V5Ch5: No way, school terrorism again!! Part 2
Translator: Soafp
I was standing on the rooftop, looking down on Midgar School in the sunset.
“I don’t care. If this is what the world needs —-I will be hated by the world. That is my mission…”
I felt a thrill in my heart as I muttered a modified version of Zeta’s line from last night.
“…… this kind of development is also possible.”
Shadow is a man who rebels against the world.
He bears his crimes alone in order to protect the world——-it’s pretty cool.
“Zeta is also good. I can’t believe she’s boiled the setting down to this …….”
Let’s give her a crack here in honor of her.
No, wait. Come to think of it, I must have said something similar a long time ago.
“We are not the path of the righteous, nor are we the path of the wicked. We are simply going our own way…”
I stood at the tip of the rooftop and struck a cool pose.
Then, I let my uniform flutter in the wind.
“Bring the sins of the world to us, if you can. We will take care of it all—-“
It’s still cool.
I’m pretty sure that’s what I said. It also goes well with the sunset on the rooftop.
In other words, I was first in terms of the timeline. There’s nothing wrong with taking a percentage. In fact, they are the ones doing the ripping off.”
So, if I get a chance, I’ll definitely use it.
But this is also a good opportunity.
I’ve been neglecting my training around dialogue recently, so it might be good to go back to the basics for the first time in a while.
“—-It’s an afterimage.”
“Shadow… eat it up.”
“The wind is shaking—-it’s the scream of the soul.”
I said these words and struck a series of poses.
In my previous life, I used to do secret training sessions like this on the rooftop. It brings back fond memories.
“The school building dyed in the sunset…… rooftop alone,…… I look down at the students leaving school and smile meaningfully,…… I have a feeling something is going to happen. ……”
The whole situation was perfect.
I raise my right hand and mutter in a excited groove.
“—It’s coming.”
The next moment, the world shattered into pieces.
And then a white fog started to roll in.
“…… Eh?”
As if to separate the school from the outside world, the white fog enveloped the school.
The fog quickly thickened, and soon not even the sunset could reach the school.
“……”
I blinked many times and looked around.
“…… Eh, eeh?”
I had a premonition that something was going to happen, but I didn’t think it would really happen.
From the schoolyard, I could hear confused voices.
“W-What’s going on?!”
“I-I have to let the teachers know!”
“The teachers are outside in a staff meeting, nobody left!”
The students who were still in school were starting to gather.
“Fumu…… mysterious white fog…… isolated school…… and me smiling and beaming on the roof……. nice.”
Not sure of the details, but this is definitely a flag for the event to begin.
“The white fog will …… soon envelop the world in silence.”
I mutter meaningfully and walk away from the rooftop.
When I went down the stairs and out into the hallway of the school building, it was dimly lit by a thick fog.
More than half of the students seemed to have left the school.
“What is this fog?”
I wondered if the head librarian had used some kind of artifact, but he was gone.
I tried to search the fog with my magic, but all I could tell was that it was some kind of strange fog.
“……Oh well”
In the end, it is more important for me to have fun in the fog than to know what this fog is.
For now, let’s join up with the other students. Or shall I suddenly appear as a shadow?
“What shall I do~”
I skipped down the corridor. At that moment, I heard a shout in the distance.
“Is it an event?”
I skipped at high speed toward the scream.
“I’m pretty sure I heard it coming from around here, but ……”
There are several doors in a row, narrowly spaced. These are private study rooms.
The doors were all empty, probably because it was close to the end of the school day, but there was one door that was locked, and I could hear noises coming from inside.
“Hmph!”
I ripped the lock off the doorknob and dynamically entered the room.
“W-What the hell is this?!”
There was a male student in the room.
He was holding his head and moaning. I recognized his face.
“As I recall, you’re one of my classmates……ah…… Suzuki-kun, right?”
Yes, he was a student who was so thinly overshadowed that he could compete with me. I respected his lack of presence and had used him as a reference on several occasions.
According to my mob list, he is a distant relative of Christina, a branch of the Duke of Hope family.
“Y-you are Kagenou-kun! Help me, I can’t get the collar off!”
“Collar ……?”
Suzuki-kun had a bad-taste collar stuck around his neck. It was not suitable for the general mob.
“It’s in bad taste. It’s not like you.”
“It was stuck on me without my permission! I can’t seem to get it off, and I’ve been hearing strange noises since a few minutes ago.……”
A small beep beep beep… could be heard.
There is a timer on the collar, and the moment I saw it, it went to exactly zero.
A beep, a long warning tone.
“Ah!”
“Ah…….”
Then Suzuki-kun’s head exploded off.
A spray of blood splattered all over the room, and I guarded myself with slime so as not to get dirty.
Suzuki-kun’s head rolled on the floor, and my eyes met his resentful eyes.
“…..I had a feeling it was going to explode.”
A little too late.
Gassho.
“Now …… what’s with this collar?”
I picked up Suzuki-kun’s collar.
The collar was in poor condition and burnt to a crisp. The timer had stopped pointing to zero.
“Fumu…….”
I poured magic power into the collar and examined it.
I also used my knowledge of my previous life to develop an extremely sophisticated and precise theory.
As a result…
“It’s a collar-shaped bomb that explodes when the timer reaches zero!”
I continued to develop my theory.
“Fumu fumu……… Usually timers decrease with the passage of time, but this one seems to be different. The needle goes up or down depending on the magic power. Touching the collar feels as if the magic power is being sucked out of it. In other words—when one wears the collar, it sucks away the magic power, and when it reaches zero, it’s a bomb that explodes!”
Suzuki-kun was troubled by the low magic power in the class. He trained his magic in the study room, and when his magic was running low, he was unlucky enough to get caught up in this incident and die in the explosion.
“…… there is always one truth.”
I smiled.
The question is when and where the collar was put on.
I’m sure most people would immediately notice a collar like this if it was put on them. The one who doesn’t notice are the ones who are the dumbest …….
I had a bad feeling about this, so I touched my neck.
There was a collar on it.
When did it…..
“…… It must have been put on in an extremely sophisticated way that normal people wouldn’t notice.”
Conceivably, it could have been put on when the white fog appeared.
I made a mirror out of slime and observed my collar.
It was definitely the same collar as Suzuki-kun’s.
The timer for the amount of magic remaining had reached 9999 and was buggy. There is a sensation of magic power being sucked out little by little, but compared to the total amount, it is tiny, and the amount of natural recovery is far greater.
“Fumu…….”
To put it bluntly, if I wanted to remove it, I could do so, but of course, I rejected the idea.
There is no choice but to not participate in the “collar bomb event”.
For the time being, I temporarily disconnect the magic circuits in my body and adjust the amount of remaining magic.
Suzuki-kun’s magic power was low, so …… okay, I guess that’s about right.
I adjusted the amount of magic so that the timer was set to about 600.
It takes up about one magic power every ten seconds, causing it to diminish.
I have one hour and forty minutes left to live.
Why go to the trouble of adjusting to Suzuki-kun’s magical residuals is, of course…….
“…… The Eminence in shadow who disguises himself as a dead civilian student and goes undercover. Fufufu, so cool.”
For some reason, Suzuki-kun, a dull student, begins to mutter meaningful words after the incident.
And when my hidden abilities are discovered and track down the real culprit of the incident, I will reveal my true colors.……!
I’m getting excited.
With the slime makeup technology I took from Nu and the slime plastic surgery technology I took from Epsilon,…… this is what it looks like.
When I checked in the mirror, it was Suzuki, no matter who I saw there.
I’ve also taken his student notebook and other small things just in case, and I’m ready to go.
“Now, let’s go!”
I left the study room with even more nimble skips than when I came.