Chapter 45: Sneak
Kim Jaehyun walked through the halls of The Island, heading to the farthest building from the teleporter.
The Teacher's Lounge.
He wore all black, and a mask over his face.
'The easiest way to get Grey to go is to tell him myself.' He thought. He planned to enter The Teacher's Lounge and obtain Grey's contact info.
As the author of 'Bloody War Of A Hero', he knew most things about the world. Of course, he left some things untouched, simply because he had no idea or no time to explain them.
One thing he did explain was The Teacher's Lounge, as there was a mini-arc where someone would sneak in to steal an object.
None of that mattered, however, because that happened in the first course, and he had already taken care of it.
His footsteps suddenly stopped, placing him just in front of the doors to The Teacher's Lounge. He looked up at the sky, relishing the twinkling of the stars before entering.
The door swung open leading to a reception area with some chairs, a desk, and three pathways in the distance. It shared the same design as the reception area in The Boarding Houses, white and orange couches, plants in white pots, and paintings on the wall.
He traversed the area quickly, his goal the path in the middle. The left path went to the male teacher dormitory, whilst the right went to the female dormitory. The middle went to the common area, where there was the namesake of the building —a lounge— and the admin.
A door blocked his way, but a simple lock override knocked it open. It was designed similarly to the bracelet The Island had, but it was white instead, and a one-time-use consumable that disintegrated after use.
The door would have needed the bracelet from any teacher to open, but this item he obtained from the Black Market was a way around. He didn't know how it worked, and he didn't care, but he did know that he wanted to stay away from the Black Market.
'It's so much worse than how I wrote it.' He thought as he entered the room, the door swinging closed behind him.
Now he stood in a large room with a kitchen, a living room with several VR pods, and much more junk. He didn't care much for what was in the room, his goal was the door at the other end.
He hurriedly strode through the room, aware he didn't have much time.
'The AI will be scrolling through the data it learned today, and my lock override shouldn't have disturbed it, but I can't be sure. Speed is key here.' In Arkusia, there existed no one with Illusion Magic, hence there was no way to disguise himself. He would be caught on camera, so he had to give the AI no reason to check the footage of him.
'Light Magic wouldn't work either. No one has enough Mana for it and it will be a couple more years before he awakens.' Kim Jaehyun thought as he recalled the description of a boy who would turn 10 in a few years. 'He'll be useless for ages, too. Fuck.'
He would have contemplated his regrets and the future more, but he had no time for that. He was in front of the admin room.
With a second lock override, he easily gained access to the room.
Inside sat a single desk and chair. He walked over to the desk and sat on the chair, careful not to touch anything. The admin room was the most sensitive room; a single mistake would alert the AI.
He waved his hand over the center of the desk, turning on a hologram.
'Alright, enter the password.' He thought, reading the screen.
'***********' He speedily typed the password, glancing at the door occasionally, and pressed enter.
'Now, authenticate.' He read, placing a third and last lock override on a panel that had appeared from within the door.
'From this moment, you have 60 seconds before you get obliterated. Easy peasy, right?' He thought to himself, trying and failing to reassure himself.
One of the reasons he had forced himself to hurry was so that he was on camera for less time, and the other was that the AI looked through the cameras of The Teacher's Lounger every half an hour, and he needed as much time as possible in the admin room.
Once inside, the lock override would get him into the system but would alert the AI. From there, the AI would shut him down and alert the teachers. It took the AI a little while to shut down the access point, as it was like cutting off one of your limbs, hence the 60 seconds.
'Begin!' He thought as the lock override touched the panel.
The hologram on the screen changed from a lock screen to one containing many files, and Kim Jaehyun quickly skimmed through, searching for contact information.
'54, 53, 52.' He thought, counting down the time he had before everything went to shit.
'Found it.' He found the file on the twelfth screen, meaning he had to read the names of over 50 files on a screen and swipe to the left more than 11 times. He had seen more than 550 files before finding the one he needed.
'Come on, come on.' He clicked through the file with his finger, heading deeper into the file to find the contact info of students.
'FUCK! He's not here.' He realized once he made it there. 'Where is he?'
'I only have maybe 30 seconds, goddammit!' He exited the student contact info file, spotting the ex-student contact info file.
'Maybe he left?' A stray thought pondered. 'I might as well.'
He clicked on the file, immediately sorting it to the newest addition, and looked through it.
'Haha, got you!' He clicked on the page called 'Grey Heart', opening a document with his statistics from when he left the school.
'Okay, that is your number.' Kim Jaehyun quickly memorized the number on the screen before closing all documents and running out of the room.
'10, 9, 8.' He kept counting down, speeding through the lounge, into the reception area.
'5. 4. 3.' He reached the door of The Teacher's Lounge at 2, pushing it wide open and racing out.
He dashed away, headed to The Arena when all the lights in The Teacher's Lounge turned on.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!
Suddenly, he heard a pounding sound and thought that he had been caught, before realizing that it was his heart.
'Ugh, don't play with me like that.' He thought. 'Has my heart been beating that loud the entire time?'
He soon entered The Arena but didn't stop, heading to the boy's dormitory. He ran through the reception area and up the stairs, avoiding the elevator.
'I didn't take it on the way there, I won't take it on the way back. I should leave as few traces as possible. Also, I live on the first floor.'
He quickly traversed the stairs required to reach the first floor, and galloped across the hall toward his room, opening the door to enter.
That night, he sent Grey a message, and the next morning, he had visitors.
---
Yawn!
Grey woke up to clouds in the sky, obscuring direct sight of the sun, but letting enough light through to be called day. No rain fell from the clouds, but many looked ready to burst.
'There'll be rain tonight.' He thought, getting out of bed and into the shower.
Out of nowhere, Fallen Star spoke.
- Grey, you received a message last night at 2 AM. - It informed him.
'Oh yeah,' He thought. 'From who?'
- It was an unknown number, so I put it into the database. His name is Kim Jaehyun, and he's the lowest rank. However, I felt that was suspicious, so I looked into his footage... - Fallen Star fell silent, forcing Grey to encourage It to go on.
- At the beginning of the year, he truly was bottom of the barrel, but now he's almost as strong as Elijah. -
Grey spat out the toothpaste in his mouth, shocked.
'That much in 3 months?' He questioned.
- Yes. -
'I see. What did he ask?' Grey thought, wiping the toothpaste off the mirror.
- He told you that Aurora needs help in the Elven Domain and that if you didn't go, Elijah and the rest would, and that was bad. They need to stay at The Island. -
'Do we know why?'
- No. -
'So, he wants me to go to the Elven Domain and help Aurora so that Elijah and the rest don't, for whatever reason.'
- Pretty much. -
'He's rather strange, isn't he? Well, I'll do it, but why stop there? Please, message him saying that I'll do it on 1 condition.'
- Sent. - Fallen Star replied after less than a second.
'Good. Well then, let's wait and see.'
Grey left the bathroom, put on clothes, and headed downstairs to eat breakfast. He had no plans that day, so he sat on the couch to watch TV with Lucas.
- Grey, it's here. - Fallen Star informed.
'Perfect.' Grey thought, a smile on his face.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone