“Yurian? Where are you going?”
Briana’s dry voice came from somewhere in the distance, but I had no time to answer.
I crawled toward the corner where the boxes of spare decorative lamps were piled up.
My breath rose to my throat, and I felt a twisting pain in my stomach.
Pretending to organize the auxiliary equipment, I reached into the frame beneath the stage.
The very cable I had seen in my vision was trembling with an unpleasant vibration, just a finger’s breadth from my hand.
I couldn’t pull it out directly.
There was no way my frail body could withstand that much mana backflow.
In the end, I decided to choose the method most suited to me.
“Uwaaah!”
I pretended to miss my footing and threw myself onto the pile of boxes.
With a crisp crack, the boxes of spare decorative lamps spilled across the floor.
The weight of my upper body slammed straight into the ground, and the thin bones and ligaments in my wrist screamed.
Rolling across the floor with a foolish cry, I deliberately kicked the support beneath the stage.
Clang!
From the force of the impact, one auxiliary cable that had been hanging precariously under the stage slipped free and fell limply to the floor.
In that instant, the ominous black shadows that had filled my vision vanished as if washed away.
“Oh my!”
“What was that?”
Several nearby students turned their heads in surprise.
I saw Briana, who had been watching the situation near the stage, press a hand to her forehead and let out a deep sigh.
It was a look I knew all too well—one that said she was looking at a failing student who had chosen the festival’s highlight to fall flat on his face and smash the equipment, and found it utterly pathetic.
Holding my breath, I examined the stage.
Shards of broken decorative lamps were scattered among the toppled boxes, and the area had fallen into a brief commotion because of my scream and the noise.
But that momentary disturbance was soon buried beneath a tremendous current of light.
Senior Erka’s fingers, standing before the control panel, flashed across the terminal like lightning.
She did not miss the gap in the mana created by my “mistake.”
Reading the figures with cold eyes, she began stabilizing the phase of all the magic lamps in place of the auxiliary cable that had come loose.
Beside her, Seria moved with equal agility.
She carefully delayed the output of the auxiliary lamps, dispersing the excessive mana that had been rushing toward the central lamp.
Thanks to the two of them working in perfect coordination, the discord of mana that might have led to an explosion was transformed instead into an elegant pause in the performance.
“Everyone, even the small disturbance you just witnessed is part of a surprise performance prepared by Astra Academy!”
Senior Nadia’s clear voice rang out across the plaza from near the VIP seats.
Without the slightest hint of panic, she smiled gracefully and diverted the attention of the noble patrons and visitors.
“Please look forward to the fleeting darkness before the light blooms—and the true brilliance that will follow.”
At her smooth handling of the situation, the people, half-doubtful, turned their attention back to the stage.
It was the leads onstage who turned that attention into certainty.
Just as the decorative structure, shaken by my kick, began to tilt ominously, Kyle and Serena moved at the same time.
Kyle, wrapped in dazzling golden mana, firmly seized the center of the structure, while Serena supported him at his side with the overwhelming presence unique to a vanguard knight, lifting her head proudly toward the crowd.
The sight looked just like a scene of heroes overcoming a crisis.
Gasps burst from the audience, and the people cheered, believing it truly had been a planned performance.
Still lying on the floor, I looked up at the scene.
Behind the stage, Dylan had raised his voice again and was pushing the crowd back beyond the safety line, while Rowen naturally opened the entrance toward the maze so the flow of people would not become tangled.
At the treatment booth, Rine and Amelia were quietly taking care of the students who had fallen in the commotion, just in case, and Mia was sniffing the air, confirming that no ominous presence remained in the corners of the plaza.
The cold sweat running down my spine gradually cooled.
The taut tension that had been squeezing my stomach loosened all at once, and relief washed over me.
‘Good. All the credit went over there.’
I cheered inwardly. Kyle and Serena, who had supported the structure; Nadia, who had handled the situation by calling it a performance; and Erka and Seria, who had protected the control panel.
People would remember those shining leads.
All I had to do was remain the same old “failing student Yurian,” who had simply fallen magnificently during the festival’s highlight and broken some equipment.
Though Briana’s records would probably gain another note saying “equipment damage and on-site disturbance,” at least it was a hundred times better than this plaza turning into a hellfire.
The magic lamps filling the plaza finally began to embroider the night sky.
The spectacle of thousands of clusters of light rising overhead and flowing like the Milky Way was truly unreal in its beauty.
People held one another’s hands or cheered as they enjoyed the festival’s climax, and the plaza was filled with the smell of food, laughter, and the warm afterglow of mana.
Clutching my throbbing wrist, I slowly pushed myself up.
Without thinking, I raised my head and examined the expressions of the people one by one.
Children clapping in delight, the protagonists letting out sighs of relief and encouraging one another, and classmates grumbling while still holding their positions.
They were no longer clusters of data in a game.
Nor were they paper dolls trapped inside the text I had read.
They were real people, breathing the same air as me, feeling fear, and laughing with joy.
The thought briefly crossed my mind that I wished these people I knew—and this world—could remain at peace just a little longer.
What I could do was insignificant, but even so, a strange desire to protect them from behind, even in this small way, tickled a corner of my heart.
But that warmth did not last even a minute.
The moment my gaze, which had been blankly watching the butterflies of light embroider the sky, fixed on a single point, a chill pierced through my entire body.
It was beautiful.
Truly, so beautiful it made my eyes ache.
……But this composition.
This arrangement of the magic lamps.
And this perfect scene of the protagonists gathered in one place, looking up at the sky.
An illustration from the original game, which had sunk deep into my memory, surfaced with startling clarity.
The academy festival in the original.
The climax of the final night.
The very moment the protagonist and the heroines looked up at the sky with their happiest smiles.
Warning bells went mad inside my head.
Until now, I had focused all my attention on stopping the forged seal and contaminated mana stones discovered during the festival preparations, as well as Raul Becker’s scheme.
I had thought everything was over because I had prevented the accident at the lighting ceremony.
But the crisis in the original was not a malfunction of the festival equipment.
When the splendor of this festival reached its peak, when people’s vigilance had crumbled the most, an outside force would take advantage of that opening and launch a large-scale attack.
That was the first major event that had stained the academy festival with blood.
Just because I had prevented an accident different from the original did not mean the original incident had disappeared.
Cold sweat began running down my spine again.
The cheers filling the plaza now sounded to my ears like the prelude to screams.
Those magic lamps that had risen so brilliantly would soon become beacons drawing monsters in.
What I had just stopped was nothing more than an equipment accident.
Yes, the story had already changed from the original, so the attack might have disappeared.
Even as I thought that, my body had already begun to move, regardless of my thoughts.
Urging on my trembling legs, I started running toward the back of the stage.
It felt as though my lungs were burning, but I couldn’t stop.
I had to check.
I had to see with my own eyes whether those horrible omens that had appeared just before the attack in the original had truly vanished.
First, I ran to the guard post by the rear gate.
But what greeted me there was not a guard, but empty darkness and an open iron gate.
The strange reduction in security personnel—the first sign from the original.
Swallowing my despair, I headed for the outer guide-lamp district.
The lights that had been illuminating the plaza flickered unpleasantly, then went out one by one with soft clicks.
Darkness was encroaching upon the outskirts of the festival grounds.
The bottleneck of carriages blocking the evacuation routes, and even the unidentified stench of blood and rot carried on the wind.
This was an incident that was bound to happen.
No matter how desperately I struggled to plug the small holes, the enormous monster called the original had already opened its jaws to devour the academy.
The true storm that would descend upon the academy was only now beginning to cast its shadow.
Amid the cheering crowd, I stood frozen and looked around.
The figures of people who knew nothing, gazing only at the shining night sky, hardened one by one in my vision.
The final night of the festival was not over yet.