The Almighty School (2)

I slowly turned to face the person beside me. My knees wobbled, weakened from the sight as the monster smiled from the sniff of my fear so readily exposed. Her body was translucent, meaning she wasn't physically here. This level of astral projection was not an easy feat to achieve. It could only work if the group was already near the mansion.

"Why did you come back?" I acted like I wasn't afraid.

"Our leader still thinks you could be saved," she frowned.

"What if I don't want to be saved?" I shuddered from the thought.

It was better to be stuck with Luke than to become a monstrous humanoid. I did pity them to a certain extent since they were hunted down all the time. Plus they weren't able to enjoy the luxuries of life like eating good junk food or going to have fun in other districts. But I didn't pity them enough to want to try to save them since my life was on the line.

"If it wasn't for your mana, our leader wouldn't want you too," she cringed like she was disgusted.

Ugh! It was always about how much mana you possessed in the first district! I silently cried inside my heart, wishing I never asked God to have mana in this life. Sometimes, I imagined living a normal life with my family in the third district where no one was interested in me for my mana. But it just made me more depressed as it was never a possibility yet.

I grabbed a dagger on the table and jabbed it through her heart before she disappeared into thin air. I knew nothing would happen to her, but the best way to break an astral projection was destroying the other body. I determined that the vital part of the humanoid was its heart as her eyes widened before disappearing since I got rid of her on my first try.

"What's going on?" I asked the other people in the room.

"We can't afford to fortify the barrier anymore since we've exhausted all our mana," Ben appeared a bit ashamed.

"So we poured the rest of our mana into the teleportation gate," He checked how much was charged with my help.

The floors were filled with empty bottles of the same drink I had taken yesterday to increase my mana in the deeper part of the room. The bottles were amassed into several piles until it reached the ceiling. Since it was hidden on the other side, it wasn't noticeable unless I took a closer look at my surroundings.

"There seems to be enough to send all the guests back," Ben carefully chose his words.

But not enough for the hosts, which included me. Thankfully, I still had around half of my mana left as the group already worked hard on charging the gate. Maybe this was what they had done all night before they knew I had enough mana to charge the gate by myself.

"I still have around half of my mana left," I announced.

"Then, can we go back first?" Oili's partner raised her hand.

Oili's partner appeared deeply disturbed from the astral projection as she needed Oili's comfort to calm her down. But how could we let them go when we needed as much manpower as possible to destroy all the teleportation gates in the other mansions? As much as I wanted to escape, it would be worse if the humanoids followed us all the way to the school.

"Of course, please step into the gate," Lucius allowed them to escape before us.

"We extend this offer to others as well," he glanced towards Ethan and Flora.

"Can I go with them?" I imitated Oili's partner.

Lucius ignored my comment as Ethan and Flora reluctantly entered the teleportation gate with Oili. I watched them disappear as I wondered how we would handle this mess alone. I wanted to join Charles' fraction now since it was the rival fraction of Luke's. They already got preferable treatment with Lucius not wanting their fraction to owe them anything for putting them in danger.

"While you were sleeping, we already worked with our guests to destroy the teleportation gates outside of this mansion," Lucius shut my mouth filled with complaints.

"Then we can leave soon?" My eyes glittered.

Oddly, Lucius gave no answer. This could only mean bad news. Still, I stayed hopeful as I checked the status of the teleportation gate. But, as I predicted, this mana sucker had less than half of its original juice left. Although it was better than nothing, this meant everyone was relying on me to charge the rest of the gate.

"Couldn't you just take the batteries from the other teleportation gates before destroying them?" I yelled in frustration while charging the gate.

"That's what we did. We took those batteries to charge the teleportation gate while we used the rest of our mana to teleport to those mansions. The rest of our mana went to fortifying the barrier with those drinks," Shelly whispered to let me know what I missed.

Oh. No wonder the morning atmosphere was heavy with exhaustion. Everyone had stayed up the entire night while leaving me alone since I seemingly took care of the s-class monster. I hid behind Shelly's back which protected me from the others inside the room after I spent as much mana as I could.