Chapter 229

I stood in front of the Baking Club room, gathering my thoughts.

“Here…!”

“This is our club!”

The primary goal of Awakening Training Institutions like Aegis Academy is to cultivate experts in violence.

However, there’s a problem: excessively violent individuals tend to lack social skills.

To solve this, academies support various club activities.

And the place our Violets have chosen to affiliate with is none other than the Baking Club.

A delightful aroma of baked goods wafted as I opened the door.

Inside was our Senior Chief with light brown hair. Her name was Narisa.

“Hello!”

I greeted her with an energetic voice, and the Senior Chief warmly welcomed me.

“Welcome, Violet! I’m glad you’ve joined the Baking Club.”

Was Levi here before me? She was also present.

“Wow, you’ve come!”

My heart flitted with excitement. How fun would it be to learn baking?

“It’ll help with food supply!”

“Mass production!”

We should establish our own Violet cookie factory!

I glanced around. The oven, cooking tools, and ingredients were all plentiful.

But it felt somewhat lacking.

“But Senior, why are we the only ones here?”

“Ah, well… there were other members before, but some got busy and left, and a few just signed up without attending. They said baking wasn’t fun.”

The Senior Chief made a sad face.

“We were almost at risk of having to disband due to insufficient members, so I’m really glad you two decided to join!”

“Ah, I see.”

Well, I didn’t care much about the numbers.

“So, what are we making this week?”

“Since this is your first lesson… hmm, let’s try making cookies. It’s the easiest and fastest.”

Following the Senior Chief’s guidance, we put on aprons and began learning to make chocolate chip cookies.

Already, the smell of butter and chocolate tickled my nose.

“Wow! Cookies!”

The process was straightforward. Following the Senior Chief’s instructions, we mixed ingredients like butter, flour, and sugar, diligently kneading the dough into cylindrical shapes.

“Now, from here, you should refrigerate it for about an hour, but that might take too long, right?”

Senior Chief Narisa smiled and put on gloves etched with a magic circle. Then, she reached towards the cookie dough.

“Could it be… freezing magic!”

“That’s right. This way, we can save time.”

The dough froze almost instantly.

“Now, we just need to slice it, shape it, and put it in the oven to bake.”

“This is easy…”

“We’ll be eating in no time!”

After putting the cookie dough in the oven, we let it bake. Fifteen minutes later, we were faced with freshly baked warm cookies.

“How is it? Delicious, right?”

“It’s tasty!”

However, there was a problem. We didn’t have enough cookies.

I wanted to eat more.

“Um, Senior. I want to eat more cookies. Can you help me out?”

“…?”

“B-B Violet. You can’t be serious?”

“Yeah. I need to use my Unique Ability!”

All eyes turned to me. After closing my eyes and concentrating for a moment, my red magical power surged, and twenty Violets appeared.

“You could use your Unique Ability? This clone ability is a first… but what are you doing now?”

I assigned them tasks: from preparing ingredients to kneading, shaping, and baking. With twenty hands moving simultaneously, the speed of work increased astonishingly.

“Dough team! Move it!”

“Shaping team! Hurry up and slice!”

“Turn on the ovens! We’re going into production now!”

Senior Chief Narisa looked at the Violets and said, “Alright then, could you act as the fridge for a moment? Levi, bring all the ingredients over! It’s an all-out effort!”

“An all-out effort! I see now!”

“What? Wait! There’s too much!”

As Levi gleefully carried ingredients and helped us, the Senior Chief hurriedly froze the overflowing dough.

What a great Senior Chief she is for actively helping us!

An hour later, the club room was filled with a mountain of cookies spilling out of the oven.

“Yay!”

With this, we could eat as much as we wanted.

“Uh… what now?”

Only the Senior Chief looked at us with a somewhat awkward expression.

—

She couldn’t remember her own name.

After all, nobody in this world cared about such things. She was just an ordinary Awakened Student anyone could see.

A typical household, not prestigious, just an average academy life.

On the surface, it seemed a peaceful daily routine.

But there was always an emptiness lingering in a corner of her heart.

“I’m so bored. With everything.”

It might just be the grumbling of an ordinary teenage girl. She knew she was complaining about something trivial.

Since when had her parents started fighting after she entered the ordinary academy?

“I’m so tired of this house.”

Avoiding the uncomfortable atmosphere, she’d only stayed at school, but soon she became distant from friends and lost focus in classes.

“This won’t do…”

One day, while spending another useless day, she slipped out of the academy and wandered the streets alone.

She thought today would just be another repeat of the ordinary, until she met them.

“Hello, are you feeling drained from life lately?”

She thought she was wandering the city, but suddenly found herself walking down a secluded alley. They appeared out of nowhere, smiling kindly as they spoke.

“Who are you?”

“We are from Ilshimdan. We engage in activities that help find inner peace and enhance life’s focus through meditation and rituals. Interested?”

The one who brought her here asked her to call him an Evangelist.

“There’s no need to overthink. Just go, listen to some good words, and have a cup of tea.”

She thought she would humor their invitation, and at the place she visited, she was able to find inner peace.

“Clear your mind. Feel the fundamental tranquility within you.”

Daily repetition of meditation and mental stability rituals.

“Reality depends on your mindset. What troubles you comes from within yourself.”

A lecture that seemed to impart unexplainable yet somehow comforting answers.

“Don’t worry, just close your eyes. Now, gone, right? The anguish.”

“Y-Yeah, it is.”

The fog of anxiety that had enveloped her disappeared without her knowledge.

“Every day feels new.”

She found herself smiling again, although she wondered how long it would last.

Weeks later, she started feeling something unsettling.

Ilshimdan felt excessively secretive and exuded a strange atmosphere.

“We must willingly burn our ignorance to reach deeper truths.”

The girl asked, “Um, what is truth? I’ve learned it many times but still don’t understand.”

The Evangelist said, “You can’t know the truth without understanding the depths of the world. For that, you must abandon reality. Everything surrounding you.”

They subtly advised her to leave the academy and her home.

Their words, which initially seemed kind, bore an eerie undertone.

Feeling a sense of unease, she hurried back home.

One night, while returning home, she closed her eyes and opened them to find herself bound inside an Ilshimdan building.

“Uh…? Why am I here…?”

What welcomed her was a bizarre altar.

A ceremony of unknown nature was taking place. The Ilshimdan members who had previously seemed kind were now performing rituals with grotesquely twisted faces.

As she stood there, confused, she realized she was unable to move.

“W-What are you doing! Evangelist!”

Terrified, she tried to escape, but formless entities of indescribable colors had already surrounded her.

Her attempts to circulate her magical power with all her might were futile.

And the Evangelists approached.

“No! Let me go!”

As the chanting of those leading the ceremony began, a confusing scene unfolded before her eyes.

On the other side, colorful lights illuminated a bizarre landscape that didn’t belong to this world.

A chilling battlefield blanketed in snow.

In the distance, something enormous stretched out—

“Ahhh!”

In the next moment, the girl found herself alone in a mist-covered, strange space.

‘Where is this?’

A place that felt unfamiliar yet vaguely reminiscent.

As she scanned her surroundings, a black figure suddenly revealed itself before her.

It was one of the Evangelists who had brought her here.

The woman grasped the girl’s face with manic hands.

“Let… me go!”

The girl resisted using self-defense techniques.

The Evangelist flinched and stumbled back.

At that moment of preparing to counterattack, the resistance space trembled, and reality began to fracture.

From the cracks that formed, horrific memories surged forth like waves, bright red, like blood.

“Ah, aahhh!”

Conflicts with her parents,

Alienation from friends,

Isolation and wandering.

And the fear she faced in Ilshimdan.

Pieces of cruel memories clung to her like sticky darkness.

“I- I don’t want this…!”

Now, the figure before her twisted even more grotesquely.

What had shed its human form seemed to embody all the girl’s fears and despair woven into madness.

“Ah, aaah…”

It devoured. It vanished. It transformed.

In the consciousness that scattered like bubbles, her final scream reached out and disappeared.

‘Please stop… I don’t want this…’

On the altar, what had once been a girl rose from her place, examining her body.

“This attempt succeeded as well. There’s still variability among individuals.”

The man Evangelist standing before her spoke.

“You’ll soon acclimate. This is merely a trial.”

The shell that was once the girl lifted its head to peer into a mirror. For a split second, countless stars reflected in its empty eyes before fading away.

“Young beings, easily shaken psychologically, can be quickly manipulated.”

Beyond the mirror, the fleeting silhouette of someone seemed to scream in silence.

“Humph, that’s why humans accustomed to Ether are so troublesome…”

The girl mocked another version of herself in the mirror as she waved her hand. The illusion vanished.

“Our methods have been validated through various procedures. Let’s return to our originally intended destination.”

“The vigilance is high. Do not forget what happened to several members of organizations recently.”

“This is merely reconnaissance. Failure won’t be an issue.”

As the two spoke in whispers, the Ilshimdan members with empty eyes swayed and bowed.

The girl could no longer remember her name.

She didn’t care.