Day of the Capture the Actualization Game.
Unel sighed; it seemed that although he didn't particularly wish to show any card in his hand, he would end up being forced to at least reveal a hint.
After all, he didn't exactly have a choice in participating in the first place.
He had succeeded in manipulating what had been originally intended by placing himself in the class that the boy was not in.
Any more changes might lead to an intervention.
Well, at the very least, he could simply restrict himself to having mediocre results to blend into the crowd, per se.
It would take a truly unfortunate turn of circumstance to prevent him from doing so.
.
.
.
Unel clenched his fist, his veins bulging from his forehead in anger.
Unbelievable truly unbelievable
The entire enemy team had somehow been convinced to take a strange route of attack.
That being imparting their entire will into their own Actualization, which then proceeded to fire the tremendous attack in hopes of immediately eliminating Unel's own team.
Not only was this attack stupid, as it likely would have resulted in several deaths, but rather conveniently, it was also the only way for well... what had happened, to happen.
The blast had been directed directly toward the middle of Unel's team, likely to cause damage to the front and back lines simultaneously.
Unel's strategy had unfortunately been to not draw too much attention by being neither at the head nor the rear of the group.
Of course, this did not mean that the blast should have hit him directly; there were many others in the middle of the pack.
But it did.
The insane amount of energy directly hit Unel in the chest and, as such, was instantly nullified.
The energy which was composed of the literal wills of not only every awakened in the opposing class, but also the Vessal stage Actualisation.
As they had devoted their wills to it, this meant that the blast, being completely ineffective, would break their will to fight as a cost of sorts.
And because of this, the entire enemy team lost consciousness.
Crediting all 75 unique eliminations to Unel, instantly providing him with 100 points per the game rules.
In the history of the five cities, this was the second time someone had eliminated an entire enemy team.
And it had happened roughly a minute into it.
As such, one could surmise the reason for Unel's annoyance.
"Would you stop explaining?"
Unel had grown annoyed with the incessant narration.
'What can I do now? This much is clearly no fluke, a calamity of fate from the small change I made, perhaps? It never ceases its inconvenience.'
'There is not much more I can do other than go along with the rest of the game; perhaps I will allow myself to be eliminated by the Actualisation to make the overseers think this is all some kind of error.'
He knew exactly where the Actualisation was, of course, but rather than go to it as fast as possible, he waited for the advance party to reach it.
Once they did, his green light was lit.
His team had not noticed the flash of light and the elimination of the entire enemy team; there was no announcement for that sort of thing, and the game didn't end until the defeat of the actualisation.
What they were thinking wasn't worth thinking about; he knew they would be defeated by the Actulisation despite possessing a seal, this was because they lacked a good team composition and overall intelligence.
The world was cruel after all, the first layer would likely be the end of everyone in his class.
He arrived minutes after, and everyone in the advance party had been destroyed.
Unel narrowed his eyes and stared at the Actualisation.
It was a knight, ambiguous in gender, who wielded a long but narrow piece of steel.
Their eyes met.
Unel could not read anything in the knight's eyes, and for just one moment, he had a lapse in his judgement.
There was nothing more intriguing than the unknown after all.
He held the knight's severed head in his hand, and he squinted into the slit in the helmet to try to read the emotions conveyed by their eyes more.
They were lifeless now; he had hoped that he had acted fast enough to freeze the expression in time forever.
He was unsuccessful.
With a deep and regret-filled sigh, he tossed the head aside. The Actualisations body was already fading away in a swath of white sparks.