Chapter 232: A Dangerous Thought

In the janitor’s closet, Vorden was told of the plan to injure himself to get teleported to the hospital. It would come at the risk of getting questioned why they were so far away from class, but if Quinn was gone, then it would mean the little one, or Sil would become distraught at the news.

‘And after I promised him that he would be okay…’ Vorden thought.

“Alright, do you want me to do the honors?” Raten commented, trying to scooch onto the chair, “You’re a wuss when it comes to these kinds of things.”

“Shut up!” Vorden shot out, then lowered his voice, “I’m hesitating because I don’t want to wake him up.”

On the outside, Vorden peeked through the small window on the door to see if there was anyone around. Thankfully, or not so thankfully, there wasn’t, so he opened up the door and placed his hand between it and the door frame.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to do this?” Raten reminded.

Vorden flung the door wide open, and slammed it closed. However, he hesitated at the last second, hurting his hand, but not enough to warrant a hospital visit.

“Aack—” Vorden bit his tongue, trying his hardest not to alert the rest of the school he was hurt. Not yet.

“Okay fine, weakballs, since you’re such a wuss…” Raten scoffed, and pushed Vorden off the chair. He opened the door again, but put even more force into the door slam. A sickening sound of bones breaking was the signifier of a significant injury.

“Not enough,” Raten strained, and looked inside of the closet. In the corner, he saw a mini ladder, and picked it up with his healthy hand.

Opening it up, Raten climbed to the top, and was about to jump off, when Vorden grabbed Raten in the mind space.

“I was hesitating to make sure we don’t wake him up!” Vorden harshly whispered and gestured to Sil.

“He’s going to be wide awake when he finds out his little pet is gone,” Raten fired back.

Back on the outside world, Raten jumped off the escalator, and fell onto the floor. Unlike his hand, they had no other broken bones, but would certainly gain several bruises.

Dusting himself off, Raten stood up, and looked at his proud work, “Now what are we going to tell them? Got into a hallway fight? Hit a tree and the tree fought back?”

“… We’ll say that we fell down the stairs,” Vorden said, “And on our way down, we tried to cushion our fall with our hand.”

Raten looked at Vorden, but continued piloting the body, “Simple, but effective. Now let’s go find someone to call for a teleporter.”

—

It was unfortunate that Quinn was found so soon. He lacked a lot of MC that would’ve made this fight more winnable, so he couldn’t create armor. At least, not for long.

‘I’ll just have to use mud, since it doesn’t use as much MC as controlling stone or metal.’

Opening up his mud pouch, he slashed at the golems on his leg with a massive glob of mud. It was flung to the side, and he hardened the mud around it. Then, one of the golems suddenly hit his head, sending stars through his vision. As he stumbled, another two golems jumped onto his back, sending him to the ground.

The four golems made from Burder’s soul weapon restrained Quinn, pinning him on his shoulder and knees, but he had a plan.

Lifting his head, Quinn commanded the mud from his pouch to spread out. Then, he shifted the mud to skewer the remaining stoney constructs at an angle. He flung them to where the 5th golem was and wrapped the mud around them.

Panting, Quinn got up, and saw that both Hayley and Rosario were escorting the few injured students away from the fight. Although he could appreciate the back up, he asked enough of their help.

Turning around, Quinn’s eyes widened when he saw Burder missing from the spike.

Suddenly, he was tackled onto the ground, face hitting the floor. This had cracked one of his lenses, but more importantly, Burder was on top of him.

“You’ll be taken in for questioning under suspicions of working for Pure,” Burder whispered in his ear, “At least, that’s what’ll happen after I’m done with you…”

With only a bit of MC left, Quinn had to make it count. First, he commanded a few hospital tiles to lift off the floor, and smashed them into Burder’s face.

“ARGH!” Burder roared, rolling off of Quinn.

Quinn got up again, this time forming a pair of mud gauntlets. This was the last thing he could make, and it was with mud. The material that took the least amount of MC to use.

‘Figures. The first thing I could control was mud, and now it’s the last thing I’m using.’

When looking at Burder, he was holding his left eye tightly. Blood was pouring between his fingers. It was not his intention to blind Burder, but if that gave him even the slightest advantage, Quinn was going to take it.

Burder charged at him, baton in hand, and Quinn caught it with one hand, and punched his side with the other.

Suddenly, a pillar underneath one of Quinn’s feet lifted upwards, catching him off balance. Then, Burder yanked his baton back, and slammed it into Quinn’s arm.

“You don’t deserve to be here!”

Stone encased itself around Quinn’s leg, and the baton crashed into his chest.

“You are a nobody! You never should’ve gained power!”

Burder kicked Quinn onto the ground, breaking the stone with it. He looked up to see the imposing man spit out blood off to the side.

“… So for you to fight back like you actually mean something…” Burder’s mouth cocked into a sinister grin, “Well… Consider this experience humbling.”

The man raised his baton up high, stone collecting around it into a spiked club, and swung it down. Despite his best attempt to block the attack with his arms, it struck his chest. Then Burder raised his baton again, eager to repeat the same move.

There was one last thing Quinn could do to avoid this next blow. Although he hesitated to do it, it involved the spike still inside of Burder’s chest.

“That’s a dangerous line of thinking Quinn,” the system advised, “… But I fear you may have no choice.”

‘If I’m not going to be staying here any longer, then what does it matter?’ Quinn thought back, ‘Someone like him doesn’t deserve to live anyways.’

Dropping the mud gauntlets, Quinn raised both hands to focus the last remaining bits of MC all in one area. By controlling the stone inside of Burder’s chest, he shifted a tiny portion of it, no more than a thumb’s worth, to pierce his heart.

Both Rosario and Hayley returned to help Quinn, but when they did, they saw Burder standing there, motionless, then fall over with a thud.

“… Rosario, go back to the front,” Hayley firmly spoke, and the girl wordlessly complied.

Quinn got up, panting heavily, and with a wild look in his eyes. Then, he glanced down at his hands, surprised he was even capable of going this far.

He just killed someone.