Chapter 20: It was Noticed
———Karra———
<9: 09 am>
“Mhmhmm…” Just… mumbling about…
…
…Alright, I don’t think I’m gonna continue sleeping, but I’ll lay on the bed for a few more minutes. Letting myself be charged up to one-hundred percent guaranteed.
…Sleepy still…
“Mhmhmrhg…” …Do I even have anything to do today? I don’t think I do…
*Knock* *Knock*
“Heh?” Now what? Did someone send something again? “What is it?”
“Dear, do you know anything about what’s happening to the school?” She asked, sounding rather troubled. What is she on about?
“No? I didn’t get any mail or message or anything.” I answered, confused as to where she came from. Did the school staff send her a message? What exactly happened?
“So there was no heads-up or anything? Oh dear, what’s even going on…” She muttered to herself. What got her so worked up so early in the morning.
“What even actually happened?” I can’t help but ask, since it concerned her this much when nothing else even came close… Aside from that dungeon incident, but it’s better we stopped bringing it back up.
“I don’t know. The school suddenly got replaced with a massive building. It was overnight!” She explained. Now that… Is very suspicious. I can see why she’s so worked up, like what the hell is gonna happen if an entire school is just gone?
As a student of said school, I would say it’s better for me to not attend it anymore. Not because it’s a bad school, it’s just because it’s a school. I don’t like going to it early in the morning and coming back home late without much time to do anything else.
“...I think we just need to wait and see? Don’t worry about it too much, Mom.” I said, knowing full well she’s more worried about school-related stuff than I do.
“I hope everything is alright…” She said, getting a bit more worried.
“Just stay calm, Mom. We’ll be fine.” I said to make her stop worrying, and she simply walked away with a subtle nod.
…Okay. So what had happened? Maybe the group chat will know something, or perhaps it’s already on the news? Let’s check the latter first and foremost then.
Starting the PC, sit down nice and comfortable, and let’s see what’s up.
*Tap* *Tap* *Click*
…Let’s see here…
*Click*
“What the fuck am I looking at?” I can’t help but say out loud as I look at the photographs. This is definitely not a school that I’m looking at.
This massive-looking structure is more akin to a castle, or a skyscraper… It looks like a combination of both. Large walls encircling the entire area, and the main building in the middle reached out to the sky. It’s hard to tell what each area is, what it all does, and so forth.
Just a bunch of photos taken from afar or airborne. Seems like no one dared to get near it, which considering all the strange and deadly things happening so suddenly, of course they’ll be.
Still, an important question remained in regards to the how and why. This thing appearing out of nowhere makes very little sense. There should’ve been a sign somewhere, right? Maybe an earthquake? Blinding light? Loud sounds? Anything?
From the looks of it it seems that the school is replaced by this massive structure with no warning. A quick snap and everything changed. Not all too different from the Mythical Eclipse.
…I really want to stream about this, but also, I know jack shit. I know I did press ‘going live’ the moment I woke up, but that was in the heat of the moment, and at least I have my changes to show off. There’s nothing that I have that’s worth putting out there at this moment.
Now as for the group chat… There’s multiple pings going off, so let’s check that out…
‘WHAT THE HELL EVEN HAPPENED!?’ Jeff texted in all caps.
‘Just saying, it has been a good run.’ Jass meanwhile seems more dignified in his response, and also raises the very obvious question on everyone’s mind, where we go from here.
With the entire school just up and left, there’s not much else for us to do as a group, though I don’t think we should just dissolve this group suddenly, better off to wait and see.
‘So… What do we do?’ Malk asked, being one of many to feel unsure of what to do next.
‘Did none of us get any notifs?’ Kenni chimed in.
‘Whatever just happened, it’s very unprecedented.’ Orrel noted.
This isn’t looking good for the school, at least. Good thing it’s a private school or the government will probably raid it frame one… No, maybe they’ll choose to do that regardless. You’d have to be insane to not investigate it if you have the authority.
‘Had there been any investigations?’ I texted to the chat in case anyone heard something.
‘None so far.’ Jass is the first to respond.
‘Wouldn’t it be nice to know.’ Useph chimed in.
We just have nothing to go off on, are we? At this point we might need to wait a few more months until… Actually, what about the rest of the group?
‘Btw, Jeff, what about your team? And the others that are barely online?’ I asked him to see if he got any info. They haven’t even tackled the nearby dungeon yet.
‘Nothing from them yet. This sucks.’ He replied. ‘They’re probably more worried about this than bothering to prepare for our group raid.’
‘I think there are a multitude of reasons for them to be more worried about that.’ Orrel remarked, and of course that’s the case. Your school and possible future, or a monster-ridden dungeon, pick your poison. ‘Think you should cut them some slack.’
‘I know…’ Jeff replied, clearly dejected but accepting.
‘I’m pretty interested in this place, personally. Like, why does it replace our school?’ Kenni pointed out. It’s pretty easy to see why she asked. After all, of all the places to build this impressive structure, why replace a private school? Just because there’s a lot of empty space around it? At that point go build it in deserted land no one could bother you. It makes very little sense as to why they even put it here…
Unless this is very deliberate. Perhaps this is meant to send a message? But in that case I would’ve expected like… a projection all over the city or something? The voice rang out in the sky for everyone to pay attention? This is all too sudden, too subtle.
Argh! No matter how I look at this, none of this makes sense! Which is all the more reason I shouldn’t say shit, no matter what motives I tried to assume it’ll probably have something contradicting it.
‘Does any of this make any sense to anyone?’ I typed in just in case they have something that doesn’t have over millions of contradictions.
‘Nah’ that’s all Kenni replied with.
‘Define “sense”.’ Orrel asked back.
‘Definitely none from me.’ Jass answered.
Yeah. This tracks with my inner monologue rambling earlier.
Now this is definitely a topic I would like to pursue more. It’s much more personal to me than with dungeons in general, but how would I even go about it? Do I try to enter the… campus? It seems so needlessly dangerous considering everything that has happened so far… Maybe…
‘Alright guys, how about we organize a massive raid team.’ I proposed to see how this’ll go. It sounds absolutely ridiculous, but…
‘Hell no.’ Someone quickly answered. Damn.
‘I think if we were all close to your level, maybe it’ll work.’ Jass said, sneaking in a compliment.
‘Hey what do you mean by that?’ Useph said, requesting Jass for more info.
‘Ooooh…’ Meanwhile Kenni texted out her reaction, whatever that was supposed to mean.
‘I do find the idea of raiding a place clearly created by someone extremely powerful to be a bad idea. Truthfully.’ Orrel said, and I can feel some sense of sarcasm from that comment, considering his usual tone.
I guess that’s off the table for now…
‘Btw was there anything else similar seen?’ Jass suddenly asked.
‘I can’t think of anything aside from the eclipse and dungeons’ Malk is the first to reply, to confirm his lack of knowledge more than anything.
‘Nah.’ Kenni is the next to reply.
Do we just have zero insight on this then? Because if that’s the case we should stop talking about it for now.
…Then what else can we talk about? Maybe there is some news worth looking at right now, let’s see…
*Tap* *Tap* *Click*
Now this one is rather interesting… Or more like concerning, but there seems to be a few gangs made of those who started to learn magic. Thankfully there doesn’t seem to be any sighted in the area near us. From the looks of it some are very aggressive to others and commit crimes, while others just try to look intimidating and flashy.
There are even some photographs of them on this news site. Let’s see here…
Looks like a bunch of punks, to be honest. They all look like the typical highschool bullies or biker gang members. Perhaps the fact that they even let themselves be known as a possibly dangerous group should’ve tipped me off that they won’t try to look at least a little bit civil.
Now as for this topic… I don’t think our group here is even close to something like this, thankfully. I’d rather not deal with any possible misunderstandings that can come from being put in the same boat as these folks.
‘So what the hell are the rest not on here doing right now?’ Useph asked in the chat, probably something coming to his mind as they all chat amongst themselves without me. I’ll check the chat log later.
‘No freaking idea. I hope they hopped on and chat. Been kinda dull with the same few people hanging about.’ Kenni remarked, making it somewhat sound like she’s getting tired of our company.
‘maybe you’re the reason they aren’t…’ Useph can’t help but remark.
‘So on the topic of the school that looks more like a castle mixed with a supervillain lair + skyscraper, what would you think a school life in there will be like?’ Jass suddenly asked, and I haven’t considered that for a pretty obvious reason.
‘It would be very novel, at the bare minimum’ Orrel is quick to answer, humoring the question.
‘I can imagine it having a lot of training facilities.’ Malk is the next one to chimed in.
‘Would be cool if there are some new magical techs to play around with’ Kenni replied.
‘Could that place even be considered a school?’ Useph called out and stopped the chain of response.
‘It would be insane to consider it as such, but in the first place the fact that it even replaced it so suddenly is even more insane.’ Jass answered, clearly taking a stance of any possibility can be true at this point, which I can’t deny, when any of them seems possible, yet not possible at the same time.
Maybe in the future it’d be easier figuring these stuff out. Right now there’s no basis for anything whatsoever. Like what am I supposed to make of this incident? There’s nothing my preexisting knowledge can help me figure out in regards to motive and such.
So much to think about, yet all let back to nothing conclusive.
*Knock* *Knock*
Ugh. Now what?
“Karra, do you think you can go buy some things at a nearby store for me? I was cooking us lunch and realized the fridge is-
“Yeah yeah, I get it, Mom.” I cut her off before standing back up. “Got a list of anything specific?”
“I sent it to you on the phone already, you can check there.” She answered. Okay then.
“Alright then, Mom. I’ll get this done quickly.” I said before walking over to my closet as she left with a satisfied smile.
Just a normal walk for some groceries.