Chapter 117

  this is a fictional story by realTensai

  The battlefield vanished, and in its place was a white room. Alvis blinked, unable to process what had just happened, and as he looked around, he noticed that he was sitting on one end of a long, white, almost translucent table. On the other end, opposite to him, sat Mr. Woltzer. His bloody hands were crossed as he rested his elbows on the table. He stared at Alvis with cool yet somehow still burning eyes and opened his mouth.

  “Let’s talk.”

  Alvis jumped out of his seat, his brows furrowed, his mana still fuming.

  “You just killed teachers before everyone’s eyes, and the students are still outside killing each other, and you want us to talk?” Alvis said, slamming his balled fists against the table.

  However, Mr. Woltzer’s gaze remained sharp and indifferent as he didn’t even respond. Alvis clenched his fists even harder, wanting to punch some fear into his face, yet he took a deep breath in and out and sat down again.

  I’ve to remember my goal. Even if I don’t want to admit it this situation is optimal if I want to convince Mr. Woltzer. Only if we can speak with no one interfering could I hope to convince him to betray the Devil Cult.

  Alvis bit his tongue and suppressed his boiling emotions.

  “You’re smart. Just like expected.”

  “What do you want to discuss?”

  “I want you to join the Devil Cult.”

  Alvis gasped, yet upon seeing no traces of jester on Mr. Woltzer, he could only shake his head.

  “Have you gone insane?” Alvis said, laughing sheepishly. “You know that this won’t happen. However, I have a similar request. Leave the Devil Cult.”

  This time, Mr. Woltzer laughed sheepishly.

  “You know that this won’t happen.”

  They stared at each other, no one saying a word as their eyes said enough. The tension rose as each second that passed in silence enhanced the mental warfare. Alvis’ heartbeat increased and his brain worked at full capacity, trying to find a way to win over this situation.

  “Why?” Alvis asked, breaking the silence. “You could end this game if you wanted to. You know where Elric is hiding, and if you bring us to him, we could force him to end this game. All this suffering and killing would end. You alone could stop this madness!”

  “Why should I?”

  Mr. Woltzer remained unfazed, yet Alvis just furrowed his eyebrows.

  “Why should you? Do you want your students to kill each other?”

  “No, I don’t want that. But them killing each other has nothing to do with this game.”

  “Are you kidding me? Do you think they would have killed each other if this game had never started? This game played with their mental state and forced them into a kill-or-die situation.”

  “You know that this isn’t true. The rules of this game never forced them to kill each other. They could’ve just refused to participate, just like I told them to.”

  “But…” Alvis clicked his tongue, unable to deny this fact. Still, he continued. “They lost hope because nothing happened after one week.”

  “So, one week of living uncomfortably is enough for them to give up hope and to decide to kill each other?”

  Alvis couldn’t respond.

  “Do you think the Devil Cult is evil?” Mr. Woltzer asked, his amber eyes staring daggers into Alvis’ soul.

  “Of course it is!” Alvis responded almost instinctively. “They kill innocent people and terrorize countries just for their unreasonable goal of reincarnating the Devil.”

  He remembered all the suffering they caused Lia by killing her entire village. How they enslaved Nero and her village to conduct magical experiments on them. He remembered how Voyzez had pushed him to insanity.

  They were pure evil.

  However, unmoved by Alvis’ emotions, Mr. Woltzer continued.

  “Do you think I’m evil?”

  Alvis’ mouth opened on its own, wanting to say yes as images of Mr. Woltzer killing his fellow teachers and betraying them appeared in his mind. Yet he stayed silent. Images of his speeches and how he constantly fought against racism and tried to protect his students also appeared in Alvis’ mind.

  “I don’t know,” Alvis answered.

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  “What even is evil?”

  Alvis didn’t respond, his mind spinning, trying to identify what he was getting at.

  “Isn’t this society the true evil? We live in a society filled with racism and injustice. In a society in which an innocent little girl gets killed by police officers because of her origin. So, just like the Devil Cult, they let innocent people die and suffer. Isn’t that evil?”

  “Is that all you wanted to say? You might be right, but one evil doesn’t justify the other. What will joining the Devil Cult do to better the world? It only leads to more evil. Instead of creating more problems, we should try our best to fix the problems we already have in our society.”

  However, Mr. Woltzer just started laughing. His voice boomed within the white room and his laughter echoed in Alvis’ ears, yet his eyes weren’t laughing.

  “What do you think I tried? I have already exhausted all my efforts on this “good path”. More than anyone else. I became a public speaker, faced adversity, and fought for a better society. My influence became so big that the WRO recognized me and offered me the spot as the Principal of this school. They decided that I was the best fit to teach the new generation. I gave it my all and made it my mission to influence the students in this school, those young people whose worldviews haven’t been corrupted yet, with good values. So they could lead us into a better future. I believed in them. I believed in them more than I ever believed in myself. And look what they became. Even this school I so carefully nurtured couldn’t set aside its hatred. The students are killing each other as we speak, not caring about anyone else but themselves or their kinsmen.”

  Mr. Woltzer’s years of effort, emotions, and frustration were carried by his words and hit Alvis like a flood. He didn’t dare to respond, yet he had no other choice.

  “This only happened because we are in an extreme situation, like a survival game.”

  “Ideals are useless if you lose them when you need them the most. What you truly believe in shows itself when put to the test.”

  Alvis gulped, unable to say anything.

  “It would’ve been different if they had no other choice, but they had. I only agreed for Elric to do this game under the condition that no one would be forced to kill. I wanted to see if those students could find the peaceful answer. They could’ve waited and worked together until the WRO would free them. If they did that, they would’ve realized this barrier was created by using science and that all they needed to do was to convince Elise to break it. Yet they chose violence and hatred as their answer.”

  Once again, Alvis couldn’t answer. After all, he had thought the same. The option to end this game peacefully had been there from the very beginning.

  “The world outside of school isn’t fair. It’s brutal, merciless, and doesn’t care. But still, this isn’t an excuse for racism, hatred, and injustice. However, this game has shown me that even the students in this school would choose the wrong path as soon as they leave the school and experience the mercilessness of the real world.”

  “This might be true, but joining the Devil Cult isn’t the answer either.”

  “It is. It is the sole answer,” Mr. Woltzer said, his eyes cold but passionate. “When was the only time in history that every race worked together?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer.

  “It was under the Devil’s reign of terror. The races came together to defeat the greater evil. Isn’t it astonishing that enemies who hate each other to death can set aside their hatred if they have a common enemy they hate even more? Whilst they are working together to take down their enemy, they get to know each other more and they start to realize that their animosity was based on prejudices and misunderstanding. They will get along with each other and, by that defeat their biggest enemy. So the only way to set aside the hatred for one another is to have a common enemy you hate even more.”

  “So, you want to reincarnate the Devil so that he could terrorize the world, and make everyone work together again to defeat him, ultimately leading to a world without racism and hatred?”

  “Yes!”

  “This is absurd! You want to turn the world into an even worse place? And even if your plan works and everyone would work together, after a certain time, racism and hatred would appear again. Just look at history. Our ancestors already fought side by side, but there is still racism and hatred in our world.”

  “It is because it has been over two thousand years. The world forgot the peace their ancestors fought for. I’ll make them remember. The Devil will come back and terrorize this world, making it the worst time to be alive. However, the world as it is right now is already rotten enough, so making it worse for a certain period is okay if that leads to centuries of peace. Eventually, the world will forget again and hatred and racism will spread, but that only means that it’s time for another great evil to appear and to repeat this cycle.”

  “This is insane. It can’t be right.”

  “It is the only way to create a dream world without racism in which everyone is treated equally and everyone can live in harmony together. To create an ideal world like this, you have to make sacrifices. Alvis, join the Devil Cult. You’re the Devil’s vessel. You’re our leader. We’ll mold you into the perfect being and prepare you for the Devil’s reincarnation.”

  “You want me to give up myself and become the Devil?”

  “Yes, sacrifice yourself for the greater good.”

  Alvis’ eyes trembled as he stared at Mr. Woltzer’s unwavering gaze.

  “Never,” Alvis said, clenching his fists. “I’ll show you that it’s possible to create your ideal world without the Devil. I’ll show you that your view is wrong.”

  Mr. Woltzer just sighed. He pinched the area between his eyes, taking deep breaths in and out.

  “You’re still too na?ve. You haven’t experienced enough despair yet. The world doesn’t care about right or wrong!” Mr. Woltzer shouted, his expressionless eyes gaining a fire Alvis had never seen before. “But I don’t care anymore either. Try your best, Alvis. Exhaust all your efforts, every possibility, try every path, just to realize how futile everything is. Choke on hope. Crawl through every false dawn. After you’ve lost everything important to you, you’ll realize that I was right. And then you will join the Devil Cult on your own. I’ll see you when this happens.”

  The room dissolved before Alvis could even respond. In the blink of an eye, he was back on the school grounds. But Mr. Woltzer was gone.

  The battlefield, however, had not vanished. It had worsened.

  Alvis stood frozen in place, and for a long moment, he forgot how to breathe. His eyes scanned the field, and then his soul shattered.

  Corpses.

  Everywhere.

  Students he had seen every day. He had gone to school with. Gone. Their bodies twisted in grotesque shapes, arms reaching out as if they’d been crying for help that never came.

  The scent of charred flesh and blood thickened the air like poison. His ears rang with silence, the kind of silence that only came after a massacre.

  Over ninety percent of the students who had fought are dead.

  Alvis stepped forward and slipped. As he looked down he saw a pool of blood mixed with golden yellowish liquid.

  His knees buckled, but he refused to fall down into that mess. The same mess so many students died in.

  And then it hit him.

  The despair.

  The guilt.

  The truth.

  Mr. Woltzer’s final words echoed in his head, like a curse stitched to his memory.

  “After you’ve lost everything important to you… you’ll realize that I was right.”

  Alvis fell to his hands and knees.

  And this time, he didn’t just puke.

  He screamed.