120 Producers (4)

"You should be happy that you could escape from a cage of a life where everything is planned up to the last detail. You have the chance to date and marry who you fall in love with. You even have the luxury to fall in love. Do you know how many people in the first district are envious of that?" I stomped my feet with frustration.

Love didn't exist in the first district. Love was an equation of politics and wealth mixed with the horrendous power you got in return. Everything was about subtly showing off everything your family had amassed throughout the generations. It was a competition from the school you attended to how many mansions you possessed.

Maybe the grass really was greener on the other side. The people here didn't know how to enjoy their freedom while we exchanged our privileges for a tall wall of obligations. It was strange how everyone in the first district regarded me as the weird one. To me this whole situation was the one out of place.

"Who needs love when money can buy everything?" The man laughed crazily.

I turned to Jules and Alex for support, but Alex turned away while Jules maintained his friendly next-door neighbor smile. I sighed as this meant they didn't disagree with the man who kept on sneaking glances at his smartphone during our fight. What was on that smartphone anyways? Instead of bothering to continue this useless conversation, I ran up to the rolling chair and swiped the smartphone onto the ground.

"Hey!" He screamed while grabbing the air instead.

FiveBlack and his colleague scrammed for the phone to have it taken away from them by Alex. Alex swiftly tapped on the screen before the phone returned to the lock screen. He immediately went through the files as Jules spelled up a mana barrier to keep FiveBlack and his colleague from taking the phone back.

Jules oddly gave me a thumbs-up as he relaxed while maintaining the barrier. I walked over to Alex to see what was inside the phone to find the true purpose of Lilika Yuri. But, by the time I was in front of Alex, I was no longer in the underground facility.

I was in front of the same café Shelly and I had visited multiple times in the second district. The homey smell of freshly cut wood filled the air as we were quickly escorted to our seats. I confusingly stared at Alex who carried the phone in his hand, constantly tapping on the screen to prevent it from turning off. Did he just teleport us to another place?

"Can I look at the phone too?" I reached out my arm.

Alex ignored me as he continued going through all the photos and other information that could be important. It was as if I didn't exist, sitting in front of him, glaring at him to share the files as his concentration was fully focused on one thing. Jules took out his marble as his screen projected big files of messed up data.

"Alex is transferring all the files," Jules explained to me as he showed how some files were being sent to my marble as well.

The screen of the phone finally turned off when Alex finished transferring all the information into our marbles. When I opened the first title of the biggest report, it was called, "Project Yuri". The report itself was pretty long, it outlined all the plans of the project to the fullest detail. Since I knew I wouldn't be able to read through everything, I went to the conclusion immediately.

[Project Yuri]

[The aim of this project is to block possible communications from first district. The music is spelled to make everyone like Lilika Yuri with intentional lyrics to rebel against the first district. By the end of this project, everyone will be rebellious of the existence of the first district on the second district.]

This was something big, maybe scandalous. No wonder everyone liked Lilika Yuri. Her songs were spelled and the spell worked on various people differently, depending on how much capability for mana they possessed. It also explained why Alex, Jules and I were unaffected due to actually possessing mana.

"What should we do now?" I asked for their opinions.

"Stay put for now. The first district will take care of the rest of this," Alex warned me.

Jules nodded as Alex tried to contact the authorities in the first district for it to fail. It seemed the communications were already blocked in this area due to the wide-scale spell. He frowned as he glared at me to stay in my spot as he tried to send the message again.

I sipped on my strawberry milkshake, ignoring Alex who begun to get frustrated from his never-ending failed attempts. His calm façade started to break down when a jazz version of one of Lilika Yuri's songs began to play in the café. My ears pleasantly listened to the jazz version, which was the best cover of all the versions we had heard so far today.

When the café was about to close, we had nowhere to go in the early evening. It was one of the perfect times to go sightseeing with all the bright lights that painted the city. Fortunately, not many people played another Lilika Yuri song in the dead of the night, outside.