Chapter 22: Self Deconstruction
Roooooooar——!
The deafening bellow echoed through the mountain, and almost immediately, panicked voices rang out from beyond the trees.
Turning toward the commotion, Ilya caught sight of several students sprinting across the forest.
It took only a second for the source to reveal itself.
"Is that..."
The colossal creature slowly emerged from between the towering pines.
"...A Distortion!"
Its body possessed no anatomy that could reasonably belong to any living organism. Limbs bent in disturbing directions before dissolving into masses of black flesh, only to reform elsewhere moments later, while dozens of eyes continuously opened and closed across its body without any discernible pattern.
Unlike the magical beasts that naturally inhabited the wilderness, Distortions were not creatures born from nature.
They were abnormalities, grotesque manifestations born from accumulated despair, obsession, fear, and countless other emotions that should never have taken physical form.
They obeyed no ecosystem and no logic that humanity had managed to understand, existing instead as living calamities that simply should not exist.
For one to appear here, of all places, meant something had gone terribly wrong.
"This isn’t part of the examination..."
"No... There’s no way the academy would use Distortions..."
The creature slowly raised what might have been its head.
"...!"
"...!"
"...!"
Then every one of its countless eyes turned toward the students at once.
"Students! Get away immediately!"
A professor burst through the trees, his voice amplified through magic as it echoed across the mountainside.
"That’s an Orange-Labeled Distortion! Fall back at once!"
The moment the word Distortion reached their ears, every student abandoned whatever they had been doing. Rescue objectives, cargo, monsters, and examinations all ceased to matter in an instant.
Distortions were not classified by size or appearance.
They were categorized solely by the level of danger they posed, beginning with White, then Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, and finally Black.
The colors gradually shifted from cool to warm, a progression that reflected just how far reality itself had been eroded by the existence standing before them, until only Black remained, a designation reserved for catastrophes capable of reducing entire regions to nothing.
Thud! Thud!
The creature before them slowly took another step.
Its body shifted as it moved, its limbs folding into one another before separating again in ways no living organism should have been capable of.
Flesh moved like liquid, countless eyes blinked without rhythm across its surface, and every student who looked at it for too long found themselves quickly looking away.
"Students!" one of the professors bellowed. "Leave the Distortion to us immediately! Continue toward the summit and stay clear of this area! Until reinforcements arrive, the peak is the safest location on the mountain!"
Several professors and instructors had already begun advancing toward the creature.
"...Let’s go," Siegfried said.
Just as the group turned to leave, one of the professors suddenly called out to him.
"Your Highness."
Siegfried stopped.
"You’ll have to answer a great many questions after this is over," the professor said, his expression grave. "How you knew a Distortion would manifest here, why you insisted on reporting it beforehand, and everything else surrounding this incident."
He lowered his head.
"Nevertheless... because of your report, we were able to deploy personnel before the situation spiraled out of control."
Siegfried remained silent for a moment.
"...This entire incident could have been prevented," Siegfried said. "Had my warning been taken seriously from the beginning, none of this would’ve happened."
"...You’re right." The professor bowed his head a little deeper. "My sincerest apologies, Your Highness."
Siegfried said nothing more.
Their examination, somehow, continued.
With that, the six exchanged glances before turning away from the battle. Although they felt the urge to look back, there was nothing they could accomplish by remaining, and interfering would only become a burden to the professors now taking command of the situation.
"What do you guys know about Distortions?" Lucie asked as the group continued along the mountain trail.
"They’re disasters," Jerome said. "That’s about all I know. Whenever one appears, someone important gets sent to deal with it, and everyone else is told to stay as far away as possible."
Gilbert nodded.
"My family teaches the same thing. Distortions don’t behave like magical beasts. You can’t predict them, negotiate with them, or even assume they’ll react to the same situation twice. Every record I’ve read describes something completely different."
Jerome crossed his arms.
"I’ve heard there isn’t even a universally accepted definition. Some scholars insist they’re simply an unknown species that humanity hasn’t managed to understand yet. Every generation seems to produce another theory."
"And every generation thinks they’ve solved it," Lucie added with a sigh. "Then another Distortion appears and proves them wrong."
It wasn’t difficult to understand why.
Distortions had existed for centuries, yet no one could confidently answer the most basic questions surrounding them.
Why did they appear?
Why did they disappear?
Why did no two Distortions ever seem remotely alike?
The Empire had accumulated mountains of reports, eyewitness accounts, and research papers, but certainty remained frustratingly out of reach.
Elise, who had remained quiet until now, suddenly spoke.
"...There’s one theory I’ve always found interesting."
The others looked toward her.
"It says Distortions don’t actually originate from our world."
"...Huh?" Jerome blinked.
Elise continued.
"The theory proposes that they’re influences leaking in from somewhere beyond reality itself. What we see isn’t necessarily the true Distortion, but only the remnant that manages to cross over into our world. That’s why they don’t obey our laws, why their forms look incomprehensible, and why just looking at some of them for too long can make people physically ill."
Lucie slowly nodded.
"I’ve read that one too."
"They called them..." Elise tried to recall the exact wording. "Existences from a higher plane, whose mere presence distorts the world around them because they were never meant to exist here in the first place."
"...Sounds terrifying," Jerome muttered.
"No one has ever proven it," Gilbert replied. "Then again..."
He glanced back toward where the Orange-Labeled Distortion had appeared.
"...After seeing that thing with my own eyes, I’m not sure I want anyone to prove it. God... I can’t even begin to imagine what the people of the Rabelle District went through..."
"...Yeah."
The Rabelle Incident was perhaps the single most infamous Distortion disaster in modern history.
Out of nowhere, a Distortion had manifested in the heart of the district and, within an unimaginably short span of time, erased an entire city from the map.
By the time the Empire’s strongest knights and wizards finally arrived, there was almost nothing left to save, only a landscape so thoroughly devastated that later many couldn’t believe a city had once been there at all.
It was because of Rabelle that the existing classification system had been rewritten.
Red, once believed to represent the absolute limit of humanity’s understanding, was no longer enough to describe the calamity witnessed that day.
A new designation had been created above it.
Black, reserved for Distortions whose existence transcended every known measure of danger, beings so catastrophic that even comparing them to ordinary Distortions felt inadequate.
No one wanted to know what it meant for a Distortion to earn that color.
History had already answered that question once.
The conversation gradually died away.
However, the moment the topic shifted to the Rabelle Incident, Elise instinctively turned toward Ilya.
"...."
Ever since she had reunited with him in the academy, Ilya’s expression had rarely changed, no matter the situation.
Whether he was being scolded, injured, or praised, he always had the same detached expression on his face.
Yet now, for the first time she could remember, that composure had completely disappeared.
His face had gone pale.
"Ilya...?"
His footsteps slowed.
Then, all of a sudden, his knees buckled.
Thud!
"Ilya!" Elise cried, immediately dropping to her knees beside him as the rest of the group came to an abrupt stop.
"H-Hey!" Jerome exclaimed, turning around.
"What happened?" Lucie asked, hurrying over.
"...."
Ilya pressed a hand firmly against his chest while the other dug into the snow, his breathing becoming increasingly ragged as though something inside his body had suddenly gone terribly wrong.
"Huurgh...!"
He doubled over, coughing as his shoulders shook uncontrollably.
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