Chapter 109

“Enter quickly! Run! Hurry!”

As soon as the aircraft stopped above the parking lot, Iri immediately took the lead as if she had been waiting, guiding the team members forward.

Perhaps it was the experience in Colony V7 that had made her grow rapidly as a leader, but her command had become noticeably more skillful.

249th floor, Stingray Corporation office.

It was a familiar place to the Special Class members, so there was little difficulty in moving about.

Typical of a black company—despite it being the weekend, many Stingray employees had still been working in the office, and a considerable number of them were left stranded inside.

When the students suddenly appeared from the direction of the parking lot, employees who recognized them gasped in surprise before welcoming them with relief.

“You, you guys…!?”

“Don’t worry. We came to rescue you.”

“But how on earth did you get here? The sky routes should have been blocked by the turrets!”

It turned out that several of their colleagues had already attempted to escape by boarding aerial vehicles from the parking lot, only to be shot down by the Academy’s defense system.

Because of that, they hadn’t even dared to try leaving again.

Iri reassured them.

“It’s alright. Chairman Aaron destroyed all the external turrets.”

“Ah… so that loud explosion earlier…?”

“Yes, that was from the turrets blowing up.”

“I-I see… If the Chairman himself has come, then I can finally feel at ease. But where is he now?”

“He didn’t come with us. He left this place to us and went to capture the one responsible for causing this incident.”

Iri calmly explained the situation, adding that since all the turrets had been neutralized, they could now escape through the air routes.

However, she also warned them not to delay, since the auto-repair system might bring the turrets back online at any moment.

“Ah, understood. We’ll leave right away.”

“Those without vehicles, please board with your colleagues, or take the aircraft we came in.”

Iri swiftly conveyed instructions to the employees, directing their evacuation while also gathering information about what had been happening inside.

Meanwhile, the other team members began preparing for the next phase of the operation.

Ciel helped Miyu set up the Deep Dive Port so that they could dive into the Academy’s internal network, and ensured there was no chaos as the employees evacuated toward the parking lot.

With all Stingray employees successfully evacuated, the first step of their operation was a success. Before moving on to the next phase, Iri shared the information she had gathered from the employees with the team.

“Android rampages, you say?”

“Yeah. It seems to be the same things we fought back in Colony V7.”

“[Those androids with the black tumors attached, right. This just got troublesome.]”

“N-no, actually… this might work to our advantage…”

Miyu said that if the enemies here were of the same type they had fought in the colony, they might be much easier to deal with this time. When asked why, Ciel answered on her behalf.

“Because we extracted data while defeating that program that had infected their network~. It was a unique virus program that combined magic with network technology, but now we can use a vaccine to deal with it much more easily.”

She added that the “black tumor-like things” the three combatants had seen were likely the physical manifestation of that virus—a hybrid of computer code and magic.

“[They mixed magic and technology? I knew it was magical, but I didn’t think it was something unheard of like that.]”

“W-well, even the Arcane Module works on a similar principle, when you think about it…”

“In any case, if Ciel defeats that program in the network, then the things attached to the androids here will die too, right?”

“Yes, exactly~”

But Ciel cautioned that if the enemy had planted something stronger here than what was in the colony, it could take much longer.

“We’ve analyzed the core code that made up the virus, but unless we test it directly, I can’t guarantee that our vaccine will work~. If it doesn’t, it’ll take us that much longer~.”

“[Which means we can’t just sit around waiting. In the meantime, the robots will keep running wild and cause even greater damage.]”

“Iri, what should we do?”

Raina turned to their leader, and Iri hesitated.

Should they remain here, making this their base, waiting for the Wizard Team to neutralize the program?

Or should they act more proactively, going out to rescue fellow students in danger?

It did not take her long to decide.

“We have to minimize casualties at all costs.”

Iri immediately gave her orders.

“Like the Stingray employees, there are likely many who’ve scattered throughout the Academy and gotten trapped. We need to rescue those people.”

“[So you’re suggesting we move like before?]”

“Exactly. We’ll proceed just like we did in the colony. Ciel, prepare for hacking, and Miyu, support her. Senior and Raina, you’ll come with me to search the Main Building and the Science & Technology Building.”

The reason for prioritizing those two was simple.

The students from the Tactical Combat Department were Adaptees, meaning they had some level of combat ability to protect themselves.

The real issue lay with the non-Adaptee students and faculty, who were mostly concentrated in the Student Main Building and Science & Technology Building. That was where casualties were most likely.

When Iri issued those instructions, Raina raised her hand with a question.

“Are you saying just the three of us will sweep through such massive buildings? That seems terribly inefficient…”

“No. We can’t save everyone.”

Iri shook her head.

“In a crisis like this, people will naturally gather and barricade themselves somewhere—classrooms, training halls, cafeterias. And at the entrances to those places, the androids will inevitably gather in greater numbers.”

She meant that they should focus on the areas where the android signals clustered, striking selectively. With their current power, that was the most effective method.

The entire team agreed, and Iri began refining the plan, sketching specific routes.

“Since it’s the weekend, the places with the highest likelihood of being crowded are here—the dormitory, and here—the multipurpose recreation room. If we center our route around those…”

“We’ll have to be cautious of this android storage facility. It looks like those things could operate as long as they had usable parts.”

“The most numerous units in the Academy are the maid-type androids. They won’t be as durable as the ones we encountered in the colony.”

“Ciel, you absolutely must not leave this room. You could be mistaken for one of those maid-type androids and attacked.”

Without hesitation, Iri laid out a precise, well-thought-out plan.

Could a person really grow so quickly, in such a short time?

Her teammates, recalling that the Chairman had appointed her leader from the start, found themselves secretly impressed by her transformation.

With the plan set, there was no reason to hesitate any further.

“Let’s go.”

To save the people.

I had always wanted to be the protagonist.

Novels, movies, comics, dramas.

The genre didn’t matter.

Action was good, fantasy was good, sci-fi was good. Even bittersweet romance was fine, and if it was a youth drama, I would welcome it with open arms.

Hmm, disaster films, apocalyptic scenarios, and war stories gave me some pause, but perhaps even those wouldn’t be so bad.

At the very least, it had to be better than this place.

Better than this wickedly boring, ordinary world.

If only I could escape this lifeless existence, where everything looked faded and gray, then I would do anything.

Even if it meant living a life gnawing at rotten zombie brains, or carrying the weight of the world on my back while fighting the Demon King to the death—as long as it ended in a happy ending, it wouldn’t matter.

…Well, truthfully, those were just words.

Who would actually wish for such a painful life? If that were the case, I’d rather live just as I was now. I was only exaggerating the resentment pent up inside my chest.

In short, I wanted to be special.

Like the protagonists in countless stories, I wanted a life filled with special powers, dramatic incidents, ultimate victory, and happiness. A life radiant with dazzling light.

Think about it.

Being born into an ordinary family, living an ordinary childhood, going to an ordinary job, starting an ordinary family, growing old ordinarily, falling ill ordinarily, suffering ordinarily, and dying an ordinary death.

Doesn’t that sound sickening?

This was my one and only life, yet if I lived it exactly like everyone else, wouldn’t that be unbearably unfair and wasteful?

That was why.

At first, I tried to discover some kind of talent.

Be it artistic, academic, or physical.

I hoped that maybe there was some hidden genius ability that would set me apart as someone extraordinary, so I tried all kinds of things.

The result was failure.

I had no remarkable talent.

Of course, I showed some skill in a few fields, but what I wanted was an overwhelming gift—something that could overturn the world, a power that would let me live a life no one else could.

Anything less would only leave me with the same mediocre life as everyone else.

Next, I tried strange things.

Praying to be sent to another world, breaking taboos from urban legends, even throwing myself in front of an oncoming truck.

But all of it ended in failure, leaving me with nothing but bitter disappointment and emptiness.

I felt wronged.

In just a single book, I could read about people living such colorful lives. So why was I forced to live this “ordinary” life here?

Why wouldn’t God call upon me?

Why wouldn’t He grant me talent?

Why wouldn’t He give me an exciting event?

Why wouldn’t He send me to another wor—

‘Huh?’

Had God finally heard my prayers?

At last, I succeeded.

By sheer coincidence, I won a Quiz Event. Through it, I obtained the “specialness” I had yearned for so desperately. Of course, I hadn’t become the main character I’d hoped to be, but so what?

In countless other works, weren’t there plenty of protagonists who possessed an extra’s body, yet ended up surpassing even the original main characters?

With an excited heart, I made a plan.

How could I use my knowledge of novels most efficiently? How could I twist this world to my will?

After much thought, I carried out the plan, believing it would surely lead me to the life of my dreams.

But reality was different.

I wasn’t the only one who had transmigrated into this world. As soon as I realized that fact, the light of hope I had carried began to dim rapidly.

To make matters worse, my plan unraveled. Interference from other Transmigrators pushed me into an irreversible situation.

‘How did it come to this?’

I was supposed to be the protagonist.

I was supposed to defeat my rivals and win.

I was supposed to claim the heroines and spend happy days with them.

Why? Why was everything stolen from me?

It shouldn’t have turned out like this.

It shouldn’t have been this way…

“There you are.”

A voice reached me.

That soft, low tone sounded endlessly loathsome and sickening to me. After all, he was the very person who had ruined my perfect plan.

The Cheat Character.

By sheer luck, he had transmigrated into a body with cheat-like abilities, monopolizing opportunities and events however he pleased. A greedy bastard who hoarded everything for himself.

Aaron Stingray.

There was a time when even speaking that name made me feel nauseated, but now it didn’t matter.

It was proof that my original self was fading away. For now, I could still feel a faint sense of dissonance, but soon, as if it had never been otherwise, Araya’s thoughts would become indistinguishable from “my” own, until drawing the line meant nothing at all.

I lifted my head.

And there, I saw a young man with noble features. For a fleeting moment, the thought rose up like a mirage—how wonderful it would be if that body were mine. But the thought vanished as quickly as it came.

Slowly, I opened my mouth.

“…You’ve come.”

At last.

The fact that he had arrived here—

The last fragment of my mind, the final remnant of what could be called my self—

Flickered faintly.

But unmistakably,

It began to burn.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep