The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide - Chapter 61

“Pant… Pant…”

The hill leading to Trix Hall was steep.

Because I trained my body to some extent by running in the morning and at night, I thought a slope of that size wouldn’t be a problem for me… But I don’t think I took the fact that my body was already exhausted into account.

When I turned around after coming up to the center of the hill, I could see over the eastern half of the island. Far away, on the eastern cliff sides, the smoke that Yennekar used as a signal was rising.

[They’ve finished checking that all 57 of them are on the boat. Everyone seems to have finished retreating. Now that they are done checking, Lady Yennekar should return soon.]

The flaming bat towards me from one of the cliffs on the outskirts, settling on my shoulder.

It was quite a magnificent sight, the crashing waves under the cliffs off in the distance. In the meantime, the mercenaries were swimming out towards their boats.

Since it was dark, I wondered if they had broken through those same waves coming in from the cliff sides to enter the academy grounds.

No matter how much they wanted to avoid the academy’s surveillance, wasn’t doing it that way too reckless of a strategy?

In any case, the mercenaries’ judgment was cool-headed.

I knew just how much it must have hurt their trust, having to leave behind their own client.

Nevertheless, they had ended up abandoning Elte as they recognized the difference in our powers.

There was nothing more stupid than accepting a request that was impossible to fulfill.

Even though their trust may have been damaged, and within their profession it will leave a mark for at least a while, it still was not more important than saving their immediate lives.

The reason they could remain veterans for such a long period of time must have come partially from that thorough judgment of theirs.

Looking from the outskirts by the sea more inwards, the number of Professor Glast magic power towers had already reached fifteen.

The magic power towers that were built up from the Celestial magic circles pre-engraved across Acken Island… They were so tall that you could probably see them even across the sea, on the main continent.

Boom! BOOOOM!

Keeeeeeeeeeeek!

A shrill scream echoed throughout Acken Island’s night sky.

The screams came from the last boss of the secret laboratory, ‘The Revived Devil of the Underground Waterways.’

With as much time having been passed as it had, it made sense that Taylee would have already progressed his attack significantly.

Soon, they would enter the Glast Subjugation and complete the final chapter of Act 2.

I put off determining how we would deal with the subjugated Elte for the moment.

I didn’t really mind having to hand him over to the Elte Company and putting it aside until after the subjugation ended.

Lortel would end up taking care of most of the work. After all, it was Lortel herself who needed to end that ill-fated relationship with him.

We subjugated Elte and his mercenaries, came to an agreement with the mercenary group, had them retreat, and even confirmed that they had all left the island. I also had reached the vicinity of Trix Hall. Even though I ran at full speed, it still took me quite some time.

Soon, Act 2 would come to its final stage.

It was about time that I arrived at the end of my backwards journey that had started from the secret laboratory.

The place where all of the events of the episode had begun, Trix Hall. When I arrived, I wondered if they had finished the named boss alright… Once I checked that there weren’t any major problems, I’d be finished.

In fact, it was obvious that there wouldn’t be any major problems in Trix Hall. I just visited to check, just in case. After all, there was no harm in being thorough.

Taylee arrived at the underground waterways as expected, I even made sure to check that his Clear Specs were high enough, so all I had to do was let go and wait.

The biggest variable was Lucy… Somehow or another, it would work out.

“Gasp… Gasp…”

I took a breath as I looked up at the entirety of Trix hall.

The academy faculty were completely occupied, neck deep in trying to figure out the extent of the damage.

Though, now the confusion had calmed down to some extent, the evacuation of the students had been complete and there seemed to be movement in commencing their chase after Professor Glast.

The academy had a lot of things they would need to take responsibility for, and needed to keep their eyes open, so their decision was ultimately to prioritize minimizing as much damage as possible and ensuring the safety of all the students.

They could only move after taking the necessary measures to prevent damage to the students and faculty, so their decisions were rather conservative and slow.

That was probably the reason Taylee had gone first, but… I wondered if even then, progress was still all too slow. It felt as if the person that had the most responsibility out of everyone for the situation was deliberately slowing down the process.

“As expected… The situation at Trix Hall is just as I thought.”

Given that, I quickly skimmed over the story’s stage. I hadn’t known it would become a backwards journey, but… Either way, I was glad that Taylee—who was going forward—was finishing up everything well.

I increased my combat proficiency quite a bit, and more than anything else, I was able to obtain many rare magically engineered item production formulas. Depending on how I used them, I might even be able to use ridiculously over-specced magically engineered items. Out of everything, that was the best news.

Not only that, but the preparations for the hardships ahead… Even though it wasn’t perfect, I felt like it was still enough.

I walked right into Trix Hall as if it was nothing. Everyone was already so busy that they didn’t have time to pay attention to me.

They just guessed that, given my worn-out clothes, I must have been a student that was a victim of it all.

I trudged up the stairs. Walking through the rubble that was scattered around from the broken building, before I knew it, I had reached the rooftop.

It was a building that was built way up high, on top of a hill. Opening the door, I could see the entirety of the open night sky.

After running and running all the way from the secret laboratory, I had finally arrived. It was a short, yet long, journey.

Walking out spotting the back of a girl that was sitting and swinging her feet around like a child was a familiar scene. I went there just in case, but it was as I thought.

I knew right away that it was the girl that liked to take naps on the rooftop of Trix Hall. Even though she was seen on the rooftops of various buildings, the frequency of which one could catch her at Trix Hall was overwhelming.

Perhaps she liked the open scenery and being able to see a wide view of the island all at once.

“What are you doing here?”

“Just looking at that.”

It was Professor Glast’s tower of magic power.

The tower of magic power that stood tall in the night sky looked like a beautiful pillar of light at first glance. It had an ominous symbolic meaning to the students that didn’t know the full story. But it also felt like a romantic aurora to those that knew the entirety of the situation.

Soon, everything would come to an end. Taylee’s Swordmaster’s Skill was already rising on track. Already, the chances of failure were moving further and further away.

“I thought of the past a bit.”

With the light of the night sky falling down on her, the girl tapped the side of the railing. She looked at me and told me to sit next to her.

I let out a deep breath as I sat down next to her on that extremely dangerous railing. Lucy wouldn’t die if she fell, but I’d die in an instant. Well, if that happened I was sure she would save me but… that didn’t mean that it wasn’t dangerous.

“You know.”

“What?”

Hearing Lucy say ‘you know’, I already knew what she would respond back with. However… Even knowing that much, I let her finish saying it.

“Do you have any jerky left?”

“I told you before, I don’t have any.”

“Hmph…”

The flow of the conversation was nothing more than small talk, so there was no sort of emotional consumption.

Just sitting next to Lucy like that, looking up at the magic power tower together.

There was nothing left to do. I could just sit still as a supporting character or a villain watching over the final moments of the stage. There definitely wasn’t a place for the audience to sit there like that.

“There was a time I cried a lot in the past.”

Looking up at the starry night sky, Lucy uttered those words out of nowhere.

“Something really sad had happened before, so I cried a lot. Since some time ago, though, I haven’t been sad.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s just that, since some time ago, I haven’t been sad. Why did that happen? I thought long and hard, and thought that maybe the reason I was no longer sad was because of some change in my heart… Surprisingly, that wasn’t the reason.”

Turning my head to look at Lucy, she looked expressionless and dazed as usual. A pool of light from the tower of magic power shone down intensely on her, but I didn’t even feel a slight change in her emotion.

“It was just because a lot of time had passed.”

Lucy came to that conclusion by herself. It was an accurate and perfect insight.

“A long time has passed, and it would be stupid to just keep digging open that wound on purpose. If I try to save that old man with something like Celestial Magic, he’ll just have to leave again one day.”

“If you go… Are you confident you won’t regret it?”

There wasn’t a particular reason why I tossed that question out to her.

I had witnessed every single storyline within before. Naturally, I had also watched the bad ending where Lucy appeared, completely destroying Taylee.

But Lucy, who had completely destroyed the player and slowly disappeared down the underground waterways by herself… I couldn’t even lie and say that she looked relieved after it all.

Lucy had ultimately lowered her gaze, having no choice but to respond with a rather low voice.

“No.”

The reason Professor Glast was able to persuade Lucy was because he promised to use the power of Celestial Magic to save the archmage Glockt.

If the plan was going to be derailed by Lucy anyway, he might as well have brought back Lucy’s teacher Glockt instead of Silvenia.

Glockt might not have been as great as Silvenia, but he was still an impressive man in history that had made at leastsomeprogress. It was a little different compared to his original goal, but… If he could also obtain Lucy as an ally in doing so, it would have been worth it.

In the process, it was easy to figure out just what Glast had told Lucy to bring her over to his side.

He must have been continuously stimulating and provoking the longing that laid in her heart. In the first place, he was a professor. There wasn’t anything strange about it. It was completely possible for him to take advantage of Lucy when she had a brief lapse in judgment because of that loneliness deep in her heart.

That was why… It wasn’t that difficult to change Lucy’s heart.

The reason was because Lucy already knew about it.

What was lost was lost.

There was no need to purposely bring back the pain of that loss.

“And if he came back, I think he’d just pinch my cheeks and get angry again. It really hurts, you know.”

The three fields that distorted the world’s providence, blurring the current flow of time and rejecting the framework of a human’s destiny.

The pursuit of eternal life, the resurrection of the dead, and the reversal of time.

They were also the biggest taboos in magic.

I stared up at the pool of light as I responded.

“It would be a shame to bring back one of the most extraordinary archmages in history, who devoted his entire life to the study of magic, with such taboos.”

“In the first place, he ended up dying when he was already prepared to die. He might lose his temper if he has to die all over again. Yeah… I knew that from the beginning. If we brought him back, it would only be because of my greed.”

He lived a frugal life, donating all of his savings to Silvenia Academy.

The traces of that were obvious throughout the academy.

One of the three buildings of the student center that Yennekar had destroyed was Glockt Hall. And the institution that I received my scholarships for the semester from was the Glockt Scholarship Foundation.

Not only that, but with Glockt’s name engraved all around, Lucy might have felt as if the academy itself was like a relic that Glockt had left behind.

“So, Lucy.”

The busy and urgent situation was coming to an end, and I could finally go back to being a member of the audience.

“Are you sure it’s okay?”

From my position, I wasn’t going to tell her to not go. However, in the first place it was something I couldn’t do.

There was no way I could control a person’s emotions as I saw fit.

She already knew that reviving Glockt was an overly impulsive decision. She also knew that she couldn’t let her reasoning be swayed by something she had lost.

But still, giving up on such an opportunity could only have hurt her emotions. It would hurt anyone that was actually human.

There was no change in expression on that girl’s face. However, I couldn’t jump to the conclusion that it was as peaceful and calm inside of her.

As I lived in society, I often felt it.

The more superficial a person was, the more often their insides were a mess.

For those that ignored their emotions, even when you thought they were doing okay… You really couldn’t jump to conclusions until you had fully looked inside their hearts.

Humans were such unpredictable creatures.

There were people that might have appeared weak because they were emotional and full of tears but could actually overcome great hardships.

Then there were people who were emotionless and blunt—much like a machine—and often seemed okay, but there were many cases where they easily fell.

That was why I couldn’t help but check on her.

Then, the answer came.

“You know.”

In this situation is she really going to ask about the jerky again. That’s really like her… Was what I thought was going to happen as I let out a sight, but—

“Let me borrow your shoulder.”

I was wondering why she had asked me to come sit by the railing… At most, it was because of that.

Rather than answering with my voice, I nodded lightly.

It was going to be hard to come across someone else that studied Celestial Magic as passionately as Professor Glast.

Magic regarding the resurrection of the dead had also become a train that had left its station.

The dead were dead. And what was lost was lost.

Amongst those that had given up on the present because of a loss in the past, they nearly never ended up with a happy ending.

Perhaps that was the difference between Lucy and Professor Glast.

The form that loss took varied from person to person, but would eventually find everyone fairly. You had to accept the loss and know how to cover the wound with what you were given.

Lucy fully understood that fact.

Lucy and I sat side by side, looking up at the tower of magic power for a while.

The stars that entered our view looked higher than usual. It was truly beautiful.

***

Thud!

The subjugation force, covered in the blood of various monsters, stood at the top of the tower of magic power.

The top of the magic tower was surrounded by a pool of light. In the middle of the open square, where you could see the starry sky… Professor Glast was standing with Ayla, who was tied up.

All kinds of test tubes and research materials were scattered around. The giant magic book floating in the air was the ‘Sage’s Seal’, which finished its resonance.

“Professor Glast!”

With Taylee crying out, Professor Glast rose to his feet, looking back.

There wasn’t much life left on that haggard face of his. Because he stayed up over the past several days, the level of exhaustion he felt made him look like he was dying.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t take it easy with all the Celestial Magic Power that was around his body.

Professor Glast stood upright as he looked back at the subjugation force and said something in a soft voice.

No one knew exactly who those lines were meant for. But considering how extreme this situation had become, there was only one thought that came to mind.

There was a hunch that those remarks would be his last… Professor Glast carefully thought over the meaning of those words.

“I miss you… Myuri.”

Professor Glast repeated that name once more as he gently closed his eyes. It was the final chapter of Act 2.