Chloe, Tiona and Mia’s Syllogism
“Gh-gh-ghost …?”
Mia stammered to which Dora nodded seriously.
“I heard from one of my friends that she saw it. She was walking in the girls’ dormitory at night, and she saw it …”
Dora paused and stared wide-eyed at Mia…
“The ghost of a girl dressed in tattered rags!”
Would you quit it with the scary expressions!
While screaming inwardly, Mia did not break her smile. If someone pays close attention to her, Mia’s clenched cheeks would be obvious. Fortunately, there weren’t many people around who were very good at observing.
“Rumor has it that it is said to be the ghost of a female student who lost her love and killed herself, or the ghost of a child of a townsman who drowned in the lake …”
“I’m scared! Princess Mia, are you afraid of ghosts?”
The girls around Mia were clearly scared and one of them decided to ask Mia as well.
“Ghosts… Well, they may be fun to talk about…”
Mia shook her head, then gave a confident smile.
“…but unfortunately, I’m not a child anymore to be scared of those things.”
Then she elegantly put a sandwich into her mouth.
“I’m sorry, I have to prepare for the next lesson, so I’ll go ahead.”
Mia lifted her skirt, curtsied; and left the courtyard in a hurry.
Upon entering the school building, Mia she started sprinting. By the time she climbed up the stairs, she was at full speed. She flips her skirt lightly, totally unbecoming of a noble, that she may run a little bit faster. I went up the stairs two step at a time and entered a classroom.
“Chloe, Chloe!”
As soon as she entered, she scanned the place and found Chloe staring at her surprised.
“Huh? Mia-sama? What’s wrong?”
Apparently, Chloe was preparing for the next lesson in the classroom. She seemed to have been enjoying a chat with Tiona. By the way, it seems that these two people who became acquainted through Mia occasionally talk to each other.
Chloe’s deep knowledge of plants was very useful for Tiona, who was into farming to help her parents’ house. The two seem to be in a pleasant conversation, but Mia interrupted them.
Upon reaching them, Mia immediately asked…
“Chloe, I have a question…Are there really ghosts?”
Basically, Mia doesn’t believe in ghosts. She thinks it’s very childish to believe in such things. But her inner cowardliness still scares her. That’s why from time to time she needs someone to guarantee her that ghosts were not real.
Moreover, there was that thing she saw the other day in the library. She wants to treat it as a misunderstanding, and so she was desperate for some reassurance.
She needed someone to tell her that ghosts aren’t real. The problem was that not just anyone would fit the bill. Anne and the others would tell her that, but they would only do it to reassure Mia. She can’t also ask Abel or Sion. Abel would probably laugh and tell her she gets scared too easily… which, now that she thought about it, might actually be a great excuse to bury her face in his chest and…
No, no, no. I can’t do something so immodest.
And so, her weird sense of propriety stopped her from asking Abel. Sion, on the other hand, would probably make fun of her for being a baby.
Also, Rafina and others may be experts of that kind, but there is something scary about it. “Oh? You don’t know? There are ghosts everywhere. In fact, there is one behind you Mia …” There is a danger that Mia will be forever traumatized if she heard such thing.
When she thought about it, Chloe was the one who seemed to deny such existence and most trustworthy. Chloe, who reads more books better than herself, is intelligent and calm…. So, Mia asked her with confidence.
Chloe didn’t say anything. She didn’t even laugh. She looked down, thinking deeply. The light reflected off her glasses and her eyes disappeared… her face looked a little creepy.
“Oh, Mia-sama, I don’t know much about ghosts …”
It was Tiona who opened her mouth instead.
“But I know that demoniacs often appear in my territory.”
It is generally believed that demoniacs appear more frequently in the rural areas than in the urban areas. The territory of Rudolvon, where Tiona lives, is a region far from the imperial capital. It’s not surprising that she has had many opportunities to come into contact with such things…
“What is the connection between demoniac and ghosts?”
Mia asked to which Tiona said something unexpected.
“Well, I just thought that if things you can’t see like demons exists, then it can’t be that much of a stretch to assume that ghosts exist too…”
Tiona’s answer blindsided Mia. She hadn’t considered that line of reasoning and it was enough to scare her. Because Mia also has the experience of being involved in a mysterious phenomenon. Ever since her reincarnation, she had been a firm believer of God.
“The almighty God has bestowed something really special to me. That makes me… the chosen one.” She usually tells this to herself pure of humility, or lack thereof.
If God exists, then of course, all the other things written in the scriptures exists too. This includes the Archdemon, the demoniacs and other terrifying beings that could be real. By this way of thinking, it was entirely possible that ghosts exist as well. This is how Mia’s syllogism concluded.
Which scared her even more.
Why in the dark moons would she say something that makes everything so much scarier?! This girl! I hate her guts and I take back everything good I ever said about her.
Mia glares at Tiona. Just then Chloe started speaking…
“Mia, actually, I have a book like this …”
Hearing Chloe’s soft but creepy voice, Mia almost screamed when Chloe produced a n even creepier book with a skeleton drawn on the cover.
“Hi?! Wha, what’s that book?”
“Ufufu, this is a collection of monster illustrations that came from an eastern island nation, and they are a collection of pictures of scary monsters.”
Then Chloe opened the book.
What she saw there was monster with a long neck, monster with three eyeballs, monster who swallows humans, and so on.
“Hmm …”
That was it … Mia’s slowly fainted.
“Wha! What happened Mia-sama !?”
Tiona catches her in a hurry. Mia shook her head with a deep blue face.
“Well, I’m okay. I’m just a little dizzy… I’ll get better soon.”
“You look awful. We better call Anne now.”
Mia, who was completely sick, decided to take a break from class that afternoon and had to take a long nap in her room. She recovered by dinner time. She ate a lot and drank to her heart’s content because she missed the teatime snack.
She was unaware that such a decision would lead her to yet another tragedy.
Syllogism
– an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed propositions (premises); a common or middle term is present in the two premises but not in the conclusion, which may be invalid (e.g. all dogs are animals; all animals have four legs; therefore all dogs have four legs ).
