HPDBC Chapter 91 - CHAPTER 90 - Bigger Schemes.
Chapter 91 - CHAPTER 90 - Bigger Schemes.
Things shifted way too quickly for anyone to even understand, and by the time everyone absorbed the things that had gone down, it was already too late. Ben was already standing in front of his classmate, protecting her with a resolute expression.
Alex, however, was aware of Ben's nature, and he was sure that he would step up—essentially the reason for him letting go of the device the moment Ben kicked the device, or could Ben have even been able to touch the device if Alex didn't want it?
But he still blinked, seemingly startled for a moment. Then, his expression shifted into something unreadable—part nostalgia, part amusement. "Faulty?" he repeated softly, almost as if speaking to himself. "I remember someone saying that once. How nostalgic."
Ben, on the other hand, continued his defense. "This is a setup." He pointed at Alex, not in the least scared of the consequences. Alex was the Second Seat of the Student Council—someone he should be showing respect to, yet he blatantly disregarded that authority.
No one could blame him though; the protagonists are never supposed to care about authority after all.
"You're manipulating everyone." Ben didn't stop, hoping to see Alex panic, but all he saw was calmness, making him grind his teeth harder. "This isn't justice—it's a farce."
Ben had seen the tears in his classmate's eyes, and although he wasn't some expert reader of expressions, he wasn't someone who could be fooled by fake tears. Ben had lived his childhood in a place where he saw tears flowing like water—he could never mistake a real cry for a fake one.
What he didn't know was that although the girl was crying for real that day, the reason wasn't what he thought it was. She was crying in shame, and he thought it to be pain.
Alex sighed, shaking his head as though disappointed. "Manipulation? A strong accusation, Ben." He raised a hand, and in a flash of light, over ten identical devices poured from his storage ring, landing on the stage. "Tell me, do you believe all of these are faulty?"
The devices lay silent, their blank state showing that they had yet to take in any words. Unlike the last one, they weren't taken out by surprise.
Ben faltered, his confidence wavering under the weight of Alex's gaze. He knew that not all of them could be faulty—it wasn't possible for one to be able to collect faulty devices. And Ben was someone who believed in gods, so he would never suspect the church of producing these many faulty devices—Alex knew this as well.
"I—" Ben stammered,
"Yet, the council of the teachers and the other authoritative figures, who, without even informing the student council about any of this, directly declared Zyrrak as a criminal, couldn't find the truth?" Alex's voice was calm, but everyone in the stadium understood the meaning behind his words, especially a group of third- and fourth-year students. They were in a state of panic right now.
"You want me to believe that?" Alex questioned, incredulity clear in his voice before he shook his head. "That was why, with the help of our dear council head, Theron Shieldspire," Alex turned toward Theron with a glint in his eyes flashing mysteriously, and Theron, who clearly understood what he had to do, nodded his head solemnly as if agreeing with Alex's statement.
Smiling inwardly, Alex continued, "I conducted a personal inquiry, using the power and sources of all of us council members." As if on cue, every council member nodded their head.
They didn't know Alex's plan, but they supported him because they knew he wouldn't try to bring them in harm's way—that was the amount of trust they had in him. Those actions just made Alex's smile widen on the inside.
"It was then that we found something shocking: There are people in the academy—people with a lot of authority—who wanted something more than the empty seat of our treasurer." Pausing dramatically and clenching the stand on which the mic was placed, Alex growled, "They wanted his life—they wanted his blood, his bones, and his flesh. They wanted all that a gold goblin—one of the rarest species on this planet—could offer, all under the guise of cleaning the dirt of the academy."
The audience stilled, the weight of his words sinking in, their eyes widening in fear, hate, rage, and disbelief. Alex's gaze swept across the crowd, his expression darkening. "I sent him to the deepest prison not as a sentence but as a shield. If he stayed here, those forces would have taken him from us in one way or another—"
BOOOMM!
But before he could complete his words, a deafening explosion rocked the stadium. The ground shook, and screams erupted from the direction of the stadium's entrance. The sound of chaos filled the air—shouts, cries, and the unmistakable roar of flames.
Alex's eyes widened, his calm composure breaking for the first time. He turned toward the stadium entrance, where smoke and fire billowed into the sky. His body tensed, and so did the others, especially the council members who felt a sense of dread when they thought of the worst possibility.
"Zyrrak was being escorted in that direction..." Someone whispered in horror, but as if that voice were a signal, before anyone could react, the student council members, including Alex, who was the first one to move, leaped from the stage, and with grim expressions, they rushed toward the source of the explosions.
The third- and fourth-year teachers in the stadium were the next to break out of their thoughts, so they quickly followed, leaving only the stunned audience, frozen in their spots.
The last thing they saw was the expression on Alex's face before he rushed away, and to be honest, that expression scared the students more than the explosion that was heard a second ago.