I Became the Savior of the Academy’s Villains

Chapter 124

Collapsed buildings, a ruined cityscape, a city stained with blood and flesh.

It was a ghastly sight.

In the center of this city, now only a wasteland, Ravinia stood.

"So this is hell."

She murmured softly.

What spread before her eyes truly was hell.

There was no other way to describe it.

"My life... has turned into hell......"

This place was her life.

The place where she was born and raised.

That very place had become hell.

Drip.

Tears flowed from Ravinia's eyes.

Sadness for her dead mother.

Despair at the wretched reality.

And fear for what was to come.

A jumble of these emotions made her suffer.

― If life is hell, then where is salvation to be found?

At that moment, someone whispered to her.

Without sobbing, tears still rolling down her cheeks, Ravinia turned her head to the side.

There, the shadow of a pure white figure appeared.

"... White Noise?"

Ravinia immediately realized it was White Noise.

White Noise approached her, who was crying, and wiped away her tears.

― Ravinia, my synchronizer. Why are you crying?

"White Noise... you...?"

White Noise's manner of speaking had changed.

Ravinia stared blankly at it for a moment, then grimaced bitterly.

"They all died. And it was because of me."

― Why do you think it's your fault?

"Because... I killed them... didn't I?"

Watching her blame herself, White Noise shook their head.

― That is not your fault. You only tried to protect yourself. If you think about it, it wasn't you but I who did the killing.

"But..."

― And to be precise, it's not even killing. They're all still alive inside you.

At White Noise's words, Ravinia fell silent for a moment.

She stumbled over her words, looking bewildered.

"Wh-what?"

― I, White Noise, the original intent for creating 'XXXXX' was to record the information of 'warriors' so they could fight forever. But there are other ways it can be used.

"Other ways...?"

Ravinia didn't understand those words.

But soon, 'information' seeped from White Noise into her.

"!"

At the unfamiliar sensation of information entering her, Ravinia flinched and trembled.

But soon she understood all of it.

That was a talent she possessed.

"So that's it. That's what White Noise was..."

Ravinia came to understand what White Noise was.

― If life is hell, then where is salvation to be found? That was the question the one who created me envisioned.

White Noise spoke in a calm tone.

― And I am the answer to that question. Inside me, everyone found salvation.

"Yes... inside you...salvation..."

Ravinia closed her eyes.

And she recalled the "information" of those she had swallowed within herself.

― Ah, how will I make money again tomorrow?

― It's hard... Tomorrow, the day after, am I going to live my whole life like this? Damn it...

― If I have to go on living like this... Wouldn't it be better to just die...?

It wasn't just Ravinia.

There were many people whose lives were pain and hell.

For such people, what was within White Noise could be a different kind of salvation.

― I can grant those people salvation. Inside me, they can dream the ideal dreams they desire.

"Dreams..."

― If life is hell, then at least in dreams, they can find salvation. That was the answer of my creator.

Ravinia opened her eyes again and looked at White Noise.

She gave a faint smile.

"That doesn't sound so bad."

This was the beginning of Albino.

* * *

At first, it was enough for Ravinia to swallow those who suffered.

But as more information accumulated, White Noise required more life force.

Moreover, more and more people began to interfere with her.

'It's impossible to save everyone using the current method.'

There were countless suffering people.

It was impossible for her to save them all by herself.

― Don't worry. We can create others to help us.

At that moment, White Noise released its functionality.

Based on the information of those it had swallowed, it began to create 'companions' who could fight forever.

That was how they began creating officers.

"Our goal is salvation. To lead every suffering person to eternal paradise..."

Members of Albino devoted themselves to that goal.

But as the organization emerged and more "those who interfered" appeared, they increasingly faced situations that could not be resolved by the original method.

So they began to tolerate more ruthless means.

'This is to save even more people.'

Thus, people like Montana emerged, but that was fine.

No matter how people were killed, as long as they obtained the information, those people could be saved.

'Yes. If they are suffering, anyone can be saved.'

Ravinia did not realize it.

She did not realize that the "information" of others was slowly contaminating her own pure "information".

Nor that because of that, Albino's actions were gradually becoming corrupted.

* * *

'What's going on? Paradise is inside her body?'

Luca couldn't wrap his head around the situation.

The "paradise" he knew was a real, tangible place.

'Wasn't paradise Albino's human farm?'

In the original work, paradise was the name of a city built by Albino.

A city where no one went hungry and where nobody suffered from illness. On the surface, it was paradise.

Leaving aside hunger, the fact that there were no people suffering from illness was quite shocking.

But the method was simple.

When someone got sick, they were simply infected with White Noise.

But why did Albino only inject White Noise into sick people?

They could have infected everyone with White Noise from the start.

The reason was simple.

There was a fatal flaw in White Noise infection.

'White Noise cannot produce life force.'

From the moment an organism is infected with White Noise, it can no longer generate life force.

To survive, it must absorb life force from outside.

And the inability to produce life force also meant losing the ability to reproduce.

In other words, people infected with White Noise could not have children.

Realizing this, Albino established the paradise of the original work to reliably increase their numbers and supplement life force.

Out of the people living in paradise, those above a certain age were "ascended" under pretense and served up as food for White Noise.

That was the true nature of paradise.

That was why Luca referred to it as a human farm.

A provocative term, but nothing was more apt.

A human farm created to produce humans for life force replenishment.

'But now she's saying paradise is inside her body? What does that mean?'

Luca desperately tried to think it through.

It seemed there was something he didn't know, something not in the original work.

'In the original work, Ravinia's past was briefly mentioned. Stuff about brothels and city guards. But wasn't that it?'

It made sense that Luca wouldn't know.

The original work never talked about "salvation".

Because by then, salvation had already been warped.

By the time anyone would look for its origin, it was only something to trouble the protagonist's mind.

But now, salvation had not become completely corrupted yet.

She had not crossed the line.

[White Plague, Albino]

His phone was proof of that.

"Those who suffer are dreaming happy dreams inside me. Here, they don't have to feel pain."

At that, Ravinia placed a hand on her chest and said,

"For the sake of saving people, I can do anything."

Seeing Ravinia, Luca realized.

'So that's what it means for paradise to exist inside her body.'

As expected, at this point, Ravinia and Albino had not become completely corrupted.

The "contamination by information" mentioned in the original work―

The contamination of Ravinia herself that had triggered Albino's descent into an out-of-control criminal organization―

At this point, it still was not severe.

'This is perfect timing.'

While thinking things had worked out, Luca also couldn't help but sneer as he looked at her.

"How arrogant. What gives you the right to spout nonsense about saving people?"

Arrogant.

That was the word.

For someone who had simply suffered a bit more unhappiness than others to think herself responsible for saving everyone—Luca considered that the height of arrogance.

"... Do you need qualifications to want to save people?"

But those words got on Ravinia's nerves.

Do you need qualifications to save people?

"You don't need them just to desire it, but you do need them to put it into action."

"I was chosen by White Noise. This is the power to save people. So for me..."

"Yes, that's the problem."

Luca cut off Ravinia's words.

Ravinia frowned, as if she couldn't understand.

"What do you mean?"

"You were merely chosen by White Noise. That requires neither effort nor will. You just needed to accept it."

"...?"

Looking at her still not understanding, Luca let out a short laugh.

"I see. From how you can't even grasp this simple thing, you really do lack the qualifications. I never thought someone like you, just the daughter of a prostitute, would ever understand something like this anyway."

"How... did you know about that...?"

No one knew her past.

The city where she was born had disappeared without a trace, and everyone within it was now inside White Noise.

Luca chuckled.

"I know almost everything about you. Your past, your present, maybe even your future."

"..."

"I apologize for calling you just the daughter of a prostitute. After all, there are many who've achieved great things through hard work, even with such a background. But did you ever put in any effort?"

At those words, Ravinia's face twisted with emotion.

"Didn't you say you know my past? Then you should know how much I struggled, right?"

"Yes, I recognize that. You tried hard to save the only family you had."

Luca acknowledged it without hesitation.

He understood how miserable her past was.

"But after you obtained White Noise, what did you ever do to improve yourself?"

"What do you... mean?"

The problem started after that.

Luca gazed intently at her.

"After getting White Noise, what did you do to develop yourself?"

"To... develop myself...?"

At words she had never even considered, Ravinia looked dumbstruck.

"Didn't you just kill people under the pretext of helping them through your hypocritical sense of salvation? Is killing people also an effort? An impressive kind of effort, I suppose."

Luca spoke mockingly.

"If you had studied even a little, you'd realize just how empty your so-called salvation is. Do you really think what remains as mere information inside you is 'life'?"

"That's..."

"You can absorb human information, right? Among the information you took in, was there nothing about this? Then again, you've only saved those in suffering, and it's unlikely any of them were truly learned. Most were just ignorant, piling up complaints about the world."

Luca's expression soon turned cold.

"The information that accumulates inside you amounts to just that. And someone who stands atop such shallow data is no greater. All you do is run from reality, never making an effort to change it."

"I'm trying to change..."

"You thought about changing it? If you really did, do you think you would've created a criminal organization like Albino?"

Ravinia tried to protest, but could not.

Her thinking had been wrong from the start.

Seeing her confusion, Luca drove in the final nail.

"If you're going to waste such precious power for salvation, hand it over. I'll put it to better use."