The night sky above Aethelgard Magic Academy was no longer black. It had turned into a bruise—a swollen purple that throbbed in time with Aster's ready-to-explode heartbeat.
Aster ran. His lungs felt like they were burning with hot coals, and his feet stumbled over the exposed roots of magic trees along the path behind the academy. Far behind them, in the old wine warehouse district, a pillar of purple light still pierced the clouds, spinning like a gigantic drill boring into reality. It wasn't a hibiscus flower. It wasn't a New Year's celebration. It was the Abyss Beacon.
And Aster Vale, a junk peddler who had only wanted to sell used toothpaste, was the person who had just pressed its trigger.
"Pick up the pace, Master! The Magic Tower's security perimeter will activate in three minutes!" Kaelen called from behind him. The young man didn't sound tired at all. Instead of panic, Kaelen's voice trembled with something suspiciously like... excitement?
"Don't... call... me Master!" Aster panted, wiping away the cold sweat stinging his eyes. "And stop running like we're out for a morning jog! We just triggered the apocalypse, Kaelen! The apocalypse!"
They made a sharp turn into a narrow alley between two abandoned dormitory buildings, seeking shelter from the aerial patrols that had surely already been deployed. Aster slumped against the damp stone wall, his legs going limp as if his bones had turned to jelly. He drew in ragged breaths, trying to calm his heartbeat, which felt like a barbarian war drum.
But calm was impossible. Because in front of his eyes, a semi-transparent blue screen—visible only to him—was convulsing.
[SYSTEM ERROR: CRITICAL TEMPORAL ANOMALY DETECTED] [CAUSALITY ANALYSIS: 'DRAGON TOOTH WHITENING' TOOTHPASTE INTERACTED WITH ABYSS PARASITIC HOST.] [RESULT: TOTAL PURIFICATION. PARASITE DEAD. HOST (VANCE) EXPERIENCED SPIRITUAL ANAPHYLACTIC SHOCK.] [SIDE EFFECT: MANTIK PARASITE'S DEATH HAS TRIGGERED AN EMERGENCY BEACON SIGNAL TO ITS HOME DIMENSION.]
Aster swallowed, the taste bitter as bile. "Damn, damn, damn," he muttered, gripping his own hair. "I just wanted to whiten Vance's teeth so he could flash a nice smile at the Board of Directors. Why did the side effect have to be a direct-dial call home to hell?!"
The system screen flickered again, this time in an eye-searing blood red.
[WARNING: 'ABYSSAL WAVE' SCENARIO (CHAPTER 50 EVENT) HAS BEEN FORCIBLY TRIGGERED.] [ESTIMATED ARRIVAL OF ABYSS FORCES: 71 HOURS 59 MINUTES 42 SECONDS.] [WORLD STATUS: PANIC. WORLD LAWS REPAIRING BUG... FAILED. REPAIRING... FAILED.] [SYSTEM RECOMMENDATION: RUN. OR WRITE A WILL.]
"Seventy-two hours..." Aster whispered, staring wide-eyed at the digital numbers continuing to tick down in his field of vision. "Three days. I have three days before this world gets eaten by monsters from another dimension. Three days! I haven't even finished paying off the pressure cooker I bought at the flea market!"
He imagined himself dying in some ridiculous fashion, eaten by a many-mouthed monster while his debt was passed on to Toby, his roommate who could only cook instant noodles until they burned.
"Master?"
Kaelen's voice shattered Aster's panicked reverie. The young man stood at the mouth of the alley, his back straight, his silhouette framed by the faint purple light in the sky. Kaelen didn't see Aster hyperventilating in terror. Kaelen saw a man sitting in contemplation amid the shadows, staring blankly at his own hands—as if bearing the weight of a great sin for the sake of humanity's survival.
"You see that, Kaelen?" Aster pointed toward the purple sky with a trembling hand. His voice was hoarse, cracked by dehydration and pure terror. "The sky... it's broken. Everything's wrong. I... I didn't mean for this to happen so soon."
'I mean, I didn't mean to trigger the apocalypse this soon! I needed at least a month to save up my retirement money and escape to another continent!'
But in Kaelen's ears, those words sounded different. Very different.
Kaelen stepped closer, his eyes shining with an intensity that sent a shiver down Aster's spine. To Kaelen, a Time Looper who had lived through 147 painful cycles, seeing Aster Vale "regret" something was an unfamiliar concept. 'Master never regrets anything. Master is merely... calculating.'
"You didn't mean for this to happen so soon?" Kaelen repeated Aster's words, then gave a soft snort, a faint smile full of admiration forming on his lips. "Of course. This is too soon even by their standards. But that's what makes it genius, isn't it?"
Aster blinked, confused. "Huh? What are you talking about? We're in serious trouble! Those rats... those monsters are coming!"
"Exactly!" Kaelen slapped his own palm, his eyes blazing with fanatical fire. "Rats! Master, you truly saw through them. For hundreds of years—I mean, all this time—the Abyss Sect has been hiding in the deepest holes of the Magic Tower. They're parasites we couldn't touch because we didn't know who they were. Inquisitor Vance is only one of thousands."
Kaelen knelt before Aster, his voice dropping into an intense conspiratorial whisper.
"If you killed Vance quietly, the others would run. They'd hide again for another hundred years. But by triggering the Abyss Beacon now... in the middle of the city... right in front of everyone's eyes..." Kaelen let out a small laugh that sounded slightly unhinged. "You just burned down their home! You forced every rat, every traitor, every member of the sect out of their nest in one sweep! They have no choice but to gather and welcome their 'master' descending from the sky!"
Aster stared at Kaelen with his mouth hanging open. His brain struggled to process the logic he had just heard.
Wait. What?
"You..." Aster swallowed, trying to find words that made sense. "You think I did it... on purpose?"
"Don't be modest, Master," Kaelen cut in quickly, staring at Aster with profound respect. "This strategy is too cruel to acknowledge openly. Luring out the enemy with an apocalyptic bait? Using the threat of total destruction to purge the academy in a single night? This isn't merely a tactic. This is a god's strategy. A Grand Design."
[SYSTEM NOTE: USER CHARISMA HAS UNINTENTIONALLY INCREASED. 'MYSTERIOUS AURA' EFFECT ACTIVE.]
Aster felt like crying. System, please turn that effect off. I'm not mysterious; I just had diarrhea from eating cheap shellfish at lunch!
"But Kaelen," Aster tried to argue, his voice sounding pitiful even to his own ears. "Seventy-two hours. We only have seventy-two hours. That's not enough to... to prepare anything. We don't have an army. We don't have a fortress. All we have is..." Aster reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the remainder of the dented toothpaste tube. "...this."
Kaelen stared at the toothpaste tube as if he were looking at the Holy Sword Excalibur.
"A weapon of mass destruction," Kaelen murmured in awe. "And you say it isn't enough? Of course it wouldn't be enough for an ordinary person. But for you? Seventy-two hours is a luxury. More than enough time to make them devour one another before you step in."
Kaelen rose, staring defiantly at the darkening sky.
"Let them come. Let the Magic Tower panic. Let the Valerius noble family tremble behind their castle walls. Because this time, Master... we won't hide. We'll sit on the front lines, drink tea, and watch them be destroyed by your own plan."
Aster stared at Kaelen's broad, utterly confident back. Inside him, two voices were screaming. The first was his survival instinct, shouting: 'RUN TO A CAVE! SLEEP UNDERGROUND! SELL A KIDNEY TO BUY A BOAT TICKET!' The second was his economic logic: 'If I run now, I'll lose my security deposit. And if the apocalypse really happens, the gold coins under my mattress won't be useful anyway.'
Aster let out a long sigh, one that sounded heavy and resigned to Kaelen, even though he was actually counting the coins left in his pocket.
"All right," Aster finally said, rising on legs that were still trembling slightly. He had to return to the dormitory. At least Toby was there, and Toby had a stockpile of instant noodles. If the world was ending in seventy-two hours, Aster Vale was not going to die on an empty stomach. "Let's go back to the dormitory. I need to... pick up a few things."
Junk. I have to grab all my junk. Maybe there's something I can use as a shield—or at least sell to refugees later.
Kaelen nodded firmly, his eyes gleaming with meaning. "Retrieving your weapons of war, right? I understand. Your secret armory in the dormitory must already be prepared."
"Not an armory..." Aster muttered as he started walking again, dragging his feet. "Just a pile of junk under my bed."
"Humble to the end," Kaelen praised himself, walking behind Aster like a knight escorting his king to the battlefield. "Junk to the world, but a weapon to the Observer."
They moved through the shadows of the academy city, which was beginning to descend into chaos. In the distance, the Magic Tower's emergency bells began to ring, shattering the night's silence with deafening notes of panic.
Aster glanced at the system notification still blinking at the corner of his eye.
[COUNTDOWN: 71:45:10] [SURVIVAL TIP: DON'T DIE.]
"Thanks for the tip. Very helpful," Aster muttered sarcastically at the empty air.
He didn't know how he was going to survive an apocalypse accelerated with junk-fair goods and a guard suffering from advanced delusions. But one thing was certain: Aster Vale had just become the most wanted person in the entire kingdom, and he didn't even know why.
"Kaelen," Aster called softly without turning around.
"Yes, Master?"
"If anyone asks later... we were just out for a walk. Understand? Don't say anything about the toothpaste."
Kaelen smiled faintly, a smile full of secrets and blind loyalty. "Of course. The secrets of a god's strategy must be protected. Let them think this is a natural disaster. They aren't worthy of knowing that this is your work of art."
Aster could only close his eyes and pray that the gods governing this novel's world had a sense of humor. Because if they didn't, Aster was certain that seventy-two hours from now, he would be the most regretful ghost in history.