Vol 2. Chapter 28: Do You Want Me to Hand You an Oscar or Something?

Everything had happened far too suddenly. No one knew exactly where the explosion had come from, or whether anyone had been injured. All they could hear were screams—and the banquet hall within the Holy Cathedral had plunged into utter chaos.

Wasn’t this place supposed to be guaranteed safe?

Vinny never would’ve thought that a Demon God Pillar cultist could launch an attack on the cathedral and the students under the very noses of Carillian Academy’s combat instructors.

He looked around—but didn’t see a single Demon Pillar cultist. And if one had shown up, the combat instructors would’ve sensed it ahead of time and taken them out, right? So where exactly had that explosion come from?

Don’t tell him the Demon Pillar cult had planted explosive magic stones in the cathedral’s rear sanctum in advance, set on a timer?

But the cathedral was never open to outsiders. Only certified maintenance personnel with strict authorization could enter—and the entire area was shielded by anti-magic formations. It should’ve been impossible for any Demon Pillar cultist to get in.

...Unless?

Vinny thought back to something he might’ve misinterpreted earlier.

The scene now was pure chaos. No one could figure out where the attack had come from, where the cultists were, or whether any students had been hurt or killed.

In this kind of confusion, it was highly likely that...

The combat instructors on-site were working to calm the students, escorting them out of the no-longer-safe cathedral in an orderly fashion.

And as expected of Carillian Academy’s students, they displayed an exceptional level of discipline. Many senior students quickly regained composure, summoned their Soul Armaments, and demonstrated strong leadership—organizing their classmates into coordinated offense-defense formations to escort first-years out of the cathedral as best they could.

This was the difference between Carillian Academy students and those from other institutions. Their ability to respond in a crisis wasn’t just marginally superior—it was drastically beyond.

Among the entire scene, the ones faring the worst were the first-years. Everyone else was showing off—but the first-years were getting flattened.

Take Shikondell, for example—the one next to Vinny.

She was so terrified she looked like a startled quail, hiding beneath the table, too afraid to come out.

“Dale, don’t cower like a quail! The Goddess isn’t going to protect us—we need to get out of the cathedral with the others!”

Vinny shouted under the table at Shikondell.

But for some reason, there was no response.

Puzzled, Vinny lifted the tablecloth—only to find Shikondell completely pale, eyes lifeless, her small body trembling all over, lips muttering unintelligibly as she whispered to herself.

What the hell was wrong with her now?

She looked as if someone had torn open an old wound—like she was remembering something she couldn’t bear to revisit.

Then it hit him.

This grand, opulent palace, now plunged into chaos as everyone scrambled for their lives—

Could it be that this scene reminded Shikondell of the fall of the Moon Elves’ kingdom?

“Dale? Come on out—it’s me, Vinny. Grab my hand, I’ll get you out of here!”

Vinny reached out toward her and called.

Shikondell didn’t answer. She remained curled up and trembling, completely unresponsive. It was like she couldn’t hear him at all—lost in her own world.

With no other choice, Vinny crouched down and crawled under the long banquet table.

“Hey—what are you doing? Hiding under the table won’t help. This place isn’t safe anymore. You need to evacuate, or you’ll be in serious trouble!”

A passing upperclassman stopped to give him a well-meaning warning.

“Senior, I dropped something under here. Don’t worry about me—just go ahead!”

Vinny waved him off and kept crawling toward the middle of the table.

“Dale, stop it. You really don’t look like much of a man like this, you know.”

Vinny squeezed in next to her. The situation was too urgent to waste time—he grabbed her hand, trying to pull her out.

But Shikondell just curled up tighter, as if that would somehow make her feel safer. No matter what, she wouldn’t budge.

BOOM! BOOM!

Just then, something collapsed outside. It was now very clear—the cathedral was dangerously unstable. Collapse could happen at any moment. Even though it was made of holy silver jade, no one could guarantee how long it would hold under magical bombardment.

The enemy was in the dark; they were out in the open. And the enemy wielded devastating magic. Hiding in a big building with no anti-magic protection was the most dangerous place to be.

“Dale, don’t be afraid. I’m not leaving—I’ll stay right here with you.”

Vinny gently patted the silver-haired elf’s shoulder. No matter how loud or chaotic the noises outside got—even as something else seemed to crash down—he didn’t flinch.

Even staying here just one second longer increased the danger.

Gradually, Shikondell began to emerge from her terror.

She realized that Vinny had stayed by her side the whole time... and that the cathedral was becoming more and more dangerous.

“Vinny...? I...”

“All right. No more ‘I’m sorrys’ this time.”

Seeing that she’d regained some awareness, Vinny cut in.

“Can you walk?”

“My legs... feel weak.”

Shikondell hung her head and bit her lip.

“Yeah, I figured.”

With things as urgent as they were, Vinny didn’t waste time.

He took off his earring, gave his spear a sweep—and split the long banquet table in two.

Frostfang reformed back into its crystalline earring shape.

Vinny wrapped one arm around Shikondell’s waist, the other beneath her knees, and lifted her off the ground.

She was light—Vinny could easily carry her with one arm.

Nestled in Vinny’s arms, Shikondell could smell his scent with every breath.

Though completely ill-timed, her snow-white cheeks still flushed with a faint pink.

Virtue +50.

Current Virtue: 204.

Wait—did Vinny just princess-carry her??

Feeling the warmth of his arms, Shikondell’s heart welled up with an unexplainable, bashful emotion.

Vinny, of course, wasn’t thinking about any of that. In a moment like this, who had the luxury to be distracted?

“Hey—watch out above you!”

Just then, someone shouted from nearby.

Vinny blinked and looked up instinctively.

Holy silver jade might be sturdy, but not everything in the rear sanctum was made of it.

Like the giant statue of a Church elder—that wasn’t.

And after all the shaking, it had become incredibly unstable.

Now it was collapsing—falling directly toward him and Shikondell.

Vinny tried to dodge—but it was too late.

He was still holding Shikondell and couldn’t summon Frostfang in time.

If this hit them, they’d both be crushed into paste.

CRACK—!

In that split second, the falling statue was sliced clean in half, splitting around the two of them.

The top and bottom halves crashed down to either side—missing them entirely.

Shikondell was too stunned to speak. All she could manage was, “Abah... abah...”

Vinny opened his eyes, staring at the bisected statue in shock.

Who had saved them?

No one nearby spoke up.

Everyone else had already evacuated the cathedral’s rear sanctum—

By now, it was basically just him and Shikondell left in the entire banquet hall.

But this wasn’t the time to wonder who’d saved them. They had to move—get to an open area.

Vinny held Shikondell tight and broke into a run toward the entrance, three steps at a time.

“Anyone else still inside?!”

A combat instructor stationed at the rear sanctum spotted them running and sprang forward, yanking Vinny by the back of his collar like a kitten, dragging the two of them out into the open courtyard beyond the cathedral.

“Didn’t we already announce the evacuation ages ago? What took you two so long?”

The instructor frowned.

“Sorry, sir. My roommate twisted her ankle and couldn’t move. I went to rescue her,” Vinny replied.

“Next time don’t do something so dangerous on your own. You’re a first-year. What makes you think you’ve got the skills for that?

If something had gone wrong, you wouldn’t have saved anyone—and you’d have been left behind too.”

The instructor’s brows eased slightly, but he still gave a stern warning.

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

BOOM! BOOM!

Before Vinny could even finish speaking, another deafening explosion erupted—this time from the cathedral’s front sanctum.

“Damn it, what the hell are those bastards trying to do?!”

Seeing this, the instructor immediately rushed off to join the others heading for the front.

Meanwhile, because there had been so many students in the banquet hall, evacuation had to be done in waves. The instructors responsible for escorting the first batch of students hadn’t returned yet, so most of the students were still waiting in the open courtyard.

But because there were just too many students—and because many had initially scattered in panic—quite a few had already tried to evacuate on their own.

With no instructors around to enforce order, groups of students started forming small teams and attempted to make their own way out.

In short, opinions were all over the place.

Students from different year levels grouped up according to their own judgment, forming various squads with different ideas about how to proceed.

Many upperclassmen, hoping to lighten the instructors’ burden, teamed up with friends or acquaintances and took the lead in evacuating the cathedral—prompting others to do the same.

After all, they were Carillian Academy students—not a flock of brainless lambs waiting °• N o v e l i g h t •° for slaughter.

But compared to all that, Vinny had something much more pressing on his mind.

Why had there been an explosion inside the cathedral?

The students were now scattered in all directions. If that was the case...

Vinny’s gaze drifted over the crowd, searching for a particular figure.

“Dale! Are you okay?!”

A golden-haired figure darted through the crowd, finally finding Shikondell and rushing over with frantic urgency.

“I-I’m fine... Vinny saved me,”

Shikondell said, still a little dazed as she looked at Milian’s worried face.

“You... you bastard, you—”

Milian looked like she couldn’t decide whether to thank Vinny or not. But just then, something caught Vinny’s eye in the crowd.

“No time for that. Milian, you showed up just in time—I'm leaving Dale in your care. I’ve got something I need to take care of.”

With that, Vinny shot off into the crowd.

“Eh? Eh?! Wait—hey, wait up?!”

Milian blinked, stunned.

What kind of urgent errand could he possibly have at a time like this? What, did he remember he left the stove on or something?

“Vinny...?”

Shikondell opened her mouth slightly, reaching out toward his retreating back—

But in the end, her hand fell weakly to her side.

If only...

If only she were strong enough.

If only she weren’t a burden.

If only she could actually help Vinny.

And at the exact moment Vinny broke away from the crowd—

A shadow swept overhead, silently trailing behind him without anyone noticing.

****

The current state of Saintess Selina Cathedral could only be described as a boiling pot of chaos.

Thanks to the durability of its sacred silver jade construction, there hadn’t been any structural devastation—only much of the interior decor had collapsed.

Still, in over a thousand years, there had never been such a scene of disorder within these walls.

One male student, just like the others, had been running in a panic. By sheer coincidence—or perhaps fate—he found himself in front of the Radiant Sanctum.

Soaked in sweat, he glanced around the relatively quiet surroundings, seemingly thinking he was safe.

But before he could even exhale in relief, his eyes widened.

A crystalline ice spear plummeted from the sky—

Thunk!

It embedded itself right where he’d been standing a second ago.

Had he reacted any slower, it would’ve impaled him.

“You are...?”

The student stood frozen, staring at the blue-haired youth walking toward him, spear in hand, having just pulled it from the ground.

“Don’t recognize me?”

Vinny twirled the spear in the air, scattering flashes of frosty light.

“You’ve got quite the poker face, huh? Want me to hand you an Oscar for that performance?”

“I—I don’t get what you’re saying...”

The male student looked genuinely confused.

“Oh, you don’t?”

Vinny cast a glance around.

“Then maybe I should be the one asking—what are you doing here?”

“Uh... the banquet hall exploded! I panicked and ended up here by accident...”

“Accident, huh? You just happened to end up at the Radiant Sanctum?

Great sense of direction you’ve got there.”

Vinny sneered.

“I was just running blind in a panic!”

The student looked like he was about to cry.

“Besides, this is the Goddess’s and Saintess’s sanctum—I figured I’d be protected here...”

“Protected? You’re counting on a couple of corpses to bless you?”

Vinny chuckled.

“Get real. Not even the Goddess would bless filth like you.”

As soon as he said it, a frost chain shot from his palm—

It narrowly missed the student’s head, slamming into the ground beside it.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

The student finally snapped.

“This is the sacred dormitory of the Radiant Goddess! You dare try to harm a fellow student in the eyes of the Goddess and the Saintess?!”

“I don’t even know you—why are you doing this?!”

“Keep acting. Go on. Keep that act up.”

Vinny raised his head and narrowed his eyes.

“That stench on you? Maybe it fools everyone else. But I can smell it from ten paces away.”

“You filthy rat bastard. Could’ve just been a normal person. But no—you chose to become some disgusting not-quite-human, not-quite-ghost freak.

Disgusting.”

He spat at the ground.

“Stop pretending, [Bronze Blood]’s Burial Cultist.

Am I wrong?”

“From the time the banquet started until now—it’s been what? Just about thirty minutes?”

“The Burial Cultist’s ability requires it to be activated thirty minutes in advance. Once activated, the runes carved into your body begin to surface—faint at first, but gradually clearer.

And once triggered, they can’t be shut off.”

“Back in the banquet hall, someone bumped into you and pulled down your shoulder. I caught a glimpse—wasn’t sure if I saw it right.

The mark was faint... probably because you had only just started your Fanatic Transformation.

But after I got out and picked up on your rotting stink getting stronger and stronger?”

“I knew. No doubt in my mind.”

“You’re the Bronze Blood agent planted inside the Academy.

And to think—even with all the background checks and bloodline tracing done before enrollment—

They still didn’t catch you.”