I Became The Administrator of A Sacred Ground
Chapter 52: Shedding Shell

Chapter 52: Shedding Shell

Chaera Doll was calmly filming the entire classroom and talking incessantly to a voice recorder glued to her collar. She paid the unfriendly gazes of the occupants of the room no heed.

A group of employees eventually approached her and stood their ground resolutely.

"Lady, the machinery here are patented secrets of Red Sea Labs. We can’t have you baring their designs to the whole world. Turn off the camera."

Euri couldn’t hear what Chaera Doll said in response, but judging by the smiling look on her face, it couldn’t be anything compliant with their order.

Their argument eventually tipped a scale, and one of the bolder workers tried to grab her camera. Perhaps he wasn’t aware that he was dealing with a Rank-1 superhuman, or maybe he had no control over his impulsivity. Because that was not a good idea, and the next three seconds proved it.

His hand phased through her camera as if she was just a projection, but when she kicked him in the groin, the impact was real enough to make all onlookers flinch. The rest of his group staggered away from her as their brave compatriot crumbled to the floor, croaking in pain.

Chaera Doll scanned the frightened faces in front of her and let out an unprofessional giggle.

"No need for such faces, boys and girls! I was just exercising my right to self-defense against assault. You can do the same if you’re ever in my shoes, y’know?"

"Weren’t you violating his right first by filming him without his consent?" One student shouted. Chaera Doll gave him a look one would give a three-legged dog.

"You don’t do very well in your law classes, do you, kiddo? I’m a journalist, licensed and authorized to interview you all. I get immunity here even if Red Sea Labs happen to have their private equipment nearby. Take it from a pro; knowing law is only useful if you know the loopholes too."

Sending a playful wink in his way, she turned around and unlocked the door. Two more reporters were standing outside, and they flashed her a knowing smile with a nod of acknowledgment. As they too entered the classroom, Principal Serique followed them in, his face grave.

All three reporters started talking to their cameras while ignoring the employee lying near the door. Live footage was being shot right above his body.

"As you can see, all eighty students are gathered here after their assessment. The sheets in their hands seem to be certification of their qualifications. Now let’s hear it from the future prodigies themselves!"

Two of the reporters started interviewing the students closest to them without a hitch. The employees from the Red Sea Labs stood in a corner of the classroom, unsure of what to do. Some of them were tapping their comcells crazily, probably contacting the headquarters for instructions to deal with the trouble.

Chaera Doll, meanwhile, swaggered over to the testing equipment and began tapping the screens curiously.

Euri, having observed it all in silence till now, knew that the moment of reckoning was here. The secret would be out to the whole world the moment their evaluation data was examined closely.

He turned to gaze at Jaakie. The sight of hope dying in his eyes was hard to look at.

Sighing, Euri slowly cut a way through the crowd, headed straight ahead to the front of the group. Students nearby looked at him in puzzlement, unsure of what he wanted to do.

He came to a standstill just behind Chaera Doll. She turned away from the screen and looked him up and down.

"Oh! A student volunteering for an interview! How delightful! All of you kids have been giving me such cold stares that I thought I wouldn’t get a word out of you."

Pointing the small camera right at his face, she followed up, "Your name, young man?"

"Euri."

"That’s a nice name to roll off the tongue, Euri. I just saw your data a moment ago in this terminal. 1.22 points overall, that is absolutely monstrous for a student of a school of this caliber, isn’t it?

"I know some superhumans who reached Rank-1 with a lesser physique rating! Can you share with us how you’ve attained this amazing milestone?"

From the corner of his eye, Euri saw the whole class looking down at their own data sheets. The average physique rating, after the intentional inflation, was about 1.2 points, so that all 80 students could meet the minimum requirement of 1.15 points.

Among them, the highest one had been given to a well-off athletic student—1.35 points. If the data hadn’t been inflated, that guy would probably be around 1.1 point. With regular training, such a rating wasn’t impossible to maintain.

In contrast, Euri’s original rating of 1.22 points in the game was purely a result of consuming ambrosia. The machines probably detected that he had already met the requirements naturally. It must have been why his rating hadn’t been inflated.

"Young man, don’t take so long to answer a simple question. It’s okay if you don’t want to reveal your secrets, too. We can’t force you to speak up!"

Chaera Doll’s singsong tone would have been endearing if he was one of her million viewers. But standing at the cusp of this chasm of fate, he only found it annoying.

"Well? Are you going to answer or not?" the woman asked again patiently.

"Look, lady, we’ve been going through test after test for the entire day. Look how tired everyone seems. Is it absolutely necessary to interrogate us like we’re a bunch of miscreants caught in the act?

"Red Sea Labs hasn’t even issued an official announcement yet. Your source of intel is not much better than a leak. Can’t you guys wait for things to settle first?"

Euri’s reply was very loud, grabbing the voice of authority in the room. The students nearby who were struggling with similar questions seemed to see a lifeline appearing out of thin air as they heard his words. They nodded in tandem in front of the cameras and expressed their support.

"He’s right. Some of the tests we went through were grueling, to say the least."

"We couldn’t even stand straight after the second test!"

"I was barely awake when they were taking blood samples."

"I just finished vomiting, man!"

Voices of support and wild lies began to reverberate in the room. The trio of experienced reporters exchanged cautious looks among themselves for a second and then doubled down.

"Pardon us, please. But this is a moment of national interest! Not just the people of Peacock District, but the whole country wants to know all about you."

"After all, it just seems so unlikely that all the students of a certain class would suddenly show such potential that no other tests in their pasts had detected. This should be investigated in depth as fast as possible, don’t you agree?"

Chaera Doll leaned closer to Euri, a hint of threat shadowing her playful expression as she said, "Of course, if you already know about any secrets behind this phenomenon, then we can conclude the preliminary interviews right here.

"Just tell us anything you know, any guesses behind how all eighty of you gained the intellectual, psychological, and physical qualifications to meet the high requirements of Red Sea Lab’s secret project."

Euri ignored her and addressed the reporter who had just spoken before her. He had given him the opening he needed.

"Hey, did you just imply that our qualification data is suspicious? You don’t believe that we’re better than the average ordinary student, do you?"

The man smiled at him with a derisive look in his eyes. "I never said that, but we cannot ignore the possibility of errors... or fraud. Excuse me for framing it this way, but none of you have managed to give a convincing explanation so far."

It wasn’t hard to guess that this journalist had some insider information. He probably knew that the tests were fake. But that didn’t matter now.

Euri strode over towards him calmly. "If an explanation is all you need, I can represent this class and give you one!"

The reporter had been leaning against an unoccupied desk. Euri shoved him off it with just enough strength to make him lose his balance and tumble down. Then he grabbed the desk by its edge and lifted it up with no hint of effort on his face.

The desk wasn’t even as heavy as the stone slabs he practiced with every day. But when the disheveled reporter looked up and saw Euri towering over him, holding the desk seven feet above the ground like a toy, his fury was replaced by pure fear.

Euri smiled at him with the same derision the man had shown them, and calmly dropped the desk. One of his feet pressed down on the man’s clothes to keep him in his place as the target.

"What the fuck?! Stop— AAAAHHHH!"

Euri caught the free-falling desk by a leg right before it hit the reporter in the face. Then he gently lowered it to give the horrified man a light tap.

"Was it convincing enough? Or do you want me to repeat this with a bigger desk?"

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