Chapter 93

‘O, Oppa……?’

Peter Jones.

The profile picture that appeared to the left of the number in my vision.

For years, I had denied reality, telling myself he would appear before me again someday, waiting endlessly…… and in my mind, I had pictured that scene, that moment.

Ah, ahh……

Something I had been suppressing all this time began to surge upward.

Without realizing it, I let out a sigh and reached my hand toward the ‘Accept Call’ button.

Click.

Along with the connection tone came—

[Hello?]

It was that voice.

The one I could only hear in my dreams.

The voice that would fade away the moment I woke up, leaving me with a longing that made me want to dive back into bed.

What on earth should I say?

There were so many things I wanted to say.

So many questions I wanted to ask.

How did you suddenly come back?

What happened to you?

Why did you hide all this time without sending any word?

Just one word.

Why is it so hard to speak that first word?

With my mind going blank, I couldn’t figure out how to contain the emotions swelling up inside me.

And then, at last—

I made up my mind and opened my mouth.

No, I tried to open it.

That was the moment—

“Huh……?”

In the instant I blinked once—

It suddenly disappeared.

The profile picture of my Oppa, the ‘In Call’ indicator, even the faint breathing sounds I had been hearing from the other side.

“W-wait. Wait……!”

No.

No, this isn’t right.

Did I press something wrong? Or did some unknown error occur? Well, considering how terrible I was with machines, maybe I made some kind of mistake without realizing it.

Yeah, it’s fine. Stay calm.

I can just call again.

Like grabbing hold of a rope I had just let slip away, I opened the call history. I naturally clicked the number at the very top to call again.

But……

“Why…… isn’t it there?”

My Oppa’s number was gone.

I was certain we had been connected for at least ten seconds, but there was no record of it at all, and an unrelated number had taken the top spot.

‘No, no…… no way!’

It’s still fine.

It’ll still be fine.

Yes, I remember the number. I’m certain he called from that number, so if I dial it again, I’ll get through.

Yes, so……

“……ri…… Iri…… Iri!”

“Huh? W-what?”

“Get a hold of yourself.”

“……Sorry, Maria, but something urgent just came up. Can we talk a little later?”

“Iri.”

“Seriously, please! Now’s not the time—!”

“Iri, did you also see ‘something strange’?”

Something strange. Something…… strange?

That word caught my attention, and I turned to see Maria glaring at me with a grave expression. She asked Iri again.

“Did you see something strange?”

“Ah, no. I didn’t really see anything strange. I just suddenly got a call from my Oppa, so I was trying to answer it……”

“Oppa? But wasn’t Iri’s Oppa—”

“I thought so too, but I guess I was wrong. Anyway, I’m in a hurry right now……”

“Was that call reality?”

“O-of course it was reality. I saw and heard him with my own eyes and ears, without a doubt……”

“I’ll ask you again, Iri.”

Maria’s voice turned cold as she asked.

“Was it ‘reality’?”

“……”

Only then did my feverish, chaotic mind begin to settle down.

The thing that had been lodged in my throat sank back down.

My pounding heart began to regain composure.

Even so, clinging to hope, I silently tried dialing again.

That number I could never forget for the rest of my life.

[The number you have dialed does not exist…….]

A cold and unfeeling reality.

The voice of the automated response system, sounding like it was pronouncing a death sentence, extinguished even my last strand of hope.

And like pulling up a piece of metal that had sunk to the bottom of the sea, Iri barely managed to force out a reply.

“……No.”

It seemed that, after all, it hadn’t been reality.

Iri wasn’t the only one who experienced something strange.

6:25 PM.

It was determined that everyone who had been inside the Trinity Academy building at that time had experienced similar symptoms.

The accounts from those affected were alike.

For a short time, they saw strange visions or heard hallucinations.

Moments they had long yearned for, or events dreadful enough to fear, unfolded before them.

However, the degree of it varied from person to person.

Adaptees who had nanomachines in their bodies experienced very short-lived hallucinations.

Even for the longest case, it didn’t exceed three minutes.

Most students from the Tactical Combat Department only went through mild symptoms, and some didn’t even fully realize they had experienced anything unusual.

In particular, those who had modules related to mana resistance or battle hormone control escaped from the hallucinations in less than three seconds.

On the other hand, the Science and Technology Department students and regular staff members suffered greatly.

Some wandered in illusions for over ten minutes before barely waking with the help of others.

Others refused to accept that they had returned to reality and became hysterical.

In any case—

Fortunately, thanks to the swift action of Aaron Stingray, chairman of the Stingray Foundation, who happened to be at the Academy at the time, the chaos was quickly brought under control.

Considering that most faculty and partner company representatives had already left for the day, which could have made the damage worse, it was truly a stroke of luck.

Immediately afterward, Chairman Aaron Stingray brought in the remaining on-duty staff and partner company representatives to begin assessing the incident.

And before long, one fact became clear.

“6:25 PM. At that time, it seems the mana concentration inside the Academy suddenly spiked.”

Although the Academy itself was no different from a large fortress, its defenses in ‘magical’ aspects were utterly lacking.

After all, who would expect a mana-related problem to occur in the Trinity Academy building, located near the heart of the city rather than on its outskirts?

With ‘Anti-rain’ dispersed daily and strict defenses maintained on the outer edges of the city, those inside hadn’t felt a need to prepare thoroughly.

And so, today, of all days, when ‘Anti-rain’ wasn’t dispersed—this disaster struck.

In the end, one thing was certain: this incident revealed a massive hole in Trinity Academy’s security.

Immediately after the incident—

I convened an emergency meeting.

I summoned faculty who had already gone home, board members, security personnel, and partner company representatives to discuss the matter.

But as expected of people whose incompetence was second nature—

These were the same people who, even in the original storyline, repeatedly endangered students with their grand-scale blunders, and the meeting became nothing more than an endless, useless loop.

“How did you find out that the mana levels had risen? Mental contamination caused by mana? Is that credible information?”

“First, we should make sure the students keep their mouths shut. If they start blabbering about something without confirmed causes and the media catches wind, things could get messy.”

“Treatment costs for the students? I heard insurance doesn’t even cover it—why should we pay for that? It didn’t even seem like it was dangerous enough to warrant treatment in the first place.”

While some were desperately trying to avoid responsibility, there were a few who had a bit of sense.

“Thankfully, Chairman Stingray was here, so the damage didn’t escalate further.”

“To find the cause, wouldn’t it be better to organize an investigation team? For this sort of matter, Stingray Security would naturally be…”

“We may need to review our insurance contracts. I’ve heard that Stingray Fire recently released a new product…”

Some quickly realized that I had chosen to attend this meeting personally instead of sending a representative.

They racked their brains trying to curry my favor, but not a single one pinpointed what I actually wanted.

In short, their minds were filled with nothing but money.

They probably thought the only reason I convened this meeting was to use the incident as leverage to extract money from the Academy.

The students……

The safety of the students……

The Academy’s security situation……

To them, the Academy was nothing more than a distribution company treating students as merchandise.

They only sought to line their own pockets with the taxes and sponsorship money they earned while appeasing corporations.

Trinity Academy.

The resolve once embedded in its name—that if humanity were ever threatened, they would even conquer gods—had long since faded beyond recognition.

To these people, the students who died earlier this year in the Titan attack probably weren’t even worth a thought.

Of course, I wasn’t all that different from them.

I didn’t particularly care much either—unless it concerned my own people.

At most, I might care a little for those around me or my company staff.

This world was far too devoid of dreams or hope for me to spare thoughts for every extra’s life.

So, normally, I would have just let it go rather than go through the trouble.

These old bastards were so full of greed that trolling was their default passive skill, and without them playing that role, it would actually make my job harder.

However……

“I don’t know what you all think you’re doing right now.”

Unfortunate news for them.

But at the moment, I was in a foul mood.

“And you’re calling this a meeting? Are you trying to mess with me?”

Just let one of you get caught.

I’ll strip you bare.

At that emergency meeting I had convened that day, I went on a complete rampage.

More precisely, I picked apart every detail of just how incompetent they were, trampling them with cold, hard facts.

The laxity in student management.

The inadequacy of the educational curriculum.

The embezzlement and collusion among faculty, and so on.

Strictly speaking, even the Stingray Foundation I ran wasn’t entirely clean in those areas.

But at the very least, we were nothing compared to them.

I voiced every single problem that came to mind and mercilessly beat them down with it.

The sight of people far older than me sweating bullets, scrambling to defend themselves and curry my favor, was rather satisfying.

Of course, I wasn’t doing this out of any sense of justice.

As I mentioned before, ninety percent of it was simply because the hallucination I experienced that day had left me in a bad mood.

It was basically me throwing a little(?) fit.

The remaining ten percent was genuine.

No—there was a limit to incompetence, and they had gone far beyond it.

Even in that situation, the way they tried so brazenly to look after their own gain was enough to make me frown.

Granted, I had no right to talk when I was planning to incite an android rebellion inside the Academy.

But my goal was, after all, “the growth of the characters through the android rebellion.”

I had no desire for unrelated people to die in the process.

Naturally, I wanted to minimize casualties.

The problem was that the incompetence and corruption of the Academy leadership in responding to this abnormal situation was far worse than I had imagined.

‘At this rate, my people are all going to die……’

I wasn’t joking—there were a few individuals who, in an extreme situation, would undoubtedly throw all the students under the bus just to save their own skins.

‘Even if I have to scrap the plan, I should at least build a safety net.’

Without a protagonist, the difficulty of the scenario also needed to be adjusted to some extent.

With that in mind, I thinned out the rotten seeds during the meeting, picking out several people I didn’t like and making them take responsibility for this incident.

‘But that guy didn’t take the bait……’

I had thought about using this opportunity to take down Joy Bennet, the Academy president from the Minjung Faction whom I had been keeping an eye on, but his guard was stronger than I expected.

Every time I tried to point something out, he skillfully deflected responsibility.

After several failed attempts to attack him, I gave up cleanly.

No matter how much responsibility lay with the Academy leadership, if I went too far in openly attacking the citizens’ representative Academy president, it could end up giving them ammunition against me.

‘Politics really are complicated.’

Especially since this wasn’t something I could simply crush with brute force.

Well, if I were prepared to turn the city into a sea of blood, it wouldn’t be impossible—but I didn’t want to see New Valhalla City transformed into a living hell.

So, this mana terrorism incident ended without the cause being properly identified, with a few members of the Academy leadership taking the blame……

At least, that’s what I learned this morning through Maria’s report.

“Hm.”

“Is there something about it that displeases you?”

Maria, reading my mood precisely, asked me that.

As she said, I wasn’t one hundred percent satisfied with the outcome of this incident.

The reason being—

“Maria.”

“Yes, Young Master.”

“I suspect that Ashita-kyo may be involved in this matter.”

I had a feeling this was the handiwork of that ‘Araya.’

Of course, I hadn’t found any evidence, but when it came to the keywords ‘Transmigrator’ and ‘mana’ or ‘magic,’ he was the only one that came to mind.

When I said that—

Maria carefully replied.

“I can’t deny the possibility. However……”

“However?”

“The problem is that there’s no concrete evidence to justify suspecting them of this crime.

For now, I think it would be best to wait until we have proper examination results.”

She was right.

If I became too fixated on one suspect, my thinking could narrow and I might end up letting the real culprit slip away.

“I see. I’ll keep that in mind. Is that all for today’s report? If so, you may go.”

“No. There’s something I haven’t told you yet. Though, I’m not sure if I should show it to you.”

“……Let’s take a look.”

“I’ll send you a link.”

If Maria wasn’t leaving right away and was saying this, it must be something important.

Thinking that, I followed the link she sent me to a website.

It appeared to be some kind of student community site, and the title of the post she had linked me to read—

[Title: Video of the Young Chairman’s Proper Schooling]

Content: The old geezers got so scared by the facts they couldn’t say a word lol

The attached video showed me tearing into the Academy leadership.

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