Side Character Who Became the Pseudo-Protagonist

Chapter 24: The Ones Left To Rot

[Course Deviation Detected]

[Initializing Course Correction Protocol]

[Objective: Rescue the captives and destroy White Noise’s scheme.]

[Reward: 10 Correction Credits]

[Failure Condition: Death]

Of course, I had to wake up to the system giving me a quest with a death penalty like all systems do.

Can’t there be different punishments?

I don’t know...like forcing my body to run around in the streets naked? Or—or making me confess to a crush in front of the school?

Just anything besides death, please!

Regardless, it wasn’t too different from what happened with the Ironmane Alpha. And I was starting to understand what the system wanted from me.

My way of doing things was different from Leon’s, so the system was giving me an incentive to correct the route before it collapsed.

It even encouraged me with Correction Credits.

But what if a time came when I didn’t want to stay on the route? What if the route itself was the problem?

Ahh...don’t think about that now, Nolan. Figure out how to get out of these shackles first.

Actually, everyone in this dingy and damp room had cuffs with a piece of Red Logicite in them, a material that absorbed Logos faster than most people could gather it.

Red Logicite was a heavily controlled material. Usually only the government had access to them. But if White Noise did as well...maybe they were bigger than I thought?

I tried channeling any amount of Logos through my hand, but it came out extremely weak. Though without EX-Rank Storage, I doubt anyone here was able to use Logos at all except me.

Looking around, it seemed like not everyone in the auditorium had been placed in the same area. But luckily, I managed to find Colette in the midst of people who were still unconscious.

’Seems like they dumped everyone by individual auditorium section before sorting the important hostages.’

"Hey," I shook her shoulder. "Hey, wake up..."

"Huh...?" She said groggily, eyes fluttering open. "Right, that happened...Where are we?"

Beyond the half-open door, I could see rusted storefront shutters and a dead escalator.

’An abandoned mall complex, then.’

The location in the game for this event often changed. There were three possible locations the captives could be taken to, so I wasn’t sure where we were exactly.

I had told the Triad about this, just barely managing to convince them, "if I was a terrorist, this was where I would take the hostages to" type situation and told them to wait there.

Still, from the look of things, it seemed like we were in the lower Muspel redevelopment zone, an area most people avoided and everyone called the "slums".

’Riley’s team should be near here. But without Aidan, they probably won’t find us for a while. I have to buy time or get these people out first somehow...’

"Here, let me try to get you out of those chains, then you can get mine," I said, pulling up behind Colette and placing my hand on the Red Logicite crystal.

It was extremely difficult to cast [Overload] fully, as the sequence was massive and even I felt strained when using it.

So I decided to split it into smaller chunks and feed the destabilizing sequence into the crystal piece-by-piece until it broke.

KRRR—ACK!

The crystal shattered into a bunch of pieces that looked more like powder instead of individual shards.

Tap...tap...tap...

"Wait...keep your hand behind your back," I told Colette quickly, pressing myself against the wall beside her.

"Someone’s coming."

I pretended to still be unconscious, but kept my eye opened just enough to see who had come into the place.

But I didn’t have to look very long. It was Tina Valentine, bringing a tray of what looked like prison food. It smelled so bad that I almost blew my cover.

Tina set the food before Colette, holding eye contact with her country’s princess for a while before speaking.

"Heh..." she laughed softly, in a mocking tone. "Never been treated like this ever, have you?"

"Tina..." Colette started. "Why are you helping a terrorist organization...? You know they’re just using you to—"

"Shut up!" Tina cut her off. "They’re not using me. I chose to work with them. Because we believe in the same thing, ’princess’."

"This whole society is rotten. Good blood, good Logos Cortex, good family name, good Innate Spell. That’s all anyone cares about."

"But it’s not like you would understand," she clicked her tongue.

"You’re too busy twiddling your thumbs with the same people who’ve treated us like garbage. Playing high society with the likes of Nolan Midgard and Cecilia Solaris."

’Me? Why’s my name coming up in this?’

"What?" Colette asked quietly. "I was trying my best! Look, it doesn’t have to be this way, Tina! Release us, and—and I’ll work it out."

"You’ve already done enough, princess," Tina replied softly. "I should’ve known better than to trust a sheltered girl like you."

"...What do you—?"

But before Colette had finished her sentence, Tina pulled out her phone and brought on the local news.

"Breaking news! Civilians and Operators cadets from Astaron who have gathered at the peace seminar located in Yhotun have been kidnapped by a radical terrorist group!" a male reporter calmly stated on the screen.

"Yes, but it seems like the military seems to be hesitant on rescue efforts," a female reporter on his side added. "Due to the political summit between Ygg and Astaron, forces are spread thin."

"What do you think about this situation, Robbie? It seems Astaron’s first princess was also involved."

"I don’t know, Martha," the male reporter frowned. "Everyone is riled up. Astaron was said to have considered paying a ransom to rescue their princess."

"But what about the others?"

"That’s the part I’m not sure about...We heard that ransoms were also being paid for the other cadets from Astaron, but many civilians of Ygg aren’t happy about it, scared of retaliation from those very same cadets once rescued."

Tina turned the broadcast off right after that, looking at Colette with a disappointed face. "Look princess, it seems you’re the talk of the town."

"While people like us have been left out to rot from our home country. Hell, even the people of Ygg want us to rot."

"No—no! I’m sure my father and Ygg will rescue everyone!"

"That’s delusional and you know it. Most of the cadets here in Ygg are ones Astaron can afford to lose. Why else would they send us here and not let us enroll in our own home country?"

"You know your father expects us to be his scapegoats," she continued. "If we die, he’ll get his sympathy. And if Ygg fails to save us, he’ll have a reason to point a sword at their borders."

"Either way, it strengthens his position."

"Th—that’s simply not true!" Colette stammered.

Tina simply clicked her tongue, already fed up with Colette’s naivety, before storming off.

"I’ll change this world myself because of people like you who can’t."

...

’Huh...seems like the route changed again."

In the game, White Noise had originally pinned this kidnapping on the Astaron cadets, making it look like they were the ones to kidnap Ygg civilians.

Maybe it was because I had revealed their plot early, and so they didn’t have time to properly set up the evidence.

Still I never expected someone like Tina Valentine, who I’d never heard the name of before, to be so crucial in the route?

Her logic was obviously flawed. It was the typical teenager’s rambling about "this world is unfair so I’m going to undermine society!"

It just wasn’t how that worked.

Besides, Colette’s father, Remial Astaron, was a skittish leader. There was just no way he would be planning an invasion of any sorts towards Ygg.

’She must’ve been fed false information by White Noise..."

But the more I think about it, the more it confused me.

Why kidnap everyone? What was the motive or theme here?

White Noise was all about being Anti-Operator and having that kind of sentiment...but there’s no way they’re doing all this just to prove a point.

It’s too roundabout of a method.

Were they aiming for something else?

Ahh...I have a bad feeling about this.