Most Powerful Entity in Academy-Chapter 54: Requiem

"Man only becomes truly human when, feeling alien to the world, estranged from everything, questioning everything, even asking the morning sun ’why’, lost among endless ’whys’, he realizes in that terrifying and magnificent moment, amid all this meaninglessness, that he must create his own meaning.

– Albus Camus"

One week, the academy is closed.

Today is day two.

The atmosphere is so bad that if anyone made a wrong move, everyone else would kill them.

The academy’s investigation is still ongoing.

But right now, there are things more important than the investigation.

The bodies have been collected.

Everyone is wearing something resembling a military uniform, and we all stand perfectly straight in front of the graves.

The gravediggers lowered the bodies into the pits.

Students are crying.

As the saintess, Maria stands at the very front, in front of all the students.

Even she couldn’t speak, and though she has no wounds on her body, sometimes the wounds in the heart are the worst.

Director Stella stood beside Saint Maria.

"What happened today is one of the worst events in our academy’s history. They didn’t die. They became fertilizer for the rise of the community. Never forget: don’t just call the ground you walk on ’soil’ and move on. Think of the thousands lying beneath it. Those who gave their blood to the very end against the demon god worshippers are heroes. NOW SALUTE!"

Everyone stood perfectly straight and slammed their right fists over their hearts.

Tears fell from some.

"Now Saint Maria will send off the martyrs on their final journey," she said and stepped back to where everyone else was.

Saint Maria looked like she couldn’t speak: "E-everyone who contributed to the fight against the demon god here should know this: we, the living, are the ones who lost. These people faced beings cursed by God on God’s path and died. Right now they are tasting the most beautiful blessings in heaven...

So don’t mourn them, because the dead didn’t lose. We, the living, are forced to carry our pain on our shoulders, but they will be at eternal rest."

A few tears fell from Saint Maria’s eyes...

Then she turned, took soil from the ground, and threw it into a pit.

She looked at the gravediggers and nodded.

After the bodies were buried, Saint Maria came to stand with us students, like everyone else.

I feel like shit.

It wasn’t just people who died here.

It was dreams...

Every person has a dream. A person can die for that dream.

A person without a dream is nothing but an empty box.

No matter how old they get, if that dream remains unfulfilled, it stays as a regret inside.

Our dreams are what push us forward.

Some people give up their own dreams for the dreams of others.

Like logs used to light a campfire.

I bow my head; I can’t look at the graves.

I was the only one who visited Mrs. Miller’s funeral. Those days come back to me.

People around me are talking, but I’m lost inside myself.

’Raul, snap out of it,’ Gabriel said.

I couldn’t speak, as if I had eaten the apple.

When I lifted my head, only a few people remained with me: Artemis, Victoria, and Saint Maria.

"Did you like what you did?" Saint Maria said and punched me in the chest.

Artemis growled at Saint Maria like a feral dog: "What do you know, saintess, if it weren’t for me and Raul, you’d be minced meat right now."

"Calm down, don’t fight in an atmosphere like this. Even if no one else is here, show respect to the dead," Victoria said.

She spoke rationally: "No wonder Hans doesn’t love you, Victoria, you’re devoid of human emotion."

But because they didn’t expect it, I gave the dead my final gift.

A golden divine light enveloped everything around us.

Even the saintess was witnessing a phenomenon like this for the first time.

I knelt before the dead, no matter how proud I am.

This divine light covered the entire cemetery; no one in the academy could do this.

Not even the saintess.

"Confutatis maledictis,

flammis acribus addictis,

voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,

cor contritum quasi cinis,

gere curam mei finis."

("When the accused are confounded and doomed to flames of woe, call me among the blessed. I kneel with a submissive heart, my contrition is like ashes, help me in my final condition.")

I can feel the souls of the dead rising to the sky.

I am proud, but never arrogant.

When I’m wrong, I admit it. I am guilty.

I felt a touch on both my shoulders.

"Raul, let’s go," Victoria and Artemis said.

Saint Maria looked completely shocked.

Because the entire academy city had just witnessed a phenomenon: golden divine light rising to the sky, then light particles falling like snowflakes, filling the academy city.

I don’t even know how I got back to the mansion.

All I did was sit on the roof of the mansion watching the sunset, and the phenomenon I created was making quite a noise.

This is the result of my sincere feelings and my true respect for God.

Everything someone as strong as me does affects causality to a certain extent.

This phenomenon will stay here all day.

Artemis has been cheerfully avoiding me lately.

I was starting to think she might be the one who betrayed me.

I have a list of those who could betray me.

-Hel

-Fenrir

-Artemis

These three are on my list.

I’m not sure about Victoria, but those whom I put in the list have a 60% higher chance of betrayal.

The people who truly know my identity.

There’s the question of what I’ll do to the one who betrays me... 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

I don’t know what I should do, but the one thing I know is that my heart is broken.

"You’re a failure. I wish I’d aborted you instead of giving birth to you." I hear my mother’s voice from the old world.

She’s sitting beside me, and that disgusting smell still feels like it’s on her.

"Yes, I’m a failure. As a human, I’m the perfect representation of absolute failure," I say.

From the outside, it would look like I’m talking to the air.

My mother’s voice sounded angrier: "Well, you did all those disgusting things, if I were God, I’d welcome you as VIP in hell."

"For you it should’ve been mega VIP then bitch" I said and lit a cigarette.

But my mother laughed: "Son like mother, I’m a failure too, but at least I have pride."

"Yeah, you showed me that pretty well with prostitution, congratulations."

"Yes, but even a whore keeps living, no matter how hopeless life is, doesn’t give up like you. We have dreams too. People who’ve seen the cruelty of the world know this."

But I feel something coming at my head and stop it.

I caught a foot.

To be specific, Gabriel’s foot: "You were talking to the air, no matter how much I called you didn’t respond, so this method came to mind."

"So, shock therapy," I said

Gabriel grinned and sat beside me.

I took another drag from my cigarette: "Still, Gabriel, even though you’re a pigeon, your heart is good, I guess."

"I want to push you off the roof," Gabriel said, looking at me.

I smirked: "That wouldn’t change anything, but the feeling is mutual."

"Why are you avoiding Artemis?" Gabriel asked.

"because even the possibility that Artemis betrayed me scares me..." I said

True, I’m scared of that possibility: "You’re quite emotional..." she said.

"For a granny like you, you’re pretty sweet-tongued," I said

"Go die somewhere," I can tell Gabriel is angry even without looking at her.

"There’s no death for me."

This day feels like a day of mourning, too.

A man who knows the consequences of his own actions better than anyone lit a cigarette for himself.

On a day like this, the man wondered, if he died, would anyone visit his grave?

If he died, who would care?

But the man already knows the answers, yet sometimes facing the truths we already know is the hardest thing.

In moments like this, people lie to themselves.

That man was Raul.

That day, the academy echoed, but no one heard those sounds.

They were the silent screams of a man deceiving himself, the things that filled this damned place.

In the academy city, every person was like this, hiding their true feelings and hurting their heart.

They are those who face or don’t face their own pain, and those who run from it.

Everyone has pain, everyone has troubles.

But facing those pains is an act of courage.

But the world is not gonna wait for you.

Still making you feel the harsh reality, but you have to live.

A wise man once said, "In autumn, man has a good reason to keep living: knowing that winter is coming."

Raul understood that sometimes living takes more courage than dying.

And Raul doesn’t run away from the challenge.....

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