Chapter 219: The Price of Salvation

Twenty-three children had died before the Imperial Guard understood how little time remained.

Inside Saint Aurelia Preparatory Academy, the rescue operation had become a desperate struggle to keep the surviving students alive.

The soldiers controlled nearly every part of the school, and the cult members who had resisted arrest were either captured or dead.

Yet the underground examination halls remained filled with children whose conditions continued deteriorating.

The healers had established treatment stations inside the halls after discovering that moving the children outside accelerated their symptoms. Additional medical personnel arrived with supplies, and several experienced combat wizards had volunteered to assist despite having little knowledge of healing magic.

Their efforts weren’t entirely ineffective.

Some children recovered enough to speak, while others who had stopped breathing were successfully resuscitated. Unfortunately, the improvement rarely lasted. The crimson markings covering their bodies continued spreading, and the healers were forced to treat the same children repeatedly.

Captain Reinhardt had already lost four students under his supervision.

He refused to abandon the others.

"Rotate the healers every fifteen minutes," he instructed. "Anyone showing signs of exhaustion gets replaced immediately. I don’t want another patient because someone tried to be a hero."

The senior medic agreed. Several members of her team had already pushed themselves dangerously close to magical exhaustion, and the constant pressure was beginning to affect their judgment.

Reinhardt understood their desperation, but exhausting the people responsible for keeping the children alive would accomplish nothing.

The rescue commander had reached the same conclusion.

He ordered additional specialists into the building and suspended every operation that didn’t directly contribute to preserving the hostages or preventing further harm.

Meanwhile, the captured cult researchers were being questioned.

Albrecht Voss remained stubbornly uncooperative.

However, one of his assistants had begun providing information about the earlier examinations, including the methods used to impose the restrictions on the children.

According to her testimony, the marks had been introduced gradually through a series of supposedly harmless assessments. Most students hadn’t even realized that anything unusual was happening until the final examination began.

The investigator asked whether she knew how to remove them.

"There was supposed to be a release procedure," the woman answered. "Doctor Voss said the participants would undergo recovery after the final stage."

"Where are those instructions?"

"I never saw them."

"Then who did?"

She named two senior researchers.

One was already dead.

The other had disappeared before the Imperial Guard entered the school.

The investigators immediately began searching for him.

Unfortunately, Voss offered no assistance.

When informed that children were dying, he merely insisted that the examination was producing valuable results.

The rescue commander had heard enough.

He ordered the man transferred to secure custody and instructed his officers to concentrate on the cooperating assistants.

Whatever Voss believed about humanity’s future, there was little reason to expect him to place the children’s lives above his research.

At SkyRune, Professor Antoine received the latest casualty figures.

He had stopped asking whether the authorities were making progress.

Instead, every time a message arrived, he asked about Lucile.

The northern examination hall had confirmed that she remained alive, although her condition was critical. Several healers were attending to her, but none could explain why the temporary improvements produced by their treatment never lasted.

Antoine wanted to travel to the school.

The Imperial Guard refused.

The rescue commander had already restricted access to essential personnel, and allowing civilians into an unstable underground facility would place additional burdens on the soldiers.

Ilya supported the decision.

"Professor, going there won’t help Lucile. You know that."

"I know."

"Then let the people who can treat her do their work. If they need you, we’ll get you there."

Antoine understood the reasoning, but his helplessness was becoming unbearable.

For nearly a week, he had devoted every waking hour to helping the Imperial authorities. His research had contributed to the successful assault, and the soldiers had finally reached the children.

Yet his daughter remained trapped.

After another lengthy silence, Antoine asked whether the Imperial Guard had recovered the examination records.

Ilya confirmed that the investigators were examining them.

"Then there must be something useful in those documents. They couldn’t have conducted an experiment this elaborate without preparing some way to end it."

"That’s what the investigators are trying to establish."

"I want to see everything they’ve recovered."

Ilya understood that the professor needed something to occupy his mind.

However, simply allowing him to bury himself beneath another mountain of documents would accomplish little.

He contacted the Imperial officer and requested that the most relevant findings be forwarded to Antoine.

The officer agreed, although he warned that several records had been damaged during the assault.

Fortunately, the investigators had already identified a possible lead.

One of the captured researchers had mentioned a separate archive maintained by the cult’s senior members. It supposedly contained the complete instructions for the final examination, including the procedures used after its conclusion.

The Imperial Guard immediately began searching for it.

For Antoine, the discovery offered another reason to hope.

Unfortunately, Ilya was less optimistic.

If the cult possessed a reliable method of reversing the restrictions, its members had shown remarkably little concern about using it.

And if the supposed recovery procedure existed only in their theories, the authorities might be searching for something that had never been completed.

He kept those concerns to himself.

There was no reason to burden Antoine with another possibility the investigators were already considering.

The search eventually led the Imperial Guard to a sealed office beneath the northern building.

Inside were several locked cabinets containing research documents, personal records, and accounts of previous experiments.

The investigators immediately secured the materials.

Among them was a journal belonging to Albrecht Voss.

Its contents revealed that the cult had conducted several earlier trials involving adult volunteers and unwilling subjects. None had produced the extraordinary transformation the researchers sought.

Most participants had suffered serious injuries.

Several had died.

Voss nevertheless remained convinced that the theory was correct.

According to his journal, the failures resulted from insufficient emotional pressure, inadequate preparation, or the subjects’ inability to endure the final stage.

The investigator reviewing the document found the reasoning disturbingly convenient.

Whenever an experiment failed, Voss simply blamed the participants.

At SkyRune, Ilya reached the same conclusion.

"He’s spent years proving himself wrong and somehow decided everyone else was responsible."

Antoine would ordinarily have appreciated the observation.

Tonight, he had little interest in the man’s intellectual shortcomings.

"Did they find the recovery procedure?"

"Not yet, Professor."

The professor returned to the communication terminal.

Another report had arrived from the northern hall.

Lucile’s breathing had become dangerously weak.

The attending healer had managed to stabilize her, but the crimson markings had spread across much of her body. Several other children were in similar condition, and the medical personnel were beginning to lose hope that ordinary treatment could save them.

Antoine requested permission to speak with the healer directly.

The Imperial officer arranged the connection.

"Doctor, my daughter is Lucile Chastellain. Please tell me what you need. Money, equipment, specialists, anything. I’ll arrange it."

The woman answered gently.

"Professor, we have everything the Imperial Guard can provide. We’re doing everything possible for your daughter."

"Then why isn’t she getting better?"

The healer couldn’t give him a satisfying answer.

She explained that Lucile’s condition improved briefly whenever treatment was administered, but the effect disappeared almost immediately. Whatever the cult had done was continuing to harm her faster than the healers could restore her strength.

Antoine listened until she finished.

Then he thanked her.

He understood that shouting at the people trying to save Lucile would accomplish nothing.

After the conversation ended, he remained beside the terminal.

Ilya offered to contact the academy and request assistance from additional professors, but Antoine explained that the Imperial Guard had already summoned specialists from several institutions.

There was nobody obvious left to call.

Meanwhile, the situation inside Saint Aurelia continued worsening.

Captain Reinhardt’s team had managed to stabilize several children, but another three died before the next rotation of healers arrived.

The captain ordered their bodies respectfully covered and moved away from the surviving students.

He refused to let the children witness more suffering than necessary.

Unfortunately, the remaining students were beginning to understand what was happening.

Some asked whether they were going to die.

Others repeatedly begged to see their parents.

Reinhardt couldn’t promise them safety.

Instead, he instructed his soldiers to remain with the children and answer their questions as honestly as they could.

One little girl asked whether the examination was finally over.

The captain told her that the Imperial Guard had arrested the people responsible.

"Then can we go home?"

"We’re working on it."

The girl accepted the answer.

Reinhardt wished he could have given her something better.

Outside, the Imperial Guard had begun preparing for the possibility of a far greater tragedy.

Additional physicians were summoned, and the authorities established facilities for identifying victims and notifying their families.

The rescue commander insisted that these preparations remain separate from the ongoing rescue.

He refused to allow his soldiers to treat the remaining children as already lost.

At SkyRune, Ilya received another update concerning Voss’s journal.

The investigators had found references to a recovery procedure.

Unfortunately, the relevant pages contained only theoretical instructions, accompanied by a warning that the method had never been successfully tested.

Ilya immediately informed Antoine.

The professor demanded that the Imperial specialists examine it regardless.

They did.

However, the instructions relied on assumptions that the investigators couldn’t verify, and attempting the procedure on children already in critical condition carried enormous risks.

The rescue commander authorized further examination but refused to permit an uncontrolled trial.

Antoine didn’t argue.

He understood the consequences of experimenting on helpless children better than anyone.

Nevertheless, the discovery extinguished another possibility he had been holding on to.

The cult had promised its participants that completing the examination would bring rewards.

Its surviving records now suggested that the researchers had never known how to bring them safely through it.

Before midnight, the Imperial Guard confirmed another eleven deaths.

The number of children lost had risen to thirty-seven.

Lucile remained alive, although the attending healer warned that her condition was deteriorating.

Antoine requested another update as soon as anything changed.

Ilya stayed with him.

Neither had any interest in returning home.

Inside Saint Aurelia, the Imperial soldiers continued their work while the surviving children grew weaker.

And somewhere among the confiscated records, the investigators were still searching for an answer that the cult itself might never have possessed.