The Extra is a Genius!?-Chapter 500: Two Left Behind

Two days had passed since they were separated from the others.

The building they’d taken shelter in rose higher than most around it, a tall structure with a wide internal staircase that cut through the center like a spine. Marcus and Roberto sat on the steps halfway up, far enough from the street to avoid attention, close enough to move if they had to. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them wasted energy. The city outside was quiet in the way only hostile places were, not empty, just waiting.

They had no information. No signals. No way of knowing how the others were doing.

Roberto, unlike Marcus, couldn’t stay still. He dragged a thin stick back and forth against the dirt that had gathered on the stone steps, scratching idle lines into the surface, erasing them, then doing it again. It wasn’t nervousness exactly, more like restlessness with nowhere to go.

Marcus watched him for a few seconds before finally breaking the silence.

"How do you think the others are doing?"

Roberto lifted his head slowly. His face looked tired, more worn than usual, but when he smiled, it came easily, familiar enough to ease something in Marcus’s chest.

"I think they’re fine," Roberto said. "There’s no way we came out of this island in one piece and they didn’t."

He leaned back slightly, resting his hands on the step behind him.

"If anything, they probably went through the same thing we did," he added. "Just... somewhere else."

Marcus let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and nodded.

"I’m glad you think that way," he said. "It helps, honestly."

He rubbed the back of his neck, gaze drifting down the staircase.

"In my head I keep imagining the worst case," Marcus went on. "Us having to face the Second Pillar alone."

He gave a small, humorless laugh.

"That’d be rough without Noel."

Roberto’s stick paused.

"Second Pillar," he murmured, barely audible.

Marcus turned his head.

"Hm?" he asked. "Did you say something?"

Roberto blinked, then looked up again, his expression smoothing out almost instantly.

"Ah, no," he said. "Just repeating what you said."

He gave a short nod.

"Yeah... it’d be hard without Noel," Roberto added. "We really need him."

For a moment, his gaze dropped to the ground between his feet.

"But we can’t just sit here," he said quietly. "It’s been two days."

Marcus pushed himself to his feet, stretching his arms overhead until his joints cracked.

"You’re right," he said. "We have to move."

He looked out through a shattered window toward the city beyond.

"If your theory is right, they’re on other islands like us," Marcus continued. "This place is full of them."

He turned back to Roberto.

"We go island by island."

There was a brief pause before Marcus asked the question that had been sitting at the back of his mind.

"Do you think they thought of the same thing?"

Roberto looked up at him and smiled.

"Yeah," he said. "Noel definitely did."

The words were right.

The smile wasn’t.

Marcus noticed it immediately. It lacked the warmth Roberto usually carried so effortlessly, the easy confidence, the quiet humor. This one felt thinner, like something worn because it was expected rather than felt.

Marcus didn’t say anything.

He just took note of it, filed it away, and turned toward the stairs leading down into the city.

They moved out into the city carefully.

The streets stretched farther than Marcus had expected, wide avenues cutting between towering buildings whose upper levels disappeared into haze and drifting dust. This wasn’t a cluster of ruins or a half-abandoned district. It was a full city, sprawling and dense, built to hold tens of thousands at its peak. From what Marcus could tell as they advanced, it sat closer to the central island than any of the others they’d seen so far.

Too close.

"This place is huge," Marcus muttered, eyes scanning the skyline as they moved from cover to cover.

Roberto didn’t answer right away. His attention was elsewhere, tracking movement that didn’t quite line up with instinct.

"It’s not just big," he said after a moment. "It’s positioned wrong."

Marcus glanced at him. "What do you mean?"

Roberto gestured vaguely ahead. "Closest island to the center," he said. "And the second largest, too. That’s not a coincidence."

The realization settled in as they continued forward.

The city wasn’t empty.

Monsters moved through the streets and between buildings in numbers far greater than they’d encountered before, but what caught Marcus’s attention wasn’t the quantity. It was the pattern. Groups patrolled intersections. Others lingered near key structures, clustered around collapsed plazas and wide open squares. They weren’t roaming aimlessly. They were positioned.

"Since when do they do that?" Marcus whispered.

Roberto’s expression didn’t change. "They didn’t. Not before."

The further they went, the heavier the air became. Mana pressed down against Marcus’s senses, not violently, but persistently, like a weight that didn’t belong there. It felt uncomfortably familiar, close to what he’d felt back on the earlier island, the kind of presence that made the ground feel less stable underfoot.

"This feels wrong," Marcus said quietly.

Roberto nodded once. "Yeah."

They pushed onward until the buildings thinned out and the street opened into a wide plaza, the stone beneath their feet cracked and scorched as if something massive had passed through recently. The moment they stepped into the open, the pressure shifted.

The air tightened.

Mana flowed differently.

Marcus felt it immediately, the change sharp enough to make his skin prickle.

Something moved at the far end of the plaza.

The movement at the far end of the plaza didn’t rush toward them.

It stood.

Marcus felt it before he saw it clearly, the pressure settling into his chest like a wrong note that wouldn’t fade. The shape straightened among the broken stone, tall and uneven, metal and something darker layered together in a way that made his instincts scream. Chains shifted along its body, scraping softly against the ground as it turned to face them.

"...That’s not normal," Marcus said under his breath.

Roberto didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed forward, expression unreadable.

The Shard Warden took a single step.

The plaza answered.

Stone cracked outward from beneath its foot, a shallow ripple spreading across the ground as mana surged through the area. Marcus felt the pressure spike instantly, clean and stable in the worst possible way.

Archmage-level.

Marcus inhaled sharply.

"Alright," he said, rolling his shoulders as heat flared faintly around his hands. "Guess we’re not sneaking past this."

The Warden moved again, faster this time.

Marcus reacted on instinct.

"Azure Flare Strike."

A tight burst of blue fire tore across the plaza and detonated on contact with the Warden’s torso, the explosion sharp and contained. Flames washed over metal and chains, forcing the construct to brace as fragments of stone scattered outward. It worked, at least partially. The Warden slowed for half a second.

It pushed through the fire and closed the distance, arm drawing back for a heavy, direct blow.

Marcus slammed his foot down.

"Stoneguard."

Rock surged up in front of him just as the strike landed. The impact shattered the shield in a spray of fragments, the force driving Marcus back several steps as the ground buckled beneath him.

"Tch—!"

He twisted aside before the follow-up could land, heat flaring across his skin as he reinforced himself.

"Molten Skin."

Blue heat and earth wrapped around his body, the air shimmering as he steadied his stance. The Warden didn’t pause. Chains snapped tight as it advanced again, relentless.

Marcus gritted his teeth and countered.

"Stoneburst."

The ground beneath the Warden erupted, sharp fragments of rock exploding upward and forcing it to stagger back a step. Marcus didn’t waste the opening.

"Blazing Pillar."

A column of blue fire tore up from beneath the construct, engulfing it in a vertical blast that shook the plaza. Stone melted. Air warped. For a moment, the Warden was lost inside the flames.

Marcus exhaled hard.

Then the fire split.

The Warden stepped out, armor cracked but intact, mana flow steady as ever.

"...You’ve got to be kidding me."

Light flashed beside him.

Roberto moved.

It wasn’t dramatic. No shouting. No buildup. Just a clean step forward as pale light gathered around his hand, sharp and focused.

"Lumen Pierce."

A blade of condensed light snapped forward and cut straight through the air, striking the Warden squarely and forcing it back several meters. The impact carved a glowing line across its armor, chains snapping loose as the construct dug into the stone to stop itself.

Marcus stared.

"That worked?" he muttered.

Roberto was already breathing harder than before, shoulders rising and falling as if the effort had cost him more than it should have.

"Don’t get used to it," Roberto said, forcing a small grin. "It’s tougher than it looks."

The Warden recovered quickly, mana surging as it straightened again. The pressure in the plaza spiked, higher now, more focused.

Marcus tightened his grip, heat flaring brighter around him.

"Alright," he said. "Let’s not let it set the pace."

He planted his feet.

"Terra Slam."

The ground answered as Marcus launched himself forward, slamming down hard and sending a line of jagged rock tearing toward the Warden.

At the same time, light gathered again at Roberto’s side, brighter than before, pulsing once as if restrained.

The fight had begun.