Nadia smiled gracefully and declared.
“Cadet Yurian will be moving with us throughout the entire festival preparation period as an official special field-inspection assistant for the student council and the Student Support Office.
We’ve decided not to let you out of our sight.”
Despair surged over me like a tidal wave.
Forget getting off work—now I had been shackled officially.
I staggered and braced myself against the desk.
“Why is it that when I’m under suspicion, my workload increases instead of decreasing?
Isn’t it common sense to remove suspicious people from the work?”
“Because you’re suspicious.”
Nadia answered as if it were only natural.
“What kind of logic is that?”
“It’s basic intelligence strategy to keep the most dangerous variable closest and monitor it.
It makes surveillance easier.”
I thought to myself.
Ah, this woman is a far more dangerous kind of human than a monster.
In her eyes, my safety or human rights had never been a consideration to begin with.
There was only the calculation of how to efficiently control the academy’s safety and the variable known as me.
Briana began entering a new note into my academic record terminal with an indifferent expression.
A bluish light spread across the screen, and an indelible annotation was engraved beside my name.
[Multiple contacts with anomaly sites during festival preparation period]
[Related student: Yurian Valter]
[Cause of action unknown]
[However, possibility of accident prevention confirmed]
Looking at the merciless sentence on the screen, I struggled to speak.
“……Can’t you take out the part that says ‘cause unknown’?
You could just write that I was a hardworking assistant.”
Without even lifting her head, Briana replied.
“Then tell me the cause.
Explain the logical basis for how you found everything we missed every single time.”
I pressed my lips shut.
In the end, there was only one answer I could choose.
“……Just leave it as cause unknown.”
At my answer, Briana pressed the input button without the slightest hesitation.
The bustle of festival preparations had now turned into the noise of giant gears crushing down on me.
The cheerful laughter and hammering sounds coming from all over the plaza felt, if anything, chillingly cold.
The students were excited as they waited for the festival,
but I felt the weight of the tragedy to come as I stared at the ominous annotation stamped beside my name.
Nadia unfolded the map again and began organizing the inspection schedule for the next area.
Erka grabbed my arm and urged me to go with her to collect the next mana stone sample.
As I was dragged out of the meeting room, I looked toward the splendid decorations of the central plaza in the distance.
How much darkness was hidden beneath that brilliant light?
And every time I uncovered that darkness, how much deeper would my name sink into the mire?
The dazzling sunlight over the plaza faded, and a chilly night arrived, shadows stretching long as if heralding the festival’s eve.
The central plaza, now covered in darkness, was filled not with the lively noise of daytime, but with the tense whispers of students and the clanking of heavy equipment.
The festival had now become an unavoidable reality tightening around my throat.
The scene before my eyes was magnificent.
On the main stage, enormous magic lamps stood in rows, and the pillars of the Department of Swordsmanship’s sparring arena rose with an intimidating presence.
From the white tents of the Department of Divinity to the maze entrance of the Department of Reconnaissance, it felt as though all the academy’s capabilities had been concentrated into this one plaza.
“Now, it’s time for the final rehearsal.
Yurian, are you a little more awake now?”
Nadia’s voice beside me was far calmer than usual, yet also persistent.
In her hands was a bundle of parchment covered in all sorts of routes and times.
Forcing strength into my wobbling legs, I blinked my heavy eyelids.
“Do we really have to do this now? They’ll all be turned on tomorrow anyway.”
“It’s the final check. If we get through today safely, at least the preparation process will be over.
We have to operate all the equipment at the same time at least once to reduce tomorrow’s variables.”
Nadia smiled elegantly, but warning bells were ringing in my head.
Those words usually meant something else was about to go wrong.
In the original story, terrible incidents always lurked behind the phrase “final check.”
But there was no way to slip away from this place, not with the student council and the Student Support Office watching with their eyes wide open.
The bell announcing the start of the rehearsal rang throughout the plaza.
“Begin lighting! Connect them in order!”
At Erka’s instruction, the magic lamps at the edge of the plaza began emitting blue light one by one.
As the gentle glow spread along the stone path, applause burst out here and there from the students.
Mana was supplied to the pillars of the Department of Swordsmanship’s sparring arena, and a grand vibration could be felt.
At the Department of Divinity’s booth, Amelia took her position while preparing holy water for the blessing ritual.
At first, everything seemed perfect.
The devices operated smoothly, and the harmony of music and light was dazzling.
But within that brilliant scene, I alone was feeling a terrible nausea.
My fingertips kept trembling.
A tingling sensation, as if pricked by needles, climbed up from my fingertips and seemed to numb my entire wrist.
Erka and I should have found and isolated all the dangerous mana stones by now, yet the ominous vibration would not stop.
‘Why is this still here?’
My stomach tightened coldly.
Instinctively, I turned my gaze toward the magic lamp support.
It was equipment fitted with a normal mana stone, without a doubt.
But to my eyes, beneath that gentle blue light, I could see something like a black stain pooled at the bottom.
It was not the mana stone itself. It was the fine powder clinging inside the device, and the residual traces of phase that had transferred onto equipment already contaminated.
I had thought we’d removed the bomb, but the poison it left behind had already seeped into every device.
The rehearsal was reaching its midpoint, and all the magical devices in the plaza were raising their output at the same time.
At that moment, one central magic lamp flickered black for the briefest instant, as if instead of emitting light, it had opened a pitch-black hole inward.
That reaction lasted only an instant, but it became a chain wave spreading across the entire plaza.
The black tremor that began from the central lamp transferred to the support pillars of the Department of Swordsmanship,
then to the barrier stakes of the Department of Divinity,
and then to the guide lamps of the Department of Reconnaissance.
It was a covert chain reaction, soundless and difficult to see.
But I knew.
If that rhythm completed one more cycle, the devices installed across the plaza would devour each other’s mana and cause a massive explosion.
Cold sweat poured down my back like rain.
Should I shout for them to stop immediately?
In a situation where even Erka’s precision detector was silent,
I could not tell them to ruin this splendid eve celebration based on my intuition alone.
I staggered toward the control panel beside the stage.
My legs kept giving out, making me sway.
“Yurian? Where are you going?”
Nadia’s suspicious voice came from behind me, but I had no time to answer.
My gaze was fixed on the large water container placed right beside the control panel.
It was a bucket full of ice water, left behind by students who had been carrying supplies.
Only a few seconds remained before the rhythm completed.
I pretended my ankles had tangled and fell toward the corner of the stage.
“Uwaaah!”
With a pathetic scream, my body rolled across the floor.
At the same time, the tip of my foot violently kicked the water container on the floor.
Splash—!
The bucket overturned, and cold water poured over the stage’s auxiliary power cables and control panel.
With a crackling noise, one auxiliary mana circuit was temporarily cut off.
“Hey! Who put a water bucket there—!”
Briana’s sharp shout tore through the plaza.
“Stop the rehearsal! Auxiliary circuit short detected! Cut the power!”
The student council descended into chaos.
The glowing magic lamps went out one after another, and the plaza sank back into darkness.
“I-I’m sorry. My foot got tangled……”
Sitting on the wet floor, I lowered my head while acting as if I were trembling.
From the outside, it looked like nothing more than an accident caused by a useless student who had ruined the rehearsal.
But the horrible tingling that had been tormenting my fingertips subsided as if it had been a lie the moment the water spilled.
Thanks to one circuit shutting down, the rhythm of the chain reaction that had been about to devour mana and amplify itself slipped half a beat out of sync.
And the geniuses in the plaza did not miss that brief opening.
“The circuit state is strange! The mana density was abnormally high!”
Erka immediately raised her staff and forcibly suppressed the phase of the magic lamps.
Beside her, Seria, though flustered, began turning off the auxiliary lamps’ output one by one.
“Everyone, stay calm and sit where you are! It isn’t dangerous!”
Amelia spread divine power among the panicked students and calmed them,
while Rowen ran toward the maze and pulled out the fuse of the overloaded guide lamps.
Dylan pushed the people standing near the pillars beyond the safety line and controlled the area.
At the end of the commotion, Mia approached, sniffing.
Her gaze moved back and forth between the drenched control panel and me sprawled on the floor.
“Senior, the smell…… it cut off right here.”
It was a small whisper that only Mia seemed to have noticed.
Nadia pushed through the crowd and came over to settle the situation.
Instead of looking angry, she looked around with an even calmer face.
“It seems the equipment needs further inspection.
Since an unexpected water leak appears to have revealed a defect in the circuit, we’ll end things here for today.
Yurian, you…… should go to the infirmary.”
Her words were calm, but the eyes with which she looked at me pierced my chest like sharp awls.
She knew.
She knew that this accident had not been a simple mistake.
The large explosion did not happen.
But that brief short circuit that caused the rehearsal to stop
showed us in advance the terrible structure that had nearly erupted on the day of the festival.
It left behind solid data on how dangerous the remaining traces were even after the bomb was removed,
and on how the devices could lead one another to destruction.
Supported by Briana, I headed to the Student Support Office.
She tapped at her terminal and sighed.
“Yurian, truly, there’s nowhere your name doesn’t appear.”
She entered a new sentence into the notes section of my academic record.
[Short circuit accident caused by carelessness during festival eve rehearsal]
[Related student: Yurian Valter]
[Cause of action unknown]
[However, early detection of circuit anomaly and possibility of preventing chain overload confirmed]
Looking at the sentence on the screen, I bit my lip.
“Um, Briana. So, can’t you take out the part that says ‘cause unknown’?
Just write that I was unlucky, or that I fell because I’m physically weak.”
Briana lifted her head and stared straight at me.
Behind her glasses, her eyes were cold, as though she knew everything.
“That’s why I’m telling you to explain the cause. Tell me why, at that exact moment,
you just happened to fall in precisely that direction and spill the water. Explain the physical inevitability of it.”
I shut my mouth.
The cold night wind brushed my wet clothes and sent a chill over my skin.
Rather than speak the truth I possessed, remaining a foolish troublemaker was far more beneficial to my survival.
“……Just leave it as cause unknown.”
At my answer, Briana pressed the input button once again without the slightest hesitation.