How To Survive A Calamity

Unable to properly sort out my thoughts in the midst of the girls, i eventually decided to take my leave as well. Just merely the amount of attention i was recieving from sitting around the same table with both Ceres and Deandra —the numerous and countless gazes of the onlooking and passing cadets — was more than overwhelming enough to make me feel uncomfortable, and i still couldn't properly sort out or ignore my mixed feelings for Chelsea.

Seeing her abruptly like this, with all that was currently going on at the moment, made my whole thoughts, and every other thing as a whole, more twisted and messed up. I don't think i was still ready to face up to Chelsea, not yet at least. Not like this too.

I sighed out loud, the simple sigh holding the meaning and weight of any paragraphs of words.

I didn't expect I'd melt the way i did when I'd finally meet her in person. But the truth was, seeing Chelsea brought back my recurring memories of Dark Castle...and Nicodemus. The reality was even more jarring with Chelsea's new appearance and the apparent change the young girl had undergone since then — her short hair and darker countenance was like a reminder to me that i was the reason for thos difference.

I was the reason for her change.

The thought haunted me to no end.

"There was no other way..."

I recalled Nicodemus's Final moments, the feel of my blade tearing through his neck— i could even vividly remember the tremor of his body as Hamlet's great sword ran through his heart and back.

I was under the influence of complete Immersion with Meta and the system that merged my base senses and thoughts as one. That was how i knew there was no other way than to end Nicodemus's life right there, there was no other option.

Despite all this, i knew the weight of my actions quite vividly. It was no longer as 'simple' as taking a life, it's the thread that connects and interlocks these lives with others that made this action exhausting. Of course i knew of this fact right from earth.

This was no cause to brag or feel proud about, but Nicodemus Kodrey wouldn't be the first human life I've taken myself.

What shook me the most was Chelsea's expression at that moment.

"This is annoying."

I uttered a sigh and shook my head to disrupt my thoughts — which was a admittedly a bad move on my side, since i still had a pounding headache laying siege to my brain!

Regardless.

As heartless and cold as this may sound, i couldn't waste unnecessary time thinking of something that has already been done. I knew this, and i kept telling myself i was prepared for whatever consequences my actions may hold against me eventually.

I restrained my spiralling thoughts and emotions, taking a walk through campus before finding a park bench to sit on. Grasping and locking my fingers, i lowered my head, my somber gaze meeting the rocky ground underneath my feet as i sat.

I drew in a breath.

When the time has come...

"I'll deal with Chelsea..."

—If it came down to it.

Logically speaking, there was no need for me to worry about getting discovered as the Masked Stranger. Murmur's Mask and Ring of Solomon both had special Enchantments that completely hid my identity from prying eyes, and even Anti-divinity.

So as long as I don't reveal the truth myself, chances of me getting exposed are extremely low, if not nonexistent.

And would i personally walk up to Chelsea and be all like; 'Hey, Chels, I'm the one who killed Nico, your best and childhood friend who you hold so close and dear to your heart since you were kids'?

Obviously not.

I wasn't denying the pangs of guilt and remorse i held for killing Nico and what i did to Chelsea by extension, but i had already solidified it as something that was only necessary.

Perhaps, maybe even Nicodemus didn't have to die. Perhaps there was much more to this than i knew — hah! In fact, nowadays it seems like there always is — and maybe Nicodemus was also controlled or manipulated or some other factor i didn't know about. That would make him as much a bigger victim as everyone else involved in the whole incident.

I didn't know.

What i did know, however, was that if time were rewound, i would do it again.

What i felt was guilt.

It was remorse.

...Not regret.

Even though it would probably mean I'd end up with this again.

I raised and stared at my bandaged left arm that wrapped up entirely in white. Underneath all of that pale covering, there was an unassuming black mark imprinted at the center of my palm.

To an outsider and probably almost anyone else, the Devil's Karma seemed like any other birthmark or insignificant scar, but the vileness it contained and represented couldn't be properly explained by mere words.

The Mark appeared right after i killed a Demon — a Karma, and as readily admitted by Meta, this was all within the System's intentions and control. When put into words, it's like Meta intended for me to kill Nicodemus so i could end up with a Curse Mark like this.

My brows furrowed as the familiar feeling of discomfort sank in, causing me to let out a low groan and run my hands through my hair.

"I need to rest my head."

My headache was reoccurring again, the dull pangs sending even more louder tremors through my head the more time and brain cells i spent thinking about all this.

Since i woke up, it wasn't an exaggeration to say i haven't had proper rest, even before i was discharged today. I kept getting recurring nightmares, and since I've been discharged just earlier I've had even more things to think about.

Despite knowing this, it was inevitably hard to take my mind off such topics.

A low groan from my lips strained as it felt like my forehead would explode open anytime soon. I reached for my glasses, prying it off my face to rub my glabella, the area between my eyes. I knew it was almost futile, but i had to try to appease the discomfort i felt or something, right?

Regardless, everything i did was subconscious and almost instinctive.

But the moment i did so, a sharp searing pain tore through my eyes like a heated needle.

"Aarrrgh!"

The pressure i felt on my head rose sharply with intensity, a burning pain centered around the areas of my eyes. The next second, my vision flipped, the world before my eyes was dyed in a saturated veils of stacked colours and oil.

The reds became redder. The blues became bluer. And the blacks became blacker. The colours of the world stacked like an impressionist oil painting, blending everything in a sight that seemed otherworldly.

A barrage of visual representations and visual details assaulted my mind. My confusion from shock and the pain was palpable, but i soon realised what was happening.

'Eyes of Discerning...?' my mind panicked.

Why was the skill...

The moment i began to think that, it stopped.

Everything ceased. The bright world of layered, saturated colours seamlessly dissolved and ceased, the world reverting back to it's natural and usual reality.

The jarring overload of visual details subsided and vanished as the Eyes of Discerning skill deactivated just as suddenly and everything returned to normal.

Or at least as normal as things currently could be.

My mind, meanwhile, was anything but normal or settled.

I couldn't restrain the grim and heavy expression i could feel my face fold into. A cold film of sweat layered over my forehead, beading down my brows and down the sides of my face.

My chest continued to pump, my shoulders rising and falling as I forced air down my lungs and into my body while panting. Everything that had happened occured suddenly in a lasting instant, and ceased the very next.

—Drip —drip

I blinked my searing eyes, they hurt. A warm, and wet sensation filled them as something viscous beaded down my cheeks like tears, rolling to the ground.

I was bleeding, the trails of warm red blood flowing from my eyes in drops to the ground. My bleeding eyes were like the only remaining proof that what just happened was indeed not a dream or hallucinations.

'Dammit. What just happened?' i thought, wiping my eye and groaning.

I quickly put back on the glasses immediately before anything weird again could happen. Embraced in that false and futile sense of security, i finally managed to regain composure.

"The skill activated on its own."

Well that was obvious.

The question was, why? Or perhaps, how?

My first thought was—

"Meta?"

It was a logical conclusion. Not only could Meta take control of my body, but she also had direct access to any of my skills or the System's functions as a whole.

Meta didn't respond, however. And despite it was the most likely explanation, i somehow couldn't find myself believing, or accepting to believe it was Meta who was responsible for the sudden Skill activation.

"Then...a glitch?"

A system glitch?

But...that even sounded more unlikely.

'...and terrifying.'

If this was a system glitch, then shouldn't i be worried? No, like really worried. Just the thought that the system could have some bugs almost terrified me to no end.

'That's...not possible right?

For the system to actually be bugged...

... Right?

But just as unbelievable as the thought of the system getting bugged was, it sounded even more unbelievable that the system 'could' get bug. For better or worse, i had thos whole omniscient picture painted of the System in my head — such a thing couldn't actually get bugged right?

'Then what was that all about?'

I had no idea.