Chapter 37
Chapter 37
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 37
>Chapter Title: Nothing Happened
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Outside the Tower of Trials control room.
“Fuck!”
A thick curse exploded alongside the sharp clang of metal.
Professor Pelina, who had been inspecting the control device, kicked it in a fit of rage.
“P-Professor Pelina. P-Please calm down.”
An assistant professor hurriedly tried to restrain her.
But Professor Pelina’s anger showed no signs of subsiding.
“Calm down? You think I can calm down right now?! Do you even know how many students are trapped in there? Forty-seven! Forty-seven!”
“I-I know. I get it. But even so, kicking the control device...”
“Control device?! That thing’s just a fucking tin can right now! As long as that goddamn mystery magic doesn’t vanish, this piece of junk is utterly useless!”
An unidentified magic had blocked all interference.
At this point, the control device was worthless.
To get the control device working properly, they first needed to break that unidentified magic.
Two hours had passed.
Two hours since the students were isolated, and the basic class professors had poured everything they had into the effort.
“Calm down? Then get the hell out of here. You’re just annoying standing there.”
“Y-Yes, sir...!”
As the assistant professor scurried away in fear, Professor Pelina’s gaze turned colder than ever.
‘Believe. I have to believe.’
Whether there was hope or not didn’t matter.
She just had to believe.
That the students were alive, waiting safely inside for them.
If those outside gave up, the students inside would truly die in that instant.
Even if the whole world abandoned hope, they could not.
Especially Professor Pelina herself.
‘No one can die in the Tower of Trials.’
The Tower of Trials was a structure she had designed with her supervising professor during her advanced class days.
Though she hadn’t been able to participate in the construction after graduating from advanced class and leaving the academy, her breath from her school days lingered in every part of the Tower of Trials.
Students dying in a place like that?
Even if it was an unavoidable accident, she couldn’t accept it.
Sss...
Professor Pelina once again injected mana into the control device.
But then.
Ziiing—!
“...!”
A resonance echoed through the space.
A signal came through the control device.
Exclamations erupted simultaneously from those around her right after.
“It’s through!”
“The magic’s gone!”
“Teleportation magic circle reactivating!”
“Contact from the emergency exit! The Tower of Trials has opened!”
The magic that had bound the Tower of Trials vanished.
The cause was unknown.
Whether the intruders inside had achieved their goal and withdrawn the magic, or if it was for some other reason.
But the reason meant nothing to those present.
“Survivors! Search for survivors!”
“We’re entering.”
“Don’t hold back! Even if you drop dead, save the students, you bastards! Got it?!”
There might still be survivors.
That faint possibility was all that mattered to them.
With the professors leading, the assistant professors followed behind.
Professor Pelina stayed in the control room and began work to regain control.
* * *
The rescue team, made up of professors and assistant professors, combed through the Tower of Trials meticulously.
Their top priority was finding survivors.
They didn’t know when or where the intruders might strike, but they didn’t hold back.
Professor Pelina, remaining outside, scanned the interior with magic eyes and relayed survivor positions to the professors.
‘...Thank goodness.’
Professor Pelina let out a sigh of relief as she saw the students inside the Tower of Trials. Through the magic eyes, quite a few students had survived.
But even amid the relief, she didn’t use the general broadcast.
With the intruders’ status unknown, broadcasting would only give away the children’s positions to them.
The first survivors found were Damian’s group.
“We survived! We made it!”
“Woo!”
The kids who had been facing off against golems led by Damian.
Nearly twenty golems lay scattered around them, and upon spotting the rescue team, they let out cheers of joy.
It was the same feeling Professor Pelina had watching from the external control room.
‘They held out well.’
Nearly twenty golems.
It looked like the intruders had released every spare golem into the Tower of Trials.
Yet the students had brilliantly protected themselves and survived.
She felt relief that her school days’ creation hadn’t harmed the students, and joy at their survival.
Of course, the students’ survival was the greatest joy.
“Professor Jeira, at the fork, left, right, right, left. You’ll find three survivors. Professor Drauk. That wall next to you—it wasn’t there before. Looks like an earth-element student made it to hide in. Try breaking it down. Ah, be careful not to hurt the students.”
Survivors were being found one after another like that.
She took in dozens of screens at a glance and issued simultaneous orders to the professors.
But for some reason.
‘...What is it?’
Having many survivors was undoubtedly good news.
Yet, a strange sense of déjà vu lingered in Professor Pelina’s mind.
She scanned the Tower of Trials again, peering into every corner via the screens.
Of course, she didn’t forget to issue orders to the professors in the meantime.
After a while.
Professor Pelina soon grasped the source of the discomfort.
‘No deaths...?’
Two whole hours.
The time the intruders had controlled the Tower of Trials.
They had deployed a magic even the academy professors couldn’t shatter, blocking all access.
‘They targeted the students only with the Tower of Trials golems?’
All the Tower of Trials golems had exposed cores. Individual control was impossible, so they had to use bracelets as trackers to hunt students.
From the intruders’ perspective, it was a frustrating method.
‘Did they think that alone would be enough?’
It was possible.
All students had survived in the end, but that was close to a miracle.
No, it was a miracle itself.
Probably, that young heir of Blandoga...
‘Right, Damian. Without Damian, it would’ve been impossible. That’s how it must’ve been.’
Damian’s group, moving under the rescue team’s guidance.
Pelina took in the sight of them quietly.
Everyone was walking on their own two feet, unscathed, but some students’ uniforms bore stark red bloodstains.
Yet none showed any discomfort in their movements.
Clearly, Damian of Blandoga had healed the wounded with Light of Healing.
The cause could be found elsewhere too.
‘Some students have removed their bracelets.’
Likely, some sharp kid had figured out the golems’ tracking method and spread the word to the others.
‘Still, it’s weird.’
Professor Pelina’s brow furrowed slightly.
Really, no one died?
‘It’s good. It’s good, but...’
It defied common sense.
So why take over the Tower of Trials? Why block the professors’ entry? Was there another trap?
Thinking that far, Professor Pelina hurriedly grabbed the communication crystal orb.
“Professors, hurry as much as you can. Something’s off. You need to get out of the Tower of Trials as fast as possible.”
She judged that alerting them to the current abnormality took priority over figuring out the scheme.
But right after, a voice came from the communication crystal orb.
[No need for that.]
A voice cold and sunken.
She didn’t know who it was, but Professor Pelina recognized the owner.
“Professor Parun? What do you mean?”
Pelina narrowed her eyes and searched for Professor Parun among the dozens of split screens.
Professor Parun had entered not for survivor search, but as part of the intruder extermination squad.
He must have found something...
[Ugh, urk...!]
[Uwaaack—!]
Unpleasant sounds flowed through the crystal orb.
“Professor Parun? What’s that noise? Where are you? I can’t see you right now.”
Pelina’s face twisted slightly.
No need? And what was that vomiting from beyond?
It sounded like the extermination squad with him was retching, not Parun himself.
In the incomprehensible situation, orders halted.
[Ugh—]
[Hic, heave—]
With retching still in the background, Professor Parun’s calm voice rang out.
[Internal control room. You should see this for yourself.]
[Kwach!]
A low bursting sound from the other end.
Soon, the nearest magic eye screen to the internal control room warped.
“...?”
No magic eye in the internal control room, so it seemed they’d pulled the closest one...
Soon, an image formed on the distorted screen.
But perhaps because the magic eye had left its designated spot.
The screen was noisy.
“Professor Parun. The image isn’t clear.”
[Hold on.]
Magic eye circuits were basic knowledge any mage knew, even without being a magic engineer.
Professor Parun could likely get the dead magic eye working temporarily.
Sure enough.
Chzz, chzzzzz... Pzzt!
The noise vanished.
The internal control room’s scene sharpened on the screen.
And when Professor Pelina fully took in that clear scene.
She understood.
“...”
Why Professor Parun and his extermination squad couldn’t stop vomiting.
Before being invited as an academy professor.
Professor Pelina had wandered the continent and seen horrors no person should witness.
Yet the control room scene was hard for her to accept at a glance.
“...Who the hell...”
The gruesome sight beside the masked intruder.
From the circumstances, definitely the intruders.
But who had turned the intruders into that?
Then, suddenly.
‘...No way.’
A face flashed unbidden through Professor Pelina’s mind.
A little over a month ago.
The boy she’d been watching closely since the mana measurement error.
After a month of close observation, Professor Pelina had found no peculiarities in the boy.
His standout traits were...
‘Black-White Slums street rat. Yet he entered with a Blandoga admission ticket.’
His origins and the flashy admission contrasting them.
That was it.
He seemed listless in everything, sometimes even cocky, but traits any boy that age might show.
She still hadn’t uncovered the truth of his exceeding mana value, so she kept watching him.
Thinking that far, Professor Pelina shook her head.
‘No, it can’t be. No way...’
The boy coming to mind right now was just coincidence.
But.
‘What if... it is?’
She needed to confirm.
Professor Pelina judged so.
Gulp.
Dozens of split screens. Her eyes fixed on one corner.
The boy, just found by the rescue team and heading toward the entrance.
His expression was the same as always.
Listless, as if the world bored him. Following the rescue team with dull eyes, as if nothing had happened.
But.
‘...’
That very point fueled Professor Pelina’s suspicion more.
As Professor Pelina thought that far.
“I seem to be a bit late.”
A voice from behind.
Professor Pelina startled and turned around.
“H-Headmaster?”
“Just call me Principal. Feels more personal, doesn’t it? Anyway... I rushed here as fast as I could, but it looks like it’s all over. Ah, no need for a report. I heard from those I ran into on the way. Quite fortunate.”
The principal stroked his snow-white beard and looked at the screens.
The top official, arriving after two hours.
Yet no one there could reproach him.
The principal had been on business in the eastern continent outskirts.
Even using warp gates, arriving in just two hours was impressively fast.
Of course, those who’d try to hold the academy accountable wouldn’t care about that.
Anyway, as Professor Pelina faltered in embarrassment, the principal leaned forward, peered at the screens, and narrowed his eyes.
“Hmm, so Professor Pelina.”
“Y-Yes?”
“So, in your opinion, that boy is the one who caused this mess?”
“...I didn’t say that.”
At her words, the principal’s lip curled slightly.
“Sometimes you know without words. I’ll keep it in mind.”
Saying that, the principal stared at the screen.
Reflected in his eyes was, as expected, Aster.