Ch.287287 – The Friend of a Scary Child

<287 – The Scary Child’s Friend>

“Titosoga. The opposite corridor.”

“Uwaah! Level 3 beam-!!!”

“Argh! I can’t see anything!”

In the narrow ship corridor, Titosoga’s lighting equipment demonstrated the power of one against a hundred.

While Irene, the mage, projected firepower in one direction, Titosoga excellently blocked the onslaught from the opposite side with just one lighting stand.

‘Actually, do we even need Titosoga? Wouldn’t just that +5 reinforced lighting stand be enough…?’

Irene dismissed such thoughts as ice arrows flew from her fingertips.

An ordinary student would find it difficult to cause harm when facing so many people.

The psychological hurdle between students competing for grades and causing harm to foundation crew members in an attempt to incite a shipboard rebellion is vastly different.

Tap tap

“Hyeek! W-what are you doing? Please don’t suddenly stick ice arrows in my back…”

“We’re moving. Follow me.”

“Hmph… I understand you’re calling me with magic because we can’t face each other due to the light, but this makes my clothes wet…”

It’s not that she lacks psychological resistance or fear.

Titosoga clearly looks like a coward.

A child who screams “Hyeek!” or “Eek!” whenever ice touches her.

You can tell just by those cute reactions.

This is the result of steeling her resolve enough to suppress her innate timidity.

‘Did Oknodie and Arcadia notice that such a timid child could harbor this much courage?’

In the North, where Irene was born and raised, they conscript people regardless of who they are for the battlefield.

However, a fragile child like Titosoga would be out just for being female, out again for her thin limbs, and out once more for her cute screams.

They wouldn’t even send her to the front lines, maybe just using her to fill numbers or as an errand runner carrying stones for siege operations.

In that sense, Oknodie’s judgment in entrusting her with important matters, or Arcadia’s insight in keeping her as a confidant, could be considered superior to Irene’s.

“Waaah! Irene, don’t leave me behind~!”

Though she looks like nothing more than a pathetic underling as she scurries after Irene with her small feet, even such a child can wield a dazzling lighting stand to defeat enemies.

From the beginning, that lighting stand wasn’t as easy to handle as one might think.

‘It’s consuming an enormous amount of mana.’

As a mage, she could tell.

If an ordinary person with insufficient mana were to casually hold Titosoga’s lighting stand, they would quickly collapse from anemia.

A properly trained mage wouldn’t even want to use equipment that drains their mana to convert it into light.

This is equipment exclusively for magic users.

It’s for half-baked individuals who have plenty of mana but don’t know how to handle magic.

“Gasp! The corridor ends here. This floor is extremely wide with many stairs, so I can’t block everything with the lighting stand!”

“I’ll create ice walls. They can reflect light to block all paths, so don’t lower the lighting intensity.”

“Okay! I’ll do my best!”

Titosoga had fulfilled her role sufficiently.

Now it was Irene’s turn.

Irene headed toward the control room, using her ice magic as flashily as possible to draw aggro from throughout the ship.

A facility that could freely open and close all systems on the cruise ship.

If they could just infiltrate that place, they could confine the crew members and easily liberate the imprisoned students.

“In three years, your skills would be quite promising. But you were too hasty. It’s beyond your current capabilities. Both Themis and Chris within me say the same.”

The Apostle of Anrage, the god of corruption, who freely utilizes the experiences of numerous personalities.

He was strong.

Strong enough to remind one of Academy professors.

Since the Wiheomhae Foundation is comparable to the Academy, the Foundation must have similarly skilled individuals.

She had thought that important facilities like the control room would certainly have at least one such person.

“Please don’t resist. If you want to enter the underground prison with your body intact, come along quietly. If the pacifist Forcep’s personality retreats, the next to emerge will be the cannibal Gustav’s personality.”

The Apostle of Anrage.

A Foundation executive.

He was certainly strong.

Strong enough to easily subdue Irene and Titosoga alone.

However, Irene, who had anticipated the appearance of such a formidable opponent, wouldn’t have recklessly charged in head-on without a plan.

Boom.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Darkness suddenly fell as all the lights in the facility went out.

The already dimly lit corridors, where many lights had been stolen to enhance Titosoga’s lighting stand, were now completely engulfed in darkness.

“This is from the control room…?”

While the Apostle of Anrage was escorting Irene to prison, Sing had infiltrated the now-empty control room.

He had successfully completed his mission by seizing the opportunity according to plan.

Now all the students in the underground prison were freed, and the crew members were thrown into chaos.

“Now!”

In the confusion, enemies suddenly appeared from the darkness and attacked the escort team.

Even the Apostle of Anrage, who had been holding Irene’s arm, frowned, released his grip, and blocked the attack.

Whirl!

A sensation wrapped around his wrist.

It was a thin string.

“This is… a bikini? Why a bikini…?”

While the Apostle of Anrage was distracted examining the object wrapped around his hand, a nearby ventilation duct opened, and Bboyi pulled Irene and Titosoga in.

“Phew. Good thing an opportunity came up!”

“Weren’t you at the desert island auction?”

“I had to forfeit because we were attacked!”

“Auctions sure are eventful.”

“Was the shipboard rebellion successful?”

“Up to phase two.”

Phase one: Create a disturbance.

Phase two: Feint infiltration of the control room.

Everything had gone according to plan so far.

However, the truly important facilities were elsewhere.

Namely, the helm that controls the ship.

And the captain’s quarters where the cruise ship’s commander stays. The shipboard rebellion couldn’t succeed without capturing these two facilities.

Foundation executive Jona Wiheomhae.

Another executive, the Apostle of Anrage.

Now that they had drawn out two executive-level powerhouses, the chances of successfully capturing the captain’s quarters and helm had significantly increased.

But the Apostle of Anrage would know this as well.

“We need to go to the underground prison.”

It would be good to return to restore power to the control room, but if they went to defend the control room and captain’s quarters, they would almost certainly fail to capture those facilities.

If they gathered even the few available students and combined their firepower, they might stand a chance.

The power increase from adding students would be much greater than adding crew members to the Apostle of Anrage’s side.

“Thank you, Irene! If it weren’t for you, I might have seriously considered breaking my fingers!”

“Titosoga, you’re our lower class hero!”

The lower class students welcomed them with intense joy.

However, Titosoga’s expression wasn’t good.

“What’s wrong? Why such a gloomy face?”

“Hng-ing-ing.”

“You’re even crying!?”

“It’s because you’re so ugly that I’m shocked.”

“Is that for real…”

Fortunately for the student shocked by his own ugliness, Titosoga wiped away her tears with her hands and denied it.

“That’s not it… I lost my lighting stand…”

“What!? Your lighting stand again!?”

Irene apologized with a shamefaced expression beside her.

“It was taken when we were defeated by the Foundation executive. If I had been just a little stronger, I could have bought time for Titosoga to escape… It all happened because of my inadequacy.”

“How is that Irene’s fault… It’s because the Foundation executive was too strong.”

Titosoga stopped crying and made a resolution.

“I’ll definitely get my lighting stand back. I can’t lose the precious gift my sister gave me!”

Regardless of Titosoga’s resolution, the lower class students were curious.

“Even if silkworm moths have a habit of stealing shiny objects, why would a Foundation executive steal a lighting stand?”

“Yeah. What would they use it for?”

From the perspective of the lower class students who didn’t yet know about the lighting stand’s enhancement, it was a reasonable question.

* *

The crew members who had spent a long time crawling on the corridor floor or clinging to ice walls because of a single lighting stand wore miserable expressions as they wrapped bandages around their hands.

“Creating cold waves severe enough to cause frostbite wherever you touch… That was truly a vicious combination technique.”

“I never thought a lighting stand could become such a fearsome item.”

“How can such a small lighting stand produce light equivalent to a searchlight?”

A magitech engineer cautiously approached the Apostle of Anrage.

“Would it be alright if we analyzed that lighting stand?”

“One finger.”

Regret flashed across the face of the magitech engineer who had spoken. The pacifist personality was gone, replaced by the cannibal Gustav’s personality.

Although the magitech engineer had to cut off one of his fingers on the spot as punishment for speaking carelessly, his eyes gleamed with curiosity and passion for the artifact.

His passion, which didn’t shy away from physical mutilation, bordered on madness.

‘Unlike Academy students, opportunities for growth don’t come easily to Foundation members like us.’

In this world, there are people desperate enough to willingly sacrifice a finger if it means they can become stronger, rise to a higher position, or grasp even the fringes of mystery.

The magitech engineer paid the price and received the lighting stand.

And then he realized a terrible fact.

The mana stone insertion slot on this lighting stand was too small.

The main power source was the mana of the person holding the lighting stand.

It was a weapon powered by human mana.

The engineer, who became a mere magitech engineer rather than a mage because he lacked mana despite his knowledge, couldn’t withstand the sudden massive mana loss and collapsed.

The expressions of the surrounding crew members hardened as they watched the magitech engineer aging in real-time as his biomana was drained even while unconscious, still gripping the lighting stand.

“It’s a cursed item!”

“It’s draining his life force.”

“Do Academy first-years really handle such equipment in actual combat!?”

The crew members used a long pole from a distance to remove the lighting stand from his hand, like rescuing someone from electrocution.

Many couldn’t help but sigh at the pitiful sight of the magitech engineer who had aged at least 20 years.

“As expected of Oknodie’s friend.”

“Birds of a feather, I suppose.”

Titosoga.

That name was beginning to instill fear.