Read Novel Full Chapter 759: A changed lunatic [2]
Chapter 759: A changed lunatic [2]
Secretary Kim placed the latest report on the Section Chief’s desk.
“They’ve entered the school.”
Johansberg’s eyes remained on the document in front of him.
“They’ve already arrived?”
“Yes. Claude’s team arrived approximately seven minutes ago. Kyle and Zoey surrendered the documents without any problems.”
A faint smile appeared across Johansberg’s face.
“Good.”
Secretary Kim adjusted his glasses.
“You don’t seem particularly concerned.”
“Should I be?”
“The anomaly hasn’t been properly identified yet. Kyle’s report suggests that whatever happened at Valmere Municipal School may be separate from VILE-303.”
“Which is exactly why I sent Claude.”
Johansberg finally lifted his head.
There wasn’t the slightest hint of doubt in his expression.
“The Guild wastes too much time treating every little case with such caution. It wastes our resources and personnel. Sometimes you simply need people capable enough to walk in and deal with whatever is waiting.”
Secretary Kim remained quiet.
Johansberg leaned back in his chair, casually tapping one finger against the report.
“Claude, Rena, Markus, and the others aren’t ordinary members either. They’re some of the best recruits we’ve acquired in years. Give them enough time, and they’ll probably surpass most of the current department heads. They might not be at the very top just yet, but there’s no doubt in my mind they’ll be amongst the best very soon.”
His smile deepened slightly.
“Seth included.”
Secretary Kim’s gaze shifted.
“That’s quite a statement.”
“It’s an accurate one.”
Johansberg looked towards the window.
“Seth is talented. I’m not denying that. But talent isn’t particularly rare in the Guild. But a lot of his achievements have been artificially inflated by the previous Guild Master. His true capabilities lie below what people truly think of him. I won’t stoop low enough to artificially create a star. We won’t be a star-driven Guild. My vision is to have a Guild made up of multiple elite teams that can compete with the very best out there.”
There was a slight pause.
“Just like Claude’s team.”
Secretary Kim picked up the empty folder.
“So you expect them to contain whatever is inside?”
“I expect them to clean up the mess.”
Johansberg’s expression relaxed.
“That’s what they’re good at.”
***
“This place is supposed to be dangerous?”
Markus stepped over a broken chair lying in the corridor and looked around with open disappointment. Claude walked several meters ahead of him, carrying the documents Kyle had handed over, sifting through them carefully.
“So far, apparently.”
Rena ran a finger across the brick walls before looking at the dust left against her glove.
“Three days.”
“Hm?”
“That’s how long those two spent investigating this.”
Markus stared down the corridor.
“…Doing what?”
A few members of the crew laughed.
Claude smiled without turning around.
“Some people enjoy making their jobs difficult. It’s obvious that they’ve wasted time trying to look for whatever clues they wanted. This is just the usual from the Containment Department. They like to waste time on this stuff.”
“Kek.”
They continued walking through the school without slowing.
Holding onto a certain device, Claude walked without needing to look at any of the rooms.
Kyle and Zoey had already explained the basic layout before they entered, although Claude hadn’t paid particular attention beyond the location of Class 3-C and the basement passage.
The rest could be figured out as they went.
It wasn’t as though they were amateurs.
They’d encountered anomalies that were far more terrifying than this. One of the members near the back stopped beside a classroom window.
“There’s something written in here.”
Claude glanced over.
Several desks had been arranged inside, including one near the rear with the number 27 carved into its surface.
“Probably what they were investigating.”
“Want me to check?”
“There’s no need. I’ve already looked through their stuff. It’s a waste of time.”
Claude kept walking.
The others followed.
Rena remained behind for another second, looking through the dusty glass. Something about the classroom felt slightly wrong, although she couldn’t immediately explain why.
The desks were empty.
The board was blank.
…And nothing moved.
Still, her eyes remained near the back.
“…Rena?”
She turned.
Claude was already halfway down the corridor.
“Coming.”
By the time she looked back, nothing had changed.
At least, she didn’t think so.
They reached the staircase several minutes later.
Claude sifted through the document one more time while Markus checked the lower floor. Most of what Kyle and Zoey had written concerned a certain Mara Balle, Mrs. Vale, and something involving copies or replacements.
Claude skimmed several pages before closing the folder again.
“Anything useful?” Rena asked.
“Not particularly.”
“You didn’t read half of it.”
“I read enough.”
Claude passed the documents towards one of the others.
“They think whatever happened here is somehow copying people.”
Markus laughed from further down the staircase.
“That’s it?”
“Apparently.”
“Then why didn’t they just destroy the copy?”
Claude shrugged.
“Ask them.”
Rena didn’t laugh.
She looked towards the wall beside the staircase, where several sections of newer paint had already been torn away.
The exposed plaster underneath was burned black.
“…There was a fire here.”
Claude followed her gaze.
“So?”
“Nothing in the Guild report mentions one.”
“They likely didn’t fill it in. I’ll bring this issue up with the Section Chief.”
Rena crouched and looked closer at one of the darker marks, where four streaks formed the unmistakable shape of a palm, before slowly straightening.
“These look like handprints.”
Markus looked over.
“You’re getting nervous over handprints?”
“You think so?”
“Sounds like it.”
Rena stared at him before moving on.
“Alright, keep talking. Maybe whatever’s down there will hear you.”
“Hopefully.”
That drew another laugh.
They reached the basement.
The opening Kyle and Zoey had created was hard to miss. Broken bricks covered the floor, revealing the passage behind what had once been a solid wall.
Claude stepped through first.
The others followed without hesitation.
The atmosphere changed almost immediately.
The stale basement air became noticeably colder beyond the wall, carrying the faint smell of burned wood despite the fire having happened decades ago.
Markus sniffed.
“Still smells.”
“This place has been closed for quite some time. I wouldn’t be that surprised,” Claude replied.
Their lights moved across the corridor, passing over burned plaster, collapsed shelving, and several more handprints as one of the younger members slowed beside them.
Claude didn’t respond, his attention once again on the documents handed over to him by Zoey and Kyle.
His pace slowed as his eyes passed over one of Mrs. Vale’s diary entries.
I saw Mara.
His brows drew together.
“Claude.”
Rena’s voice made him stop, and he looked ahead to find her standing there, her attention fixed not on him, but on the wall.
“What?”
“…Was that there before?”
Claude followed her gaze towards a narrow classroom door set into the passage wall, but when he checked the crude map Kyle had provided, there was no door marked there, and Markus was already walking towards it.
“Looks like they missed this one too. Seriously… These people from the Containment Department are really incompetent. No wonder the Section Chief doesn’t like them.”
“Wait.”
Markus ignored Rena and reached for the handle.
The moment his hand touched it—
Click.
The corridor lights went out, plunging them into darkness for several silent seconds before Markus suddenly laughed.
“…Seriously? It’s always the same patterns.”
His voice echoed strangely through the corridor, not once but twice, the second following a fraction of a second later as Claude’s expression changed.
“Turn the lights back on.”
“We’re trying.”
Despite her words, nothing happened.
Their equipment still worked, but the corridor simply refused to brighten, forcing Rena to summon a pale light from her palm that slowly spread across the darkness and illuminated the doorway, where Markus was no longer standing.
“…Markus?”
No response came as the light expanded, revealing Markus standing three meters farther down the corridor with his back towards them, and Claude frowned.
“When did you move?”
Markus slowly looked over his shoulder.
“I didn’t.”
Nobody said a thing this time as the corridor fell quiet, only for a faint sound to reach them from somewhere farther ahead.
Tak. Tak. Tak.
Claude raised his hand to silence everyone as the noise continued. This time, they could all hear it well.
They weren’t footsteps…
No.
They were…
‘Typing?’
Tak! Tak! Tak!
Rena’s face tightened.
“What the hell is that?”
Claude looked around.
The corridor was changing.
At first, the change was subtle enough that he mistook it for the light distorting the corridor, but the burned plaster along the walls was slowly disappearing beneath something darker as smooth black walls took their place.
The ceiling stretched higher, and the narrow passage widened several feet in either direction, swallowing sections of the old school at the same time.
Markus finally moved.
“Claude…”
He was looking behind them.
The hole leading back into the basement was gone.
In its place stood a tall black door. Claude immediately reached for his communicator, only to be met with a static sound.
“Did you do anything?”
Markus’s expression darkened.
“I didn’t do anything.”
The typing suddenly stopped.
A silence heavier than anything before settled over the corridor before a notification suddenly appeared across every Guild device at once.
———
[Foreign Gate Manifestation Detected]
———
Claude stared at the words.
“What?”
The floor beneath them trembled.
Rena stumbled sideways and caught herself against the wall as the black corridor continued expanding, swallowing the basement, the school, and everything beyond it.
Claude’s communicator started flashing rapidly.
The detection numbers climbed.
Then climbed again.
His expression slowly changed.
“This scale…”
The walls disappeared.
For a brief moment, Claude saw the outside world through the collapsing school.
The coastline, the trees, and Kyle and Zoey standing beyond the entrance all remained visible as something vast began spreading across the sky.
An enormous translucent boundary unfolded above Valmere Island, stretching outward faster than Claude could follow.
Rena stared upward.
“…That’s a Gate?”
Claude didn’t answer, his expression solemn as he looked around him.
The boundary passed over the entire school, and the moment it touched them, a deep pressure tore through his body, strong enough to nearly buckle his knees as every light vanished.
“Fuck.”
The last thing he heard was Markus’s curse.
Then—
Everything disappeared.
***
Outside the school, Kyle watched as the enormous boundary swallowed the building whole.
Zoey stood beside him, completely speechless as the black vehicles disappeared next, followed by the road and then the trees.
The Gate continued to expand.
Kyle slowly tilted his head back, watching the boundary climb higher into the sky until he could no longer see where it ended.
His phone vibrated.
Trrr! Trrr—!
Then again.
Trrr!
It was non-stop.
Emergency channels across the Guild were already exploding with messages.
“…Kyle.”
Zoey’s voice came out hoarse as she looked up.
Kyle didn’t reply. He just stared.
He stared at the massive dome that formed before his eyes.
Three million.
Apparently…
That was how much this cost.