Chapter 87
this is a fictional story by realTensai
Alvis sprinted out of the classroom, several thoughts terrorizing his mind. However, he didn’t even have the time to entertain all of them, as one wrong step, one second too late, could decide between life and death.
He had two options: stopping the fourth years from revealing Mr. Woltzer’s disappearance or dealing with the rebelling humans in the dorms.
Alvis clicked his tongue, took the left corner, ran out of the school building, and made his way to the dorms.
The fourth-years already know about Mr. Woltzer’s disappearance, so even I wouldn’t be able to stop them. Of course, it would’ve been better if the rest of the school wouldn’t find out about it just now, but it would come out sooner or later.
However, the same can’t be said about the humans that are out for revenge. They can still be stopped. Unnecessary killing can still be stopped.
With that in mind, he raced even faster, and the dorms came into his sight.
“Please, don’t let me be too late.”
He entered the extensive building, only to see an even bigger commotion right before his eyes.
Am I too late?
Students, countless students, were facing off against each other, the only thing more troublesome than their numbers being their loud voices. Alvis instinctively held his ears as their shouting shook him to his core. However, within this mess, he could see a clear order, this paradox making his head twist. Humans were to his right and demons to his left, no one crossing their side as if arranged by a higher might. Students from other races stood on the sidelines, like spectators, about to watch a showdown. Yet there were a few exceptions.
“Lia!”
Standing right between the humans and demons was Lia, acting as the last wall separating them. But she wasn’t the only one. Maya, her best friend, and their fellow student council member, was next to her, supporting her like a guardian. There were also a few teachers, trying their best to calm the situation down. However, it didn’t seem as if they had control over this situation and one misstep could lead to disaster.
Alvis didn’t wait any longer and fought his way through the crowd until he was close enough to understand what they were saying.
“If it weren’t the demons, they can just show us the suspect,” Charles, the one leading the humans at the very front, shouted.
“We don’t have to do anything you tell us,” Uro, the demon who had got into scuffles with Charles on the first day and who also was one of the three demons that had shared the classroom with Alvis, responded.
Other demons shouted yes in unison, strengthening their resolve.
“See, I knew it was them. If their friend hadn’t killed Max, they could just show him to us and everything would be fine. But they can’t because their friend isn’t here anymore. He got instant freedom for brutally murdering our comrade.”
“Why do you even suspect them in the first place?” Lia asked, a desperate attempt to calm them down.
“Isn’t that obvious? They wanted revenge!” Charles shouted, his voice raw with anger. “Max was the one who accidentally almost killed a demon yesterday. As revenge for his best friend, the demon who is now missing killed Max.”
The crowd roared in response, a chaotic mix of agreement and dissent. The humans behind Charles were nodding furiously, their faces twisted with fury. Meanwhile, the demons glared back, baring their fangs, fists clenched, ready to retaliate. The air was thick with the heat of clashing tempers, the hall vibrating with barely restrained violence.
Alvis didn’t realize it because the body was so mutilated, but the one who got killed was the person he just barely stopped from killing a demon yesterday. If everything they said was true, then their argument even made sense. However, Alvis could never say that out loud.
“Accidentally?!” Uro shouted, stepping forward with eyes blazing. “Zorek is still being treated right now, and we don’t even know if he’ll ever walk again, let alone recover fully. That’s your idea of an accident?!”
The humans erupted again, shouting over each other. Some were on the verge of tears, their faces contorted with grief and anger. The demons on the other side looked equally furious, their eyes glowing with mana.
Alvis’s palms were clammy with sweat, and he could barely breathe. The room seemed to close in around him, the shouts and curses echoing like the pounding of war drums in his ears.
Charles stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with a dangerous light.
“So you admit it! Your demon friend did it!” he yelled, pointing an accusing finger at Uro.
However, Uro just let out a derisive laugh, his lips curling into a snarl.
“Ha, even if he did it, that human deserved it.”
The words hung in the air like a gunshot. For a moment, the entire hall fell into a stunned silence, the tension so thick it was almost tangible.
Alvis’s breath hitched.
Oh no, he’s gone too far.
Charles’s eyes widened, and his face twisted with rage.
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“What did you just say?!”
“You heard me!” Uro said, stepping up as if daring them to try something. “Max was a piece of shit, and if he’s dead, then he deserved it!”
A chorus of gasps erupted from the bystanders. Alvis’s eyes darted frantically between the two groups. He could see Lia’s panicked expression, her hands trembling as she tried to raise them to cast a restraining spell.
But it was too late.
“YOU FUCKING DEMONS!”
The scream tore through the air, raw with grief and hatred. In one fluid motion, a human boy broke free from the crowd. His face was twisted with agony and his eyes were wild, unseeing, driven by a pain so deep it had turned into madness.
It happened too fast. No one could react. Maybe it was because of the huge commotion. Or maybe because of the heightened emotions and tension that no one noticed it. But the moment they did, it was already too late.
The student, maybe the victim’s best friend, took out a beam gun and, without a moment of hesitation, he shot.
Time seemed to stretch into eternity as a sharp, blinding flash illuminated the room. Alvis watched in horror as the beam pierced the demon’s skull, a thin trail of smoke curling from the wound before the body crumpled to the ground.
The hall that had been so loud that Alvis had to hold his ears upon entering was now so quiet Alvis couldn’t even hear someone breathe. Everyone just stared at the demon who had happened to receive this beam shot.
It went straight through his forehead, killing him on the spot. He fell to the ground, blood mixed with white brain matter exiting his head, tainting the ground the demons stood on in a darkish red.
Alvis could hear nothing but his own heart pounding, each beat sending waves of nausea through his stomach. He wanted to scream, to stop the madness, but his voice was locked in his throat. The blood pooling around the demon’s body seemed to expand endlessly, staining the ground like an accusation.
“No… no, what have you done?!” Lia’s voice broke through the silence, trembling with shock.
“Bloughhh!”
Several people vomited, adding some halfway-digested food together with yellow stomach fluid to the red sea beneath them. Some people even feinted, falling right into the mess.
“T-This is what they deserve!” a human boy yelled, his voice cracking with hysteria, while even his friend, eyes wide with terror, took several steps back, shaking his head. On the other side, a demon girl fell to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks as she reached for her fallen comrade.
“You monsters… you monsters…,” she whimpered. “Y-You killed him… YOU KILLED HIM!”
It was as if a bomb exploded as the mana density and the killing intent among the demons rose all in one moment. Alvis could already see sparks of deadly spells that were about to annihilate the humans in one go.
He needed to stop this. He needed to make them listen. But all he could see were the lifeless eyes of the demon on the ground, staring at him as if accusing him of failing yet again.
Stop. They have to...
“Stop!” Lia shouted, simultaneously raising both her arms. “Nature’s shackles.”
Roots manifesting out of nowhere spread across the hall, taking hold of everyone with a will to fight. Within seconds, she immobilized the entire demon and human force by chaining them to the ground.
It’s the same spell she used against Voyzez’s army.
However, Lia wasn’t the only one who acted. A teacher, with a bald head and overly muscular physique, whose name Alvis didn’t know, combined both his hands before uttering a spell.
“Gravity zone.”
Alvis almost fell to his knees as the gravity increased. The students, who were already tied up, were now pressed against the floor, unable to move an inch. Several teachers immediately moved to take the beam gun from the human.
“Let us free,” the demons shouted, the hatred in their voice even making Alvis shiver.
“They just killed our friend right before our eyes. How dare you hold us back now? If you are so powerful, why didn’t you stop them from killing our friend?!”
Alvis could see Lia’s eyebrows twitch as she bit her trembling lips. She tried to open her mouth to confront them, yet no words would leave them.
“Y-You have to calm down,” a young dwarf teacher, maybe in her mid twenties, said, her shaking voice and wide eyes showing that she herself hadn’t calmed down yet. “There will definitely be consequences for the one who did this. Don’t worry, he will face the same punishment a murderer would be. We will make sure of that.”
“--- Can everyone hear me?”
An unfamiliar voice echoed through the loudspeakers that would normally carry Mr. Woltzer’s announcements.
“I’m William, a fourth-year student, but you all probably know me as your former student council president.”
Alvis immediately recognized his name as he was one of the strongest fourth years and already on his list of people he had to be wary of. However, every cell of his shook as he understood what it meant that he was now making a broadcast only the Principal could make.
“I have some important news for you. I didn’t want to believe it at first either, but we just confirmed the truth and that’s why we have to share it. Our Principal, Mr. Woltzer, is gone.”
The words entered Alvis’ ears, yet he just shook his head as if he could erase them somehow.
“Mr. Woltzer, the one who always advised us to do good and don’t lose our hope even in this situation, betrayed us. He just vanished, leaving us behind in this survival game. Our teachers who knew about this didn’t want to tell us, but we the fourth years couldn’t let that happen. We didn’t want to--, no, we couldn’t withhold the truth from you. That’s why we made this broadcast so everyone could know what they rightfully should. Thanks for your attention.”
He ended the broadcast and left the students with the same feeling they had after an announcement by the Priest.
Why? Why did he do that? Don’t they know that revealing it now in such a way only leads to more chaos? They had to know. But why did they do it then? Don’t tell me… they wanted to create chaos on purpose?
However, Alvis didn’t even have time to focus on these questions right now, as the reality of the news caught up with everyone who didn’t know about it already.
“They are joking, right? Right? This isn’t true. Tell me it isn’t true!” a student shouted at a teacher.
However, the teachers couldn’t respond as they all just stood there wide-eyed and trembling.
“And you guys wanted us to trust you,” Uro said. “You can’t tell us anything anymore! Even Mr. Woltzer betrayed us. In this survival game, we can only count on ourselves. Now let us free you fucking traitors!”
“Listen,” Alvis said, his heart twisting, knowing what he wanted to say. Yet he didn’t stop, as this was his last desperate attempt at attaining peace. “If Mr. Woltzer vanished, then that means he was the one who killed, so it couldn’t have been a demon. So your accusations are false. Please, I know this is asking a lot, but please talk to each other without any hatred and prejudice and settle your disagreements. We still can attain peace.”
“Ha, I understand it now,” Charles said, the viciousness in his voice like deadly poison. “Both Mr. Woltzer and that demon disappeared, which could only mean they formed a team. They struck a deal and Mr. Woltzer let the demon get his revenge, but only if they formed a team so he could also reap the rewards. Mr. Woltzer of all people…. You really can’t trust anyone.”
“It’s way too late for peace.”
It was the first time he spoke up. Mika. He was the leader of the three demons who slept in the same classroom as Alvis. He was the only one who didn’t fall for Charles’ provocation back then and even managed to calm down the hot-blooded Uro. With an estimated power level of 2945, he was one of the strongest students in the entire school. One look at his cold yet blazing red eyes was enough for Alvis to realize that if he really wanted, he could free himself from Lia’s plants at any moment.
“Humans listen up,” he said, his voice catching everyone’s attention. His voice trembled, not with fear, but with barely restrained rage. “From this moment on, no human will be safe. We will hunt you down, one by one, until none of you are left standing. There will be no peace. You guys messed with the wrong race. This is a declaration of war: we will annihilate you!”
Charles just smirked, as if he had waited his entire life for this moment.
“Now you show your true faces, demons. We humans won’t back down. From now on, it’s an all-out war!”