was little doubt that a new era of cooperation had dawned.

Yet, it wasn't such grandiose political ramifications that drew Fiia into the maelstrom of events. She was, after all, only a child without much renown to speak of. Yet, it was exactly this detail that made her the perfect candidate for something a little more... surreptitious.

Upon returning from the Abyss, Leonard S. Dunning brought with him someone completely unexpected. Éolienne Serua Ashur, the only surviving heir of House Ashur and the suddenly crowned Emperor of the Abyss, with complete control over the Mana Wells maintaining the Abyss itself. Also, a child of remarkable innocence and inexperience, who was now attending classes at Red Lake Elementary like an ordinary youngster.

While the child was meant to live a relatively normal life on Critias, far from the political minefield of the Abyss, effectively every single major faction of the World of Mystics managed to sneak in one or more of their representatives into the elementary school. Some were present to guard him, others were allegedly just tagging along out of curiosity or a sense of novelty. As for Fiia, she had little choice in the matter of her transfer to the school.

Realising that building connections with the young Abyssal Emperor would be beneficial in the long term, but lacking the innate justifications of the other factions, the Magi scrambled to insert their own representative into Éolienne's budding inner circle. They had to be reliable, from a good family, but not so important as to raise suspicion. Someone who could naturally become a fellow student of the young boy, and who was harmless enough to be overlooked. Someone like Fiia, essentially.

Hence, the poor girl was picked up from her home in Finland, shipped to her aunt in Timaeus, and was tasked with a preposterous mission: make friends with the Abyssal Emperor without ever revealing her true identity or purpose. A task she was woefully unprepared for, and one that had her sweating buckets on a daily basis.

For all intents and purposes, Fiia was just an ordinary girl thrust into an extraordinary situation, and if she had to choose one word to describe her situation, it would've been...

"Scary!"

Precisely, although in this particular case, her nervous whispers were directed at a more immediate concern than her general predicament. It was late in the autumn afternoon when a small group stood in front of the gates of Red Lake Elementary. The sun was ready to set at any minute, and a cold wind bit at the exposed skin, a grim reminder that winter was just around the corner.

In the centre of the group stood a boy of a smallish stature, with a dark blue shade of hair and a set of striking cyan eyes. He was Éolienne Serua Ashur, the young Emperor of the Abyss, currently clad in a season-appropriate winter school uniform and a bright red scarf. Around him, there seemed to be five young kids of similar age. Two asian girls, one of them with almost knee-length black hair, the other wearing hers in a pair of ox-horn buns. Next to them, a pair of golden-haired children, looking so similar one might be tempted to think they were twins. Finally, a short girl practically hiding behind Éolienne's back, her brown bob-cut hidden under a fluffy winter cap with a pompom on top, her lightly freckled face deathly pale.

"It's not scary, Fiia-chan!" the long-haired girl declared with a fist in the air. "It's an adventure!"

"Adventure!" the other dark-haired girl echoed her with infectious energy.

Fiia held her mouth shut and glanced around. The truth was, she wasn't referring to the darkening sky or the foreboding school building towering over them in the twilight of the late autumn evening. No, what she found so terrifying was her current company. They might have looked like a simple group of schoolkids, yet the truth was far more complicated.

The two asian girls were Ichiko and Xiao. The former was the younger sister of none other than the newlywed wife of Naoren Feilong, the patriarch of the Feilong Clan of Eastern Draconians and one of the founding members of the Draconic Federation, and ostensibly related to the Kage clan of ninjas. Meaning, she was scary.

As for the other girl, that was Xiao Feilong, and while it was supposed to be something of an open secret, everyone was aware that she was the only known surviving true-blooded dragon left in the world. Fiia tried not to think about it, but at any moment, she could turn into a huge, coiling dragon and swallow her whole! In other words, she was also scary.

As for the two blonde children, they were Kóre and Pais, and they looked just as fretful as Fiia, yet she was certain it was only a ruse. For they were not only Celestials, but the Chief Reminders of none other than Leonard S. Dunning, and the protégés of the leader of his Praetorian Guards. Everyone knew that Celestials were a devious, scheming lot, and Fiia was certain that behind that restless act, they were secretly observing her, looking for any sign of weakness. So yes, scary.

However, the scariest ones weren't in their little circle, but standing a few steps behind.

"Are you sure this is a trope?" the blonde girl on the left asked while rubbing her hands together to warm them.

"Positive," the other girl by her side, dressed like she was heading to an arctic expedition, nodded and poked her phone. "It's a type of 'test of courage'. Very popular in certain genres, though it's usually associated with summer adventures."

"We're in the middle of November," the other girl stated, and she wasn't wrong. The wind was picking up, and the leaves that had turned to shades of red and orange were being torn from the trees by the sudden gust.

"A trope is a trope is a trope," the other girl insisted. "I suppose we can call it a post-Halloween adventure."

"Oh? I can work with that," the blonde nodded, but then she noticed that Fiia was looking at her, and she flashed a smile at her and waved.

Fiia quickly turned away from them, her heart thumping in her chest. She was pretty sure that they could hear it from a mile away, and she desperately hoped they didn't. They were two of the most dangerous people on the whole island, and they were currently chaperoning their little group like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The blonde girl on the left was none other than Eleanor Dracis, the daughter of Abram Dracis, another founding member of the Draconic Federation, and more importantly, Leonard S. Dunning's fiancée! She was also very... friendly, actually. She often encouraged Fiia whenever they talked, but she would not be fooled! She was a terrifying Draconian that went to the Abyss and fought an Abyssal Lord in hand-to-hand combat! Her nice facade was just a clever ruse to lower her guard! Definitely! Very scary!

However, even she paled in comparison to the girl with the phone in her hands. That was Judy Sennoma, Leonard S. Dunning's other fiancée. Her Aunt Taika told her about all the important people she might encounter before Fiia enrolled into the school, and out of all of them, Judy Sennoma was the only one she was told to be especially careful around. While all the others were dangerous in their own right, Judy was perilous in a different way. She could not turn into a dragon to eat her, or beat up an Abyssal Lord on her own, but she possessed something even more terrifying: connections.

For example, one only had to look at the current situation. Red Lake Elementary's principal was a spooky man who would never be seen without his signature beaked mask covering his face. Fiia even heard rumours saying that he was a mad scientist with a giant underground laboratory full of frightening machines beeping and zapping and booping, where he would tie people to a big table and then unravel their very souls while casually drinking coffee, like it was a common day in the office! Absolutely terrifying!

Yet, that same dreadful principal immediately allowed them to not only visit the school building after dark, but he personally handed the master keys over to Judy Sennoma! All she had to do was ask, and the man immediately obliged without as much as a single question! Were the rumours true? Was she the head of the Celestial Intelligence Network? An evil mastermind pulling the strings of all the factions, guiding them towards a cunningly plotted future?

Maybe.

Either way, she was the scariest!

"Listen up!"

Fiia's thoughts were interrupted by Ichiko standing arms akimbo in front of them, her back to the foreboding, dark school building. She waited for everyone to pay attention to her, and then she continued just as loudly as before.

"Today, we'll put an end to the Seven Mysteries of Red Lake Elementary!"

"P-Put an end?" Fiia whispered with eyes wide open.

Ichiko must've overheard her, because she pointed at her with gusto.

"Precisely, Fiia-chan! We can't have some nebulous 'mysteries' around on our watch! We have to ensure there's no dangerous youkais around Ollie-kun!"

"Or yaoguai!" Xiao added with the same enthusiasm, while the two young Celestials only nodded along on the side, looking more concerned than enthused.

"Is that also a trope?" Eleanor asked behind them, and the other high-school girl hummed in the affirmative.

"Yes. It's also a common staple of Japanese school life stories and summer episodes."

"Except this time it's a Critias school life post-Halloween episode?"

Judy uttered a deadpan, "Precisely," and tapped her phone screen, making Fiia all the more nervous. Why was she always so deadpan and serious? It had to be some sort of front for her secret manipulations! She just knew it!

While Fiia was busy suspecting everyone of having ulterior motives, Ichiko waved to the two high-schoolers, and Eleanor stepped forward to distribute flashlights to everyone.

"We only had four of these at home, but it works out great!" she declared as she handed one of them over to the Celestial twins. "This way, we can make four pairs. Make sure you stick with your partner."

"Oh! Partners!" the dark-haired ninja girl exclaimed with a grin. "Xiao-chan, you're with me!"

"Okay!"

The two girls joined hands, and Fiia's eyes widened. She didn't want to be left alone with any of the scary people, but before she could panic, the two Celestials huddled closer together, already clutching their flashlights with shaking hands. That left her with...

"Hehe... This is so exciting..." Éolienne uttered with a silly smile and pointed his flashlight at Fiia. "I've never seen a school mystery before. Have you, Fiia?"

"N-No... I haven't..." she whispered, and had a hard time deciding how to feel about the situation. On one hand, Éolienne was the least scary of all the people here. He was still a little scary, because he was an Abyssal, and Abyssals were scary, but he was nice. However, he was also the one she needed to befriend, no matter what, and so the pressure was immense. She had to be nice to him, but not too nice, because then it would be suspicious. She had to stay close to him, but not too close, because that would also be suspicious. She had to be a friend, but not too good a friend, because then she would feel guilty for being a spy! It was all so confusing!

"Don't worry," Éolienne told her with a comforting smile, completely oblivious to her inner turmoil, and leaned closer to whisper to her in a low voice the others wouldn't hear. "Big Sis Judy said they already investigated the school, so there shouldn't be anything dangerous. She just told us to do it for 'character development'."

"W-What does that mean?"

"I... don't know," the little boy admitted a touch sheepishly. "But if Big Sis Judy says it's important, then it must be!"

"Ah... of course..."

Fiia didn't quite notice at the time, but her discussion with Éolienne made the fright gripping her until now melt away, and as she absent-mindedly accepted the flashlight from him…

"Let's go!" Ichiko called out at the front and pointed her light at the main building. "The first mystery says there's a ghost of a bee with hooves playing music on the piano at night! Let's catch it!"

"Beethoven," Pais interjected, making the girl at the front turn around with a questioning look on her face. "It's the ghost of Beethoven."

"Who's that?" Ichiko asked, looking genuinely flabbergasted.

"Ludvig van Beethoven, famous German composer," Fiia spoke up, by impulse more than anything else. "We just learned about him during music class."

"Hmmm... So it's not a bee with hooves, but a ghost with a long name?" Ichiko wondered aloud and tapped her chin. "That's considerably less impressive."

"Aw. Does that mean it's not a yaoguai after all?" Xiao chimed in, and Fiia had to stop herself from burying her face in her palm. Just how uninformed were they?

"Hehe. Fiia is smart," Éolienne noted with the kind of casual ease one would expect from a child saying the sky is blue.

"T-Thanks?"

"What about the other mysteries?" Kóre inquired from the Asian girls at the front, and this time Xiao was the one who answered after fishing a crumpled-up note from her pocket.

"Let's see... Ah! The second mystery is that the stairs near the changing rooms of the gymnasium have one more step when you're walking up them than when you're walking down them."

"Oooh! A non-Euclidean staircase! Spooky!" Ichiko exclaimed, and it only made Fiia more irritated.

"You know what 'non-Euclidean' means, but you never heard of Ludvig van Beethoven? Really?"

Both Éolienne and Pais chuckled at her outburst, but it didn't stop Xiao from continuing.

"Then the third mystery is... The statue of the first principal in the central courtyard sometimes changes its pose." She squinted at the paper. "And the fourth is that sometimes, you can see faces in the windows of the third floor's abandoned classrooms, even when nobody is supposed to be in there."

"Why does this school have abandoned classrooms?" Fiia muttered, but it was more of a rhetorical question, and so she didn't expect an answer. Yet one came.

"Critias is classified as a developed first-world nation, and so it's experiencing declining birth-rates due to various socio-economic factors, meaning the school building isn't fully utilized at the present moment," Kóre noted as if it was self-evident, and Pais also added, "According to the reports, they already requested a grant from the Ministry of Education and Urban Development to repurpose them for a new science lab next year."

The younger children stared at the Celestial twins with blank faces, while Judy Sennoma only gave them a thumbs-up without looking up from her phone, much to their quiet delight. This, of course, only solidified Fiia's opinion that Celestials were scary, and it made Judy even scarier.

"What's the fifth mystery?" Eleanor butted in, sounding oddly invested.

"The fifth is..." Xiao looked at the paper again, and her eyes widened. "The anatomy model in the biology classroom sometimes gets up and roams the halls at night."

"Eh?!" Fiia yelped, while Éolienne's eyes lit up with excitement.

"Ooooh! That sounds interesting! Can we start with that one?"

"We still have two more mysteries on the list," Xiao responded with a huff and waved her wrinkled note around. "The sixth mystery is that if you go into the girls' bathroom alone, and stare into the mirror for thirty seconds, then the ghost of a dead student will show up behind you!"

"It's Hanako-san!" Ichiko declared with full confidence, much to everyone's confusion.

"Common Japanese ghost story," Judy Sennoma noted in the back, deadpan as ever. "Has many varieties. This one obviously wouldn't be called 'Hanako' though."

"Hannah?" Eleanor proposed.

"Sounds good enough," Judy responded with a nod, and Fiia wasn't sure if they were actually being serious.

Meanwhile, Éolienne let out a disappointed sigh.

"If it's in a girl's bathroom, then I can't see it."

"Don't worry, Ollie-kun," Ichiko consoled him. "I'll go check it out for you. I'll take a picture with my phone if I see anything."

"Can you even take photos of ghosts?" Xiao wondered, and the conversation went off on a tangent from there. Fiia barely paid them any mind as she looked over her shoulder at the two high-schoolers. They were quiet now, and Eleanor had an odd little smile on her face as she watched the kids.

What were they planning? Just what kind of hidden agenda did they have in store for them? Were these 'mysteries' all a trap? A test? Or were they trying to lead them into a false sense of security before something truly terrible happened? The more she thought about it, the more her stomach twisted into knots.

Of course, the two of them were simply amused by the group of cute kids getting all worked up over school ghost stories, but Fiia had no way of knowing that.

"It's decided, then! We're going to check out Hannah-san first!" Ichiko declared and pointed at the school building. "Let's go!"

She led the charge, and the rest of the children followed suit, their flashlights cutting through the encroaching darkness as they made their way to the main entrance. Some of them were excited. Some were terrified. And some were just confused. Yet, they all marched forward, united in their quest to uncover the Seven Mysteries of Red Lake Elementary, so focused on the task at hand that it completely slipped their mind that they forgot to discuss the last, seventh mystery of the school.

But then again, in a way, that was also a staple of this trope, and Judy and Eleanor in the back couldn't wait to see how this impromptu post-Halloween adventure would turn out.