บท 34: Chapter 34
I woke up feeling groggy. Pressing my throbbing head, I massaged it slowly.
"Fuck, my head hurts like shit." Suddenly, Marie's deformed, lifeless body flashed through my mind. My stomach churned up, and I barely had time to turn my head before vomiting.
"Blargh-blargh!" I kept on vomiting until my stomach was completely empty. I felt my hands shake as I slowly lost my strength.
I tightly closed my eyes. "I was a fool to develop a bond in this world."
This is the reality of this world, and I knew—I knew damn well—that developing bonds in this world might hurt me one day. But I'm a human too, and I will be swayed by my emotions sometimes.
"It's best not to interact with others anymore." I concluded.
There is no safe place in this world; everyone is in constant danger. You can't predict when or where anything will happen, so everyone will die one day without saying goodbye.
There is no guarantee that I will even be alive to see tomorrow. So it's best to keep a distance from everyone. To not hurt anyone or myself.
'Jadel, you're a lot different from what I heard. You're a great guy in person, even though I'm only interacting with you now.
'Why do I keep remembering her words?' I do not want to think about that, but I keep remembering these words. But what I don't know is why I suddenly became attached to her; I only spent time with her for a month.
Not only her, there is Taren and some other characters. I feel connected to them, like something deep within me knows them, and it's influencing me.
"What is going on? Is the entity hiding something from me?"
Suddenly The door slid open, revealing the figure of a girl in her nurse attire. Upon entering, she looked in my direction, and a frown appeared on her face. "You made a quiet mess of this place, Cadet Jadel."
Realizing what she meant, I quickly apologized, "Sorry, I couldn't control it."
"Mmm, well, it's okay."
Snap
With a simple snap of her fingers, the room was spotless again. No sign of the mess I had created remained.
Without any delay, she came to the point, explaining what happened. "You passed out during the fight and were rescued by your fellow classmates."
Hearing the word classmates, I felt warmth in my heart.
"We checked your body for any issues," she continued. "There's nothing physically wrong with you, but we detected significant mental strain."
She paused, looking at me, and waited for a moment. 'Is she expecting some answers from me?'
"We couldn't find what the cause was; do you know something?"
I thought for a moment and shook my head. But I was suspicious about my sudden personality change. I don't know much about it; when I opened my eyes after the VR battle, they said about this symptom too. This might be the cause of it, but I didn't ask about that.
"... I don't know."
"Is that so?… You can discharge now; we have done a full body checkup while you were asleep, so it's good to go now." I nodded at her.
After informing me of what she wanted to say, she left the room.
….
"Fuck, man, where should I sleep now?" I stood there looking at the broken dormitory building. The monster not only attacked and broke the academy building; it's also destroyed the dormitory.
Instantly, I checked for any messages from the academy and saw three notifications on the holographic screen.
[ Royal Academy: Dear Students, we deeply apologize for our incompetence in not being able to protect you all in this unfortunate incident. We deeply apologize for your loss. ]
"The fuck is this message? Fucking incompetent basterds and their empty apologies. Is that even a human-made apology or an AI-made apology?"
[ Royal Academy: Because of the unfortunate incident, the academy will close down until it recovers. We will inform you after the academy is rebuilt so you can comfortably study. ]
[ Royal Academy: Since the academy dormitory is also broken, we booked a good hotel for you to stay at until we rebuild the academy. Location: XXXXXX ]
"It's been a day since the incident, huh... How did I even pass out?" with a sigh, I tapped on the holographic screen to see the location.
The hotel was in another city called Magwich, The Magical City, a city under the protection of the Magica family. Even though they're not living in Magwich City, including this, there are 4 cities under the Magica family's protection, or, you could say, ruled by them.
I headed to the public portal station, only to see that it was also destroyed. "Fuck this shit, do I have to ride all the way to the city?"
With no other choice, I took out my hoverbike and sped off toward Magwich City.
With the full speed of my hoverbike and phasing through humans and buildings, it took me 8 minutes to reach Magwich city.
After the security check, they deemed me harmless and allowed me to enter the city. Even with me showing my identity as a student at Royal Academy, they didn't believe me and thoroughly checked me.
Slump!
'It's cozy; the academy is quite generous for booking such a fancy hotel entirely for the students.'
When I saw the building, I was stupefied. It's one of the best fancy and luxurious hotels out there in this city when I checked it on the internet, and rent for this room is equivalent to a D-rank weapon. I knew the academy earned so much money, but I didn't think they would spend it on us in this way.
"Well, it's one of their ways of apologizing, I guess."
Curious about yesterday's news I started to search for any interesting highlights of the news.
[News: Out Of Sixty Only Three Survivors And Death Of A World Ranker
Yesterday in Royal City, an unexpected incident occurred. A massive crack appeared that resulted in massive casualties.
75,982 people died in the incident, and more than 198,913 people were gravely injured. The most shocking news is the raid team that went into the crack, which consisted of 60 soldiers, including the world ranker; only three people survived.
Lilils Archena, an S+ ranker; Acelein Asclepius, an S ranker; and Victoria Jane, an A+ ranker—only these three hunters survived. While protecting the soldiers, Lucas Veldiorak, an SS ranker, 50th in the world ranking, unexpectedly lost his life.
For his brave actions, the government promised to fully support his family and make them live a good life. But the question is, How big of a threat might that monster be to kill skilled, powerful soldiers and Lucas Veldiorak, an SS ranker? ]
"Fuck this shit." I cursed seeing the 'What shoking news is the death of 56 soldiers and Lucas Veldiorak, not 75,982 people who died.
"They have to say the same words when someone is precious for them to die." And not only that, the government is making empty promises.
In the novel, I read that they only did this to keep their appearances; when the actual facts came, they turned their backs on them. Sometimes they do support families, but only when people start to question them, and not to the extent they promised.
"Sigh—it's one of the dark sides of the world." Though this is the same as in the real world too. Wherever you go, the people are always the same with their disgusting natures.
Looking through the news, two of them caught my attention. The first one was the mysterious death of a survivor who survived in the crack.
In the hospital, Victoria Jane, an A+ ranker, was found dead as an outer shell. Inside, she was just hollow, just like a withered cocoon after a butterfly left it when it broke out of it.
Thump! Thump!
My heart thumped a little, but I couldn't discern what I was feeling. "Am I getting scared?" I asked myself, but I couldn't understand it. Sighing, I checked the second news that caught my attention.
[News:108 Deaths in Royal Academy, How?]
I wanted to check the news and wanted to know who died, but I couldn't bring myself to open the news. I don't want to see the deaths of innocent kids who don't know what the real world is or what real enjoyment is. Even though I don't know them, I still couldn't bring myself to.
"Sigh, what an idiot, am I?" Well, I don't blame myself. After all, I'm a human too.
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