Terror (3)
Terror (3)
As I had confirmed beforehand, the clinic was in a small building a short distance from the hall where the entrance ceremony was being held.
It was over 200 steps away—about 100 meters by the standards of my past life.
The clinic looked like a miniature version of the temple I had seen in the Duke's territory.
That made perfect sense, since it was both a clinic and a temple.
This academy had been established to foster the power of the Royal Family.
Naturally, the Royal Family tried to push the temple faction out as much as possible, since the two opposed each other. The temple faction, in turn, did whatever it could to gain a foothold in the academy.
As a result, a temple masquerading as a "clinic" had been built.
It was a small building nestled between larger structures. The two of them helped support me as they led me there.
With a patient suddenly arriving, the small temple known as the clinic was thrown into a commotion.
I was immediately taken to a private room with a bed. A stylish-looking, middle-aged priest entered soon afterward.
Glancing at him out of the corner of my eye, I could tell he wasn't an ordinary priest.
Under normal circumstances, we might have exchanged names and sounded each other out, but right now, he was just a priest treating a patient.
The priest approached and placed his hand on my stomach.
He began to chant a prayer.
From the perspective of someone who remembered his past life, this fantasy world had several hilarious quirks.
One was the priests' indiscriminate use of healing abilities.
In my past life, they would have looked for the cause of an illness through interviews or diagnosis—though it was hard to say whether those diagnoses were always accurate. Here, though, unless it was a major illness or a condition that was difficult to cure, they just cast a spell first and asked questions later.
Well, it was thanks to that habit that my fake illness had worked so well in the first place.
Hum.
The priest's hand, resting on my stomach, began to glow.
Warm energy began flowing through my abdomen.
The priest's head tilted slightly. Hmm, so he wasn't just casting healing abilities blindly after all?
If so, I had to move before he sensed that something was wrong. Besides, it was about time for the entrance ceremony to wrap up.
"W-Wait, I need to use the restroom!"
Leaving the dumbfounded people behind in the room, I hurriedly bolted outside.
I ran toward the restroom I'd spotted on the way in and locked the door behind me.
Then I drew up my mana and scanned my surroundings.
No one had followed me into the hallway, and fortunately, no one was outside the restroom either.
The restroom's layout was no different from that of other temples. It was neatly kept and strangely reminiscent of the restrooms in my past life.
But now wasn't the time for a restroom tour.
I opened the window and squeezed through. It wasn't very large, but thankfully, my body was still small enough to slip through.
Now then, what should I do next?
Should I head toward the entrance ceremony hall?
It would soon be time for the ceremony to end.
And it would soon be time for Piar, inside this building, to detonate.
As planned, I had succeeded in pulling him out of the entrance hall.
I couldn't verify it due to a lack of time, but Piar's self-destruction was most likely his inherited ability.
Having watched him closely, though, I didn't think he had chosen to self-detonate voluntarily.
It wasn't certain yet.
Either way, since I had pulled him out of the entrance hall, the hall would be safe even if he blew up.
"Then I guess the problem this time will be the clinic."
If he self-detonated again and I escaped to survive, everyone in this clinic was practically guaranteed to die as a result.
"Well, it's not as if every time I died, I brought about the best possible outcome, so I don't really have any qualms."
When I was a baby, maids had disappeared under the pretense that they had simply gone missing, and plenty of people had been killed by me or had died. Most of them were enemies, of course, but there was hardly ever an outcome where everyone ended up happy.
"My survival always came first."
Besides, my personality had grown quite cold over time.
Still.
"If I get caught up in a terrorist attack like this in the capital, it'll be difficult to prepare for the future."
Well, I also felt a little lingering guilt that my choices might cause innocent people to die.
"Haa, I really don't want to die..."
Sighing, I leaned against the building and stared toward the hall where the entrance ceremony was being held.
It would be best if everything passed without incident, but if I had to die, I at least hoped to discover another clue.
"Maybe next time I should just kidnap him."
As I stared at the entrance hall with that ridiculous thought in mind—
Murmur, murmur.
A noisy commotion rose inside the entrance hall, and people began filing outside.
"No way, is it just passing by?"
The bomb was definitely supposed to go off right as the entrance ceremony ended, wasn't it?
It felt like an ambiguous outcome, but if things really ended like this, I had nothing to be but grateful.
Sighing with relief—
Just as I was about to walk toward the entrance hall—
Flash.
A radiant light burst from inside the doors through which people were filing out.
And then.
Boom!
With a tremendous explosion, the entrance hall building blew apart.
The ceiling shattered and shot into the sky, while the walls blew outward.
Rumble.
"Aaah!"
"Aaargh!"
Flames soared into the sky, and along with the deafening roar, the people's screams struck my eardrums.
"Damn it."
Debris flew in all directions.
Drawing up my mana to the brim, I swung my fists.
Bang. Bang.
The debris flying toward me shattered on impact with my fists.
Smashing through the flying debris, I sprinted toward the destroyed building.
'Was I wrong? No. The one that blew up last time was definitely Piar!'
My head was thrown into chaos by this unexpected turn of events, but my feet didn't stop.
There were still people alive.
Using all the mana I'd spread out, I could sense people who had survived.
Pushing through the smoke as I approached the building, I spotted people collapsed on the ground, groaning.
"The people who were stepping out of the building?"
Covered in burns and black ash, those whose limbs had, mercifully, remained intact were screaming in pain.
Bypassing them, I headed inside the destroyed building, where flames still burned and debris continued to fall.
Seeing what was inside, I bit my lip.
The fact that those people outside had survived was a true miracle.
Inside this building, I could barely sense anyone still alive.
It was filled with nothing but charred, mangled corpses.
I sensed a few people groaning, burns covering their bodies, but none of them were anyone I knew.
There was no sign of the Princess, nor was there any trace of Manuel.
The critically injured people groaning were all located in the corners of the building.
They might have been blown back by the blast, but the remaining heat and traces of the explosion were concentrated at the center of the building.
The Princess, who had been seated in the center, Manuel, and the other instructors—
All of them had been turned into nothing more than burned corpses.
Smoke and corpses. And death. Death. Death...
I stared around me, dazed.
Meanwhile, other people entered the heat-soaked ruins.
"Oh my goodness... Is, is anyone alive?"
Covered in ash, the female instructor who had spoken to me on the way to the clinic stumbled into the smoke.
Fortunately, it seemed she, too, had stepped outside just as the ceremony was ending.
Besides her, other surviving academy staff members, drenched in blood, entered the ruins and began searching for survivors.
"Goodness, move quickly! There's someone alive over here!"
Right behind them, the priest who had been treating me and the female priestesses rushed inside.
The middle-aged priest scrambled around trying to save people, and the others did the same.
"What are you doing?! Pull yourself together and help us over here!"
The middle-aged priest, who was casting healing abilities on a badly burned person, shouted at me as I stood there with a blank expression.
But I didn't follow his instructions.
I simply stood there, staring at the horrific tragedy.
Clicking his tongue, the priest focused all his attention on saving people, while the others were just as busy helping him.
Then Piar and the butler appeared at the scene.
Well, once the priests came over, there was no way those two would have stayed behind at the clinic.
The butler looked around with the same bewildered expression I wore, while Piar, his face pale as a sheet, approached the spot where the priests had gathered.
"Please help us over here!"
One of the female priestesses shouted to them, and unlike me, they moved forward to assist her.
The moment the two reached the spot where the priest and priestesses were saving people—
"Huh?"
Piar stopped in his tracks, surprise washing over his face.
Then he turned his head toward a specific direction.
At that moment—
Flash!
Once again, a blinding light surged forth.
The light expanded rapidly, centered around his body.
Boom!
And with a tremendous explosion, mana and intense heat slammed into the surroundings—no, into me.
Overwhelming heat. It was the exact same explosion that had detonated moments ago.
I didn't block or dodge the blast. I simply felt the explosion and closed my eyes.
In that final moment, I wasn't looking at Piar. Instead, I was looking in the direction he had been staring.
I hadn't just been standing around aimlessly amid the terror.
Even though I took a massive tongue-lashing for it, I hadn't helped the people. Instead, I had been gathering as much information about my surroundings as possible.
Piar wasn't the culprit. He really was just a victim of the bomb.
And he wasn't the only bomb, either.
Someone else held the switch that detonated the bombs.
I hadn't figured everything out yet, but I had gathered quite a lot, surprisingly.
Good. Next time will be the end. This loop ends right here.
Darkness engulfed the world.
And a tiny light gradually drew closer.
[You have died. Restarting from the automatic Save Point.]
When I opened my eyes, I once again saw the back of the little Princess.
Right at the moment of entering the entrance hall.
Pain wracked my entire body.
Curses spilled naturally from my mouth. The world spun wildly.
In the end, I had no choice but to lean against the wall.
I thought I had gotten used to death, but mentally enduring repeated deaths in such a short span of time was still tough.
As planned, I had to make sure to put an end to this once and for all.
After pulling myself together, I immediately headed toward Piar.
The Princess and Manuel looked puzzled to see me heading elsewhere, but I ignored their gazes.
I had to hurry. I needed to finish verifying everything before the entrance ceremony started.
Approaching Piar from behind, I greeted him.
"You're Piar, right? I'm Alex de Gracia."
Piar turned around, looking bewildered.
Then, flustered, he bowed to me.
"You're... Alex Gracia? N-Nice to meet you. But how do you know me...?"
This time, Piar was surprised by the name Gracia, too, while the noble boy beside him—the freshman oath representative—tilted his head at the sound of my name.
Damn it, I needed to wrap this up before that guy rained on my parade again.
"I heard your name from your friend... no, your relative who's entering with you."
"Ah, do you mean Mirisa? How do you know my cousin?"
Looking where Piar was pointing, I saw the freckled girl looking this way with a surprised expression.
Do they look a bit alike?
Either way, my blind guess had luckily hit the mark.
There wasn't just one bomb, but two. If the inherited ability was a bomb, I could deduce that a relative or family member was another bomb.
That bomb might not be a unique inherited ability, and there were plenty of holes in my deduction. But since my wild guess had actually hit the target, the likelihood that my hole-riddled deduction was correct grew even higher.
The problem was that a different question had cropped up.
Could two commoner cousins, who weren't even nobles, both manifest inherited abilities? And could those inherited abilities be used for terrorism?
But I could take my time untangling those questions later.
Right now, it was time to catch the culprit—the mastermind behind it all.