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Chapter 327: An Abrupt Situation [3]

“Rage, fear, joy…”

I was lost in my own thoughts, staring mindlessly at the six orbs that stood before me. They silently floated in the air while the words beneath it glowed faintly.

Time seemed irrelevant to me at this moment.

All that took my attention were the size orbs that stood before me.

“Rage, fear, joy…”

I continuously mumbled the name of each and every orb.

The world was still pitch black, an incomplete world that lacked everything.

An incomplete…

“…..”

I regained some clarity.

Staring at the pitch-black world around me and then the six orbs that stood in front, I felt my mouth grow dry.

‘….Can it work?’

I reached out for the nearest orb.

It was the Orb of ‘Joy’.

As if sensing my hand, the orb throbbed once. It then started to wiggle and writhe as it tried to reach for me. The orb… it wanted to join me. I could feel it.

“….!”

My fingers soon touched it, and my entire body tensed.

The muscles on my face stiffened while the muscles on my calf tensed. My brain throbbed, and the orb spread open, reaching out for my hand and crawling toward it.

At the same time, I looked at the world around me and shook my hand.

The darkness that stood before me wiggled. The ground beneath me began to soften, the firm and empty space giving way to something unsettlingly soft.

Lowering my head, I was stunned to find myself standing on a patch of grass, its green blades swaying gently where the darkness once stood.

As I crouched down and brushed my fingers against the grass, its rough texture scratched against my skin.

It felt…. real.

I took a step forward.

“Wow.”

It felt exactly as though I was stepping on real grass.

Looking ahead, the grass appeared to stretch infinitely. I took another step, and then another.

Before I knew it, I was walking on top of the grass, my speed increasing with each step that I took.

I soon started to run.

Though there was no wind, it almost felt as though it was brushing past my skin.

It felt euphoric and I continued to run.

Without realizing it, my steps left deep imprints on the ground and my speed continued to increase, my acceleration seemingly having no limits.

At some point, I started to wonder just how fast I was running, but the thought paused at the same time that I did.

“Kh…!”

A sharp pain spread through every inch of my body.

It was a pain that came directly from my legs, and when I felt my body, I realized that the muscle fibers on my legs were tearing apart.

‘What…?’

Surprised by the sudden development, I stopped moving. But just as I did, a weird tickling sensation took over my chest. Taken aback, I tried to get rid of the feeling, but it only grew worse.

“Huh, ah…!”

I hastily covered my mouth as I felt my back tremble.

Something boiled from within me, slowly rising with each passing second, and despite my best attempts at suppressing the sensation, it got the better of me.

“Hehehe.”

A laugh soon escaped my lips.

It was a faint laugh, but it triggered a chain reaction.

The strange, viscous green liquid crawling up my arm suddenly sped up, slithering its way toward my shoulder. As it spread, the tingling sensation intensified, turning from a mild discomfort into a creeping, unbearable itch.

“Hehe.”

It became harder to suppress the laughter

Not only that, but I could hear faint popping and tearing sounds coming from my body.

I grew alarmed by the sounds, but as if my body refused to listen to me, I just continued to laugh.

“Hahahah.”

With each second that passed, the more prominent the laugh became, and before I knew it, I was laughing like crazy.

“Hahaha!”

I found myself unable to think properly.

The viscous green liquid spread to further areas of my body while the pain that I felt in my legs intensified.

This persisted for a few seconds before something shook me out of it.

“…..!”

When I regained clarity of the situation, I found Leon standing next to me with his hand over the hilt of his sword and a weird figure standing by the corner of the room, lunging in his direction.

I stared at the two parties in confusion.

My mouth felt tired, and the lingering sensations from before were still present. My lips curled up while everything appeared to move in slow motion.

I could see Leon getting ready to confront the weird silhouette while the silhouette lunged in his direction.

Everything happened before my very eyes.

It was just that it was…

‘Slow…’

Everything was so slow.

Tilting my head, I stepped forward.

I felt a sharp pain hit me the moment I took the pain as the muscles on my leg tensed. Rather than being alarmed, my chest felt lighter.

I alternated my gaze between Leon and the weird silhouette.

It lunged closer to Leon, its arms outstretched and ready to cleave his head off.

‘No can do.’

I reached out, my hand finding the silhouette’s neck, and with a swift twist of my shoulder, I slammed it against the wall.

The wood splintered in slow motion, shards floating outward in all directions.

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Leon tracking my every move, his expression stiff. As I tightened my grip, the strange green liquid coating my arm and shoulder began to recede, inching its way back down my arm.

At the same time, the world around me started to pick up its normal speed.

Booom—!

Eventually, the sound of the explosion reached my ears, echoing as the silhouette’s body caved into the wall. The force of the impact shattered the wood into splinters, which rained down to the ground.

The viscous green liquid drew back further and my lips pulled upwards.

“Heheh.”

In the situation I found myself in, I ended up laughing.

“This…”

It was only when I heard Leon’s stupefied voice that I finally snapped out of it and let go of the silhouette who fell on the floor.

“Uhkh!”

The moment I let go I was suddenly overcome with a wave of dizziness as I started to wobble.

‘Fuck…!’

I held onto the wall to support my body.

“Haaa… Haa…”

Heavily gasping for air, I had a hard time stopping myself from falling to the ground as my legs continued to wobble, seemingly ready to topple at any second.

Only when Leon grabbed my arm did my legs fully give up.

“You okay?”

Leon looked at me with a frown.

It took a second for me to reply, trying my best to get rid of the lingering emotions that were spreading in my mind.

Only then did I finally nod my head.

“Yeah, I should be…”

“….Great.”

Leon pursed his lips before turning his gaze toward the silhouette. To his surprise, it was a cadet from the Aurora Empire, someone both familiar and yet unknown.

The young man lay unconscious, his short brown hair disheveled and his sharp nose and deep brows marked with light freckles.

His eyes were shut tight as he was passed out on the floor.

Being careful, Leon tied him up using a special item before going to the letter that was resting on the desk.

I wanted to read the letter as well but found myself unable to stand up at all.

My legs seemed completely unresponsive and my mind was still suffering a little from the lingering effect of the action. From time to time my lips would pull up even though I didn’t want them to do so.

I started to ponder over what had happened.

‘….So joy increases my speed.’

This much I had already known in advance. It was just that the effects and after effects were a lot stronger than I had anticipated.

I couldn’t move my legs.

….I was basically a cripple. At least for some time.

‘Perhaps, I need to control how much I should allow the orb to control. If this was one hundred percent, then I should tone it down to thirty percent…’

As I sat in silence, pondering over my circumstances, I could see Leon’s expression turning graver and graver.

Eventually, he settled the letter down and looked back at me.

“We need to go.”

“Uh?”

Before I could ask why, he quickly grabbed me and pulled me up.

“Ah!? Uh? Wait!”

Then, looking around, he rushed out of the house.

Rumble! Rumble!

At the exact moment he moved, the house shook. The furniture rattled, and shards of glass erupted from their frames. Leon dashed forward, dragging me by the arm as I could only watch helplessly, the tremors growing more and more pronounced.

With the current state of my legs, I couldn’t move or keep up with him.

The only thing I could do was let myself be dragged out, and as we crossed the door that led to the outside of the house, a crashing sound echoed from behind us.

Leon clenched his teeth and threw me forward.

At the same time, he stomped his foot with a ‘bang’ and his body shot out like a bullet.

Boom—!

The house crumbled inwardly right as we left.

“What the…”

Faceplanting onto the grass outside, I propped myself up using my arms and stared back at the scene in shock.

I thought it was over, but Leon’s expression remained grim. He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Ukh!”

I tried to protest but he didn’t leave me any room to do so as he sprinted ahead at full speed. He headed back from where we came from, toward the more modest residences.

Before I could protest further, he passed the letter to me.

“Read it.”

Confused, I grabbed the letter and started to read it.

===

You were wrong.

The Angel is not responsible for all of this.

Something more sinister is occurring, taking the minds of everyone. I believe that it’s a plague of sorts.

You need to be careful.

I’ve been infected as well. I won’t be here for now, but I’ll meet you in Orklahm Street tomorrow to let you know more.

Evelyn.

===

“…..”

I looked at the letter and then turned it around to check if what I was seeing was true. In the end, after making sure it was real, I drew in a cold breath.

“It’s her handwriting.”

Leon said, turning a corner and entering a more secluded area.

“However, the letter is fake.”

“….You think?”

“Yes, without a doubt. I’m sure you can see it too.”

“Indeed.”

Even if Leon believed the letter, I didn’t believe it for one second. I had seen the vision and was almost confident it had a play in this situation.

Given how someone had been waiting for us, the Angel could see through Evelyn’s eyes.

Whatever action she took, the Angel could see.

This meant that Evelyn was fine and that she had managed to not fall for its spell.

As if noticing my thoughts, Leon spoke,

“Evelyn must’ve written the letter for real, but the Angel found it. From then on, it replaced the letter with another one and waited to ambush us in order to see who she was working with. Evelyn’s fine.”

Leon seemed glad by the realization that Evelyn was fine.

Looking around, he turned another sharp corner.

“….The entire situation could also be set up by the Angel in order to trap us. It wants us to believe that the letter is real in order to mislead us. That’s why it set up a trap back there. In order to make it more believable that the letter hadn’t been replaced. In fact, we’re also probably not being chased.”

“Yes.”

I could see that.

The Angel… it was rather crafty.

‘Mh, maybe I shouldn’t have cursed the visions. They do have some uses…’

Had it not been for the vision, there was a high chance that I might’ve fallen for the trick. But since I was almost certain that the statue was tied to this, I could tell that the letter was a fake.

Leon on the other hand seemed to be able to tell through his intuition.

Turning around the corner, Leon finally came to a stop.

“You can get off now.”

He dropped me down and I leaned against the wall. My legs were spasming and it was becoming increasingly hard to keep my legs steady.

Leon didn’t say much about that before he looked around him.

We found ourselves in a deserted alleyway cluttered with trash cans and defaced with graffiti. Leon took a brief look around, his expression darkening as he clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“Tsk.”

He looked to detest such places.

I thought about asking him this when I stopped.

Holding onto my legs which started to shake, I could only bitterly smile at him. He looked back at me for a moment before sighing.

“Go get some rest. I’ll go look for Evelyn. I’ll update you later.”

Shortly after saying that, he turned around and sprinted away.

“Hey wait!”

I reached out to him, but he moved so swiftly that I barely had time to speak. By the time he vanished, silence enveloped the alleyway.

“Ah.”

Sitting in the middle of the alleyway with my back pressed against the wall, I stared down at my legs.

“….How do I go back?”