Chapter 115

Pandemonium.

Right after the sudden appearance of the monster, there was no word more fitting to describe the situation. Hope was nowhere to be found, and even in Donovan’s mind, only despair filled the void.

But just what on earth had happened?

At the center of it all—around Iri Elisbell, the Fallen’s stray dog girl—something truly peculiar began to unfold.

Of course, it wasn’t as if she had done something remarkable.

She merely ran about with her shield, supporting those who needed help. Something any Adaptee could have done, perhaps.

What Iri did was simple.

While the students were scattering in all directions, she deliberately dashed into the swarm of monsters.

She drew their gazes to herself on purpose, blocked their attacks with her shield, buying a brief moment of time. She helped others rise from where they had fallen, so they could grab their weapons again.

That was all.

This was not to belittle her actions—truly, that was all she did.

Only—

If there was one difference.

Unlike the others, she did not care the slightest for her own safety.

She moved not to survive herself, but to ensure others survived.

Had she been alone, she could have escaped this chaos and clung to life.

But she didn’t.

‘Why…?’

Once again, it wasn’t anything extraordinary.

Strictly speaking, it was hardly even that helpful. Her Pure Spec was above average, sure, but in the Academy as a whole, she wasn’t particularly outstanding.

She was just a first-year, who had only been through a few months of training and education.

A time when talent might begin to bloom, but not yet in full blossom.

And oddly enough, it seemed her sponsor hadn’t even raised her Replacement Rate yet.

Though he hadn’t checked her Module status directly, from her movements and the feel of her skin, Donovan could tell her Replacement Rate was among the lowest in the first year. Her body was still far more protein than metal or plastic.

Even with excellent natural talent, without full Moduling, the Academy was full of students far stronger than Iri. If they had stepped forward, they would have produced results far more significant than hers.

And yet—

Even though Iri had done so little—

‘The situation is changing…!’

Those who received her help.

Those who took hold of the hand she offered.

They began to gather around her.

The students who had scattered in fear, thinking only of saving themselves, suddenly rallied. They formed a defensive line, concentrated their fire, and held the front.

As Iri thrust her shield forward to block incoming strikes, they trusted her as though she were a comrade they’d fought beside for years, striking at the monsters with their weapons.

‘What the hell is this?’

What power did that girl have?

What great thing had she done—

That they suddenly began to follow her like this?

At that moment.

Donovan’s mechanical eye suddenly zoomed in on Iri, as if in error, projecting her vividly before him.

And the instant he saw her—

‘Ah….’

He let out an unconscious sigh.

Iri’s state was miserable.

From how much she had moved, she was panting heavily. The hair she had tied back was now disheveled, hanging loose and wild.

And that wasn’t all.

Sweat poured down her body, clinging with dust and soot, darkening her once fair skin. The beauty that had been her only advantage was gone, leaving her disheveled and filthy.

Her body was no better.

Her armor, unable to block every strike, was torn and shredded like rags. Beneath it, her fragile protein flesh had been cut open, blood seeping out.

She was truly a wretched sight.

A hero? No, she was nothing of the sort.

Had Donovan encountered someone like her on the street, he would have scoffed in disdain.

And yet.

What was it?

What was this feeling?

This indescribable emotion welling up from deep within his gut.

“……!”

Donovan couldn’t tear his eyes away.

The memory and feeling of clawing desperately not to die just moments ago had vanished.

Without realizing it, he clenched his fists, forgetting even that a monster was closing in, as he watched the “Fallen’s Stray Dog” fight.

And so—

The mood began to shift around Iri.

It wasn’t a miracle.

It wasn’t because she was overwhelmingly more capable than the others. Nor because her leadership was exceptional.

It was simply because she was not selfish.

Because she did not think of her own gain.

That was all.

“……Damn it.”

Throb.

Once again, something welled up inside Donovan. Whether it was irritation, anger, or something else entirely, even he did not know.

But what was certain—

Was that the confusion clouding his mind felt as though it was clearing away. With his head at last clear, Donovan made a decision.

“Here! Support us here!”

Abandoning his pride, Donovan shouted toward Iri. Whether she heard or not, Iri and the students around her quickly turned and charged toward his position.

She raised her shield to block the monster in front of them, holding off its attacks while the others struck it down.

Donovan’s group, given a brief reprieve from the brink of death, swiftly reorganized and fired their weapons at the monsters that had been hunting them.

With his ammo completely spent and even his prized Flamethrower useless, Donovan instead charged forward and threw his fists.

“Urrraaahhhhhh!”

Though his original position was Gunner, thanks to his various Modules his reinforced body specs allowed him to inflict real damage even on the bizarre monsters.

Donovan pressed forward, swinging beside Iri, kicking writhing masses of flesh, shouting:

“I’m not gonna thank you!”

“That kind of crap…!”

Iri shoved her shield into a monster and retorted.

“I never expected you to!”

“……Fair enough!”

Together, they broke through the encirclement and managed to rejoin the group of students Iri had gathered.

Finally able to breathe, Donovan glanced at Iri. She was already pushing off again, about to rush out to save someone else.

He called out to her.

“Hey, Fallen!”

“……Shut it.”

“Damn it. Wait a second, Elisbell!”

Since she ignored him when he called her “Fallen,” he had to use her name.

Only then did Iri turn to look at him.

“Remember I said I had something to tell you?”

“I don’t remember.”

“There was a time I couldn’t say it—because your girlfriend suddenly showed up.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“What, already broke up?”

“I told you, we weren’t dating in the first place!”

“O-Oh… I see….”

No, this wasn’t what he wanted to talk about.

“A-Anyway, it’s something really important, alright!? So after this is over, let’s talk!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I mean….”

It was oddly humiliating to say it. But Donovan bit his lip and forced the words out to Iri.

“……Don’t you dare die. It leaves a rotten taste.”

Iri scoffed and replied.

“I’m not dying before you.”

“You—! That’s how you answer when I worry about you…!?”

“Hmph.”

And with that, Iri leapt away.

“……No way I’m ever getting close with that bitch.”

Grumbling so, Donovan turned his gaze toward the approaching monsters and raised his fists. At the very least, he thought, he had to survive longer than that stray dog.

Even in the real Academy, where everyone was locked in desperate struggle, fierce battles raged within Cyberspace as well.

“This one’s wrong too! Make a new one!”

[Just hold out five more seconds!]

As Ciel dashed through alleyways made of data, a hostile swarm pursued her.

It was the same black monsters she had seen back in the Colony.

Only now, their numbers had tripled, and the same weapon-codes no longer worked.

Because of that, the vaccine they had built from the data spat out by the fallen program in the Colony was useless here.

Thus, Ciel and Miyu had no choice but to start again from scratch, working out how to defeat the monsters.

If a single monster that they had barely brought down in the Colony was now multiplied threefold, it should have been utterly hopeless—but surprisingly, the battle wasn’t going too badly.

One reason was that students from the Science and Technology Department, skilled in coding and hacking, had joined them.

[Attack code design complete!]

[Debugging—three seconds, two, one… done!]

[Sending it over!]

At that moment, Ciel’s body began to glow, and over her was layered the thick armor of a Powered Armor suit. A 150mm railgun cannon and a large-caliber Vulcan cannon on her shoulders were a bonus.

Even without analyzing the data in detail, she instinctively knew how powerful this code was.

Not even a genius like Miyu could have written such a program this quickly on her own.

The students who had joined them were assisting Miyu, enabling her to design offensive programs at a far faster pace than usual.

Of course, at first many had objected to the idea of an Android playing the role of Wizard. Just moments ago, they had been attacked by robots of the same model.

But given the situation, they had no choice but to help Miyu, assisting Ciel’s fight inside the virtual space.

“Great! This will do!”

The moment she saw the new weapon, Ciel quickly learned how to use it, turned around, and unleashed all her firepower on the black monsters.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!

The rounds she fired tore into the hostile program’s weak points. The monsters writhed in pain, and Ciel finished it off by firing the railgun at the foremost one.

BOOOOOOM!

The shell tore straight through its body, dealing heavy damage to the other two as well.

“Yes! Got one!”

[That’s the one that seized the Academy’s defense system! Reclaim the turrets first!]

The slain monster immediately dropped a key.

Ciel absorbed it into her body, and soon her vision was filled with the camera feeds from the defensive turrets under her control.

The triangular, 250-story Academy building, and the massive tentacles coiling around it like a serpent.

Ciel began using the turrets to attack the tentacles. The sight of hundreds of automated turrets firing in unison was straight out of a kaiju movie.

But—

“This is no good, it’s not working at all!”

[Damn it, with all that firepower and it doesn’t even flinch—ughwaaaargh!]

One student watching the shared feed suddenly vomited violently. The tentacle’s aura had started to infect his mind.

And it wasn’t just him—the other students watching were also growing unwell.

Ciel fared a little better.

Perhaps because she was an Android and a Transmigrator. Or maybe because she only existed within the virtual space. She seemed more resistant than the other students.

Still, the damage was building up.

Slowly, but surely.

And that accumulated damage—

Exploded at the worst possible moment.

“Ugh!? Gyaaaaahhh!?”

[Ciel! Ciel, what’s happening!?]

Ciel felt as though her mind—

More precisely, the ‘soul’ that had possessed this body—was being torn apart.

An ordinary human might have vomited, fallen into terror, or gone insane. But as a Transmigrator, her borrowed soul within Ciel’s AI core itself was beginning to fracture.

And then—

[!^#@#[email protected]#$^[email protected]!!]

The surviving programs, having recovered from her earlier attacks, extended their tentacles toward her once more.

‘N-No…!’

Even knowing what was happening, Ciel could do nothing.

Her mind was what existed in this virtual world, and as her mind destabilized, her data-constructed avatar also grew unstable.

‘P-Please…!’

She tried to muster the last of her strength to escape, but it was no use.

In the end, the monsters seized her body, stripping away the authority she had regained over the Academy’s defense systems.

‘N-No…!’

Ciel reached out toward the ‘key’ being stolen by the monsters, but it was futile. She could feel even her very mind being devoured by them.

This was truly dangerous.

Death in Cyberspace was deadly even to normal Wizards.

For flesh-and-blood Wizards, the best-case scenario was to remain unconscious for months. More often, they died, or were declared brain-dead.

And what of her, with an AI core in place of a brain? She didn’t know exactly—but surely the result would be far more horrific.

‘Please, Lord Aaron…!’

It’s about time you showed up, isn’t it!?

You couldn’t have foreseen a crisis like this either. At this rate, the people you care about are going to die. So please—show yourself, and use those ridiculous abilities of yours to do something!

That was when it happened.

Bzzzzzt, crackle.

Suddenly, the monsters gripping her body distorted and released her.

At the same time, an exterior camera feed of the Academy flashed into Ciel’s vision.

“N-No way…!”

The massive tentacle wrapped around the Academy had been severed at the end, spraying black blood everywhere.

The culprit was obvious.

Rotating the camera and zooming in revealed—

A man in a suit, holding a sword, sprinting straight up the Academy’s vertical wall.

“H-Haha….”

Ciel let out an involuntary laugh.

‘Your timing really is perfect, as always.’

Truly.

What a remarkable man.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep