Chapter 110: There Was No One 2
Plum Blossom Cave.
The massive underground level of the Caracas Step where orphans lived together.
Of course, its size was vast, and the number of Pernoavis Academy students occupying it totaled 178.
They were all Awakened and future Executors and Overseers in the making… but unfortunately, their fate ended here.
And feeling Alice’s will, both the Doll and Marlang joined her in slaughtering the academy students, despite receiving no orders.
Alice said they were not human.
She searched this place diligently but said there were no humans.
Then those things weren’t human.
“Marlang!”
Marlang, who had crushed an academy student’s head to mush, laughed brightly.
Following behind, the Doll’s hands transformed into gun barrels, firing anti-mana rounds in rapid succession.
No one could escape.
“No one here~”
-Crack!
“Excuse me~? Is anyone here? This is Third-Class Overseer Alice here to rescue survivors~”
“G-guhk!”
“P-please spare me! I was only following the president’s orders…!”
Alice didn’t even look at the face of the one begging for their life before driving her Mantis Blade into their mouth.
The mantis-like twisted blade severed the victim’s spinal cord and brain in one motion before pulling out.
“Excuse meee~ Is no one here~? No one, huh?”
There’s no one.
No humans.
Humans were nowhere to be found.
I’m not human either.
Beep-beep-boop.
I’m a robot and a bio-android.
The Dolls are also creations of Mega Corp, combining weapons and the bodies of orphans.
As for Marlang, there’s no point in even mentioning it.
The only human here was a single orphan girl crying.
The one girl who had guided us into this cave was the only human.
There were no humans.
“Search and search, but they’re nowhere to be found~”
“That crazy woman!!”
“Everyone, attack together!”
“She’s alone!”
“Let’s show her defeat, Third-Class Overseer…!”
-Thud!
“Aaaaagh!”
“What are those tentacles?!”
“Get it off me, my leggg!”
“Aaack! It’s in my eye! My eyyye!”
“How do we beat this?!”
“Th-this monster…!”
To the garbage recruits charging at her in desperation to survive, Alice gifted them a wave of mechanical tendrils.
A one-sided massacre.
The mechanical tendrils literally tore into the academy students’ flesh with their sharp spikes and blades, absorbing their mana and energy amidst their agonized screams.
She deliberately avoided fatal injuries, severing legs or Achilles tendons, shredding flesh while sparing arteries, and turning their agony into background music.
At least Alice granted them ‘death.’
“Huh, no humans here~ No one at all~”
Humming, Alice searched for her next target, her eyes flashing redder than usual.
Gaia’s twisted vitality had dyed her eyes crimson.
Like a killer robot straight out of a movie, Alice walked lightly, slaughtering the students she passed, slicing, hacking, and stabbing again.
Alice approaching the academy students couldn’t even be called a fight or a battle.
She simply walked step by step, and when the fragment of her Holy Sword gleamed, someone’s head would fly off.
The snake-like mechanical tendrils would pierce the hands of those who tried to resist, climbing up their arms.
Naturally, the academy students weren’t idiots.
They were steeped in something beyond mere elitism.
Despite their warped minds, they had the talent to one day become Executors or Overseers.
Each had honed their strength through their family’s secret arts, magical techniques, and elixirs from a young age, forging connections with seniors, juniors, and peers at the academy while learning martial arts, combat, and survival skills.
If they had been in peak condition and fought Alice head-on, they might have been able to manage a real battle or at least escape by using their wits.
But now, none of that mattered.
The Anti-Mana Barrier.
The key weapon and equipment of the doll created by the Mega Corp Ernest Rail to rebel against Ark held an absolute advantage against the academy students.
Though called a barrier, it was effectively a dome-shaped boundary that suppressed all mana and special abilities in its vicinity.
This rendered the academy students, who had always relied on mana’s blessings, significantly weaker and more helpless than usual.
The fact that all mana and abilities were neutralized left the students unable to resist, let alone escape.
With mana completely removed from the equation, mere flesh-and-blood humans stood no chance against Alice, the bio-android.
Unable to enhance their bodies with mana, arms and legs were severed by Alice’s wildly swinging sword, and fleeing students were riddled with bullets from the Dolls’ guns or forced to return to Alice.
“I-I can’t die like this! I’m the eldest son of the Hakan family…!”
-Smack!
The bold fist he swung was caught in Alice’s hand, and she clenched tightly.
“Ah, aaaargh!”
The sensation of crushed bones and mangled muscles traveled up his arm, and Alice gazed coldly at the so-called eldest son of the Hakan family.
An eldest son.
The family must surely be one of the central noble houses, supplied with all sorts of elixirs and their family’s secret techniques, bringing them to the brink of academy graduation.
Judging by the use of the word “eldest,” it seems possible that the Hakan family may face elimination from the central sphere if this one does not graduate with outstanding marks.
What a pitiful situation.
If only they hadn’t driven those orphan kids out of Plum Blossom Cave for being dirty and bothersome.
At the very least, if they hadn’t cared at all, Alice might have been able to rescue and take them safely away.
‘Well, I don’t have any obligation to save those who don’t even see people as people.’
The Mantis Blades began to drip crimson blood.
The blood-soaked blades, brimming with eerie menace, were scanning for new prey, and today Alice had no intention of holding back—she planned to kill everyone here.
“No, no! I don’t want to die yet…!”
“Orphans don’t want to die either.”
“We—we’re different from those orphans!?”
“The weight of life is equal for all, but here, it’s declared different from birth.”
Well, I didn’t expect them to understand.
Alice shrugged her shoulders and grabbed the arm of a resisting student.
‘No, it’s better to deal with such pests quickly. That would actually be beneficial for the world.’
-Crack!
“Aaaaagh!”
The arm she held was wrung out like a rag, eliciting a grating scream that echoed through the underground.
Someone behind her tried to stab her with a spear-like weapon.
There was no need to dodge.
A standard-issue spear incapable of being infused with mana wouldn’t even scratch Alice’s synthetic skin.
The mechanical tendrils controlled by Theresa seized the spear and returned it to the student.
From afar, some students desperately drew magic circles or tried to activate abilities.
The Anti-Mana Barrier activated, leaving many coughing up blood as mana turned their bodies into rags.
Neutralized children were easier to kill.
Alice walked over with measured steps and plunged the Mantis Blade deep.
What crimes had these kids committed?
Well.
Not recognizing people as people was already enough, wasn’t it?
For some reason, she was furious.
The necessity to spare them.
She couldn’t feel any need to help these brats, who had so nonchalantly driven orphan kids out of here to be thrown to vampires as fodder.
So she killed them.
Brats like you.
How much older do you think you are than those orphan kids, to treat them as trash and throw them away like that?
Thus, I’ll discard you too.
-Squelch!
-Thud!
The sound of splattering blood and tearing flesh continued to echo through Plum Blossom Cave.
Perhaps I was the same during my time as the Demon King.
I was so sick of those who didn’t see people as people, and I despised those who refused to understand even when spoken to.
Alice felt faint memories of her past life as the Demon King resurface.
Back then, Alice had tried to appeal, persuade, and make herself understood by countless people, the images flashing through her mind like a picture.
But what she received in return was betrayal as a baseline.
A horde of those who didn’t believe, refused to understand, or outright rejected conversation to impose their own thoughts filled her path.
Even those she thought had harbored understanding only sought to exploit her, and eventually, Alice of the Demon King’s era gave up speaking to anyone.
The Alice of that time didn’t even remember what she had tried to explain or appeal to humanity about, but seeing the students of Pelnobis Academy before her, those memories overlapped.
People who wouldn’t understand the words spoken to them in their own language.
People who didn’t see others as people.
Alice despised such individuals.
She didn’t even remember why she hated them so much, but like a trauma etched into her soul, Alice couldn’t even bring herself to treat these academy students as humans.
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“Puhahahaha!”
Rilstia laughed.
Her ability allowed her to dive into any CCTV, internet, and electronic networks at any time and even manifest physically.
At least where computers and electronic networks existed, she was invincible and could see everything.
In other words, within the Ark, there was nothing that could harm Rilstia, and nothing within the Ark could escape her gaze.
Naturally, Rilstia had been observing Alice’s every move.
Even while processing mountains of paperwork one by one, another part of Rilstia’s vision was fixed on Alice.
Killing the academy students?
An amusing choice.
Actually, whether Alice rescued and brought back the academy students or killed them all, Rilstia didn’t mind.
Rilstia’s order as an administrator had been to investigate the academy students’ disappearance, not to save or return them alive.
No matter how much the central authorities or nobles puffed themselves up, they couldn’t oppose the actions of an administrator or a high-ranking Overseer.
“Ha! I’m looking forward to your report, Alice!”