Seeing Oknodie return to the Academy, Jezel couldn’t hide her sorrowful expression as she declared.
“Our speculation and Professor Sadako’s information were correct. Oknodie has definitely changed. To fit what the Foundation desires.”
The Oknodie returning from the Academy had once again altered its personality.
The shy and insecure demeanor of the timid Oknodie had vanished like a lie.
The tearful and understanding figure no longer existed.
“Is it true that the Oknodie who reluctantly ate the strange lunchboxes is… gone now…?”
Son Ohchun let out a smirk in response to Isabel’s sorrowful question.
“Have you even tried the taste of what you made? Carrying around that kind of lunchbox would turn even an angel into a fallen one!”
“Come on, that’s too harsh! Do you know how hard I worked on it? And of course, you can’t just look at the taste! Oknodie insisted on finishing an entire portion to be counted, so it wouldn’t let a single bite go to someone else.”
“Wait, you actually never tried it?!”
As Son Ohchun was surprised in a different direction than the others, Jezel was peering into the daily life of Oknodie captured in the observation gem.
She saw Oknodie let out an ugh scream, being overwhelmed by Titosso’s powerful light that it was emitting from in front.
It broke Jezel’s heart to think that such an innocent child was being tormented by the Foundation, stripped of its gentle humanity.
“Don’t sympathize so easily. If that child was hurt by the Foundation, you shouldn’t view that as pure play.”
Responding to Jezel’s call, Kasia completely reinterpreted the current situation based on her experience as a fusion experiment subject.
“Is Oknodie really playing with Titosso and the light? To me, it looks as if… it’s studying Titosso’s powers. Even if Titosso disappears from this world, it seems like it’s trying to analyze her powers and mechanisms to ‘replace’ it with an independent light it developed itself.”
That was a grim assumption, but for Kasia, who grew up watching fusion-experiment subjects burning, melting, or suffocating to death daily in the laboratory, it felt quite realistic.
An idea that could easily occur to a child raised under researchers who viewed humans as mere experiments.
[Evil Child]
This misunderstanding was certainly aided by the Foundation’s efforts to push Oknodie towards evil.
Those who couldn’t awaken to the divine wouldn’t be able to grasp such facts.
“The Oknodie we knew is closer to the current Oknodie, but the one that truly needs our help isn’t the Oknodie in the Academy. You were the first to say that, right, Jezel?”
“…That’s right. For the sake of considering Kasia’s willingness to share her troubled memories, I need to stay strong now.”
Jezel tore her eyes away from Oknodie, who was striving to analyze and consume Titosso’s powers.
“That’s… a decoy created to prevent us from seeing the real one made by the Foundation’s ‘Director.’ I think it’s a fake Oknodie. It possesses the body of the real Oknodie, but the Oknodie seeking our help must be desperately wishing for assistance somewhere outside that body right now.”
The previously light atmosphere got heavy again.
Imagining Oknodie crying out like wee-hee-hee in the darkness, desperately seeking help like a poor Titosso, clenched everyone’s fists in anger.
A threat far beyond that of the Catacombs expedition party loomed.
“We’ve encountered many failures so far. If we cannot change, we won’t reach Oknodie again this time either. It’s highly likely that’ll be the case. This time, we’re facing the Foundation.”
“They won’t show mercy, I bet. They’ll kill everyone without sparing a second, unlike the Blood Guests or Professor Sadako.”
“That little rat… why didn’t it rely on us? Was it because it didn’t find us trustworthy? If I feared that child, if I was conscious of that feeling… then its disappearance might be…”
Isabel was drowning in ominous imaginings, and Son Ohchun was filled with self-reproach.
Just as Jezel was about to comfort the two, an overwhelming presence felt nearby sent chills down her spine.
Even someone caught up in major incidents like she was felt their breath catch at the homicidal aura that rivaled that of a ‘Demon’ or an ‘Academy Professor.’
“Is what you’re saying true?”
There stood a warrior with a shadowy gaze and a face shrouded in gloom, exuding an aura terrifying enough that one could believe it was the arrival of a Giant Monster.
“The real Oknodie isn’t here, and all that’s left is the shell. The real one is probably still suffering by the Director’s side. Is that true…?”
It was obvious just by looking.
Ishtar was broken.
One shouldn’t provoke someone who looks precarious like a heart made of glass.
Jezel realized.
She must not answer whatever Ishtar wanted right now.
The students should protest to the Principal, and the professors should be mobilized for a rescue operation.
But at the same time, he thought.
This is an opportunity.
I can use Ishtar now.
‘How disgusting. How impure I am.’
Jezel felt nauseous at his cowardice.
However, he was an adult.
He had survived in the dark alleys where the most malignant imaginations came to life.
He witnessed knights assigned to search for missing children raid a criminal organization’s hideout, only for bribed knights to leak raid information, and all hostages disappearing.
By the time he hurriedly regretted it and personally led a rush against the escaping organization, it was already too late.
Inside the large container were corpses already dead, ready to be delivered for use as sacrifices to Dark Sorcerers.
“It’s true.”
Unable to contain his anger, Jezel reached out to Ishtar, who was desperately unleashing her energy.
“But there is a chance to rectify the wrongs. The Dark Trading Company possesses vast information on the Foundation. And I have the vast intelligence network of the Revolutionary Army as a ‘Second Revolutionary’.”
Currently, no one else in the world possessed an intelligence network as vast as his.
“Oknodie… that Oknodie who was so close to us, took the Foundation’s disposal by its own will…!”
Tears streamed down Ishtar’s cheeks.
Though it might sound grim, Jezel grasped the situation.
‘A disposal order was issued, huh?’
The Foundation failed to ‘control’ Oknodie.
The child who should not have known emotions had opened her eyes to too many feelings.
While she didn’t discard her friends as worthless, she returned to the Foundation’s embrace precisely because her friends were precious to her.
Without seeking anyone’s help.
Alone, she went back to the Foundation.
And she returned.
As a destroyed Oknodie.
As an Oknodie whose common sense collapsed.
To the ‘broken Oknodie’ we knew and were so familiar with, making it even sadder.
Ishtar must have witnessed that truth, that scene firsthand.
Yet, unable to prevent the outcome, she fell into a self-loathing deeper than Son Ohchun.
“We could not protect Oknodie from the Foundation’s grasp… This cannot be the end. We will surely reclaim Oknodie’s true self by our own hands.”
Ishtar made a request to Jezel.
“Tell me. Just like the times when we overthrew the Emperor, no matter how impossible it seems, just like those successful moments, show me how to repeat the miracle. Please…”
“The method is simple. Before the professors take action, we strike the Foundation first.”
Jezel met her expectations.
“Oknodie’s soul, something as precious as that, wouldn’t have been placed too far from the Director. If we attack the branches with Defensive Spells leading to the Foundation Headquarters, we might be able to access the plant storing Oknodie’s torn soul that the Director has locked away.”
“That’s dangerous.”
Isabel immediately opposed.
“Are we all planning to die for the sake of saving Oknodie?”
The Kraken commotion.
The Student Dormitory Zone.
The Blood Guests.
Comparatively, the trials of staying beside Oknodie in the Catacombs expedition were becoming harder and harder.
A raid on the Foundation posed an even greater obstacle than those events.
Above all, it was real combat.
Someone could truly die this time if they fell behind.
“If it weren’t for Oknodie, we wouldn’t be where we are now. We had no strength to look toward tomorrow, no hope for a future.”
It didn’t matter if it was cowardly.
It didn’t matter if many of Oknodie’s friends died or got hurt.
Jezel had already made up his mind.
“The professors would erase everything to avoid such sacrifices, including even the fragments of Oknodie’s soul. I want to save her before such a tragedy occurs.”
The pure, pitiful child we knew and remembered.
To not become an empty vessel robbed of the ‘ordinary child’ they managed to find, but rather, to reclaim the ‘real Oknodie.’
“Waaah! So sad!”
“Sniff, is this really too much?!”
“Just a while ago, Oknodie gave me a pretty stone as a gift… Told me not to eat it and to keep it as a decoration. I wondered what happened to her mind, but the truth is, she was such a kind and well-behaved child…?”
Silent confusion about the changed Oknodie and thinking of her merely as an irritable target; that was all everyone felt.
But if that was the real Oknodie,
Wouldn’t she be even more sorrowful because we couldn’t acknowledge that, and chose to abandon her to the Foundation’s control?
If the responsibility of this tragedy lies with us,
How should we bear that responsibility…?
Jezel revealed that answer to everyone.
“I’ll give you one hour. Only those ready to risk their lives should come find me.”
An hour later, Jezel opened the door to his office.
Seeing the fully armed students, Jezel nodded.
“From now on, we will execute the grand operation [Breaking the Foundation].”
The students’ unauthorized absence would lead to a much larger situation than the professors could ever imagine.
