Chapter 92 Volume III - 13: Responsible for All the Chaos

Chapter 92 Volume III - Chapter 13: Responsible for All the Chaos

"Put your hands in the air if you don't want your end to be like his."

As soon as I heard the words of the man with the gun pointed at me, I threw my hands up in the air.

It was unexpected. If it hadn't been for the Absolute Mind, I might not have known what to do out of surprise and maybe I would have even made a wrong move. Now, however, I was fortunately calm and so... I thought.

How did this happen? It is impossible for the organization to have spread even among the royal soldiers... In the original story, it never happens even once. And even if they did, if they tried to fight back, the casualties would be enormous. No matter how much I think about it, the most logical thing for them in this situation is to retreat.

Then why am I in this situation?

Did I make a mistake in preparing the plan?

I kept thinking and then I realized that I had done only one thing that could have caused this change; Larry's death.

Larry's death didn't normally happen this early. When it happened, as players we had already cut the organization off from the kingdom, and now it happened much earlier. And as a result of that, the organization chose to be more active instead of being more passive...?

Isn't that... absurd without adequate preparation? Or did they really move fast enough to implement such a plan in such a short time...

No, it's impossible that they had prior knowledge of the operation that's going on now. Even the soldiers themselves found out exactly what was going on when they went inside the academy. It's impossible that it could have happened so fast.

So they were already planning something before this operation took place. Now that things have happened like this, they must have chosen to speed things up, but what could they have planned?

I could think of a few things, but they were all outrageous. Someone had to be crazy to think of these things.

"Now you will walk in front of me without making a sound, don't make any unnecessary movement or you will be riddled with holes."

Okay... for now I'd better focus on what's in front of me, I need to get out of here first.

The guy's general level should be somewhere between D and C. So in a fight, I'm unlikely to win, especially without knowing his skills and mastery. And the rifle in his hand is another threat...

There is a reason why swords, spears, bows, etc. are used today despite the existence of firearms. This is because firearms are extremely costly and inefficient in terms of mana compared to other weapons.

For example, if someone tries to fire a mana-enhanced bullet with a normal weapon, the weapon will shatter under the force of the bullet. If someone tries to power up the weapon along with the bullet, they would have to pour mana into each of the different mechanisms inside the weapon, which would be a waste of mana. On top of that, if the weapon malfunctions, it will be extremely expensive to get it repaired compared to normal weapons.

Then there's the durability of the bullets, the material of the different mechanisms inside the weapon, the complexity of the mechanisms as the level of the firearm increases, and again the prices... especially the lack of a 'style' to use the mana appropriately with the weapon. There are many more things about firearms, but this does not mean that they are not used at all.

Sniper rifles can be powerful enough to compete with normal weapons if one has a skill or something that can be used effectively with firearms, but instead of going through such an ordeal, it makes more sense to turn to other weapons that are much cheaper and more efficient.

Still, that doesn't change the fact that they are a threat to a certain grade, say around D grade, and I'm not even D grade yet...

"Come on, move!"

I clicked my tongue slightly and looked at the nearest window.

Can I use wind magic to reach the window in time for him to react?

Impossible, considering he's at least D grade... Then I need a distraction.

As I slowly made my way back out of the room, I looked around, and then I saw the tablet sitting on my desk.

As soon as I saw the tablet, I focused on my mana and sent a momentary gust of wind to where the tablet was.

Under normal circumstances, the man should be able to sense the mana I was using, but I am not normal.

My mana does not use a rune as a catalyst to create a wind spell. When I cast a wind spell, the catalyst is my own soul directly inside my body, so no mana leaks out of my body. This means that when I cast a wind spell, for someone to sense my mana, they need to pay attention to the flow of mana in my body, not the mana leakage.

So the chances of the soldier noticing what I was doing were extremely low, and just as I thought, the soldier didn't even notice the wind current I sent toward the tablet.

As soon as the wind current reached the tablet, I amplified it many times over. The tablet was thrown noisily against the wall and shattered.

The soldier reflexively turned quickly to the side, taking his attention away from me, if only for a second, and that was all I needed.

I gritted my teeth and threw myself at the window with all my strength, but not only that, I backed myself up with wind magic and in just a second I was floating at the level of the eighth floor, glass shards shattering and glass scratches appearing on my body.

It was actually a pretty good view if I could ignore the situation I was in. The sun shining through the clouds, the cool breeze blowing gently, and the small pieces of flying glass shimmering in the light...

It was the perfect moment to feel like a main character, but I was not the main character.

Immediately after that split-second thought, I accelerated and started to fall to the ground. I quickly used wind magic again and reduced my speed to a level that wouldn't take me out of the fall with too much damage.

I held my breath as I got closer and closer to the ground and then I crashed into the concrete.

I felt my feet throbbing, but I had to if I wanted to keep as much of my mana as possible. So I didn't think too much about it, the Absolute Mind was already helping me to ignore the pain and so I focused on my surroundings.

What I saw made me freeze in place. n0VElusB.c0m

"Wh- what?"

The scene I had seen when I returned to my room with the soldiers, everything was under their control, everything was as it should be.

What I was seeing now... was not what I expected to see.

Everyone was fighting each other. Spies among the students, even among the janitors, were attacking random people. Even among the royal soldiers there were those attacking innocents.

Powerless students screamed as they fell to the ground one by one, blood from corpses and wounded spilled onto the concrete, limbs flew everywhere, thrown spells created random explosions...

Even if the spies had wristbands to identify them, the people who knew this information were limited to soldiers and high officials. So nobody knew who was the enemy, and the spies took advantage of this to make things even more confusing.

The atmosphere could be described in one word.

Chaos, pure chaos.

"H- hel-"

It was a student who shouted at me, just four meters away from me, lying on the ground. When he saw me, he didn't think I was his enemy and called out.

Yet what I saw only made me stiffen again where I was.

The student was missing his left arm, half his face was burned and he was crying. He was interrupted by a spell that had exploded in his back.

The student's leg rolled in front of me with the explosion. I couldn't even see where his lifeless body was thrown, so another reality hit me again, and for a moment I felt the whole world freeze.

Is this... what is happening here... is it because of me? Why is the organization attacking instead of retreating? How did the soldiers lose control in the first place...?

As the thoughts permeated my brain, my eyes widened as I realized something.

Among the spies were people wearing the black light armor of the organization, people who should not be in the academy.

How did they get here so fast? The operation started less than an hour ago!

That's when I noticed a blue light. There were flashes from the roofs and windows of some buildings, from inside the woods, and so on, out of sight, and the people in black were coming from the places where these flashes were coming from.

Immediately I realized what was happening.

There were gates inside the academy that led to the organization, and as soon as I realized that, all the crazy ideas I had been thinking about before entered my mind one by one.

These guys were already preparing for a raid on the academy... They just had to postpone it because of the operation.

So, it's my fault.

I'm to blame for all this chaos.

The fact that something like this could happen... never once occurred to me.

While I was thinking, there was another explosion right in front of my eyes. The flames surrounded the place and engulfed everyone who was close to it, no matter who they were.

All the deaths, the screams, the burning, the severed limbs... I am responsible for it all.

More frightening still... I don't actually feel anything inside.

I can think about these things, but they don't come back to me as feelings. I know I am guilty, I even feel the guilt, but I can't get stressed and upset about it.

I can just think about it, accept it.

That's... the only thing Absolute Mind allows me to do.