The Extra's Transcension-Chapter 111: The Truth [3]
***
The room went utterly still as Alicia’s words lingered, heavy, suffocating, almost unreal.
Then suddenly...
"And you’re telling me that now?!"
Emily’s voice sliced through the silence like a blade.
Her hands slammed against the table, the faint pulse of mana rippling through the air from her outburst.
Her usual calm, professional composure shattered in an instant, replaced by raw frustration and disbelief.
Her gaze locked on Alicia, sharp, demanding.
"All this time... all this time, you knew this, and you said nothing? Do you realize what kind of danger we’ve been in? What kind of things I, we, could have prevented if you had just...!"
But before she could finish, Alicia’s voice rose to meet hers, not defiant, but trembling with restrained emotion.
"What do you think I was supposed to do, Ms. Emily?!"
The words came out louder than she intended, her tone cracking from the pressure of everything she’d been holding in.
She took a shaky breath, then continued, her voice steadier but still heavy.
"Lyrium made me promise. He told me not to say a word, not to anyone, not even to you. He said the moment this truth spread, the world itself might start unraveling faster. That the entity would notice us again."
Her fingers clenched tightly around her sleeve, knuckles white.
"I didn’t keep quiet out of fear of you, or the academy, or anyone else. I did it because Lyrium asked me to. Because he believed this world was fragile, like a glass barely holding together after being shattered once."
She looked away, guilt flickering behind her calm expression.
"Do you think I wanted to stay silent while everyone kept suffering, while Ren and the others almost died, while Lyrium..."
Her voice faltered for a moment.
"...While he almost vanished again?"
Emily’s anger dimmed slightly, replaced by the faint trace of conflict in her eyes.
Alicia continued quietly, the tremor fading from her tone, replaced by something colder, resigned.
"If I told you sooner, and it triggered another collapse... if even one of you disappeared because of it, then that secret would’ve killed more than just truth. It would’ve destroyed everything."
She looked back at Emily, her expression firm now, her eyes steady despite the sadness there.
"So no, I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t. Not until the world started showing cracks again."
"...."
The room fell silent once more.
Rihana crossed her arms and looked away, biting her lip.
Ren sat frozen, trying to process everything.
Xiaolung lowered his head, expression unreadable.
And Emily... just stared at Alicia, the weight of her words sinking in, the anger slowly giving way to grim understanding.
Xiaolung, who had been silent until now, finally straightened his posture.
His eyes were calm but sharp, the kind that dissected everything before him, word by word.
"I see..."
He began quietly, his tone level yet weighty.
"So what you’re saying is, we aren’t the originals, but echoes. Fragments that were copied over when the timeline was rewritten."
He clasped his hands behind his back, pacing slowly as he spoke.
"That would explain the inconsistencies. The subtle differences in behavior, memory gaps, the shifts in history. Even the energy signatures around the academy have felt... off, like a rhythm that’s slightly out of sync."
Rihana frowned.
"What do you mean off?"
He turned to her.
"I’ve been monitoring the academy’s leyline flow ever since the explosion. The mana density fluctuates unnaturally, as if reality itself is trying to stabilize something that doesn’t belong here. At first, I thought it was just residue from the blast..."
Then his gaze landed on Alicia.
"...But now I’m starting to think it’s us."
Emily’s brows knitted.
"Us?"
"Yes,"
Xiaolung said, his voice deepening slightly.
"We’re distortions inside a stabilized world. If this timeline wasn’t meant to exist, then the more we remember, the more we reconnect with what was lost, the more unstable this version of reality becomes."
A faint silence settled in the room again.
"So,"
He continued, his tone growing heavier,
"If what you said is true, Alicia, and this world is merely a reset... then the more people remember about the old timeline, the faster this world will begin to unravel."
He turned to Emily then, his expression grim.
"We may not just be echoes of a rewritten timeline... We might also be its fuse."
After Xiaolung’s last words, the atmosphere in the office grew dense, the kind of silence that carried tension heavy enough to choke on.
Ren slumped back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck, looking both annoyed and uninterested.
"Okay, okay,"
He started, his tone light but his expression carrying a hint of exhaustion.
"Ms. Emily, did you just interrupt my training to ask me all of this?"
He let out an incredulous laugh, gesturing with both hands.
"I mean, sure, the world’s apparently reset, timelines are messed up, and we’re echoes of ourselves, great, amazing, but I’ll only care about that when mate wakes up." 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
His voice softened slightly at the word mate, but he quickly forced a grin.
"Right now, I’ve got zero interest in cosmic resets or divine who-knows-what. So if that’s all, I’ll just..."
Emily interrupted him with a firm but calm tone.
"Yess... precisely, Ren. That’s not why I called you here."
Ren blinked.
"Huh?"
"I called you,"
Emily continued, her expression shifting into something colder, more professional,
"Because you’re going to be part of the group assigned to go to the Backthorn."
He leaned forward, confused.
"Wait. You want me to be part of the group going to the elves’ country? Why? What do they even have to do with this?"
Emily sighed, resting both elbows on her desk.
"Because this entity, the one Lyrium absorbed, the same kind of anomaly that has appeared before, its mana signature bears a striking resemblance to the Anomalies rift incident three years ago."
Ren frowned.
"The one in the northern sector?"
She nodded.
"Yes. That one. Back then, we classified it as an unstable spatial fracture caused by an experimental misfire, but... now it’s clear it was something else. Something beyond what we could even define."
"...."
She paused, meeting each of their gazes one by one.
"So, yes, we’ll be reaching out to the Elven Dominion and the other major races. Whether they like us or not, this time, cooperation isn’t optional. We can’t afford to repeat that disaster."
Ren leaned back again, exhaling.
"So basically, we’re going on a diplomatic field trip to fix a cosmic mess caused by godly idiots. Great."
Emily didn’t respond to the sarcasm.
Her gaze shifted toward Alicia, who visibly tensed under it.
"But now,"
Emily said slowly,
"Thanks to our dear Alicia De Margus here..."
Her tone hardened, eyes narrowing slightly.
"We have an even bigger problem."
"...."
"Haa..."
Alicia took a quiet breath before speaking, her voice steady but low.
"...You’re angry because I didn’t tell you sooner."
Emily’s eyes flickered with restrained fury.
"Of course I am. Do you have any idea how reckless that was? You’ve been keeping something of this magnitude from the Academy’s headmaster, from me, for how long?"
Alicia hesitated.
"Since umm, it’s okay been 5 days since even i knew."
Emily rose from her chair, palms pressed against the desk.
"And you thought it was your decision to hide something that affects the existence of everyone in this world?"
Alicia’s gaze fell to the floor.
"Like I said Before, it wasn’t my decision alone,"
She said softly.
"Lyrium told me to keep it that way. He said revealing it too soon would cause the world’s structure to collapse again."
She lied, Lyrium actually didn’t told her anything about that but it was her own theory that it can cause great impact.
Emily froze mid-sentence.
"He what?"
Alicia finally looked up, meeting her eyes, guilt shimmering behind the cold silver of her irises.
"He believed that if the truth spread, the world itself would reject it, like an organism purging a memory it wasn’t ready to handle."
The silence that followed was unbearable.
Even Rihana’s usual composure wavered slightly as she crossed her arms, trying to piece it together.
Ren muttered,
"Wait, So, It’s like um about, is there like different versions of me? Wait, so like we’ve got multiple me’s running around who didn’t get to train either as well?!"
"Ren,"
Emily warned sharply, but the tension in her voice betrayed she was barely keeping herself composed.
Xiaolung, who had been quietly observing, finally stepped forward.
"Headmistress,"
H said in a calm, even tone.
"If what she says is true... then Lyrium may have known the consequences of disclosure. Perhaps Alicia was only doing what she believed would protect us."
Emily’s shoulders tightened, but she didn’t speak.
Her eyes softened, just slightly, as she looked at Alicia again.
"You still should’ve come to me,"
She said finally, her voice lower now, no longer harsh but heavy with disappointment.
"If the world is truly a looped construct, then every hidden truth is another fuse waiting to blow."
Alicia nodded faintly.
"I know. And I’ll accept whatever punishment you decide, but... please understand, I didn’t stay silent because I wanted to. I stayed silent because Lyrium asked me to."
"...."
Emily stared at her for a long, weighted moment, then sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"...I’m getting tired of that boy causing a world threatening mistakes every time he disappears."
Ren smirked faintly.
"Yeah, welcome to our lives."
That earned him a death glare from both Emily and Rihana.
He raised his hands in surrender.
"What? Someone had to say it."
The mood didn’t lighten much, but the edge in the air dulled, just a little.
The gravity of the situation still hung there, pressing down on all of them, but for the first time, Emily’s anger shifted into something else, grim acceptance.
She finally sat back down.
"Fine. What’s done is done. But from now on, there will be no more secrets. Not from me. Not from anyone. Understood?"
Everyone nodded quietly, even Alicia.
Emily leaned forward, her gaze sharp once again.
"Good. Then let’s start preparing for Backthorn."
