Tournament [4]

Chapter 44: Imposter

"Achoo! What a nice day," Ryan wiped his nose, enjoying the feeling of his fluffy, comfy bed inside his dorm room.

"The situation outside must be chaotic," Ryan could tell, but he wasn't worried. "The villains aren't stupid enough to attack now, especially when the Union has gone as far as mobilizing the 'Blue Hearts.'"

"The few frantic ones that sneaked onto the island have probably been taken care of by a bored Astin."

"It's a nice feeling when the world's problems aren't mine," Ryan said out loud with a comfortable face.

Knock, Knock --

"..."

The maid entered even before Ryan could answer.

"What do you want?" Ryan went straight to the point as he leaned tiredly on his bedpost.

"It seems trouble can always find its way." he thought.

"Young Master Ryan, I have received a message from the seer," the maid bowed down deeply, opening a holographic screen for Ryan to see, and said.

"Young Master Noah wanted to take on the mission to investigate; however, I couldn't give permission without your approval."

Looking through the screen, Ryan shook his head, feeling a little sad. He already knew this was going to happen, even when he wanted to change the outcome.

His confrontation with that mage in that dungeon showed him that despite how far things went astray, lots of events still followed the main plot.

There is little to nothing he could have done. His power growth came to an abrupt stop after reaching the B rank, and he knows that his body condition was the main reason. Attempting to do anything is an act of suicide.

Ryan opened his mouth with difficulty.

"This mission is too hard not only for Noah but for anyone from Erou personale to handle, so it's better not send anyone after him."

-----

Inside a control room, people wearing fully polished black suits and black masks held the Union's FU gray logo, indicating their status as regular staff.

They looked through the colorful screens monitoring real-time data from equipment, such as radiation levels and mana concentrations, to ensure they did not exceed safe limits inside the training dungeon. They also monitored cameras all around the stadium and the island.

Daniel walked toward the central figure in the room.

"Did you find anything?" Daniel demanded, his aura indicating that he wouldn't leave without an answer.

The person looked at him and shook his head, the badge on his chest was slightly different from the others; it had a bigger FU logo. 

Daniel became angry, his veins bulging on his neck as he slapped the table, releasing his S-rank aura.

"What do you take us for? The security of Erou and its professors? it is our responsibility to protect the future heroes of Marcoos, we weren't given these positions for show, so don't dare to treat us as ornaments."

The monitoring room fell silent. The man in charge was taken aback, as were the others, who looked at one another in bewilderment and confusion.

"How dare I? A mere B-rank look down on the Iron wall of Erou," the person in charge took off his mask, revealing a tanned man in his mid-thirties with a scar from the top of his head to his lips.

"What do you think of us, Union?" His scruffy, chocolate-brown hair was uncared for and untrimmed as he sighed. "We have already informed Professor Alfred."

The man Runo said, slightly uncomfortable due to Daniel's aura. He thought the reason he wasn't panting on the ground was because Daniel was restraining a huge part of it.

"Didn't he tell you?" he shuffled back a few steps and steadied himself.

Daniel was taken aback. He hadn't seen Professor Alfred for a while, and according to his information, Alfred should be with the seer.

As if reading his thoughts, Runo said, "The Seer has contacted us and asked to inform Professor Alfred that he would be on his way."

Daniel was stunned, with doubt rising in his head. Checking his phone, he found that it was powered off.

He attached it to a charger nearby and discovered hundreds of unanswered messages and calls from Alfred, his subordinates, and a lot of newly sent messages from his fiancée, Laila.

"I wish I had a reason to lie to you," Runo shook his head, putting his mask back on and shrugging. "We had orders from the higher-ups to not hide anything."

"That's hard to believe," Daniel said, still scrolling casually through the messages.

Daniel didn't seriously doubt the man's words. If the Union decided not to hide something, there was no reason for them to lie.

"It's not like they suddenly care about how the world sees them. The Union has always maintained an appropriate amount of caution and dominance; otherwise, they wouldn't have survived for so long. They'd go so far as to treat an F-ranker as a threat if it slightly inconvenienced them while keeping the desired amount of space."

"Head professors of each academy and especially VIPs had already been informed at a minute's notice of what was happening, and you should stop thinking of us at the Union as some kind of monsters," Runo said as if Daniel was making a fuss.

Daniel's embarrassment didn't show on his face as he retracted his aura. "So you truly found nothing?"

"The intruder, a Yarden student, has infiltrated the events as a participant in the tournament. Ahhh, our only clue committed suicide, and we couldn't find anything else."

He continued in a frustrated tone, pointing at the screen displaying Ryan and the others fighting repeatedly. "A few minutes ago, that mage's mana exceeded the limits our data indicated."

"He was careless," the man coughed and said, "You see, we always leave some leeway for these villains to attack; otherwise, keeping them strictly under control would cause a backlash. But we couldn't connect anyone to that mage either."

"We first thought he had a special grudge against the seer, that he wanted to murder his grandson, or we are missing out on something. But according to our collected pieces of information, he has been, in fact, not only targeting Ryan but launching random attacks that hit nobody."

"But the student's background is clean, just a regular noble son growing up in Dorigan." Daniel frowned, he had looked through all of the students' profiles, but nothing drew his suspicion.

"Do you see this red print over there?" Runo pointed at one of the many holographic screens excitedly. "Analyzing the attack pattern as well as the amount of mana emitted and its path, we concluded."

"This is a magical construction technique that was lost thousands of years ago… It's forbidden magic," he continued, taking a breath.

"The intruder has a special magical element called 'Soul Devourer' that enables him to steal someone's body by consuming the original soul. Not only that, but he can also mimic their power to some extent, even if they were radiation users," Runo said, amusement evident in his voice.

"Wait a minute." Daniel caught the man by the collar, his face as dark as the bottom of a well.

"Do you mean you left the children with a menace that could have wiped them out in an instant just so you could study his magic?"

"Cough— of course, we couldn't just barge in and cause panic, but I promise the student would have been fine even if he decided to go ahead and kill them."

Being released, Runo coughed and dusted off his collar. "Huh, hah, that was scary, chill, man."

"Of course, we needed this data. How are we supposed to get to the bottom of this?" Shrugging his shoulders, Runo said, "We ought to be careful."

"Where is he now?" Daniel glared at him, the fact that he couldn't beat him up left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, after he committed suicide, and his corpse has been taken away," letting out a huge exaggerated sigh, "And investigations are still in progress."

"You mean the imposter could be anyone," Daniel stated.

"Yes," Runo spat with a little bit of resentment.

"This isn't some random event; it must go well at all costs," For Runo, it was a matter of losing his head if anything went wrong.

"You should go back now. It would be nice if you could assist in protecting some VIPs, by the way," Runo said half-jokingly.

Daniel looked at him and said in a blunt voice, "My only mission is to protect the students, and that is what I will do."

"Ahh, just leave your phone charged, and I'll call you. As for the rest, you can hear it from the Seer. I need to go back to my work."

Runo shrugged; he wasn't worried. 'The Blue Hearts are here after all; what could possibly go wrong?'

Daniel walked out, confirming with the 'seer' over the phone. His face turned grim, full of dread.

['Professor Alfred's corpse has been found,'] The Seer's voice over the phone wasn't so kind anymore as he uttered, ['The imposter now is in Professor Neil's body.']

[Kill him at all costs.]