novelraw Chapter 102: Trap
Chapter 102: Trap
[Headmistress Catherine]
It didn't make sense. The message I received from my phone was a picture of my niece.
She wasn't actually my blood-related niece, as all my relatives are dead but she's the daughter of a very close friend of mine.
In the picture, my niece was just innocently walking around in her bedroom but the angle at which the photo was taken, it was like how a stalker would take photos of the people they're following.
Then I received a text, not even a second after.
[I wonder how she's going to scream when I cut her arm off.]
Panicked, I called my friend's number, but she didn't pick up.
In a fraction of the time it should have taken, I crossed the country, burning through mana faster than ever.
When I arrived at my friend's home, she looked surprised to see me there.
"Hey. Cat… what are you doing here? It's good to see you but…"
She was holding my niece in her arms and the two of them were cooking.
There were no signs of struggle. I didn't sense any danger around. There was no presence of anyone other than regular humans. The most mana someone had in the vicinity was low enough that my friend could've handled them.
"Auntie!" my niece excitedly called out for me as she forced herself off her mother. She ran into my arms and I hugged her while thinking about what the purpose of the messages was.
That was when it clicked.
"...A trap," I muttered. "Baby girl, sorry for leaving so soon but I'll be sure to visit properly next time," I said as I handed my niece back to my friend.
It seemed like my friend somewhat understood what had happened based on my words, "a trap".
"I'll head somewhere safe. Go," she said.
Without wasting another second, I began turning back towards the academy. Space itself was folding under my feet as I traveled so fast that I worried my mana reserve would be totally drained.
My heart was pounding with an intensity that I hadn't felt in years.
No. Not my kids. Not my kids! Don't touch them. I'll kill you if you touch my children!
My precious students. Each one of them was my pride and joy. I became a headmistress in the first place because I wanted to raise future generations of warriors and defenders of the world.
"Don't touch them!" I screamed.
The farther I travelled, the worse the feeling became. It felt like something massive had already tipped past the point of no return.
I should've had my suspicions. After all, the demon king had announced his return not so long ago.
Guilt was eating at me, and even though I knew I shouldn't blame myself because I was only trying to save my niece — I still felt like it was my fault.
I was getting closer and immediately, I could sense all of the demonic energy that was at my academy.
I could feel other mana and energies coming from teachers and students alike.
There was a massive amount of energy as well. I couldn't put a finger on what it was, although I knew it wasn't the work of a demon.
Just before I crossed the border of my campus, I heard it.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The shockwave hit me and I had to stop my flight, putting my hand in front of my face to block it.
It was nothing to me, but for everyone else, I could only imagine how powerful it must've felt.
The earth itself had screamed.
Trees were being ripped out of the ground as if they were nothing more than weeds. Clouds of dust and debri was swallowing every building.
I had to head there.
As I moved towards it, I took the time to erase the demonic monsters, severing their bodies with little effort. It didn't slow me down, but I was able to crush their cores and decrease their number to an extent where I had zero concerns about the remaining demonic monsters.
The remaining monsters would require me to slow down if I wanted to clean them up.
My students and teachers should be able to handle what was left.
As I got closer and closer, I began to feel dread.
An emotion that I hadn't felt since the last war.
Arriving at the scene, I landed on the ground and began slowly walking forward. There were no movements. No violent energies.
I could feel someone's mana and presence.
When the dust began to settle, I saw him more clearly.
Although he looked different, I could tell that it was—
"...Bell?" I uttered his name.
He was standing in the center of the crater. The spot of destruction and devastation. Fire was everywhere and faint sparks of lightning were present around his body.
The ground was scorched black and there were these veins that branched from where he stood that had residual lightning energy.
At his feet was what remained of a demon. Although I hadn't seen it for myself, I could tell that it wasn't what it was meant to look like.
It wasn't even recognizable as a body. It was a pile of flattened mass. Nearly a fleshy paste.
Then it began to turn into black ash. Signs that a demon had died.
"...Bell?" I called out, carefully.
Even though he was in front of me, his presence felt like it was missing. He didn't even seem like he had a soul or that he was human.
Bell turned his head.
His hair was pitch-black and his eyes were crimson, deep and heavy.
"It's me. Your headmistress. Bell… are you okay?" I asked, cautiously approaching him.
Then his gaze turned away from me and shifted downward where the ash was.
From the pile of black ashes, a purple aura was seeping out. Although I knew I couldn't stop it, I still wanted to reach forward and block the aura. Although at the very last moment, I pulled my arm back as I knew it was futile.
The aura made contact with Bell's body and slowly, he absorbed it until I could no longer feel it.
Then I watched as a second curse mark appeared on his body.
It bloomed in the center of his chest, directly on the other side of his previous curse mark.
My blood ran cold as I whispered, "...Poor boy. A second one before he even turns seventeen."
Then it stopped. Whatever it was that had taken over him, it ended.
The red in his eyes was drained as if someone had pulled a plug and quickly, it returned to its usual black color.
The black bled out of his hair strand by strand, returning to its familiar golden-white. There was only a small batch of black left when his body began to sway.
He began falling towards the ground, his eyelids closed.
Stepping in before he could hit the ground, I caught him.
I could feel his heartbeat. His breathing was shallow but — he was breathing.
Letting out a sigh of relief, I looked up as I felt multiple presences getting closer.
I recognized the students. Maya. Diana. Ichiko, the new transfer student whom I personally permitted to. Then Arthurr, the other transfer student, whom I was told to let transfer into the academy.
❖ ❖ ❖
[Shitty God]
Hey. It's me again. And let me warn you first and foremost, do not call me Shitty God.
Only Bell can do that. And when he does do that… I don't feel terrible at all. Yep. Definitely. I definitely don't feel like crap whenever he refers to me like that.
…Yep.
Anyways!
I feel terrible. Like… really freaking terrible. So terrible that I wish I could burn this world that I created.
I've seen the worlds of my fellow deities burn. I have seen civilizations collapse into dust.
I have seen their favorite heroes die screaming.
Even though my protagonist of the novel that I wrote, Arthurr — even though he was in front of me, I didn't even pay attention to him.
Even as he was struggling to defeat the flying bat-octopus and was getting harmed, I didn't care.
The only thing or the only one I cared about was Bell.
Even though he can regenerate his body using his code, every time he gets hurt, I felt like throwing a hammer in each of the reader's faces. Yes, you readers. Your faces.
This is all your fault.
…Okay, maybe it isn't, but still, take this hammer.
THUNK!
Bell may seem like he has changed personality-wise and how warm he is, but only I know that those layers of masks he had wearing had gotten thicker. He had so many masks on that I don't know where it starts and where it ends.
Who even was the real Bell anymore?
He's convinced himself so well that he's recovering his lost emotions that his mind has forgotten about the truth.
The truth of how empty he is.
I reckon you readers also thought the same. You think that he's changed?
"HAH!" I laugh in your face and spit on you. "Hawk tuah!"
I told you not to trust him.
Did you forget?
If he somehow ends up changing, I'll be happy because that's my favorite person in the world, even if he's hurt my feelings many times.
But the odds of that happening, I don't know.
I'm a god and still — I have zero clue.
If he does end up changing even one bit, like the tiniest of tiny "bit", I'll send each of you a thousand American dollars. That's the currency you use over there, right? Over here in my world, they just use the universal currency known as Zera notes or just Zeras (one Zera is worth about one ze).
Even though I was the one who wrote about Yanari's existence, I deleted it from my novel because I felt it was too dangerous to exist during the time that I had introduced it.
A mistake on my part as a writer.
Shut up. I can feel you judging me. Look away before I cause you to stub your toe on a table leg. I'll curse you to lose one side of every pair of socks you have.
Don't say that I didn't warn you.
… Anyway.
When his hair turned black, I almost looked away.
My stomach twisted violently, giving me this sense of nausea that I had never felt before as a deity.
I knew he was going to use it because it was his last resort. I could tell that all of his other artifacts had run out and that he wanted to kill Selgaath instead of merely surviving like Arthurr did in the novel.
Was this ego?
It couldn't be because he had no ego. Bell has nothing. He's empty.
But the mask he's wearing, one of them must've convinced him that he has an ego.
An ego that tells him he needs to defeat the demon with his own hands in order to redeem the shitty side villain that is Bell Agnus.
I did this to him.
If I just listened to his criticism of the character when I was first uploading my chapters, I could've prevented this.
I'm also the one who brought him into this world and put him on this path with a lie.
But I had no choice.
That danger on the horizon needs him.
"I'm sorry."
When the Headmistress caught him, I let out a slow exhale. He seems okay physically but I'm not sure what the consequences of using the ability will be.
I don't even know what the side effects are because I only described the ability in the novel. Where his conscientiousness went during this — I don't know.
Yes. I'm a weak god who doesn't know everything.
Sue me.
I could only hope that whatever side effects the ability has, they are either minor or that it didn't exist at all.
But just as how everything I wrote came to life and expanded far beyond my novel based on the perimeters they were written in, as I had described Yanari as an artifact capable of destroying the very fabric of the world… I'm scared.
Someone hold my hand. Not you. Your hands are greasy from all the chicken you've been eating you fat piggy.
It might seem like I'm overreacting, but a thing about artifacts is that they're capable of growing. You don't know this. Most readers of my novel don't know this. At least not until volume 10 when I mentioned it.
Of course, that means Bell knows this.
He read everything I wrote, although he would leave nasty comments and reviews constantly. Why did he keep reading my novel if he hated it so much?
I watched as others arrived at the crater where the Headmistress and Bell were.
I recognized all four of them, not just from watching Bell but from the writing of my novel.
Maya was the first to stop walking as she looked down at where the two of them were.
I could see that fear was still in her eyes. It clung to them stubbornly, even though her posture made me feel like she was trying not to let it affect her.
Well, she was the only one here who felt Yanari's ability up close.
But underneath it, I could also sense admiration. She knows about how two-faced Bell is so even though she appreciated his help against the fight against the Immortal, it took killing a powerful demon in front of her to truly change her negative feelings about him.
Although she is my creation, she better watch out with her hostility towards my Bell.
I would've karate-kicked her if she had kept being a little brat about him.
Thankfully, something in her was changing.
Her fists were clenched to her side, nails biting into her palms, teeth biting on her lip. She was staring at Bell as if she were meeting him for the first time.
Not just the boy who had mocked her for signing the blood oath. Not just the person who wrapped his arm around her shoulder in that room where mana was cancelled and made her feel like absolute shit.
She was staring at him like he was a hero. Although there was still fear in those shaky pupils.
"Is… is he alive?" she muttered.
"AHHH! You bitch! Don't jinx him!" I screamed.
.
.
.
I apologize for my lapse in judgment. I didn't mean to say that. It was a moment of weakness.
"Ahum…"
Ichiko's reaction was quite different. She didn't bother hiding it. Her killing intent had flared so sharply that even I could feel it.
She's a character that I barely wrote about in the novel. She existed, but she died because of… I don't know. She just died. Now she's here. As Bell's fiancée.
I don't even like that word. "Fiancee". Eughhh.
I mean.. Yes, I did have a forced engagement in the novel, but at least that wasn't the main character.
But Bell? Why Bell? No. Why Asher?!
MY Asher…
"...Ahum," I cleared my throat again.
Ichiko stood a step forward and began descending into the crater. The Headmistress felt her killing intent, but since she's aware of the fact that the two are engaged, she probably understands why Ichiko is releasing the intent at the moment.
I think if there were a button to revive Selgaath, she would push it just so that she could kill it herself. Revenge for what it did to Bell.
That — that I can agree with.
In a cold voice, she asked the Headmistress, whom I actually never gave a proper name in the novel but apparently it's Catherine Harper, "...That thing is dead, right?"
"Yes."
"..."
I looked over to Diana.
She wasn't screaming. She didn't even approach Bell.
She had collapsed to her knees and her hands were clutching at her chest. I don't know what she's feeling but I reckon it has something to do with their connection.
Speaking of Diana, wasn't Bell the person who — you know, did that thing to her in the past?
The mistake that I made in the novel was to give a superficial backstory to her character (according to Bell's own words).
Even if Bell has gaslighted the entire academy to believe the mistake was caused by a demon curse, why in the world has she fallen in love with him?
Stockholm syndrome? The taste of his blood? A combination of the two?
As her fingers dug into the fabric of her clothes, more and more ice was spilling out unconsciously from where she kneeled.
Tears were streaming freely down her face, freezing into beads of ice before they could splash on the ground.
"...Bell," was the only thing she muttered.
Finally, the last person I looked at was Arthurr.
He stood a little apart from the others and there wasn't really any sorrow on his face. Of course, he was sad that a fellow student was hurt, but not the same sadness that Diana or Ichiko was feeling.
I could see that he was confused and overwhelmed.
He must be trying to understand everything he had witnessed.
Do you understand now, my dear protagonist? My creation from the novel?
You are no longer the main character in this world.
It is Bell Agnus.
Even though he tries to convince himself that he's going to let things play out like in the original novel so that he can predict events as they occur, has he really done any of that?
"Hah!"
No. He interferes and has been changing things as he pleases.
I don't know if he'll ever accept it, but it's too late to worry about the butterfly effect. Other than canon events that will play out, my world has already changed to adapt to his existence.