<739 - Who Did That? (10)>
Apart from me, there were so many friends who left to rescue me that the Academy was completely empty.
“Hmm? Why won’t the classroom door open?”
“The [Personal Life: Escape from a Mid-Death Experience] lecture is canceled. It will be rescheduled when the students come back.”
“Wait? Did Deadcat Senior take this lecture too?”
“…So the rumors were true? You got dragged into the Foundation and had your soul torn apart and your memories burned, right?”
“Huh?”
After a long time, Deadcat Senior said something completely out of the blue.
Seeing my confused expression, Deadcat Senior turned his head quickly, making a nyaaa sound in a hurry.
“Are you crying, Senior?”
“I’m not crying! Dust just got in my eyes!”
“That’s strange. Deadcat Senior isn’t the type to act like this. The Academy has become so unfamiliar!”
“Poor guy… If you’ve lost so many memories that the Academy feels unfamiliar, how badly was your soul torn?”
“You’re talking about my soul being torn, right? Senior, who told you that?”
Deadcat Senior cautiously asked, looking at me for clues.
“What do you plan to do if you find out?”
“I should go protest and correct the weird rumors since they’re spreading them recklessly!”
“Did they brainwash you at the Foundation so you can’t even ask for help? That’s just too much! Professor Sadako did well to expose them!”
For some reason, I discovered the source of the misinformation as Senior excessively worried about me.
When I went to the Catacombs, I saw skeletons trying to fix a crooked directional sign while holding nails and hammers.
“Professor, are you here?”
The Undead jumped back as if they had seen a ghost, dropping nails all over the place.
“Class 981! Class 981 has appeared!”
“Emergency! Emergency! Emergency!”
“Class 981 has re-emerged! Class 981 has re-emerged!”
The bell at the entrance rang with a ding ding ding, and the skeletons who were cleaning the outer walls of the Catacombs dropped their hammers, brooms, and dustpans and ran inside.
“???”
What a mess.
Did Class 981 do something in the Catacombs?
Not much motivation to go into the dark builds.
Vladimir?
Jaku?
Masugaki?
Of course, they were all classmates outside the Academy, so I couldn’t even ask.
Guess I’ll just have to go check myself!
“Waaahhh! Oknodie, what are you doing going to such a dangerous place alone?!”
“Tito? I just came to ask the professor something. Don’t worry!”
“That’s the thing to worry about!”
As Tito, who rushed over hearing the bell, was allowing me to catch my breath, classmates from Class 981 who remained at the Academy gathered around.
“Oknodie…”
“Mob! You’ve been training hard even while I was gone, huh? You’ve reinforced your armor a lot!”
“Oknodie? What are you doing in front of the Catacombs?”
“I’m going to meet the professor! Rosgini, hurry and help Oknodie with this!”
“…Do you really think he will listen to you?”
Thanks to the experience of going out together and having a fantastic fire show, Rosgini persuaded Tito, who was throwing a fit instead of me.
As a result, an unexpected four-member party was formed.
“Come closer… I’ll turn all of you to dust with this light stand!”
With Tito, tightly clutching the light stand and swinging it around like a terrorist, looking quite frantic, it made for a rather pleasant outing.
“Was this place this easy?”
“Getting a reality check…”
Mob and Rosgini sighed as they watched the Undead running away with screams.
“What were you all doing here? Professor Sadako’s Catacombs aren’t an easy dungeon or just any finished content!”
“Just… did a lot of stuff…”
“Sigh. Can’t say anything to someone whose soul is ripped and memories flown away.”
I knew Mob and Rosgini were feeling a reality check, but my curiosity only grew.
What source did Professor Sadako use to spread such rumors?
Ugh, I can’t stand it anymore.
“Let’s go quickly because I’m curious!”
“It’s already super fast!”
Mob, who claimed to have participated in the second Catacomb Expedition, had Tito enthusiastically nodding along as he explained just how much we were slacking.
“Then why fight while going?”
“?”
“How can you not fight when the Undead are rushing in?”
Tito protested with a voice full of innocence, but that’s just because Tito is a fool.
“We should do it like we are now.”
“Uh?”
“The light stand?”
“Tito, what are you doing with the light stand?”
“No… I’m just doing things as usual?! What’s different??”
It wasn’t the light stand.
It wasn’t Tito’s power either.
At the entrance, I was so preoccupied with fleeing from the 981 shouts, but I was the one driving them out behind.
Finally, the eyes of my friends, who were unconsciously following along, widened in realization.
“W-What is this?!”
“Mana Erosion?!”
“I…I was using the non-law again?!”
“Hehe. It’s nothing much, just borrowed some tricks from Sing!”
Though a coward who couldn’t even show up in front of others was using a technique, the ability to slice space and hide beyond it reached a level comparable to Jiang’s advanced deity technique.
From the perspective of the Undead, we currently were invisible and unheard, yet the mana of the space was fluctuating wildly while the doors flung open and shut.
On top of that, Tito’s light stand beam, a calamity to the Undead, was blazing all over the place!
“It’s the ghost of Class 981!!”
“Save the Undead!!”
“Please forgive me… I’m done with renovation work!”
Skeletons bowed down with their heads buried in the ground.
Zombies curled up and screamed.
Ghosts ran away from the light of the light stand.
Amidst the chaos of all sorts of Undead, a Skeleton Instructor who noticed the strange happenings upstairs scratched his skull and came up.
“Is this Catacomb possessed or what? Why is it so restless?”
With a blank face, the Instructor began to expand his territory to detect this side.
As soon as my territory entered the detection range, I immediately concealed it completely.
I don’t know much, but my friends had come to the Catacombs earlier and struggled with this instructor, right?
‘The previous Skeleton Instructor must have felt the same way back then, poor him!’
Now receiving a large amount of points from Avalon and significantly boosted specs, this was a perfect chance to exact revenge on the grudges built up during Professor Sadako’s lectures!
Sound of crying
Imitation
Acting
Trickery
Dark Corruption
The crying function can mimic various animal sounds, but honestly, with the right mindset, ‘Humans’ can also be included in that scope.
As more functions stack, the ability can reach out to a wider variety of, and even more powerful races, imitating beings far stronger than the current function level based on one’s ability.
But just the other day, I had seen a superb monster up close.
Outsider’s Cry
Advanced Mana Control: Perfect Reproduction
So I tried imitating a little.
As the world convulsed, the flow of universal energy was shaken, and a gigantic pressure that could tear apart dimensions echoed, a sound that could not be perceived by the human ear, yet filled every soul with dread!
If the Kraken’s roar contains Kraken-Pier, and the Dragon’s roar contains Dragon-Pier, then the Outsider’s cry contained Outsider-Pier.
Crash!!
The Skeleton Instructor must have been so severely shocked that his bones clattered down, performing an act of playing dead that seemed close to an actual death!
“Aha! Tito, did you see that? The Instructor is so funny! He really thought a dimensional tear and god-level monster was coming out and played dead in fright!”
“…”
“Whoa! Tito fainted too?!”
But maybe I had crossed a line with my joke?
Not just the Instructor, but Tito, Mob, and Rosgini all fainted.
I splashed cold water on their faces, let them sniff baking cake up close, and yelled about being late! Being late! But they didn’t wake up at all.
Imitation
Test Start Bell Sound
“Huh?!”
“Whoa!”
“A test?! The midterms just ended, why?!”
As my friends jumped up with startled voices, I played the bell sound and got battered by the angry classmates swinging their light stands, cursed armor, and fire punches.
I thought it’d be lighthearted to let out some steam, but it was heavier than expected, and it hurt a lot.
Sigh.
Why did I have to grow so seriously?
I passed by the joking playing dead Instructor and continued to head deeper into the Catacombs when suddenly I felt an unusual mana reaction from behind.
What’s going on?
As I lifted my head, a phenomenon unlike any previous poor universal energy was pushing in, with an overwhelming density causing nature mana and the universal energy to burst forth.
The instant I realized this was a precursor sign to the Principal’s appearance, the Catacombs violently shattered as the Principal’s enormous front foot hurled the broken debris far into the sky!
A huge dragon face looked down at us and asked.
[What the heck was that?]
“Principal, come on. What kind of adult runs in scowling when the kids are just playing around?”
[What kind of insane kid tears dimensions apart?]
The Principal’s enormous reptilian eyes cast suspicion upon me.
[Did you plant a dimensional bomb in the gap that formed when your soul was torn apart by the Director?]
“Whaat?”
[If provoked, you’re packing a soul bomb that could wipe out the Academy with [Hypermass Nuke]!]
Oh no.
The Principal was furious.
“I really don’t know!!”
[Don’t lie. Isn’t the Foundation branch being pushed back by the Dark Trading Company a setup to neglect the Academy’s borders?]
Ehhh? Foundation branch? What?
[There’s no reason to let poor Class 981 take the blame, while the professors who panic and rush to save them go through a tactical operation to lure them into a trap. How dare you mess with wickedness to challenge wisdom. It’s been thousands of years!]
But the Principal being angry and my innocence is a separate issue.
“I swear I didn’t do anything! This has nothing to do with me!!”
[Really?]
“I really didn’t!”
[Can you guarantee the life of that Mandragora you’re secretly keeping in the dormitory?]
“Yup!!”
[Even with the hat that the Foundation’s scholarship student is wearing?]
“Yup!!!”
[If you’re lying, I’ll inform the Dorm Supervisor and Professor Plato about how you devoured the poor dormitory’s pet Elizaveta and how you stole food from them in the storage room of the boarding house!]
“I’m so unjustly accused!!”
[But why is this considered true? Is the Foundation being pushed back by poor Class 981 for real?]
While watching the Principal getting flustered, I also became confused.
Wait, how does the Principal know all my criminal deeds?!
