Chapter 203
"Forgive me if I am misunderstanding something.
Who exactly is the 'related party' you are referring to?
And does this close surveillance directly relate to the explosion at the library?"
Hussssh!
'Not acknowledged? Not even listened to—nothing at all?'
Ilux's voice cut through the technical clamor of the room with a direct question demanding clarity.
Through it, his voice carried restrained intensity, a blend of confusion, impatience, and the urge to be acknowledged—to be included within the circle of knowledge that seemed to belong only to the people in this room.
Yet his question was like a stone thrown into an immeasurably deep well, without echo.
The bustling atmosphere did not waver in the slightest.
People continued moving back and forth, their faces locked onto screens or documents in their hands.
Quick footsteps still crisscrossed the room, low discussions about frequencies and grid coordinates continued to hiss, and the clatter of keyboards kept ticking with an inhumanly constant rhythm.
Not a single head turned.
Not a single eyebrow lifted in acknowledgment.
His question sank, absorbed by a cold wall of focused professionalism—and perhaps deliberately ignored.
Most piercing of all was the elderly man himself.
His slightly hunched back remained turned away from Ilux, continuing onward with steady, measured steps.
There was no pause, no tension in his shoulders to suggest he had heard.
He walked on as if Ilux and his question were part of the furniture, or perhaps merely wind passing through a corridor.
That disregard rang louder than shouting, clearer than verbal rejection.
"The library is nearly leveled by an explosion, yet all I see here are people walking around as if they're arranging lunch schedules.
Is this really the operational standard of the Academy Security Center?
Waiting for the rubble to become an archive before taking action?"
Uuuuuh!
"If prevention is called a duty, then what is this—training in ignoring danger until the next victim appears?"
Fhoooh!
"So many busy faces, so many hurried steps, yet not one of you is discussing the bombing that just happened.
Or is empathy simply not part of your procedures?"
Tsuuuuh!
"If even an explosion is treated as a passing breeze, then it's no wonder radical activity can grow unchecked."
The feeling of being ignored was no longer passive disappointment, but a spark igniting an explosion in Ilux's chest.
The critical murmurs that should have churned only within the depths of his heart, confined to the echo chamber of his thoughts, suddenly found an outlet.
Without his full control, the words surged out from between his lips.
Not as a shout, but as a smooth, biting stream of monologue, as though his mouth were moving on its own, pouring out all the bitterness that had accumulated.
He questioned, with a sharpening tone, the very capability of the academy's security center.
From his brief yet intense observation—now spoken aloud without conscious intent—what he saw was nothing but glaring incompetence.
In his eyes, this room was a monument to the failure of prevention.
How could an institution meant to be the first line of defense allow radical activity—a bombing so real—to occur right under its nose?
His criticism struck hard, piercing straight to the heart of their function, highlighting the paradox of them obsessively monitoring something abstract while concrete destruction had already ravaged one of the academy's most important buildings.
And his murmuring did not stop there.
He kept talking, questioning the strange busyness filling the room.
So many people moving, so much data scrolling, so many orders whispered—yet not a single discussion he heard concerned rescue plans, victim evacuation, or investigation of the library as a crime scene.
Their activity felt like an empty performance of efficiency, motion for the sake of appearing busy, while the core problem was left gaping open.
His next question emerged with a tone that began to sound dismissive, targeting the most fundamental issue.
Empathy.
Where was their humanity?
Had their hearts turned to stone behind uniforms and monitor screens, so that a disaster costing lives and peace of mind became nothing more than a statistic, a disruption to their meeting schedule?
Every word spoken, though not fully conscious, was an indictment of the soul of an institution meant to be a protector.
Ilux, unintentionally, had become a voice for every unheard victim, a mirror reflecting the indifference that had settled within that air-conditioned room.
'I-I'm just overthinking, right?'
"Why are you all looking at me like that?
Is there something you want to say?"
Buuk – buuuk – buuuk!
Buuuk!!
"Watch your mouth, boy!
Not everything may be spoken carelessly—especially in this place!"
The busyness that had once echoed through the control room was suddenly cut off, like a tape sliced in the middle of a song.
The ringing of phones, the hiss of radio static, and the rustle of papers all vanished, swallowed by a thick, shocking silence.
Every head turned at once, as if pulled by a single invisible string.
The stares of dozens of pairs of eyes widened, fixed upon the young man standing in the center of the room in a tattered uniform and with a left arm still harboring an unnatural shape.
Cold neon light from the ceiling lamps illuminated the dust clinging to Ilux's hair and shoulders, turning him into a living statue of suffering amid sterile technological order.
The elderly man—whose steps had earlier carried him decisively away from Ilux—turned back with a sudden motion, fueled by an unexpected strength from his frail body.
The wrinkles on his face, once resembling a map of calm, hardened into a relief of anger and cold authority.
Without a word, he stepped forward, each strike of his shoes against the marble floor sounding like a judge's gavel.
His speckled yet strong hand shot forward, clamping onto Ilux's collar with a biting grip.
The fabric, dirtied by explosion dust, stretched tight, lifting Ilux's body slightly off the floor.
The young man's breath caught, his eyes widening as he stared into the aged face mere inches away, where he could see flashes of fiery anger—and something deeper, a boiling disappointment—behind the lenses of his glasses.
At that intimate distance, Ilux finally realized that all his bitter muttering, all the sharp criticism he thought had churned only within his heart, had spilled into real words echoing in everyone's ears.
This room was no longer where he had brought an emergency report, but a stage upon which he had unconsciously sung a song of rebellion.
Burning shame and piercing confusion wrestled in his chest.
He tried to draw a breath, but the grip on his collar made him feel like a fish stranded on land.
The light from the surrounding banks of monitors reflected the silhouettes of the two figures, a living tableau capturing the moment discipline was breached and authority defied.
'If the place were different and the timing right, I would have smashed his jaw into the floor.'
Instead, a freezing cold washed over every nerve in Ilux's body.
Fear or hesitation did not touch his heart at all, even as the fabric at his collar stretched and his body was lifted several centimeters off the floor.
Behind his empty stare, a dark current began to boil.
The adrenaline from the explosion that had not yet fully faded, combined with the indifference of this room, now found a perfect outlet.
The elderly man with the iron grip.
The urge to retaliate—to unleash all the strange energy still pulsing within his left arm—flared like embers in the dark.
To be continued…