Chapter 202
How could an explosion that tore apart a library—one that could have easily buried dozens of students and teachers alive—not be treated as something worthy of genuine panic, immediate rescue, and shouted orders to deploy every medical and security team available?
In his eyes, their reaction was not professional efficiency, but a form of neglect bordering on the horrifying.
As if the disaster were merely a minor disturbance within a larger scheme they were facing, a statistical entry in a crisis spreadsheet rather than an event demanding compassion and real rescue efforts.
Humanity—the basic instinct to help, to care about the suffering of others—seemed to have evaporated from this air-conditioned room, replaced by cold calculations and technical chatter that did not touch the core of being human at all.
Ilux felt a deep sense of betrayal.
He had run here, carrying this report with the belief that it was the right thing to do, that he was delivering vital information to the proper authorities.
Yet it turned out that the authorities themselves were already alienated from the sense of urgency they were supposed to embody.
They did not see victims.
They saw variables.
They did not hear screams.
They analyzed blast frequencies.
"We have heard and recorded your report.
However, before taking action, we must confirm one thing—how reliable are your observations and testimony regarding what you have described as a 'bombing'?"
Wrapped in confusion that was beginning to freeze into disbelief, the elderly man stepped forward.
His movements were slow yet heavy with authority, as if every strike of his shoes against the hard floor weighed upon the atmosphere of the room itself.
Ilux, whose instinct for discipline was stronger than any doubt, immediately straightened his posture once more.
His right hand, which had just lowered, rose again with the same mechanical motion.
His fingertips returned to his right temple, re-forming the perfect silhouette of a formal salute.
This time, it was not merely a report, but an acknowledgment of a clear hierarchy.
Amid the chaos, he still recognized the chain of command, and this man—with wrinkles that spoke of experience and position among the officeholders—was one of its key links.
The elderly man stood directly before him, his gaze piercing, as though measuring more than just Ilux's battered appearance.
He nodded once, a brief motion carrying dual meaning.
An acceptance of the salute, and perhaps also an acknowledgment that he had heard.
It was a signal for Ilux to lower his hand.
Ilux complied, his right arm falling back to his side in obedience, while his left arm—still retaining the shape of a tank cannon—remained neutral, still pulsing with restrained energy.
Then the man spoke.
His voice was hoarse, like dry paper rubbing together, yet every word was measured and intense.
His question was not about the details of the explosion.
Not about casualties.
Not about how Ilux had survived.
This was not a request to confirm facts, but an attack on the credibility of the messenger himself.
He questioned the very foundation of Ilux's report.
The reliability of the witness.
In the old man's eyes, Ilux was no longer merely a reporting student, but a variable to be validated, a source of information that might have been tainted by panic, trauma, or—more darkly—by a particular agenda.
In a single sentence, the man had shifted the conversation from "what happened" to "who is saying it," and whether he was worthy of being trusted to speak the truth about the destruction he had just fled.
"I am not asking for trust without basis.
The integrity and values I uphold are my guarantee.
What I conveyed is exactly what truly happened before me."
Confusion and astonishment surged briefly in Ilux's chest, but both were quickly drowned out by something harsher and more primal.
A boiling instinct of self-defense.
The old man's question was not merely a request for clarification; it felt like a subtle slap to his integrity, a doubt aimed precisely at the moment when he believed he had fulfilled his most basic duty.
In a fraction of a second, the instinct to prove his legitimacy, to assert that his words were worth more than any suspicion, exploded to the surface.
His reply did not emerge as a polished sentence or a rational argument.
It came out raw, laden with emotional intensity and a comparison both crude and unmistakably clear.
Ilux declared, with burning conviction, that a single him was far more reliable than a thousand bastards, a thousand master liars who might be roaming out there.
It was not a declaration of arrogance, but a desperate oath—an assertion that in a world now saturated with chaos and uncertainty, the truth he carried was the only currency he still possessed, and he guarded it with what remained of his pride.
His words echoed among the ticking electronic devices and the low murmur of ongoing technical discussions.
They cast a stark contrast between himself—a student smeared with explosion dust and bearing a transformed arm—and the abstract entities of "liars" that might haunt the minds of these security officials.
In his statement, he was not only defending the truth of his report, but challenging them to look beyond his unusual appearance, to recognize the sincerity radiating from every mark on his face and every breath he still drew in ragged gasps.
'What was the meaning of all those questions earlier?
Testing my credibility?
And for what purpose?
Why did he turn away immediately after hearing my answer?'
"A continued escalation of aggression from the related party has been detected in recent minutes.
Therefore, I demand that all surveillance teams monitor every movement comprehensively, without the slightest lapse."
Ilux's confusion had not yet settled into a complete question in his mind when the elderly man's actions answered in an even more bewildering way.
Without a single word of explanation, without a nod or gesture signaling acceptance or rejection of Ilux's declaration, the man turned his body away.
The motion was sudden and decisive, severing the eye contact that had just been established.
His limping yet resolute steps quickly carried him away from Ilux, leaving the young man standing alone in the middle of the busy room, wrapped in the feeling that he had just spoken to a shadow that could change direction without effort.
Inside Ilux's heart, questions began to churn like boiling water.
What was the meaning of that question?
A test?
A trap?
Or merely an empty formality from a bureaucrat who had grown too weary?
He nearly drowned in the vortex of his own doubt, trying to decipher the code behind that brief and peculiar interaction.
Then, from a distance, amid the low roar of technical conversations and the clatter of keyboards, Ilux's still-sharpened hearing caught the old man's voice.
Hoarse and calm, it nearly vanished, yet cut through the dense air with surgical clarity.
The man was no longer speaking to Ilux, but issuing instructions to someone else, perhaps through internal communication or to a nearby subordinate.
He stated that "his" aggressiveness in recent minutes had continued to increase.
The remark was flat, yet carried a weight of urgency entirely unlike his attitude toward Ilux's bombing report.
And then the order was given.
The elderly man requested—or rather commanded—that every surveillance team directly under the Academy Security Center continue to monitor "him."
The word "him" was spoken with deliberate emphasis, a mysterious pronoun that nevertheless clearly referred to a single entity at the center of their attention—a moving threat whose aggression demanded close observation, rather than victim evacuation or investigation of the blast site.
To be continued…