Chapter 86: Academy Heroine's Right Diagonal Back Seat
Chapter 86
I ran through the streets, following a faint energy I could sense.
Beyond the pouring rain, I saw a woman who had fallen while trying to escape a man swinging a blunt weapon with vacant eyes.
“Nooo!!! Please, someone help me!”
The woman, desperately crawling away on the wet ground, screamed as the man dragging the weapon approached her.
I hurriedly ran towards them, striking the back of the man’s neck and shouted.
“It’s dangerous outside, please take shelter somewhere safe!”
“Yes...yes! Ugh...aah! My ankle...”
The woman, who had stood up in relief at my call, suddenly cried out in pain.
Her ankle was slightly swollen, probably injured when she fell.
She couldn’t move to a safe place on her own.
Not just her, but I couldn’t leave the unconscious man on the street either.
As I was about to carry them to a shelter, the scene around me came into view.
“Ahhh! Save me!!”
“No...I don’t want to die...”
The city was filled with people screaming and groaning in pain.
Heroes and students were arriving from somewhere, subduing the controlled people and rescuing citizens, but there were still too many who needed help.
The damage would only grow uncontrollably as time passed.
A girl had disappeared, saying we should play hide and seek.
She had said that if I followed her, she would tell me how to stop this situation.
It might be a lie, but somehow, I knew it wasn’t.
If that was true, finding that method and ending this situation as quickly as possible would prevent greater harm.
Therefore, it was impossible to help everyone I saw.
I clenched my fist tightly and spoke.
“I’ll call someone to help, so stay here for a moment.”
I said to the woman with the injured leg, then quickly left and shouted to a student who was running nearby.
“Please help the injured and the unconscious over there!”
The student was momentarily confused but ran in the direction I pointed.
I watched the student running off before turning back to the direction I had been heading before helping the woman.
Screams from people needing help pierced my ears.
A famous ethical dilemma that a teacher had once mentioned during moral class suddenly came to mind.
The problem of choosing which track a train should go on: one with five people tied to it or one with one person tied to it.
The question asked if it was morally right to sacrifice fewer people to save more.
There was no correct answer, but most people choose to save the greater number.
I was the same.
But applying that to reality made me feel like I was going insane.
As time went on, more people would be sacrificed, and choosing the fewer number would mean the city would be doomed, even though I knew that.
Still, a decision had to be made.
My mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood from biting my lip too hard.
I tried to ignore the screams and closed my eyes tightly.
Focusing on helping the woman, I had lost track of the energy I was following.
But I knew how to sense it again.
I closed my eyes and listened not to the screams but to other sounds.
[Burn.]
[Burn it all.]
As the witch’s voice grew louder in my head, I began to sense the energy I had lost.
Focusing intently so as not to lose it again, I ran in the direction the energy was coming from.
[Burn it, kill.]
As I listened to the voice, guilt and hesitation seemed to vanish.
Only anger filled my mind.
Whether that was good or bad, I couldn’t tell.
At some point, the screams no longer reached my ears.
*
The place where I stopped was not far from the area my class was responsible for.
The energy I sensed led me to a park in Sector 15, where I often came.
Was it a coincidence?
This was also where I first encountered that girl with the purple hair.
As I stood and looked around, I heard a slow clap from ahead.
The girl had appeared out of nowhere, clapping and smiling at me.
“Ahh, hide and seek is over. Even though you’ve changed a bit, you’re still Eva. You couldn’t help but follow me, just like before.”
[Burn it all.]
The witch’s voice roared loudly in my head as I faced the girl.
I wanted to burn her on the spot, but there was something more important, so I gritted my teeth and asked her.
“I followed you as you said, so tell me. How do I stop this? If you’re lying, I won’t let you go.”
The girl smirked and replied, her lips curling up.
“You’re still hot-tempered. Don’t worry. I won’t break a promise once it’s spoken. You won the hide and seek, so I’ll tell you.”
The girl slowly raised her arm and pointed a finger.
In the direction she pointed, there was a flower bed in the park, with controlled people wandering nearby.
The girl muttered.
“Do you see it in the bushes? It’s hidden well, but you can still see it if you look closely.”
I carefully examined the inside of the flower bed.
Bushes, flowers, small saplings.
And among the foliage, something grotesque, standing out ominously.
“What...is that...”
The thing hidden among the bushes looked like an egg, or a cocoon.
But its size was anything but normal.
It was so large that an adult man could fit inside it, glistening in the rain and pulsing unpleasantly.
It was clearly not an ordinary thing.
When I asked the girl what it was, she answered.
“There’s a beast inside. I heard it acts as a transmitter, sending signals to control humans. If you destroy it, the people will stop.”
At those words, I took a deep breath and stared at the thing that looked like an egg or a cocoon.
If I just destroyed that, I could stop it.
As I clenched my fist and was about to charge at it,
The controlled people wandering around the park all turned their eyes towards me.
Women, children, men, the elderly.
Dozens of people, with dozens of pairs of eyes, stared at me without blinking.
It was a creepy scene that could make anyone shiver.
It was then that I realized there were so many people around the park and felt the oddity.
Other controlled people seemed to wander around aimlessly, attacking others.
But so many people were staying around this park instead.
There was only one reason that made sense.
They were guarding it.
I suspected that they were guarding the cocoon-like thing to prevent anything from happening to it.
However, even if there were dozens of people, if they were all civilians, I could somehow subdue them without causing harm.
I had trained to handle 17 lower-tier monsters on my own, after all.
I took a deep breath and launched myself towards the cocoon, preparing to push through the wave of people coming at me.
At the same time, the people, who had been staring at me like mannequins, began to move all at once.
Several of them lunged at me.
It took only seconds to subdue them.
But in those few seconds, I realized what had happened.
“This... damn it...”
Another cocoon was forming around the one that had been placed there, made of people’s bodies.
I quickly ran towards it, but the dozens of people near the cocoon had already entwined their limbs together, surrounding it.
“Damn it! Get away from there!”
I tried to forcibly pull them apart, but it wasn’t easy.
They were clinging to each other with all their strength to prevent being separated.
As I tried to pull the man on the outer edge, I heard a snapping sound and recoiled in shock.
Even with a broken arm, the man remained locked in place without a change in expression, like a puppet carrying out its orders despite the pain.
They wouldn’t let go unless they were dead.
“Let go... please... please...!”
No matter how much I shouted and shook them, my voice didn’t reach anyone.
I was furious.
At the witch’s malice for controlling people so horrifically.
I stepped back, fearing the flames that might erupt and harm the people.
Then, the girl watching the scene whispered beside me.
“You want to stop this, right? Then you can just destroy it along with these humans.”
As if giving advice to someone who didn’t know what to do.
“A few humans at most, just kill them, and it’ll be over.”
I looked at the people before me.
[Burn.]
Just a few dozen people.
If one should be sacrificed to save five, isn’t it right to save the majority?
The girl climbed onto the cocoon of people, sitting and looking down at me with a smile.
“You’re good at burning things, right? You want to kill me, don’t you? I’ll stay here, so burn it all. Just like you burned the village and the forest before.”
[Burn. Kill.]
The voice echoed in my head as I saw the girl’s smile.
Rising anger from deep within swallowed my reason.
Quietly, I pressed the button on my prosthetic left arm.
Memories flowed in.
-Evangeline, from today you are a member of our village.
People are selfish.
-That bitch was a witch! Our children died because of her!
To ensure the happiness of the many, people sacrifice the few without hesitation.
-Revenge! Burn the evil witch!
So, isn’t it natural for them to die?
If sacrificing a few dozen people could save thousands or tens of thousands in the future, wouldn’t that be the right choice?
In truth, none of that mattered.
-Poor Evangeline. You went through so much. All because of me. Those fools didn’t even know. Oh? Wow, such a big fire. Playing with fire looks fun.
[Burn. Burn. Burn. Make them suffer the pain I endured.]
I just wanted revenge.
I didn’t care if people got caught in the process.
That was their karma.
The jewel in my palm absorbed the flames, turning red.
Red, with blazing flames.
The intense flames from my left arm burned the sleeve of my uniform.
The girl smiled and clapped, watching.
“As expected, let’s play hide and seek and have fun with fire like before. Right? Evangeline.”
I extended my flame-wreathed arm towards the one who had given me the cursed name, Evangeline.
The girl’s eyes gleamed with the reflection of the flames as she sat on the cocoon of people.
Just as I was about to unleash the gathered flames,
I noticed the characters engraved in flames on my prosthetic arm.
Flames erupted from the prosthetic arm.
Not forward, but upward.
The flames, shooting up, illuminated the rainy sky and then disappeared.
“Huh? Evangeline?”
The girl looked puzzled as I mumbled, recalling the words I had just seen.
“...My name isn’t Evangeline.”
Scarlet.
“...It’s Scarlet Evande.”
That was the name I had promised to protect people with.
The girl, sitting atop the cocoon of people, stared at me for a moment before speaking.
“How are you going to stop this without killing them, shooting upwards like that?”
I looked up at the sky.
Rain was falling, and the sky was dark with clouds.
No matter how blurry the view, if something suddenly sparkled in such a sky, it would be noticeable from afar.
A moment ago, my head was so muddled with the witch’s voice that I couldn’t think straight, but now it seemed simple.
I answered her question.
“...If I can’t stop it without killing, I’ll call someone who can.”
The flames shot into the sky were a signal to someone near our usual operation area, who would be rescuing people.
Someone who always worried about me immensely.
She would see my flames and come running faster than anyone.
And that belief proved true.
I smiled slightly at the twinkling starlight in the distance.
“Oh, this is fun.”
The girl also smiled slightly, seeing the light.
She stood up slowly from the people and said.
“You said your name was Scarlet Evande. I’m Beatrice, the Witch of Sloth as you call me.”
Introducing herself, Beatrice the Witch of Sloth, who had jumped down from the people, pulled her lips into a long smile and said.
“I look forward to seeing who you’ll be next time.”
With those words, the witch vanished from the spot.
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