Chapter 54

The interior and exterior of the barrier were clearly different.

I managed to find out that much through [Understanding], but its effectiveness in the absence of any information wasn't that great.

"…"

Even though it prohibited everyone from passing through, I easily walked into it by tearing a small part of it using my cane and was soon met by a gloomy and dark atmosphere seemingly littered with red lanterns, making it a little nauseating to look at.

"Calm down, everyone."

Hearing a voice coming from deeper into this barrier, I tracked the source down, passing through the dormitory hallway and reaching the hall on the first floor.

The children gathered under the guidance of the housekeeper.

"Professor!" One of them yelled the moment they spotted me.

They looked like they had found their savior, but I couldn't be friendly to them.

The dark mana inside the barrier was getting on my nerves.

"I'm safe! Professor, how—"

"Shut up."

Their noise subsided in an instant.

I looked at the housekeeper.

She wore pointed glasses and wrinkled clothes, her shoulders covered in dust and her nails torn.

I also checked on the students' conditions.

Their robes were in tatters, and their expressions screamed distress.

I noted down all the trivial cues.

"Is everyone here?"

"There seem to be more people upstairs." The housekeeper said. I opened my briefcase, and ten wood steel shurikens rose and soared up the stairs to the upper floor of the dormitory, while the remaining ten descended to the basement of the building.

"…"

I closed my eyes and detected their sounds, allowing me to pinpoint their locations as if I was using a sonar device purely caused by an attribute bonus. Since I had a talent for fire, earth, and metal elements, I realized this unique ability while interacting with something I cherished.

The wood steel flew up the stairs and went through each floor, informing me whenever they found humans through resonance.

At the same time, they tore apart non-human creatures without mercy.

In the end, I detected four people in total, one on the fifth, sixth, ninth floor, and tenth floors.

I steered the wood steel to guide them.

—W-What is this? What are you?

—Are you asking me to follow you?

—I-I can't. There's a monster outside…

They were hesitant at first, but I soon calmed their fears down.

"Follow me."

The wood steel vibrated, creating a "frequency" that transmitted my voice to them. Hearing my words, they went straight down the stairs along with the wood steel.

"… Woah!"

Not long after, they plopped down as they breathed heavily, finally reaching the first floor. The housekeeper pushed them aside.

She asked. "Can we go out now?"

"It's a well-crafted barrier. It's hard to get in but harder to get out. It's most likely twice as sturdy as a common barrier, considering mana is applied to it."

Deconstructing it through calculation and operation was possible, however. If I could locate its core through my [Vision], I'd be able to immediately delete it.

However, it would take a long time. The amount of mana here was swiftly overdosing the wizards. They wouldn't be able to hold on much longer.

"Then… Shhh."

I pressed the length of my index finger on my lips, hushing them down.

Everyone in the area stopped moving. Amid the silence, I looked at every robed wizard, closely observing their condition and attire.

The barrier's activation couldn't have been possible through formula alone.

The 'caster' who operated the switch had to be hiding somewhere.

"…"

Their expressions showed no hints of them being the culprit. To disrupt the instigator's camouflage, I activated [Psychokinesis], causing their hair to rise like waves.

"Huh."

My lips twisted, forming a smile as I felt my contempt rising from deep within me.

I approached one of the barrier's captives.

"In a person's body, your own strength builds up. Hence, even if you hide your appearance and origin, you cannot hide the duration you've been staying in that vessel. The stronger you become, the harder it is to hide your true identity."

I reached out and touched the housekeeper's hair.

"Ashes… flow from you."

Buried in her hair, traces of it reacted to my Psychokinesis.

"Did you come from a volcanic pile? You're from the 'Ashes,' aren't you?"

Everyone looked at her, startled.

"…"

Standing still, she raised her glasses without a word and took off her "mask."

I didn't show it, but I was surprised. The instigator of this main quest was also a Named character.

"You have amazing deduction skills, but it doesn't change anything. Don't you know?"

She smiled, but her stare remained sharp.

"Your kind is killing every single one of ours, calling us Ashes in the process."

I quietly listened to her, forcibly suppressing my anger. Blue veins were running around my neck, and the inside of my mouth felt swollen with swear words.

It was a side effect of mana addiction.

"That's why you more than deserve to die." She muttered and activated her magic.

Whooooong…

Tremendous amounts of mana rose from the floor, but that was all she could do. I activated [Undertanding] while glaring at her magic formula.

… In an instant, my field of vision broadened, and the world around me became clear.

The magic that flowed through my brain accelerated my calculations and amplified my thought process.

Time seemed to infinitely slow down.

I grasped the magic she was about to activate in an instant and located its core circuit through [Vision]. Simultaneously, I dismantled it by using [Understanding].

Fizzzz—!

Only a tiny spark erupted from the magic she worked so hard to cast.

"Asshole!"

She immediately conjured another spell, but all it took was one glance from me to destroy it.

This time it just launched a snowball.

"Fuck."

Of course, I was consuming crazy amounts of mana in this process, but my abilities accepted the mana around me as its power supply at a similar rate.

"…"

I broke every single attempt she executed, laughing at her mockingly as I did so.

Within the mana-filled barrier, the combination of my [Understanding] and [Vision] allowed me to directly observe and interfere with almost all magic.

In the end, she gave up on magic composition.

"It's because of this," I approached her as she grew silent. "that you are called Ashes."

Sounding as if I was chewing and spitting out each word, I continued.

"You are garbage, scum that's been rejected by society. You lack the composition to be a human, and you lack the appeal to be a beast."

I lifted my finger and placed it on her forehead as she looked straight at me. The magical cohesiveness that was collapsing behind her was immediately cut off.

"Your only talent is to squirm. That won't help you be relieved of your poor and dirty roots."

"… Sigh. You're quite an eloquent speaker, aren't you? If you're that good, why don't you break up my barriers before they die? Don't tell me you can't do that much?" She smirked and looked up at me.

"Since you've gone that far, let me tell you the fault of your inferior brain."

I didn't avoid her gaze. I accepted it with further contempt.

"You were so infinitely stupid and dull that the barrier you created devoted itself to the building rather than the space itself."

Ten pieces of my wood steel saved the survivors, but the other ten descended.

They attached themselves to the core support of the dormitory's steel frames, the pillars supporting the entire building, by drilling a hole in the underground rock wall.

"That in itself evidences that your intelligence is incredibly lacking."

My wood steel generated heat all at once.

Although a bit too late, she finally realized what I meant.

"… You want to destroy the building to break the barrier? Are you really that excited to die?"

I let out a sigh as a certain personality flaw swelled from the bottom of my chest. I bent down a little, moving my lips to her ear, and whispered.

"Arlos."

Her shoulders trembled.

"Don't think that I don't know you."

I took a step back again, finding her staring at me in shock.

"One must always be aware of who their opponent is, after all."

… At that moment, my wood steels, finally generating enough heat, melted the columns.

As soon as a fire was ignited, I activated my [Basic Fire Control].

BOOM!

The sudden amplification of the fire's intensity, mixed with the wood steel's heat, caused an explosion.

The building's collapse soon followed that blast.

Losing its core support, it sank into the ground as dust clouds rose. The barrier that encompassed broke in the process.

GGRRRGRGGGRR!

Shattered wreckage poured down like rain. In the midst of its demolition, I looked down at her calmly.

"It's time to go back to your main body."

"…!"

At that moment, she expressed even more surprise than when I said her name.

My wood steel pierced her neck, and the light from her pupils disappeared, turning her into a mannequin.

Puppetry.

That type of "specialized magic" was Arlos's signature. It could only be manifested when one's manipulation series and harmony series were high-leveled.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!" The wizards screamed. I tilted my head slightly and looked back. The lights were smashed, allowing darkness to cover the whole area, but their lives were intact.

I had rendered their deaths impossible by putting them under the protection of my [Psychokinesis].

"Cough, cough."

I didn't stop them from having fits of dust-induced coughs, though.

* * *

Epherene was detained outside the barrier, with Julia and the professors almost forcibly shutting down her idea of charging into the commotion.

"Whoa! They're collapsing!"

Epherene's eyes widened when she heard those words, allowing her to witness the destruction of all three dormitories.

BOOM!

The explosion that demolished them was compact, compressed, preventing the fragments of the steel frame from bouncing off. Instead, they just beelined to the ground, passing through the huge dust cloud that spread out.

The blast itself lasted only for a blink of an eye.

It was already too late by the time the knights arrived. They tried to head straight into the scene, but they saw something moving inside before they could charge in earnest. Immediately switching tactics, they assumed a formation as they held their swords up.

"…?!"

Deculein walked out unscathed from the heap of rubble and debris, bringing the barrier's victims with him.

"Are you okay?"

Deculein gave the wizards to the knights and dusted off the dirt from his body.

"Take care of them."

"Yes!"

As he was about to leave, he felt the gaze of the professors watching from afar.

He went towards them.

There were still a few things he had to tell them.

"You call yourselves professors of the Imperial University Tower, yet a strange barrier is enough to make you feel so much fear you retreated this far from the scene."

The professors couldn't even meet his blatantly spiteful gaze.

"Pathetic. Reflect on it."

He stared at them with the disgust they deserved and then left.

"U-Um!"

"Professor."

Sylvia came up to him. Two people actually approached him, but she pushed one away.

"Are you okay?"

A voice without intonation and pitch. A stable tone by itself.

"… It's dangerous here. Leave its premises immediately."

He patted her on the shoulder and passed by.

His mental fatigue was excruciating, which was only natural. He abused his mana far too much.

••••••.

Everything had already been settled by the time the clock struck midnight.

"Is he strong?" A person asked from a bench not far away.

Arlos nodded.

"He's much stronger than expected."

"Isn't he a greenhouse plant?"

"For a flower, he's a powerful one. Even the way he talks, and the way he looks." As she replied, she ran through her long hair. She tried to pretend that she wasn't affected, but her belatedly rising fever heated her face.

"What should I pay attention to?"

"He's extremely smart. He dismantled all of my magic and even discovered I was using a puppet. I couldn't even try hand-to-hand combat hastily. Just by looking at him, I could tell his body was pretty sturdy."

"I must be vigilant. What about your mission?"

"I was partly successful."

Her goal was to absorb life force through the barrier she created.

Wizards were excellent materials for making puppets. Hence, after turning their spirit and mana into liquid, she planned to deceive them.

"That's all I got."

Arlos pointed to the fluttering, inadequate-looking liquid inside a bottle.

"…The path of faith is this difficult. It even hinders saving one's body." The unknown figure answered with a heavy voice.

A slogan they always uttered.

Faith. And composition.

Arlos managed to hold back her laughter.

The poor bastards followed an already dead god whose resurrection would most likely always remain a fantasy, never becoming a reality. Even so, these fanatics never stopped working desperately for it.

"Next is the Marik, Arlos."

"I know."

However, they still shared the same purpose as her. Hence, she found no need to rush and earn their spite.

"Hmm."

Arlos immersed herself in contemplation.

Deculein.

She found the Head Professor unexpectedly difficult to deal with. His skills far exceeded her expectations.

'No, his mysterious magic interference and dissolution was really close to divine…'

"Is there anyone who can complete magic in front of him?"

Was his existence itself the wizards' antithesis?

Even though she was inside a puppet…

She frowned while thinking about it.

* * *

The next day, I sat on a chair in the mansion's study and closed my eyes.

A system window hovered in front of my eyelids.

◆ Understanding Status

– Beginner Psychokinesis

┏Basic Fire Control

┣Basic Earth Control

┗Metal Enhancement (33% progress)

It was a kind of 'visualization.'

I looked at the [Psychokinesis] inside my body through [Vision]. Several magic, including [Metal Enhancement], [Fire Control], and [Earth Control], were attached to it.

After arranging the traffic on its circuit, I polished it a little more.

"…"

I felt like the pain was crushing my whole body, but it was bearable.

I endured it for about 30 minutes and then slowly opened my eyes.

Last night's main quest came to mind.

"Should Arlos… be seen as a villain?"

My top priority right now was to clear the main quest.

It didn't matter right now if doing so would allow me to return to Earth.

No family was waiting for me back there, but if I didn't clear it, the whole world, including me, would perish, so I had no other option.

However, in order to clear it more efficiently and swiftly and to lower its difficulty, the good-natured Named characters had to become stronger, or the evil Named characters had to die.

So far, I had only worked on the former, but now I had come to realize that the latter was also quite effective… It was thanks to certain memories I had grasped in Deculein's diary.

"Master. The Public Safety Bureau has arrived."

I heard Roy's voice after he knocked on the door.

Were they here because of the incident last night?

I got up and went down to the first floor, finding a familiar face waiting for me by the entrance.

"Long time no see."

Deputy Director of Public Safety, Lillia Primienne. Her indigo hair was tied down in a ponytail, which complimented her expressionless face.

"What's going on?"

"Have you heard that Louina is missing?"

"…"

Missing? I shook my head.

"I haven't."

"Now that you have, I need to ask some questions. It was reported that she was missing, and our current main suspect is—"

"… Are you suspecting me?"

"No. This is just an investigation. A human being is missing, professor. We have no choice but to conduct this."

"Lillia Primienne. It would be in your best interest to realize who you're talking to right now."

It didn't feel good to be suspected of a crime I didn't do. Anger was welling up inside me.

Nevertheless, she continued speaking calmly.

"Again, it's not suspicion. It's just that you're most likely the last to witness her. Louina disappeared shortly after leaving the imperial palace."

"…"

I quietly recalled the events of that day.

Inside my car, darkness fell for a moment as I looked out the window, watching the scenery pass by on our way back home. I thought it was magic at first, but I soon realized it was just the shade of a tree. When I turned my eyes to the rearview mirror, Louina's car was already gone…

Wait.

Was that really the shade of a tree?

Was it because I was magically exhausted at the time that I didn't notice it?

"I think we're done here. Thank you for your cooperation."

Lillia nodded and slid her notebook into her pocket. I then watched her walk through the garden, guided by my servants.

I returned to the library again.

"…!"

My eyes dawned upon a certain mana trail on my desk. I was certain it wasn't there before.

Nevertheless, I immediately interpreted the sentence.

—We are still following your orders.

At that moment, a bad thought flashed through my mind.