Chapter 112

“Damn it, because you bastards were dawdling up front, we missed the timing to escape! The turret has already been restored! Damn Stingray stingray bastards!”

“We agreed to send out those who urgently needed treatment or couldn’t fight first before the turret revived! Why are you complaining only now? Is Militech filled with nothing but kids?”

A fight broke out between those loyal to the Stingray Corporation and those loyal to Militech.

“You think we didn’t see through your plan to have only your company affiliates escape first?! It was the same during the Titan incident too, you damn corporate dogs!”

“If you didn’t like it, you should’ve gotten stronger and signed a contract, shouldn’t you? How about we settle this right here—whoever wins gets to leave first?”

A fight broke out between corporate-sponsored students and unaffiliated students.

“Your Adaptees have modules, and from the start, your healing ability itself is different! Injuries of that level can heal anytime! Shouldn’t ordinary people have been treated first!?”

“Isn’t it obvious that resources should be focused on those who can still fight? We don’t even know when the next chance to escape will come—do you really think we have resources to waste on non-combatants?!”

A fight broke out between Adaptees and ordinary people.

Hundreds of students and staff gathered in the Academy’s 150th Floor Cyber Park. They had split into small groups, each arguing among themselves.

A war of all against all.

Because each fragmented group shouted their own claims, the inside of the Cyber Park was as chaotic as a market square.

The automatic restoration of the outer defense turrets had once again blocked escape, amplifying their anxiety and inflaming public opinion.

Some faculty members tried to step forward to control the chaos somehow. But their voices were pitifully ignored.

After all, even the few remaining faculty members were busy arguing among themselves over what to do. There was no way discipline could be maintained.

“……”

This was bad.

Iri could feel in her very skin that the atmosphere was rushing toward an extreme.

Voices grew louder, the intensity of arguments escalated, and curses were hurled more frequently.

It wasn’t a joke—the inside of the Cyber Park was bubbling like a pressure cooker set over flames.

Mutual hostility heated and expanded. With the smallest spark, it felt like an explosion could break out at any moment.

—Who’s going to take responsibility?!

—It’s all your fault!

—Stop spouting nonsense!

It was spinning out of control.

Silence and Raina glanced at me, their eyes asking what should be done.

But I didn’t have a groundbreaking solution either. I was just as shaken.

I hadn’t expected this at all.

‘Maybe gathering all these people in one place was a mistake.’

The Academy had always been like the Warring States period.

There was the divide between scholarship students and non-scholarship students, and among company scholars, divisions between pro-Stingray, pro-Militech, and the neutral faction.

Even within the pro-Stingray camp, factions existed. Depending on whom one sided with, arguments erupted endlessly.

To have brought such people together regardless of faction or affiliation—it might have been inevitable that fights would break out.

‘W-wait… is this because of me…?’

I had only wanted to save people, only planned to unite everyone to escape this crisis together.

Was that a mistake?

Should I have let them scatter inside the Academy buildings, each group holding their own sit-in?

Had I only created trouble by scratching an unhealed wound, when it could have resolved itself naturally if left alone?

For a brief moment, regret crept in.

‘…No.’

I shook my head to cast away the thought. Even while saving this many people, my group and I had witnessed countless casualties.

There had been corpses of students trampled mercilessly by androids, dead in ways too horrific to describe. There had been those who almost lost their lives, if we had been just a little later.

Even now, there were people crying from the shock of that moment, and others enduring pain with pale faces because their wounds hadn’t yet been treated.

Was I supposed to have left them all behind? They all would have died.

When that thought struck me, a question followed.

‘…When did I change like this?’

When had I started caring this much about the lives of others?

Back when I survived by petty thievery in the Fallen Sector, even if a colleague who laughed with me yesterday ended up dead, I would just shrug it off thinking, ‘As long as it’s not me.’

When had I begun to take it for granted that I had to save people?

Even when a classmate was crushed to death beside me by a concrete chunk thrown by a Titan, I hadn’t thought like this.

What had changed me?

When had it begun?

As I held that question, an image rose in my mind instead of a clear answer.

A man who stood before the masses without the slightest sign of being cowed, overwhelming them instead.

A man who showed no mercy to enemies, yet secretly gave generously to his own while pretending otherwise.

The Crown Prince.

No—as the next Emperor.

Without realizing it, I admired the way he led people from the front. I wanted to be like that too.

Not long ago, I had seen a video of him glaring with those golden eyes at the Academy’s old monsters, delivering his scathing words.

—I need a ‘system’ to protect my people, and those who will become my people.

Those already on his side.

And even those who would become his side.

He referred to them all as though they were subjects he must protect. His presence was worthy of being called not just “Crown Prince,” but “next Emperor.”

I wanted to be like that.

Not a mongrel of the scorned Fallen Sector, but an overwhelming existence admired by all.

He once told me—

—Become overwhelming.

If you could overwhelm others, only then would they listen to your voice. That was why—

‘I’ll resolve this.’

The moment I resolved myself—

Tatatatatatata—!

Gunfire suddenly erupted from the side.

Startled, I turned to see Raina pointing the barrel of her minigun into the air. She had fired it.

Even without asking why, I could guess her intent from her eyes.

Everyone gathered in the park had turned their gaze this way. The tangled emotions had stilled, frozen for the moment.

So this was it.

Thanks, Raina.

For setting the stage.

Silently expressing gratitude, Iri opened her mouth.

“Everyone, please listen to me.”

With that single sentence, countless emotions tangled together once more.

Disregard, contempt, curiosity, expectation, anger, sorrow.

Left alone, this time dissatisfaction would surely erupt in my direction. It meant my words lacked impact.

Sure enough, Raina’s shock therapy did not last long. Murmurs began creeping back among the crowd.

Unfortunately, I still hadn’t decided what exactly to say to them. That was why I desperately racked my brain for the right words.

A phrase that would overwhelm them.

A single line that would make them follow me.

If only a speech as grand and stirring as Aaron’s would come to me—but such things never came so easily.

Tension froze my lips, leaving me unable to move.

Then, in that moment—

Boom! Boom! Boom!

—W-what’s that sound all of a sudden?

—It only started once it got quiet!

The ground began to shake.

It was the sound of something massive approaching from afar.

The noise grew louder with steady rhythm, and my instincts screamed a warning.

That was when I remembered.

How to silence them all.

And make them heed my words.

“All personnel.”

Clack.

I raised my shield.

Then I turned my back, facing the entrance.

“Prepare for combat.”

The short phrase I muttered strangely rang clear in everyone’s ears. Following it, Tactical Combat Department Adaptee students simultaneously deployed their weapons.

KWAANG—!

Soon after, it shattered the entrance apart, accompanied by an ear-splitting roar.

“■■■■■—!”

Its true form was revealed.

A massive corpse golem.

At the same time.

Evangeline, who had gone underground with Aaron to deal with the mastermind ‘Araya,’ could not contain her shock.

“Wh-what is that…!”

She had expected this battle to end in Aaron’s one-sided victory. And for good reason—she had shadowed him all day and seen his power firsthand.

With a mere gesture, he reduced dozens, even hundreds of monsters into scraps of meat no larger than fingernails. With a casual swing of his sword, he cut through everything in sight.

In contrast, Araya’s stolen magic was crafted into unique original techniques, but that was all.

Even if he drew on power forcibly opened from the well, the amount of mana he was permitted to wield had limits.

Surely Aaron would win.

As soon as she sealed the well, Aaron would swing his weapon in style and subdue the freakish monk Araya in an instant.

But her expectation was wrong.

She had miscalculated two things.

One was Araya’s strength.

The originality of his crafted arts was far more troublesome than expected.

The other was Aaron’s strength.

The man who had boasted such overwhelming might—when the battle began…

“Enough, Aaron! Please stop! That’s more than enough!”

“…I cannot.”

“At this rate you’ll kill him! It’s dangerous now. Enough already, fall back—”

“…Unnecessary.”

Ha… how could he be so stubborn.

Evangeline even felt anger at the man who ignored her pleas and fought on at will. Ah, not because he was in danger.

What she had misjudged about Aaron Stingray was—

He was unimaginably, vastly, overwhelmingly stronger than she thought.

“I told you to stop! What will you do if that man dies like this?!”

“All I did was flick my finger.”

“Exactly! But really, what kind of human flicks someone with a finger and leaves them in that state?! At this rate, he really will die—stop already!”

‘To wield a weapon,’ ‘to subdue in style’?

Her prediction was wrong.

Aaron hadn’t even drawn a weapon.

And far from being stylish, it wasn’t even much of a fight. It was so one-sided that even Araya seemed pitiful.

No—could this even be called a fight? To anyone watching, Aaron was simply tormenting his opponent.

Barely five minutes into the battle.

Araya was dying.

From Aaron’s flicks.

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