Chapter 241

I had no desire to see a person’s head explode on the front page of the Imperial newspaper.

The screams of the reporter and cameraman came through the filter. Similar noises were heard in the hallway and the stadium.

Thud— Splat—

The sound of the player collapsing to the floor was heard.

“What, what….”

“…….”

The image of his neck snapping wouldn’t leave my mind.

This was not a simple suicide.

All the evidence and the atmosphere before and after the incident indicated that the player was, in fact, murdered. Behind this incident, there must be the terrorists that the government failed to stop.

The front page of the Imperial newspaper was now blank. As if nothing had happened, the newspaper deleted all content and began displaying yesterday’s articles.

But this pandemonium remained. The person who was alive just a moment ago but was now a corpse remained. The fact that it was not a simple suicide also remained. The fact that the enemies, as expected, had not finished, and that the government had ultimately failed to stop the terror, still remained, and the fact that a firearm had been brought in, indicating a hole in security, did not change. I saw the black letters sprouting one by one in the newspaper and threw it to the floor. As if there was confusion in the internal decision-making of the Imperial newspaper, yesterday’s articles disappeared and the phrase ‘Awaiting broadcast’ filled the page.

In the staff corridor, people with pale faces began to run somewhere. From the audience seats just beyond the wall, voices of doubt and fear still mingled into a single mass. Someone was vomiting, likely from seeing human insides.

Ting—!

「 Chapter 7. Truly, truly, I say to you…. 」

“…….”

Pristine white letters began to be written before me in cursive. This was noteworthy.

The chapter titles on the status window had always been proverbs of this country, but this time, it was from the Bible. Where was it from? Of course, I had no energy to leisurely trace back my memory to which book that sentence was from.

‘…I.’

Surely, at a time like this, there was a way for me to salvage everything.

I slowly looked around. Elias was covering his mouth with a dazed expression.

I had expected the terrorists wouldn’t give up on this competition, but the shock of seeing someone commit suicide against their will did not fade.

Realizing I couldn’t just stand there, I quickly thought of an answer.

I had to turn back time.

‘Retry window.’

[W-where should I go? Where do I go?]

[Get out, quick! Why isn’t the warp working?!]

The pristine white letters of the retry window being written before my eyes were unreadable. Instead, the buzzing of people’s conversations filled my ears.

Why wasn’t the warp working? Because the government had blocked two-way warps between the event site and the outside.

Now we were trapped here. The government would never lift this restriction, not even for the sake of catching the culprit.

Beep—

[Lukas. Can you hear me?]

“…….”

[If there’s anything I can do to help right now, tell me.]

I heard Leo’s voice.

Listening to his words, I stared at the pristine white letters written before my eyes.

The retry text shone white.

Just by calling it, I could go back to before all this happened.

But….

‘…I can’t.’

I had to be careful.

It would be a different story if it were before someone died, but the incident had already occurred. As I had always thought, if I was going to use points to turn back time anyway, it was best to do it after gathering as much information as possible.

“Do as you were told. Don’t do anything that stands out.”

[…….]

“Not now. We have to wait.”

[I understand.]

The information I needed to know was these two things.

First, what kind of threats did the player receive? Why did he have to commit suicide?

Only then could I know how to save him—in other words, how to prevent the new terror that would start from this.

Second, how will the terrorists move after this time? Will they carry out the real terror, and if so, in what way?

Turning back time rashly without obtaining these two pieces of information was like hitting a rock with an egg.

Beep— Beep— Beep—

An alarm sounded from the artifact.

It was a summons.

[This is a message for the Imperial Mages’ Association, classes 90 to 101….]

I turned around and left the staff corridor, heading towards the opening ceremony venue.

As long as I had decided to watch a little longer, I needed to stay here and follow orders to grasp the terrorists’ movements, unless they were sending me on a completely pointless task.

And there was one more reason to follow orders for a while, but while it was important, it wasn’t a special reason, so it wasn’t the time to think about it.

The Emergency Committee had just ordered the mages from the 90th to 101st classes of the Mages’ Association to move the people at the opening ceremony to the warp coordinates. That place was the plaza at the eastern end of the Pentalon venue.

They didn’t seem to have any intention of lifting the warp restriction placed on the area. After moving them to the plaza, they would probably thoroughly inspect for criminals or suspicious individuals with Divine Power and then have them move on foot.

Narce was once again an exception to this call. He, along with the Imperial Divine Power mages, had to cast a barrier of Divine Power over the opening ceremony venue.

Woooong— Beep—

[Attention, audience members. The 1st Pentalon opening ceremony will be temporarily suspended as of this time. An investigation and safety check by the authorities is currently underway. Accidents are expected due to congestion at the exits, so please remain in your seats and wait for assistance. I repeat. Please remain in your seats and wait.]

[101st class, do you copy?]

The announcement from outside and the sound from the artifact overlapped.

“I copy.”

[Please move the New Human audience in sections 35, 36, and 37 to 390:567:183. 390:567:183, 390:567:183.]

[Lukas, Elias! Go to section 37. It’s 258:281:402.]

Unlike a moment ago when his soul seemed to have left him, Leo sent us a notification in a sharp voice.

We now had to warp all the spectators to the plaza. Although the audience in the section mentioned by headquarters was entirely composed of New Humans, most of them, like most humans, probably didn’t have enough magic power to warp on their own.

It wasn’t that we were given menial work because we were rookies. Since warp magic required a considerable amount of magic power, mages with a large amount of magic power were deployed for rescue and damage prevention work.

Elias, who had come to his senses at some point, looked at me and asked with a hardened face.

“Will you be okay?”

“I’m fine. I have to do it.”

Elias, also thinking there was no other choice, nodded with worried eyes. He took my hand and moved to the warp point in section 37. As soon as they saw us, the people in section 37 stood up and flocked towards us, and I shouted at them.

“You can all move. If you don’t keep in line, it will take longer! Take hands in groups of ten, starting from the top row!”

At a time like this, there seemed to be no such thing as Pleroma or anything else. They didn’t care about my eyes at all. They just grabbed my arm.

Elias, taking the hint, started running down towards the lower part of the seats. The people who were on the lower side started flocking to him.

“Don’t grab anymore! Don’t grab!”

“What if we can’t go!”

‘He said 390:567:183.’

I swallowed and closed my eyes.

At that moment, the wind of the plaza hit me. I felt my insides turn over, but unlike other times, my whole body maintained its strength, as if it knew it was a crisis situation.

“Thank you. Thank you. You should get out quickly too.”

Someone grabbed my shoulder and said in a trembling voice.

Even though only one person had committed suicide, the people knew very well that this was a prelude to terror.

Upon arriving at the plaza, people started running towards the checkpoint visible in the distance. Not that they would be able to get out right away.

I immediately closed my eyes and memorized the warp coordinates Leo had called out earlier. Once again, all sorts of human noise pierced my ears. I heard the sound of something heavy falling and someone’s scream, as if someone had been pushed by the crowd and fallen off the railing.

“H-he’s here!”

Someone grabbed my hand. I no longer needed to count how many people were connected by magic. My magic could cover twenty people anyway, and although I had never tested it, it could probably handle more. I chanted the coordinates again.

How many times did I repeat this? I started to feel nauseous even though I hadn’t eaten anything. It seemed to be worse because I wasn’t opening my eyes, making me dizzier.

[…101st class, do you copy?]

“…….”

[Move sections 38 and 39 to 390:567:183. This is the last New Human section. 390:567:183, 390:567:183.]

They were now just shooting out orders without even checking the personnel count.

It was only natural, given the shortage of mages.

The mages of the Guard Corps would have been deployed to this site again, but this situation was different from a security check with ample time. The number of mages, less than 20,000, was far too small to evacuate the tens to hundreds of thousands—which had certainly become millions by now, with the increase of people who came to watch the performances outside the stadium after the opening began—of spectators here.

I grabbed the hands of the people looking for me in section 38 and warped. After repeating this about three or four more times, I was practically sleeping on my feet while warping when the sound I made woke me up.

“Ugh….”

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in the bathroom, having stepped back for a moment.

I didn’t even know when I had come here. The sound I made made my stomach churn even more, and I retched a few more times before going to the sink, collecting water, and splashing it on my face. I roughly wiped the water running down my neck and stared at the mirror.

‘Alright.’

I had waited long enough.

It was time to stop following orders and formulate a new strategy here.

I wasn’t trying to slack off because warping was hard.

I listened to the sound coming from the crumpled Imperial newspaper on one side of the sink and looked at my wristwatch.

The current time was 12:32.

The suicide occurred at 12:12, and 20 minutes had passed since then.

‘The evacuation has been going on openly for 20 minutes, yet the culprit hasn’t acted on it.’

A considerable number of people had already gathered in Brandenburg Park, but they weren’t doing anything there either. Everyone was preparing to flee, yet they were resting quite well.

In other words, this meant that the culprit had no intention of committing terror in the stadium and the park right now.

‘This won’t be the end.’

They definitely have something more prepared, but how long do they intend to hide it?

Thinking that far, I took a deep breath and listened to the sound of the Imperial newspaper. They were reporting on the current situation and countermeasures. The sound was faint because it was wet, but I could definitely understand it.

[Our government’s security department has stated that regarding this suicide incident, given the continuous malicious attacks on the Pentalon, the fact that the player was in the middle of an interview at the time of the suicide, the player’s unstable state, and his words right before his death, it ‘cannot be seen as a simple suicide’ and is highly likely to be a Pentalon terror attempt by Pleroma.]

“…….”

[His Majesty Emperor Friedrich has declared that he will ‘thoroughly punish Pleroma, which harms the safety of the world, and will secure the safety of our subjects and the tourists from the 56 countries participating in the Pentalon as the top priority’….]

Crackle—

[Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.]

Thud—….

A hurried, trembling voice.

Unlike before, when the sound of the scene was mixed in, this time the sound quality was clear.

With the sudden change in audio, the ground where I stood trembled slightly once or twice. I turned my head and looked at the Imperial newspaper.

The screen still showed the reporter in front of the Pentalon main stadium, but unlike before, the reporter had a bewildered expression and was saying something to the people behind the camera.

The screen and the audio were playing separately.

Beeep— Crackle—

[…! Are we back? Yes, can you hear me now? They say you can. It seems there was a momentary error.]

“…….”

‘Worth remembering.’

‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ Yes. Good. It was a very surreal thing to hear in the middle of an emergency broadcast by the empire’s top newspaper, which had spent a fortune on it in broad daylight. So much so that I wondered if I was dreaming.

With that thought, I looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath.

Talking about a trip with Elias just a moment ago felt like something from another world. Leo, too, seemed to be planning something, given his sudden nonsensical talk, but I wondered if that plan was still feasible.

Because, in this timeline, we would not be alive after the opening.

‘Although I’m about to change that.’

Still, I had to clearly recognize the fact that we would be annihilated in this original timeline.

The basis of all battles is information, and the first step is knowing myself. Knowing myself means clearly understanding our current military strength, what kind of terrain we are on, and what situation we are in.

In understanding the current situation, one must recognize only the facts, without additions or subtractions.

But, while I say I must ‘recognize only the facts, without additions or subtractions’, am I being too pessimistic?

Is it premature pessimism? Or am I being too radical?

‘No.’

I slowly raised my hand and took off my leather glove.

Just now, as I was reorganizing my thoughts to readjust my strategy here, I unexpectedly obtained the second piece of information I had thought I needed earlier.

Information about whether the culprits would indeed carry out the real terror after this suicide incident, and if so, how they would do it.

First, the culprits have already committed terror.

Second, the method was executed like this.

I looked expressionlessly at the blue magic glowing faintly in the shape of a cross on my palm.

“…….”

A spell was cast on my body. And this spell was likely not cast on me alone.

This was how they had planned to come out, from the very beginning.

The suicide was a preview.

The main feature starts now.

The magic swirling like seawater in my palm right now did not come from within but was given from the outside, in other words, it was drawn as a kind of magic circle. A cross mark was drawn in the same position on the palm of my other hand.

[Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.]

This must have been a kind of curse. When the conditional sentence was recited, the magic they had laid out in advance would move as programmed.

Seeing as the ground shook, the terrorist cast a spell on this space. Evacuating to Brandenburg Park was a meaningless act. That was why the terrorist had been a bystander while we were diligently evacuating the audience.

Why? Because they were currently searching for terrorists there with Divine Power, and most people had not yet gone outside.

‘To think of doing this to millions, it’s amazing.’

Where did this technology come from, and whose plan was this?

Of course, I could have deduced enough from the information I had gathered so far.

Beep—

[Your Excellency Askanian. Do you copy?]

“…….”

I heard the voice of the doctor who had taken me to a strategy room somewhere underground during the magic lamp terror incident.

[There is an elevator in front of the north gate of the first floor of the staff corridor. Please come there. I will come to get you.]

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