Dark Dragon: The Summoned Hero Is A Villain - Chapter 280

Chapter 280: The List Of The Lost
The student’s face went pale when he saw that it was Noah standing there. His eyes widened, and for a moment, he froze in the doorway.

“T- The Reaper,” he stammered.

Noah raised an eyebrow. “Are you Jon?”

The student swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Y- yeah,” he said, voice small now. “I’m Jon. You’re… you’re that guy from the hero summoning, right? The one they call the—”

“I’m just here to ask you a few questions,” Noah cut him off evenly. “About your friend. Clark.”

Jon blinked, his confusion giving way to unease. “Clark?”

“The one who went missing,” Noah clarified.

Jon hesitated, hand tightening on the doorknob. His suspicion was clear. “Why do you want to know?”

“I think I speak for both of us when I say we all want to know what happened to him,” Noah said calmly. “You were the one who discovered he was gone, weren’t you?”

Jon hesitated again, but finally nodded. “Yeah. I… I was the one who noticed.”

He stepped back slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. “We were both bronze-tier. Clark stayed behind during the holidays. Said his home’s far from the capital, out past the monolith roads.”

“He didn’t want to waste coin on travel, so he just stayed in the dorms. When everyone came back… he was gone.”

Noah’s expression didn’t change. “Did he mention anything strange before that? Anyone bothering him? Something that felt… off?”

Jon frowned, his eyes unfocused as he tried to recall. “Not really. Clark wasn’t the kind to make enemies. He was quiet, friendly. If anything, he got teased for how soft he was.”

He paused, then added, “The only thing I can think of is… well, he’d been trying to date someone. A girl from our class. Ruby, I think. She’s bronze-tier too.”

“Ruby,” Noah repeated quietly, filing the name away in his mind. “How did that go?”

Jon shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t seem interested, but Clark could be persistent. Maybe too persistent. I told him to back off, but he said he’d figure it out.”

Noah nodded. It was a lead, even if a small one. “Thank you. That’ll be all.”

He turned to leave but stopped.

He glanced back at Jon. The boy’s face looked even worse up close. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his posture sagged with exhaustion.

“You look terrible,” Noah said bluntly. “What happened to you?”

Jon rubbed the back of his head, giving a weak laugh. “Haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “There’s a tree outside my window. Every night, I keep hearing it scratch against the glass. I’m a light sleeper, so it wakes me up every time. Can’t seem to tune it out.”

“Scratching?” Noah repeated.

Jon nodded. “Yeah. It’s annoying as hell, but it’s just branches. The wind picks up at night. You get used to it.”

Noah’s eyes studied him for a few seconds longer before he nodded and turned away. “Try to get some rest,” he said simply.

Jon nodded faintly and closed the door.

Noah stood there for a moment, silent, before moving towards the staircase.

There was still another student he had to speak with, a bronze-tier as well. Related to another missing name on the list.

Their dorm was upstairs, and like Jon, the missing student had left behind a friend who might know something.

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That night, the academy was quiet.

The torches outside flickered in the wind, their light sending the shadows dancing on the courtyard paths.

Noah sat by his dorm window, a single lamp burning beside him. His desk was covered in scattered sheets of paper, each one filled with hastily written notes.

He rubbed his temple, staring at the patterns he’d been trying to piece together.

Each of the five missing students had stayed behind during the holidays, but only four were truly missing. He’d killed Jack Daniel himself.

Each had different reasons, money, distance, personal projects, but the timing lined up perfectly. All four seemed to have disappeared within the same two-day window.

He’d spoken to their friends, their classmates, and even a few cafeteria staff, who had seen the students come for food recently.

Every story matched. There were no reports of strange behavior. They were just gone.

It made no sense.

And yet, Noah could feel it. There was an invisible thread connecting them all, something he couldn’t yet see.

He leaned back in his chair, tapping the list with his finger as the names spun through his mind.

“Something ties you all together,” he murmured under his breath. “Something no one else sees.”

The lamp flame flickered suddenly, making the shadows on his wall dance.

Noah frowned. He turned toward the window, hearing it then. A faint scratching sound.

He froze, his mind flashing back to Jon’s tired voice.

It couldn’t be just a coincidence, could it?

The scratching came again, just as faint as before, but this time, he couldn’t ignore it as a figment of his imagination.

It was real, and he had no trees next to his window.

Noah rose from his chair silently. The sound stopped.

He moved closer to the window, careful not to make a sound.

The night outside was dark, the campus dimly lit by the few torches that hadn’t yet burned out.

For a moment, he saw nothing.

Then the scratching resumed.

He eased the latch open, pushing the window outwards an inch at a time until the cold air hit his face.

Leaning forward, he peered out. The wind brushed against his skin, but nothing moved below. No trees, no branches, nothing that could have made the sound.

The courtyard looked deserted. The faint ripple of the pond far off reflected the lights from the faculty tower, but everything else was silent.

Noah’s brow furrowed. He leaned out a little farther, scanning the side of the building.

His dorm was on the second floor. There shouldn’t have been anything—

Movement.

He froze.

Something shifted against the wall, the faintest blur in the corner of his eye. Then another.

Noah’s gaze snapped upwards.

Three figures were climbing the outer wall, with unnatural grace.

They ascended quickly, scaling the building towards the upper floors.