304 Chapter 304: The Fall of Troy (1/2)
”You know, if Troy is taking part in the national tournament, we might just get first place.”
Dong Fang Yue Chu was commenting while we strolled through the school courtyard. Most of the students were busily hurrying about, rushing from classroom to classroom. Many of them were hoping to get involved in the tournament in one way or another, but only ten students had been selected for it. The same ten who attended the exchange session with Vermillion Academy a few weeks ago.
Well, if Troy made it back, he might just nudge one of us out of the list. As the number one student in Jing Tian Academy, he would be our trump card. Unfortunately, he tended to take missions that kept him out of school for months at a time, completely out of communication. Fortunately, he always returned, so I wasn't concerned about him ignominiously dying in some random place. If anything, he had even more plot armor than me.
After all, he was a character who was based off a protagonist that my friend had created for his own Black Roses story (which I doubt my friend would ever get around to writing – not his fault, though. As a lawyer, he was always super-busy and had no time to write). That friend had no time to read this story, so I doubted that he would care if I arbitrarily killed Troy off, but I was unlikely to risk it. Except that the title of this chapter sounded pretty ominous…
Nah, that won't happen. I wouldn't risk offending my friend (even though he didn't read my story), right?
”How does it feel? Are you nervous?”
Yue Chu mistook my silence for worry, and I shook my head.
”No, just thinking stupid stuff and breaking the fourth wall as usual.”
”…huh?” Yue Chu stared at me blankly for a moment, then shook his head, interpreting my cryptic remark as a joke. ”Anyway, you're the one closest to him. Any clue as to where he's at? Perhaps you can try and call him back?”
”I'm afraid I don't.” I shook my head again, displaying a little of my bitterness. ”The last time I heard from him, he was chasing after his brother, Tyrant King. That bastard went and wiped out an entire city with a bioweapon or something…”
Yue Chu shuddered. Even he had heard of the atrocities that Tyrant King had committed. The authorities of the Federation were still trying to track him down, and I had learned that he had links to the Dark Church, so I naturally hoped that Troy would bring him to justice. Maybe kill him. While I usually didn't condone killing, I knew that Tyrant was one of those rare few homicidal psychopaths who were too dangerous to be allowed to live. The guy was perfectly capable of escaping a maximum security prison and leaving a trail of corpses in his wake while laughing to the next site of his chosen victims. And this was assuming he was being held there while awaiting execution after being sentenced to death.
In other words, he was somebody who should be killed on sight.
”Still…if we can help him deal with his brother, and bring him back just in time for the tournament, that would help our chances of winning the championship greatly.” It would be a small challenge to integrate Troy into our team and coach him on how to coordinate and work together, but his immense abilities and pure strength were more than worth it.
Unfortunately, ideals did not always coincide with reality, and it appeared that Troy wasn't going to make it in time for the national tournament next week.
”Hey, guys!” Harrison Reed called out before he joined us. ”We should have a meeting soon to discuss the tournament. If I'm not mistaken, there are over 500 teams participating in the national tournament this year. It'll be divided into qualifiers and the main event. I'm not sure what the qualifier is about, but with the emphasis on teamwork, we've been informed that it will be a team event. As for the main tournament, it seems like it'll be hosted in Southampton City this year.”
Wasn't that the city that Cecilia Stuart lived in? Interesting. Apparently we would head there to be briefed on the qualifiers before being sent out once again. Then the teams who made it through the qualifiers would then return to Southampton City for the final event.
”Anyway, I also wish to look through the list of top candidates and teams…the most highly rated mages of our generation who will be participating in this tournament.”
”What's the use?” I grumbled. ”Other than the ones we already know, such as Cecilia, Kureha and Lilith, the rest are just random characters who we've never heard of before, and wouldn't matter anyway because the readers wouldn't remember them. I don't think the readers will be happy to read a bunch of info dump right now. And after hyping them up to be this powerful opponent, all that hype would be meaningless when we crush them like the cannon fodder they really are. You can hype them all you want, write an entire dossier on their past, techniques, etc., but all that matters is we beat them to reach all the way to the finals. Then these poor bastards cease to matter anymore.”
”What…?” Harrison was gaping at me. Then he scowled. ”Don't be ridiculous. You think you can beat them if you don't research on your potential opponents and develop countermeasures and tactics against them? We have to prepare.”
”Oh, sure.” I nodded sagely. ”You are right. What I'm trying to say is that we should do all that preparation and info dump off screen. Instead of, you know, boring readers with info dump. We don't want to end up like Battle Frenzy now, do we? So let's transition to black screen now, do a time skip, and then return to the story after all that briefing…”
Unfortunately, we never had the chance to get a black screen or time skip, because my cell phone buzzed at that moment.
”Sorry, got to take this call.”
I left behind a gaping Harrison and Yue Chu to answer the call at the side of the pathway. Fortunately, the both of them were polite enough to grant me some privacy, and I proceeded to swipe at the green icon.
Troy's face appeared in the video call. He stared at me, and surprisingly enough, he looked quite shaken. Behind him, explosions were blossoming, and my jaw dropped when I saw an entire building collapsed. Even in the poor resolution, I could actually make out poor civilians tumbling to death from the disintegrating structure.
”Troy? What's going on?! What happened?”
”It's bad,” my dark-skinned friend replied. ”Real bad. Everything's gone to hell here.”
”Wait, what? Slow down. Where is there? And what's going on!?”
Troy took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. He stared at me with his chocolate-brown eyes.
”I tracked down my brother. Tyrant was hiding out in this city, called…Troy. As we suspected, he has ties to the Dark Church, and they unleashed a living bioweapon on it…everything's gone to hell. Everyone is dying…”
Another explosion drowned out his voice. Troy glanced at something off screen, but the dust billowing from the side told me that another building had just toppled over. Perspiration welled up on his face.
”I never thought I would say this, but…I need help. I have requested for reinforcements from the academy…from the authorities, but even they aren't enough. I need you, Richie. You're probably the only one who can stop this.”
”What…? How?”
I shook my head, still unable to digest what was occurring. Troy wiped the sweat from his brow and glanced off screen again.
”You have those nuke spells, don't you? I need those. We need to sterilize the whole city before they get out. Before they contaminate the rest of the Federation.” He exhaled heavily. ”I know it sounds crazy. But if we don't resort to drastic measures…”