episode_0264

Lucian, sitting near the commotion, turned his gaze to the girl in front of him.

‘Her name… was Ariel, wasn’t it?’

The girl Violet had asked him to look after was currently sleeping peacefully.

Her cheeks were flushed red, her hair drenched in sweat. Her body trembled faintly with each breath.

Next to her, Levi was also lying, groaning as if having a nightmare.

“Ugh…! I’m not a doctor or anything…”

Annoyance towards Violet welled up inside him. He understood the request to look after Levi, and adding one more injured person to the mix was also comprehensible.

But what was this about suddenly calling a girl he’d met for the first time today a future junior?

Lucian felt inwardly bewildered. Had Violet eaten something strange amidst all this chaos?

“Ugh… ugh…”

“You’re having a tough time too. Why did you have to follow that Violet, anyway…”

He clicked his tongue, watching Levi curl up as if having a nightmare, but only for a moment.

Lucian looked around. The area was filled with groaning injured people.

A moment ago, medical staff wearing Cascadia armbands had entered and were busily attending to people, but the number of patients was still high.

“Ugh…”

Turning his head at the sudden groan, Ariel, who was beside him, suddenly groaned and writhed. She seemed to be in pain.

Lucian casually placed a hand on the child’s forehead, then, startled, quickly pulled it away.

‘Her fever is too high?’

It was abnormal. Judging by the level of heat he felt, her brain would have already cooked.

Lucian was flustered, but he quickly composed himself and cast a simple chilling magic.

A cold energy emanated from his fingertips and dispersed over Ariel’s forehead.

Thanks to it, the fever subsided somewhat, but Ariel still groaned and struggled as if in pain.

“Mom… Dad…”

Lucian’s face crumpled. If Violet’s words were true, this child was an Awakener with Aether aptitude, and it was logically impossible for her to suffer from illness to this extent.

Didn’t the doctors just administer top-grade healing accelerators with the Laplaxia brand and various antipyretics?

Looking around, Ariel wasn’t the only one showing similar symptoms.

Lucian heard the repetitive words of the surrounding medical staff.

High fever, severe headache, and…

“Can’t you hear it? Someone keeps whispering! Whispering! Saying it’s coming! Watching!”

“No! No! No! No!”

About two or three out of ten people were screaming and plugging their ear canals.

Some were even digging into their ear canals until they bled.

“What kind of disease is this?”

Suddenly, Daphne’s absence felt regrettable. If she were here, she could alleviate the condition with her unique ability.

If it were unawakened ordinary people, perhaps, but for Awakeners to be like this, it must be…

‘A curse, a binding spell, a delayed magical attack?’

As his magical power stimulated his optic nerves and opened his inner eye, a sight visible only to those who had learned magic unfolded.

Nothing special was visible.

Just as he was wondering if he was mistaken, Ariel’s eyes slowly opened.

“Vi-Violet Unnie…”

“That guy is somewhere else. I’m… a friend of that guy…!”

Lucian, who had been speaking, flinched and waved his hand in the air.

The moment the girl’s eyes met his, an unpleasant wave flew towards his face.

The unpleasant, sticky magical wave bounced off and disappeared.

Lucian’s mind froze, startled by the phenomenon he had never seen before.

Just as he was rummaging through his knowledge to find an explanation, people in protective suits approached Ariel and aimed something at her head.

– Beep!

“…Oh dear, the fever is severe. I’ll give her an antipyretic and a sedative.”

“This child has already taken medicine, though?”

“It’s a stronger medicine.”

The person in the protective suit said so and brought a pistol-shaped syringe to Ariel’s arm.

Before he could even stop them, the medicine was injected with a hiss.

People in protective suits, who had entered unnoticed, were moving around.

The armbands mainly bore the symbol of Restraid, but people with the familiar purple phoenix logo were also mixed in.

Lucian, watching the people in protective suits with suspicious eyes, fixed his gaze on one spot.

‘Isn’t that Sebastian?’

Among the group wearing protective suits, there was a familiar face.

**

Sebastian entered the shelter to escort the rescue team. It was not long after Restraid had hesitantly opened a temporary passage connecting the inside and outside of the veil.

‘If we hadn’t lost, we would have been preparing for a charge.’

Sebastian closed his eyes tightly as the past events came to mind.

It had been a long time since his armored suit was confiscated and he was demoted to an auxiliary soldier.

‘No, let’s not dwell on the past.’

He silently resolved to focus on his role as an auxiliary soldier.

His mission was simple: monitor the people isolated inside and assist the Luminexa researchers dispatched separately from the medical staff.

They examined the injured, checked them with detectors, injected medicine, and additionally confirmed their identities, attaching small tags to their wrists.

Sebastian quickly recognized what it was.

It was an emergency patient triage tag. A means to classify the severity of injuries on the battlefield.

‘Wait, what is this…?’

His brows furrowed. The way the triage tags were being used was different from usual.

They were attaching green tags to people who were clearly severely injured, and conversely, red tags to those who seemed relatively fine.

Patients were being categorized not by treatment priority, but by a different standard.

‘Could this also be…?’

Sebastian couldn’t understand this situation at all.

Was treating and rescuing the injured not the priority?

He hesitated, then asked a rescue worker nearby.

“…The patient classification seems a bit strange. I think the categorization is wrong.”

“It’s the VIP’s orders.”

The rescue worker cut him off sharply. Sebastian closed his mouth.

If it was the VIP, his father, he had no choice but to obey, but what on earth was he thinking?

His doubts were momentary. His superior approached and struck the back of Sebastian’s head.

“Hey! Who told you to slack off here? Get your head straight!”

“…I apologize.”

He instinctively knew something was amiss, but Sebastian looked at the group in protective suits with complicated feelings, then left.

**

Every being has a weakness.

Cheetahs were fast but lacked endurance.

Turtles had hard shells but were slow.

Cute penguins lost their ability to fly at the cost of their swimming ability.

No one, nothing, can be perfect.

Apostles were the same. Their bodies were strong and robust. They were good at magic. They could twist reality.

But there must be a price for it.

Outside the veil, according to a special lecture from the Scholar that Violet of the Special Operations Department had heard, the limitations of the Apostles were as follows:

“- If your explanation is correct, the beings on-site are relatively lower-tier existences. Lower-tier Apostles have limitations in their reality manipulation abilities.”

“What limitations?”

“- They can only manipulate reality one thing at a time. When attacking, they can only attack; when defending, they can only defend. At their level, they cannot process multiple things at once.”

Within the Violet network, battle experiences from minutes ago to seconds ago came to mind.

“The Scholar is right!”

Their reality manipulation could only do one thing at a time. They could summon demonic beasts or turn me to stone, but they couldn’t do both simultaneously.

“Wait, it seems like there’s a slight delay?”

“- Correct. For them to use reality manipulation, they need a moment of, albeit weak, concentration. There are also range limitations. They can’t use it on opponents outside a certain range or completely out of sight.”

Only then did we understand. Why the Apostles didn’t simply snap their fingers to annihilate the Violet Corps in a single blow, or instantly cause a disaster to wipe out people.

“They couldn’t!”

The Apostles’ reality manipulation was like a single-shot rifle that guaranteed death upon impact. There seemed to be no limitations on the method itself, but once fired, they had to exert effort to use a new one.

“- Listen carefully, their reality manipulation is ultimately a process that undergoes complex calculations. It’s not a divine miracle or divine punishment. And in that process, energy is definitely consumed. If you prolong the engagement, their ability usage will be limited.”

“- If you inflict a large physical shock, you can disrupt the reality manipulation process! Never stop, move quickly, or ambush from outside their line of sight.”

“Scholar! Is that even possible? Can it really be done?”

Immediately, a deep, smooth voice from beyond the headset gave an absurd answer.

“- It’s possible. I just captured one and am on my way back.”

“What? You captured what?”

I was dumbfounded by Seijis’s casual remark. What on earth was this guy doing outside?

Irene, who was listening to the radio next to me, also seemed bewildered, taking off her headset for a moment to stare at my face.

“- My older sister is also on-site, so get help from her. If it’s my sister, she’ll be able to execute exactly what I said. And…”

The Scholar, who had been silent for a moment, spoke in a serious voice through the headset.

“- I don’t know the principle, but listen carefully, Violet. If you’ve trapped the Apostle in your consciousness, you’ll be able to stop them with your own method. Though not as intimately as you, they are connected to each other.”

“Connected?”

“- Yes, I don’t know the specific method, but if you exploit that, you’ll see the answer. Since you are a precedent, it’s entirely possible–”

The radio crackled and then cut off. It was a bit disappointing, but all the important advice had been heard.

“That’s wise advice!”

“You’re saying we can do it? Alright, let’s go!”

The Violets, emboldened, charged forward once again.

– CRASH!

30 seconds later, within the Violet network, a storm of anger and curses against Seijis erupted.

“No! It’s not working!”

That darn Scholar’s advice was only half right.

“Move quickly and hit their heads hard to disrupt their reality manipulation?”

Yes, it seemed possible. After dying a few times, the movements themselves weren’t as complex as expected. The problem was…

It wasn’t working.

“Ah! No! It’s not working!”

One Violet squad was deployed as a test.

The Violets, injected with the remaining Black Ice and equipped with exoskeletons, charged under smoke and covering fire.

“Aargh!”

In an instant, the Apostle’s two arms, wielding twin swords, flickered before their eyes, and what followed was a Violet salami, shattered into pieces and flying through the air.

“I’m already dead!”

That monster, nearly three stories tall, was incredibly agile and fast, disproportionate to its size.

Not only that, but crude rifle bullets or crossbow bolts couldn’t even scratch it, and all incoming magic or threatening snipes were either deflected or defended against.

The Scholar’s advice was similar to a pro gamer telling an ordinary person, ‘If you dodge all attacks and land all your skills, you can win.’

This was a strategy that only extremely fast and strong people like him could use.

“Failure!”

Yet another Violet squad melted away like jelly.

“Easier said than done!”

If the way to win a fighting game is to see and dodge all of the opponent’s attacks, and the way to get a perfect score on a test is to only pick the correct answers, who couldn’t do that?

But this was impossible at our level.

“Ugh! When will you come!”

Ultimately, we cried out for Unnie.

“Find a method only we can do?”

What on earth were we supposed to do?

Already, half of Violet’s mind was focused on beating down the Apostle within the network.

The other one had long since escaped the network.

“Yes, there’s nothing you can do!”

In the middle of the devastated Violet Plaza, the female Apostle approached, stepping on the rustling tile debris.

“I admit it. Your network is truly astonishing. At the level of me and my comrades, there is no way to kill you.”

Though injured and surrounded, she had somehow regained her confidence and smiled arrogantly.

“But what about your friends who remain here? For example.”

The Apostle raised her hand. Images of two girls appeared in the air.

The Violets surrounding them whispered in surprise.

“Gasp! It’s Levi and Ariel!”

“What! You! How did you know!”

“Because you trapped me here, I too could peek into your memories.”

The female Apostle smiled sweetly and pointed at us.

“I have already become accustomed to this network. Not only that. Although you annihilated half the forces you gathered, that much can be recovered at any time. Time is not on your side.”

The Violets were agitated.

To make matters worse, urgent news arrived at Violet Command.

“We’re out of ammo! It’ll run out soon!”

A clanking sound of an empty chamber rang out. Unit 771 took out a new magazine.

“Huh?”

There were no bullets. As I hurriedly checked my inventory, I was greeted by a desperate reality.

“Was it impossible to arm all 2500 people?!”

After just one firefight, the heavy weapon ammunition bought from Armas ran out instantly.

Small arms ammunition and crossbow bolts brought in via Helios also ran out quickly.

I hadn’t considered it. That fighting a battle with over a thousand people would mean more bullets to distribute.

“I see, no ammo either.”

The female Apostle in the network recited our thoughts, shaking the network once again, and the giant Apostle and demonic beast horde in reality attacked more fiercely.

“We still have the tanks and vehicle units, don’t we?”

“No! They’ll melt away in one reality manipulation! The helicopters are out of ammo too! Hold them back!”

Ugh, the advantageous fight became difficult once again.

Think, think. What advantages do we have over them?

The Scholar said it. That there would be a method only I could do. That I could capture them with my own method.

Connected, connected?

Yes. I am currently connected to the Apostle in my mind.

The reason it can read my thoughts is because it’s caught in the network.

As I focused a little, the emotions the Apostle felt were also felt by us.

“Did you see? Manipulating consciousness is our specialty. It’s not something mere bugs can imitate.”

The Apostle boasted. But the multi-colored emotions hidden behind its mask were different from its outward demeanor.

Anticipation, anxiety, impatience, nervousness.

“Why is it like that?”

It’s waiting for something. Preparing.

No, more than that, it had a conversation with its comrade.

It is having one.

It was faint, but I could hear it little by little.

I slowly peeled away and organized reality one piece at a time.

The Apostle trapped in the network and connected to Violet.

And that Apostle is connected to its comrade, that four-armed monster currently commanding the demonic beasts in front of us.

Being connected means being able to connect.

Aha, that’s what the Scholar meant.

“Grab it!”

The group rushes forward. Grabs its head.

The Violets within the network were swept away like a storm, but they rushed back again.

“I have adapted. I won’t fall easily–”

After several attempts, I saw it. A faint line connected in the air.

I tracked it.

And, beyond consciousness and mind, I finally succeeded in digging a hole in the void.

“Found it!”

“H-how did you get here!”

I see you.