The Outer God Needs Warmth-Chapter 143: Academy, you’re out of your mind (13)

Holding Victoria’s hand, we wandered through the city and eventually found a large restaurant. We sat in a relatively secluded spot, and after feeding her some meat and sweets, she seemed to calm down a bit and gather her strength.

“What will happen to my dad...?”

“At least, he's a good father. He might have weakened due to the pressure from the company, and though he did lose his reason a few times, at least he didn’t cross the line or take extreme actions to succeed.”

He hadn’t returned home for a week, was under constant pressure from his performance, and had been fired as soon as he came home for a nap.

I understood.

Mmm.

Unlike the greasy, sweet cake I had eaten earlier, here they served a neat cake. It had fruit and fresh cream, and the portion was just right, making it quite delicious.

Things like this are tasty.

“Awhile ago, you said something only you two would know.”

With the sugar rushing to her head, it seemed like Victoria could finally think straight as she stared at me and spoke.

“Is it true that Dad could have succeeded if he had crossed the line? What exactly does that mean?”

It was an implicit question: “Don’t just talk about things only you know. Explain it properly.”

“There were at least two possibilities at that moment.”

So, I decided to explain both possibilities to her.

“Two?”

“One. Putting your abilities to the test. Special abilities are great for research, especially if they’re powerful. While doing so, I could also sell them off myself.”

Upon hearing my words, Victoria quietly lowered her head.

She understood right away. If she had just abandoned one child, she could have done so much more.

And, since Victoria was Morris’s daughter, it was easy to imagine that if a father wanted to experiment on his daughter, he would easily get the privilege.

“I get that there was that option. So what’s the other one?”

“Do you remember the device Morris was explaining earlier? The one that absorbs mana from the air and converts it into angular momentum?”

“The one that’s inefficient and useless? Why?”

I picked up my fork and pointed to the last remaining piece of cake.

“This is a person. This fork is just a slight modification of the sequence in that machine.”

This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

Plonk.

I pierced the cake with the fork and lifted it.

“As long as this cake is here, it creates a power that’s at least efficient enough to satisfy them.”

Leaving aside the fact that it grinds people to use as fuel, it’s not a bad method of development.

It was a technology that existed in Daegon’s world, too. Though, compared to the method that involves grinding souls, it was too inefficient and disappeared quickly.

“A monster.”

Victoria looked at me with a defeated expression.

As I ate, I became full and set my fork down. While watching Victoria eat, suddenly a loud crash came from outside.

I turned around to see, beyond the glass window of the restaurant, a few cars entangled in a crash at a far-off intersection. And judging by the smoke rising above them, it seemed like an accident had occurred.

“Huh? What’s this? An accident?”

Not only Victoria, but everyone in the restaurant got up from their seats and began to approach the window, murmuring.

Watching the scene was indeed interesting.

Victoria seemed to want to see it too but, not wanting to waste the cake in front of her, quickly shoveled it into her mouth.

If she wanted to see it, she could just take it with her.

That’s what I was thinking when suddenly—

Crash!

Boom, boom, boom!

A massive object smashed through the window and charged inside, hitting the people who were gathered by the window. Since this was the only side of the building with people near it, it was natural that people were killed by the object that came from outside.

Shards of glass and chunks of meat scattered all around, and the restaurant was drenched in debris and blood in an instant.

Something had hit people.

It was a taxi. A driverless machine with the legs of a centaur replaced by wheels. The front was completely destroyed, and I could see dark, thick liquid spilling from the door seam, possibly from the person who had been inside.

What was interesting was that, despite the damage, the wheels of the broken machine were still spinning at high speed.

At that moment, I heard some curses from behind.

It was a familiar voice.

Victoria, cursing loudly, ran to where the people had been hit to check for survivors. After confirming that there were no survivors, she came back toward us.

“What’s going on? Why is it still running? The interpretation unit seems to have stopped.”

Suddenly, Victoria interrupted herself, and grabbing a water bottle from a nearby table, she threw it at the machine. Crash! As the bottle shattered, a stream of water was sucked into the machine’s center.

Then, shortly after—

Fssshhhh...

A bright red mass of energy shot out with the water, glowing intensely. According to Victoria’s memory, this was a device that converted the ambient mana into power.

However, it wasn’t Morris’s invention. Although the intake and output seemed similar to Morris’s device, it was a different machine that worked on a different principle.

To put it simply, it was like the difference between a steam engine and a diesel engine. Morris’s invention was more like the diesel engine.

Anyway, the device immediately evaporated all the water surrounding it.

Plonk.

It was so hot that as soon as it hit the wooden floor, it set the wood on fire.

Victoria, unable to focus on the carnage in front of her, asked the owner of the restaurant to turn on the water, and she used her control over water to pour it all over the place for a while.

The area got drenched, and the bodies were pushed out of the restaurant before the heat was finally extinguished, leaving the machine a heap of scrap.

By the way, the wheels that had been spinning even after slamming into the wall stopped shortly after the device was removed, almost completely halting now.

“Why did it overheat? This phenomenon should have only occurred when mana was almost suffocating.”

Victoria, holding a crowbar-like object, started dismantling the machine, muttering as she did. Each time she pried it open, white smoke rose, but the water she had created shielded it all.

She handled it with ease, as if the water was an extension of her own body.

While she was dismantling the machine, I stepped outside.

The city was a disaster. The intersection that had been visible from afar, and now, everywhere I looked, there was black smoke rising.

It wasn’t just a targeted incident.

Accidents were happening all across Vern City.

It wasn’t just the taxis from the Kogni Transport Company that were malfunctioning. Most of the vehicles seemed to have suddenly accelerated, as cars crashed into buildings or other vehicles wherever I looked.

It seemed like not only vehicles but also other machines using similar devices were likely malfunctioning.

Looking around from the perspective of the five people working near Vern City, there were no noticeable accidents. They were just working on a construction site. Since there were no tall buildings nearby, they could see very far from their scaffolds, and only faint smoke rising from the city center caught their attention.

In other words, this was a phenomenon occurring only within the city.

“What is this?”

Victoria, who had been dismantling the machine, came up to me and spoke. It didn’t seem like she was expecting an answer, but was simply making a statement.

“Dad... Let’s go see Dad. Bell.”

Such a childlike reaction. Where had the image of her killing Sahagins earlier gone?

Victoria clenched her teeth and started walking toward the company building she had left earlier. But before she could even see the building, she stopped in her tracks.

Because she met Morris, who had been running toward us.

“Victoria!”

“Dad!”

The father and daughter embraced. It was a touching reunion.

“Let’s go see Bi first.”

Bi was Beatrice’s nickname. Seeing how quickly he took care of his wife, it was clear that he was a good husband.

As I thought about this, I followed the two of them across the street.

Amid the disaster of the city—explosions, the sound of things burning, people screaming, and crying—there was a mix of chaos and destruction.

Among the cries of the city’s people, some were shouting that no magic was being used.

If you raised your eyes from the ground, you could now see buildings on fire. And it wasn’t just one or two, but many buildings were burning.

It wasn’t just the flames from the vehicles; it seemed like the fire was only on the higher floors.

The device Victoria had used earlier wasn’t just for vehicles, but could also be used in buildings. If this had been caused by an environmental issue, fire would be spreading everywhere.

Given the personalities of the two in front of me, they would have likely discussed what was going on, but instead, they held each other’s hands tightly and silently walked forward.

That meant they were tense.

And their urgency eventually bore fruit.

Amid the burning buildings, Beatrice was shouting loudly at the people, ordering them to bring people out.

Victoria immediately ran toward Beatrice and hugged her.

Beatrice, startled at first, then smiled after seeing Morris behind her. She must have been relieved to see that he was safe.

“I’m glad you’re safe.”

Beatrice approached me, scanning my body. This body was far sturdier than my previous one, so there was no need for her to check, but...

Beatrice gestured around and asked me.

“Do you know what’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know either. What could possibly be happening...”

Beatrice sighed.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t suspicious of me. Had she let her guard down after just a week of living together? This person had been very wary at first, but the speed at which she let it down was strangely fast.

I was fine with it, of course.

Beatrice then took me to where Morris and Victoria were, and spoke to Morris.

“Morris, take Tori home right now.”

“No. Bi. It’s not that. We need to get out of the city.”

But Morris shook his head. Then, looking around, he spoke.

“Morris?”

“The air cycler is malfunctioning from residual mana, so... without using technical terms, there are bombs ready to explode all over the city, and the available mana has drastically decreased. It’s safer to head outside where magic can still be used.”

It was interesting to see how Morris, the technician, remained calm while explaining. When he noticed Beatrice’s confused expression, he simplified his explanation, which was amusing.

Anyway.

Beatrice nodded and immediately started shouting at the people to head to some specific area with the survivors.

Meanwhile, Victoria was looking up.

Up.

On top of the building. A child had come out to the window to escape the fire and was hanging outside the railing. But the fire had already heated the railing.

Victoria watched the child fall. Then, she waved her hand. A mass of water appeared from the dry air and safely caught the falling child.

Victoria looked down at her hand and then continued walking forward.

“Tori?”

Before Morris could catch up to Victoria, she slipped away from him and ran toward the fire. Water began rising from the sewer and ahead of her, she started putting out the flames.

Like someone who helps others.

Doing what they can because they can.

Not out of a sense of courage, not ready for death, and without any noble thoughts of performing good deeds.

In a space where special powers were running low, someone with the ability to use them moved without thinking to save people.