Chapter 79: The Path Of The Goblin
Ermina Sternfert.
A Class-A ability user. She had the ability to infuse her voice with mana and create sonic waves.
“Huh…?”
Everything that could be called ‘hers’ was gone when she opened her eyes. The mana that had filled her body had evaporated without a trace, and she was being crushed by a deep fatigue that she had never felt before since becoming an ability user.
It was as if something resembling a mass of water was pressing down on her.
All she could see in her blurred vision was a set of clothing that looked like hospital attire. Although there was nothing on top of her, her body felt heavy.
“I am….”
“Have you come to your senses?”
She was lying in a place that looked like a hospital. She wasn’t just lying there. Something bound her hands and feet; she was ‘restrained.’
“How did this….”
“Where should I start the explanation?”
A man who looked like a staff member pulled out a tablet with a stern voice.
“Don’t scream, and just listen carefully. I have quite a lot to tell you. Please don’t interrupt by saying things like ‘What are you talking about?!’ or ‘That’s ridiculous!’ What I’m about to say is all ‘true.’”
“……”
What on earth was he trying to say? Ermina did not understand this ‘Non-ability user’ who was annoyingly and irritatingly sending her a disdainful look.
“One. You attacked your colleague Yumir during the March outdoor training. You intended to ingest the mana powder that was inside the cave. Yumir discovered it, and you attacked Yumir to shut her up.”
“That’s ridiculous-”
“Do not deny it. The Inspection Team and the investigators have completed all the investigations. All the evidence of your crime has been secured. Your Taeguk Watch, Yumir’s Taeguk Watch. The data inside them. We have them all.”
“Hah….”
She wanted to deny it, calling it a false charge, but her Taeguk Watch was already not on her wrist.
“How dare you tamper with my Taeguk Watch…!”
“Two. Ermina Sternfert has been expelled. She committed two acts that a student should never do. She tampered with mana powder and attempted to kill a fellow student.”
“Even so, just an E-rank…!”
“Three.”
The faculty member interrupted with a cold voice, deliberately pausing to take a deep breath.
“Ermina Sternfert is no longer an A-rank ability user. You have lost all your mana and have become incapable of using your superpowers.”
“What did you say…?”
“Aren’t you feeling it yourself?”
“Ah, Aah…. Ahhhhhhh!”
Ermina screamed.
Not because she was in pain but because her voice was one of her superpowers.
“…128 decibels. That’s high. That’s the maximum frequency you can produce. It’s clearly different from when you shout, filled with mana.”
“The, the machine is broken….”
“There’s no way that’s the case. As a superhuman, you should know better. Right now, you are in a total loss state, having lost all your mana.”
“I, I am at a total loss…?! That’s impossible!”
“Don’t say that something is impossible too often. What I’m saying might be hard to believe, but it’s all true. Even your hair has turned white now, and all your powers are gone. You are indeed in a state of total loss… a ‘loss of superpower’ state.”
“…….”
Her special abilities were gone.
The powers she had from birth, the powers she had always used after establishing her identity, were gone.
“It’s extremely rare, but it was a common phenomenon in places like Quebec, Canada, and New York, USA.”
“But, but that’s just fewer than 10 people… here in Sejong Island…!”
“You are the first case. Well, it might have something to do with the Goblin who attacked you.”
“The one who attacked me was not the Goblin-”
She couldn’t speak.
Something was stuck in her throat like a rope, and she couldn’t speak anymore.
“…If there’s something that the investigators haven’t clearly figured out, it’s the process of how you were attacked by the Goblin.”
“I was… huh?!”
“The Goblin really messed up. Did it impose a curse? Did the Goblin cast a curse? Did the Goblin somehow eliminate your abilities?”
“No, it’s not…! The one who did this to me…!”
Even though the faculty member asked several times, Ermina couldn’t say anything.
Because of the curse.
“If that’s the case, then you are the first case of an ability user losing their superpowers due to the Goblin. This is also living proof that the Goblin has the ability to remove an ability user’s superpowers.”
“No, it’s not…!”
“Was there someone else then?”
“……!!”
“It seems like a ‘Geumje’ is activated. Each time you try to speak, a red line-like thing flashes. That the Goblin could use such ability too…though it may not be in reality, there’s a possibility…”
“Uh, ugh…!”
She couldn’t communicate.
Ermina tried to somehow get up and find someone to communicate with, but she was utterly bound by the constraints around her wrists and ankles.
“Untie me now! What is this! I am… Sternfert!”
“Yes. Not an A-class ability user, just a person of Sternfert. All investigation materials about the current situation have already been sent to the Stern family by the academy. And this is the official position of the Stern family.”
The faculty member pulled out a video prepared on a tablet.
“Grandfather…?”
There was an old man with half of his hair that had fallen out, in a black suit, giving a press conference.
[Sorry.]
The serious-looking man said the word in somewhat broken Korean and bowed his waist at 90 degrees beside the podium.
[I apologize for my mistake of not raising my granddaughter properly. I will take responsibility by stepping down from the position of the company’s chairman, compensating monetarily for the damage caused by my granddaughter, and apologizing sincerely to the victims.]
“…Why?”
“Don’t you know what Mana Powder is? Regardless of why it was there, Mana Powder is…”
The faculty member shook his head solemnly.
“Ash from under 25 years of age.”
“…….”
“Ermina Sternfert.”
The faculty member flipped to the last screen on the tablet.
“You have the right to remain silent….”
“Wait!! Why, why are you reciting the Miranda Rights to me! I am, unrelated to it, an ‘ability user’!!”
“Even if you don’t admit it, the world has recognized you. You are an ‘ordinary person’… ‘a non-ability user’ to whom the Miranda Rights apply.”
“…….”
“You’ve crossed the line. It’s lucky for you that you’ve lost all your abilities. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in this world now.”
The faculty member stood up from his seat with the tablet.
“The Goblin executes villains without mercy.”
[Why don’t you kill the woman who’s gone mad over the corpse of young kids?]
“I don’t need to get my hands bloody when society will kill her by itself.”
I found myself responding loudly to the abundant slurs against Ermina that were filling the internet community.
[…Despite the Chairman of Stern’s apology and resignation through a press conference, the animosity towards Stern doesn’t seem to be lessening. Not only domestically but also overseas, protests are taking place in front of various Stern branches, with Stern’s cars being set on fire or damaged…]
Most of the stories had already surfaced on the news that I had turned on to see how the general public was reacting to the events.
Regardless of how the world had become, there were ethical boundaries that mustn’t be crossed.
Mana Powder was a direct violation of that boundary, and that was why no one dared to touch it easily.
‘In the original, the protagonist hated such things, so she stopped it, so that was fortunate.’
In the original story, after Ermina fell for the protagonist in volume 1, she didn’t openly talk about taking Mana Powder.
However, Ermina in this world no longer had to do so-called likability actions towards the protagonist, and she probably wouldn’t even be able to show her face outside anymore.
The original story had changed.
Whether it was due to my actions or Yumir’s.
Now that I was no longer a pitiful low-rank Goblin from an evil organization but a new entity called ‘me’, the main flow of the original has changed.
The protagonist was a male.
That was why I tried to kill him.
But the protagonist was a female.
Did that mean I should necessarily still kill the protagonist?
“……No.”
I headed to the bathroom for a shower.
After becoming completely nude, I stood in the shower booth, enjoying the water falling from above all over my body, and pondered.
“……If the genre has changed, I should adapt to the new genre.”
The fundamental reason I tried to kill the protagonist was to prevent the world from ending.
I tried to eliminate a being that risked destroying the world to protect the world governed by the chief, a world united under one ideology, even if it was a crappy world.
To prevent the meteor ending, I intended to deal with the protagonist in the easiest way possible.
That was because he had lost his mind in that ending.
But if it was a girl, it would be different.
Unlike a man, I could somehow take care of a woman’s mentality by keeping her by my side.
-Jihwan oppa, do you really want to see me go crazy?
Wasn’t dealing with a woman complicated?
Wasn’t it easier to take care of a man?
-Jihwan hyung, do you really want to see me lose my mind?
…If that happened, wouldn’t I end up finding a way to drop a meteor?
“I can’t help it because I’m a man, and she’s a woman.”
I was sorry to the original protagonist, but this was a natural course of events.
“All of this is to protect the world that the chief will govern.”
Yumir was a woman.
“I will keep Yumir by my side and take care of her exclusively.”
A woman.
The heroine.
‘To protect this world, Earth, I will become a scumbag.’
Even making her a mother was a way to prevent world destruction.
Yes.
That was the path of the villain, the Goblin.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m