SWNOVELXO CHAPTER 90 - Bigger Schemes.
Things shifted way too quickly for anyone to even understand, and by the time everyone absorbed the things that had gone down, it was already too late. Ben was already standing in front of his classmate, protecting her with a resolute expression.
Alex, however, was aware of Ben's nature, and he was sure that he would step up—essentially the reason for him letting go of the device the moment Ben kicked the device, or could Ben have even been able to touch the device if Alex didn't want it?
But he still blinked, seemingly startled for a moment. Then, his expression shifted into something unreadable—part nostalgia, part amusement. "Faulty?" he repeated softly, almost as if speaking to himself. "I remember someone saying that once. How nostalgic."
Ben, on the other hand, continued his defense. "This is a setup." He pointed at Alex, not in the least scared of the consequences. Alex was the Second Seat of the Student Council—someone he should be showing respect to, yet he blatantly disregarded that authority.
No one could blame him though; the protagonists are never supposed to care about authority after all.
"You're manipulating everyone." Ben didn't stop, hoping to see Alex panic, but all he saw was calmness, making him grind his teeth harder. "This isn't justice—it's a farce."
Ben had seen the tears in his classmate's eyes, and although he wasn't some expert reader of expressions, he wasn't someone who could be fooled by fake tears. Ben had lived his childhood in a place where he saw tears flowing like water—he could never mistake a real cry for a fake one.
What he didn't know was that although the girl was crying for real that day, the reason wasn't what he thought it was. She was crying in shame, and he thought it to be pain.
Alex sighed, shaking his head as though disappointed. "Manipulation? A strong accusation, Ben." He raised a hand, and in a flash of light, over ten identical devices poured from his storage ring, landing on the stage. "Tell me, do you believe all of these are faulty?"
The devices lay silent, their blank state showing that they had yet to take in any words. Unlike the last one, they weren't taken out by surprise.
Ben faltered, his confidence wavering under the weight of Alex's gaze. He knew that not all of them could be faulty—it wasn't possible for one to be able to collect faulty devices. And Ben was someone who believed in gods, so he would never suspect the church of producing these many faulty devices—Alex knew this as well.
"I—" Ben stammered, searching for words only to fail.
Alex, however, didn't give him much time. Stepping closer, his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper that still carried across the stadium. "Or perhaps you're just interfering with justice. After all, wasn't it you who accused Zyrrak in the first place? Did you ever ask your friend about her arrangement with Zyrrak?" His head tilted with a frown as he continued, "Did you confront him to hear his side? Or were you so eager to believe her words that you never considered the possibility of a lie?"
Ben's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. The crowd watched in stunned silence, their earlier anger beginning to shift into doubt.
"You never tried to even talk to Zyrrak, did you? You just labeled him as someone evil by hearing one side of the story, and now, when I am showing everyone the other side, you don't want to accept." Shaking his head, Alex took a deep breath, as if controlling his emotions.
"In your defense, you said that the device was faulty, so although I know the result would be the same, let me still do it for you," Alex asserted, his gaze moving to the many lie-detection devices lying on the stage as he added, "Let me test whether the device was in the wrong or your friend."
Alex turned back to the girl, his expression turning neutral. "I'll ask you again. Did you enjoy it when Zyrrak forced himself on you?"
The girl trembled under his gaze, her eyes darting between Alex, Ben, and the hostile faces in the crowd.
'W-What should I do...?' She trembled as she tried to think of something. She knew she was wrong, and she wanted to amend her mistake when she realized that Ben was taking things way too seriously, but she was approached by Keryu at that time.
He had told her how profitable it would be if she followed his words and that he would take care of Zyrrak in a way that her secret would forever be buried, so... swayed by his words, she agreed, but what now?
'Where are you?' She searched for him—she looked everywhere—but couldn't find him at all.
"Fuck! What should we do?! W-Why did we agree to her words when she said that we could gain more??" It was then that she heard a whisper from a fellow victim, followed by another and then another.
All of them were blaming her—rightfully so, as she was the one who called for them and involved them in all this. Now, because of her, they might be kicked out of the academy.
They were fine with all of this; they never wanted anything else, but as Keryu had asked her to, she offered them money, and with just a little sum, they agreed to partake in her movement.
It was their greed that brought them here, and it was her lie and greed that made it all start. "I... I..." she stammered, her voice barely audible—there was nothing else she could do.
"Speak up," Alex urged, his tone firm but not harsh as he saw that things were going smoothly so far.
The girl, finally, under all that pressure, with a strangled sob, screamed, "No! I didn't enjoy it!" But yet again, she didn't say the truth, and as a result...
Each one of the lie-detection devices lit up red, their beeping echoing through the stadium. The sound cut through the air like a knife, and the girl froze, clenching her fists as her nails dug into her palm, her face pale as death, and the crowd erupted in gasps and murmurs as they saw the result.
Alex chuckled softly, the sound devoid of warmth. "You see," he said, turning to the crowd. "The truth speaks louder than any words. This girl—this victim—wasn't forced. She wasn't coerced. She willingly participated and then turned around to accuse Zyrrak out of hatred or shame."
He turned back to Ben, who stood frozen in disbelief. "And you..." Alex continued, his tone colder now, "You were so blinded by your assumptions that you condemned a man without seeking the full truth. This isn't justice, Ben. This is a witch hunt."
The murmurs of the crowd shifted further. Where once there had been anger and sympathy for the girls, now there was suspicion and unease.
Alex took a step back, his voice rising to address the entire stadium. "Zyrrak's punishment still stands." His voice and the words that he spoke made the crowd silent again. "Not because he was guilty of these accusations, but because protecting him here would have endangered him further."
'Now starts the real game,' Alex mused inwardly as he continued, "Zyrrak's truth was uncovered by me in merely two hours—that's the time it took me to find out the truth behind all of this."
The student council members, especially Lilia and Zahara, knew that their guesses were right. Alex's main goal in this wasn't just to deliver justice to Zyrrak but also something the student council needed the most right now.
"Yet, the council of the teachers and the other authoritative figures, who, without even informing the student council about any of this, directly declared Zyrrak as a criminal, couldn't find the truth?" Alex's voice was calm, but everyone in the stadium understood the meaning behind his words, especially a group of third- and fourth-year students. They were in a state of panic right now.
"You want me to believe that?" Alex questioned, incredulity clear in his voice before he shook his head. "That was why, with the help of our dear council head, Theron Shieldspire," Alex turned toward Theron with a glint in his eyes flashing mysteriously, and Theron, who clearly understood what he had to do, nodded his head solemnly as if agreeing with Alex's statement.
Smiling inwardly, Alex continued, "I conducted a personal inquiry, using the power and sources of all of us council members." As if on cue, every council member nodded their head.
Continue your journey on empire
They didn't know Alex's plan, but they supported him because they knew he wouldn't try to bring them in harm's way—that was the amount of trust they had in him. Those actions just made Alex's smile widen on the inside.
"It was then that we found something shocking: There are people in the academy—people with a lot of authority—who wanted something more than the empty seat of our treasurer." Pausing dramatically and clenching the stand on which the mic was placed, Alex growled, "They wanted his life—they wanted his blood, his bones, and his flesh. They wanted all that a gold goblin—one of the rarest species on this planet—could offer, all under the guise of cleaning the dirt of the academy."
The audience stilled, the weight of his words sinking in, their eyes widening in fear, hate, rage, and disbelief. Alex's gaze swept across the crowd, his expression darkening. "I sent him to the deepest prison not as a sentence but as a shield. If he stayed here, those forces would have taken him from us in one way or another—"
BOOOMM!
But before he could complete his words, a deafening explosion rocked the stadium. The ground shook, and screams erupted from the direction of the stadium's entrance. The sound of chaos filled the air—shouts, cries, and the unmistakable roar of flames.
Alex's eyes widened, his calm composure breaking for the first time. He turned toward the stadium entrance, where smoke and fire billowed into the sky. His body tensed, and so did the others, especially the council members who felt a sense of dread when they thought of the worst possibility.
"Zyrrak was being escorted in that direction..." Someone whispered in horror, but as if that voice were a signal, before anyone could react, the student council members, including Alex, who was the first one to move, leaped from the stage, and with grim expressions, they rushed toward the source of the explosions.
The third- and fourth-year teachers in the stadium were the next to break out of their thoughts, so they quickly followed, leaving only the stunned audience, frozen in their spots.
The last thing they saw was the expression on Alex's face before he rushed away, and to be honest, that expression scared the students more than the explosion that was heard a second ago.