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Chapter 198: Good News? Bad News?

In the middle of a dark room dimly lit by a small desk lamp, mountains upon mountains of messy paperwork on a metal desk and an entire ocean of it on the ground, sat a single man, a mixture, of pure madness and despair on his face, taking a sip from his fifteenth cup of coffee just that day before slamming it back on the table.

*Slurrrrrppppp*

"Ahhhhh,"

*Slam*

It was a tall man standing at a height of 6\'6" that seemed no older than 30 yet looked 50 at the same time, his previous jet black hair and beard were now dishevelled and showing a few strands of white growing from the roots, the bags under his eyes had their own bags, causing a black ring around them from a mixture of his extreme stress and lack of sleep. His previously smooth skin now showing small wrinkles and other signs of ageing.

It was none other than general Ryker...

If one would have called him a zombie before he was now a mad, broken empty husk.

He leaned back onto his chair, letting go of his pen that he had been using to file paperwork before yelling a painful cry at the top of his lungs, grabbing a few papers on the ground, shoving them in his face like a pillow.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,"

Then, he leaned even further back onto his chair once more, a mellow smile and chuckle of depression as he began to laugh softly to himself, a few tears running down his face.

"Heh… Heh… Heh…"

He had developed such a method of stress relief during the past week which was so far proving to be rather effective.

20 cups of coffee a day and screaming his heart out did wonders to relieve his now broken mind.

He had the luxury to do such a thing since he knew that his room was fully soundproof, allowing no sound to come in or out, unless it was a knock at the door, something that people were forced to do before entering which meant that he was in complete, secluded privacy just like he wanted, meaning that nobody could see him in such a messed up, sorry state.

Despite knowing that he would no doubt be fired in the coming days, he still had a position and stature to uphold as the pillar of the school, and he did not want to further embarrass himself and sully his already tarnished legacy and reputation.

He had been reprimanded and looked down upon by all his peers in the military, including people of lower standings such as teachers and even students over, and over, and over again, been sent so many death threats from various families that it was almost too much to keep up with, and now, in the blink of an eye, he was about to lose his job…

A job that he was so passionate about and had worked so hard to obtain, so many years of non-stop training and determination to prove himself the best out of all his peers, all of that gone... flushed down the drain for what seemed to him at the time, a simple miscalculation which made him go absolutely crazy.

If anything, most people thought that he had gotten off easy, not being jailed or executed for his actions, only being fired and branded as an outcast. But in that respect they would have been completely wrong, he would have much rather been sent to jail, at least there he would have been safer.

He was going to be thrown out as a disgrace, and a social pariah, no one wanting to house or help him despite his power and previous stature in fear of what would happen, thrust in a world where so many people wanted him dead. He had to be on guard, watch himself at every corner because who knew when an assassin from a family would come to take revenge for their fallen children, pinning the blame onto him.

The only reason he was even still in office was that they could not find a suitable replacement in such a short amount of time, meaning that he could keep his job until then because a general rank in the army was required to have a certain level of strength, if they were any weaker assigning them to the position would have been completely impossible. And, since a school needed to have a general rank to function, they had no choice but to keep him in office until they found a suitable replacement.

After the incident of the student massacre, they had sent various patrol teams to inspect the state of the planet that the exam took place on, planet Xibillvia. They had set an exam there only a few years prior, and they did not find any trouble, only weak beasts that reached to the top of D rank at the most. So. they did not bother checking it again as they were certain of the fact that it would stay relatively the same in that short span of time.

It was a good teamwork exercise due to the fact that the planet was predominantly dark and they would lose points for every student killed. The weaker students would be forced to try their best to adapt and survive in the darkness of the night and the stronger students would be forced to stay alert and watch out for any beast that might have taken out a weaker student, making them lose points. Each member was vital and it helped the high tiers and low tiers coexist.

If they needed help of any sorts, they gave them an emergency button that was quite unneeded on such a planet filled with weak monsters, even though they knew that the leaders possessing the buttons were all prideful and would not use the button under any circumstance in fear of repercussions or even worse, disgracing their family name.

At least that was how it was going to work in theory, reality proved otherwise…

When they did the lie detector test on all the students, they noticed that there were near no student on student killing, far less than any year prior. That was not because there was no animosity between the students, far from it. It was only a result of the fact that the students could not afford and had no luxury for infighting, especially when there were now some B and even A rank creatures roaming the planet, ready to sniff them out from where ever they were hiding, that fact was both confirmed by the surviving students and the patrol team sent to the planet.

In the short span of a few years, somehow, the average beast went from being the middle of E tier to the high end of D tier, which was seen as unheard of prior, so it was understandable why the general did not bother to check the planet before sending them, yet, the blame was still all put on his shoulders. The difference in rank might not have sounded like much on paper but was in fact catastrophic, over a 3 times difference in average power level…

These events were unprecedented. Along with the patrol teams, many research teams also joined them trying to understand what had led to such a thing. But, to this day, even after a week they had yet to find any evidence that might have led them to make even the simplest hypothesis, or at least that was what they had told the public. They might have been hiding some sort of deeper secret that they did not want to share with the people, but at this point, despite his temporary general rank, he was not informed despite being in the centre of all the drama. It was most likely because he was not trusted by the military as they did not want to associate with him anymore, a fact that he was constantly reminded of every day since the incident.

Ryker kept laughing to himself with a sorry state, one hand covering his tired, hazy eyes as his mind was overwhelmed with a sudden emotional outburst about what had just happened in the past week, the worst week of his entire life. Moments like these only happened once every few days and every time it happened, he could not help but feel like he had lost more and more of his true self.

*SLAM*

Suddenly, without any warning, the office doors were thrust wide open, a beautiful, pale-skinned, short brown haired girl wearing a white lab coat over her impressive figure was seen at the door, panting with a shaky look of pure horror on her otherwise cute, doll-like face.

When she looked into the dimly lit room, all that she was able to see was the sorry state of the general, quietly laughing to himself with what looked like tears running down from under his black, baggy eyes.

When he noticed her at the door, instead of trying to compose himself and pretend like nothing happened, he instead began laughing even louder and harder than before.

She had assumed that he had been hiding his inner torment from her for the last week on the few occasions that they did talk but she did not expect that he had lost himself to such an extent.

She truly felt bad for him, she knew that none of what happened was his fault, he just followed the standard protocol and paid deeply for it. She was one of the only people in the entire military that was on his side and openly showed and expressed her pity for him when any other person wanted to stay as far away as possible and disassociate themselves from him out of fear.

Yet, now was not the time to comfort him, it was an emergency situation beyond almost anything she had seen in her many years of work and she decided it would have been for the best if she delivered the message to him in person rather than on the phone.

"General Ryker Sir! Pardon the intrusion but I have very pertinent news to report that will require you\'re utmost attention!" The nurse said with a standard salute, still showing Ryker full respect which made him realize what he was doing and snap back into reality.

*Ahem*

"Apologies for the unsightly view you had to come in and witness, don\'t worry about intruding, it was just my break and I saw an extremely hilarious meme. So, what was it that you wanted to report?" Ryker said with a smile, calm and composure in his voice as for some reason, he always felt at peace when he talked to the nurse.

"Sir! 60 students were reported dead in the forest! All of their watch signals disappearing at the same time! This is unprecedented!" The nurse yelled in a grave tone, as soon as she closed the door, not letting any other person pick up on their sound.

"Haha! Don\'t worry about it! You should know that similar things happen every year! It was going to happen sooner or later but I guess 60 is much larger than usual. E and F ranks really have it tough, don\'t they?" Ryker said with a chuckle, trying to calm himself down with some sick humour.

"B-but sir! They all ranged from D rank to low B rank! All at once wiped out! How did this happen!? Who or what do you think did this!? Are you thinking what I am also thinking?!" The nurse frantically announced in panic.

…

…

"Ummm… sir! Are you okay!? We need your help! Sir!" She yelled once more as she waited for a response only to not receive one, the general\'s face going completely blank before an unexpected smile appeared on his face.

\'If this is the work of a Shalker or some sort of other alien or beast and I am the one who captured them, I might be able to save my job! No! I might even be promoted and celebrated as a hero!\' He thought to himself, his smile growing even wider and more distorted than before, trying to think positive and grab onto the small light handed to him with all the might left in his soul.

"Call a school-wide lockdown! No one is leaving in or out the premises! We are going to get to the bottom of this!"