Vol 5. Chapter 77: Modification

The possibility was vanishingly small.

In the end, Fecolin made the decision himself. He declared that he would take responsibility if anything went wrong, then ordered the drivers to prepare the carriages. Any students who wanted to go home could leave immediately aboard the unicorn carriages.

Now, students all across the Academy were packing their belongings and preparing to evacuate Carillian Academy.

As Shicodale walked down the street, he saw countless people hurrying past with luggage in tow, rushing toward the unicorn carriages waiting at the Academy gates.

The instructors struggled to maintain what little order remained while students raced one another toward the shore. The entire Academy looked as though it were fleeing a disaster.

Especially with the Academy leaderless and the upper administration completely unreachable.

For some reason, the sight filled Shicodale with sorrow.

It reminded him of the day his homeland had fallen. The scene had been much the same, gripped by the same oppressive sense of a storm about to break.

“Dale, what are you still standing around here for?”

Shicodale suddenly heard a familiar voice behind him.

“Brother Ferdi?”

Shicodale recognized the man who had approached.

Ferdi was dragging several large and small bags behind him. He seemed surprised to find Shicodale standing outside the dorm without carrying a single thing.

“Dale, what are you doing? Aren’t you getting ready to leave?” Ferdi asked. “The Academy has already sent out a notice saying students can go home for safety and wait for further instructions. We can come back once the Academy has dealt with all this.”

“Are all of you going home?” Shicodale asked.

“Of course we are. That black cloud is way too strange. It’s already spread over the island where the Academy is located. Wait much longer and it’ll be right over our heads. They say the thing isn’t corrosive, but who knows what’ll happen once it reaches land??”

Seeing that Shicodale had no intention of leaving, Ferdi began earnestly trying to persuade him.

“Come on, Dale. Hurry up and pack. If you think it’ll take too long by yourself, I’ll help you.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. Thank you, Brother Ferdi.” Shicodale shook his head. “I’m not leaving.”

“What? You’re not leaving? What are you planning to stay here for??” Ferdi stared at him blankly.

“To wait for someone.”

Shicodale’s voice was quiet, but it carried absolute conviction.

“Wait for someone? Vinny?” Ferdi sighed. “Dale, waiting here isn’t going to bring him back. I know you’re worried about him, but what happens if something happens to you? When Vinny comes back, don’t you think that’ll break his heart?”

“Listen to me and come with us! It’s not like we’ll never return. Once this crisis is over, we’ll all come back. Maybe Vinny will be back by then too. Wouldn’t that be the best outcome for everyone?”

The moment Ferdi realized Shicodale truly meant to stay, he became visibly anxious.

“Thank you, Brother Ferdi, but I’m not going anywhere. You should hurry and leave.”

Shicodale shook his head again.

Everyone else had a home to return to.

Did he?

He had nowhere left to go.

All he could do was wait for Vinny to come back.

This place had long since become his second home.

“Oh, come on! Dale, why are you being so stubborn at a time like this?” Ferdi groaned in frustration. “If something happens to you, how am I supposed to face Vinny??”

“Please, just listen to me! You’re Vinny’s brother, which makes you my brother too. I’m not going to steer you wrong.”

“Trust me. It’s not like we’ve never been through a disaster like this before. I lived through the last one myself. If the Goddess hadn’t manifested, I would’ve nearly lost my life. We can’t exactly count on the Goddess manifesting a second time, can we?” Ferdi said helplessly.

“We’re still far too weak in the face of a disaster like this. The Academy hasn’t even figured out what that chaotic black cloud is or what caused it. Let’s leave first and see how things develop, all right?” Ferdi continued, patiently coaxing him.

Just as Shicodale opened his mouth to respond, a thunderous boom erupted overhead.

Both of them looked up at the same time.

It was a unicorn carriage train packed with students—the first group scheduled to depart that day.

The airborne carriage had not even left the Academy when something suddenly went wrong. After the deafening impact, it began plummeting at tremendous speed. The cars lost their balance as countless students screamed from within.

“What is that??”

Ferdi and Shicodale stared at the scene in shock.

“What the hell is wrong with that unicorn carriage?!” Fecolin cursed from the ground, where he had been maintaining order. “Didn’t I tell the drivers to get ready and have the maintenance crews inspect everything for faults before takeoff? How did this happen? What the hell have they been doing during routine maintenance?? There are countless fucking students up there!”

“Quick! Anyone who knows flight magic, cast it on me! What are you all standing there for? Watching a show?? Stop freezing up at a time like this!”

The nearby instructors were just as stunned, but this was clearly no time to stand around watching.

Several high-tier instructors with support-type Spirit Souls heard Fecolin and immediately combined their powers to cast a flight enhancement on him.

Fecolin spat out his pipe.

In the next instant, his entire body was encased in full plate topped by a bird-beaked helm, and he launched himself from the ground.

His was an armor-type Spirit Soul, so the range of magic he could learn was extremely limited. He had to rely on others to cast support flight magic on him.

As he flew, countless blue magic arrays appeared around him. They flashed past in an instant, seemingly turning invisible as they attached themselves to his body.

[Equilibrium Magnetic Field]

Under everyone’s stunned gaze, Fecolin flew toward the falling carriage train alone.

First, he caught the unicorn—which had lost its ability to fly and fallen into a frenzy—with one hand.

Then he hoisted one of the carriage cars onto a single shoulder.

Everyone unfamiliar with Fecolin was left dumbstruck.

The issue was not merely whether anyone possessed enough strength to hold up dozens of connected carriage cars. Even if someone did, supporting them in that manner should have been impossible.

With dozens of cars linked together, the uneven distribution of force should have snapped the entire train in half. Every other car would have fallen, and even the section resting on Fecolin’s shoulder should have torn apart at both ends.

At best, only the fragment directly above his shoulder should have survived.

Everyone present understood that.

Yet the instant Fecolin braced the carriage car on one shoulder, the magic arrays attached to him extended the support of his shoulder. Together with Fecolin, they held every one of the dozens of cars aloft.

Fecolin alone managed to support the entire carriage train, unicorn and all.

“What an incredible sight,” an instructor on the ground marveled.

Still carrying the long train of carriage cars, Fecolin slowly descended.

The assembled instructors finally breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever else had happened, neither the students nor the magical carriage had been lost.

The moment the carriage touched down, the instructors began the rescue.

“What exactly happened?” one instructor demanded after pulling the dazed driver free. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

“I—I don’t know what happened either!” the driver said, still badly shaken. “Just as we were about to leave the Academy, it felt as though something blocked us. The unicorn started screaming and lost its ability to fly. I couldn’t control it, and the entire carriage train fell.”

“It was like the entire Academy had been sealed inside some enormous, invisible glass bottle.”

“An enormous glass bottle?? Are you saying the unicorn carriage couldn’t fly out of the Academy?”

“Sir, I was flying over the Academy. Just as we were about to pass beyond the island, something stopped us. The whole carriage felt as though it had crashed into an invisible, transparent wall. Then the unicorn went berserk and lost control in midair.”

The rescued driver looked toward the still-rampaging unicorn nearby.

Several instructors held tightly °• N ?? v ?? l i g h t •° to its reins and attempted to control it, but the unicorn ignored them entirely. It had become like a maddened wild horse, kicking at anyone who came near.

“An invisible, transparent wall??”

The instructors looked toward the distant sea.

“Did it only appear today? Or has anything like this ever happened before?”

“It only appeared today. I’ve worked at the Academy for years, and I’ve never encountered anything this bizarre,” the driver said, lingering fear in his voice. “The entire carriage was brought to a dead stop, and then the unicorn lost control.”

“Fecolin, what in the world is going on?” asked one of the colleagues who was usually close to him.

“How should I know?”

Fecolin had just finished rescuing the entire carriage train and dispelling his armor. He accepted the pipe his colleague offered him.

“An invisible glass bottle, a chaotic black cloud, and students and instructors disappearing. Interesting. Things are getting more interesting by the minute.”

Fecolin put the pipe back between his teeth and gazed toward the chaotic black cloud that was about to spread over them.

“Don’t just stand there. Come give us a hand,” Fecolin called to the students nearby, who were supposed to board the second departing carriage. “Those are your classmates in there. And as you can see, our plans haven’t exactly survived contact with reality. Forget about going home for now.”

The students looked as though they had yet to wake from a dream. They still had not recovered from the shock of what had just happened.

A unicorn carriage belonging to Carillian Academy had malfunctioned.

Such a thing was practically unheard of.

Only after Fecolin shouted at them did they snap back to their senses. They hurried over to help the other instructors support the students being brought out of the cars.

“What about the other directions?” one instructor asked hesitantly. “Have we tried them? Maybe the carriage could fly out from somewhere else.”

“Don’t be stupid. Are you planning to make the magical carriage try again?”

Fecolin glanced at the unicorn nearby, which still had not calmed down.

“Damn it. How much longer is that stupid horse going to keep throwing a fit?” Fecolin frowned.

“Fecolin, did you forget?” his colleague said awkwardly. “Unicorns don’t let men touch them, and you just...”

The colleague trailed off.

“Fuck. That damned horse is more delicate than a person,” Fecolin complained.

“So what do we do now??”

Fecolin’s display of sheer stats and strength had been so overwhelming that every lower-ranking instructor now treated him as their pillar of support.

It was difficult to imagine that such an inconspicuous lower-ranking instructor had been hiding within the Academy all this time.

What kind of background did this man have?

“Cast another flight spell on me,” Fecolin said after a moment of thought.

The support instructors immediately complied. At this point, they had practically become Fecolin’s personal flight rig.

Fecolin flew into the air once more.

This time, he charged toward the approximate location where the unicorn carriage had struck the transparent wall.

Clang!

Sure enough, after encountering an enormous force of resistance, Fecolin was hurled backward.

“Hm?”

Fecolin clenched his fist.

Then, without ceremony, he punched the invisible wall.

Boom! Boom!!

The strike seemed to make all the surrounding air quake.

Fecolin withdrew his fist and studied the empty space before him.

He knew the wall had not broken.

He drew a deep breath.

An instant later, his fists erupted in a dazzling barrage. He threw dozens of punches in a single second, moving so quickly that no one could even see their shadows.

A series of sounds like tolling bells rang through the air.

“What is that??”

One instructor noticed that during the barrage, a ring of magical runes encircling the shoreline briefly lit up before immediately fading again.

“Just as I thought.”

Fecolin appeared to realize something. He stopped punching, flew a full circuit around the wall, and then slowly descended.

“Well, Fecolin?” his colleague asked curiously. “Did those invincible fists of yours punch through that strange invisible wall?”

“No. I can’t break it.” Fecolin shook his head. “That isn’t something I’m capable of breaking.”

“What? Does that mean the invisible wall and the chaotic black cloud work together??”

“No. The transparent wall most likely has nothing to do with the black cloud,” Fecolin said meaningfully. “It was created by someone.”

“What?! You mean someone deliberately created the wall that stopped the carriage?”

“Yes. And that wall encloses the entire Academy perfectly. Do you know what that means?”

Fecolin glanced at the instructors around him.

“It means no one in the entire Academy can get out??”

“We shouldn’t speak in absolutes. There’s strength in numbers. We could have every instructor and everyone else in the Academy attack the wall together.”

Fecolin looked at the lower-ranking instructors and shook his head speechlessly.

“You still don’t understand?”

“Understand what?”

“None of us can break that wall. It exists on a completely different level from us. It was erected by someone in the [Purgatory] realm.”

“What?!”

The instructors’ shock deepened.

“Instructor Fecolin, how do you know that? Besides, you know there’s only one person in the entire Tyrelis Continent who has reached the [Purgatory] realm, and that person is—”

“Our principal, right?” Fecolin interrupted before the instructor could finish. “You still haven’t understood what I’m saying. I’m telling you that she is the one who laid down the power behind this wall.”

“What?! That’s impossible! Why would the principal do something like this?”

“She didn’t create this barrier,” Fecolin continued. “But she did create the array it came from.”

“The array’s original purpose was not to generate an invisible wall. Someone reached its central nexus and maliciously modified it, transforming it into an ultra-high-tier barrier.”

“Wait. Then this invisible wall is...”

“That’s right. Didn’t the magical runes along the shoreline look familiar to any of you?” Fecolin glanced at the other instructors. “This was originally the Nine-Eyed Curse Array our Academy used to guard against covert infiltration by Demon Pillar cultists and heretics.”

“An intruder reached the array’s core and modified it.”

Fecolin turned his gaze toward the distant Order Spire.

“And there’s a ninety-percent chance that whoever made those modifications is inside the Order Spire right now.”