Chapter 273: [Freedom Dove] - Nerio’s part (25)
[What the hell, so Nerio really did kill someone, didn’t he?]
[I can’t believe this happened—that was a real human life, and Leonard followed Nerio after all...]
[Leonard ate Lucian’s heart. Now he’s completely loyal to Nerio. Maybe he’s even forgotten that he was human.]
[Damn it, go ahead and justify it as Nerio just wanting to save Leonard, but there were definitely plenty of other ways to save him—not just that one...]
[But hey, if it came down to a choice, people would still pick Leonard, right? He’s humanity’s hero...]
[But Nerio is a god. Believers, stop speaking on Nerio’s behalf, it’s ridiculous!]
[Those believers still haven’t woken up. The government should classify them as heretics and wipe them out already!]
[This time, humanity is really finished!]
[You know why you’re all screaming? Because you know Nerio isn’t on our side anymore. Now all you can do is hope in the artificial espers—ha ha, you call that humanity’s hope?]
[These people are thrashing around because they know the artificial espers don’t have any real abilities beyond their big mouths, let alone closing this dungeon.]
[While other espers risked their lives going out to search for clues, the artificial espers just went home to sleep. Isn’t that laughable?!]
[Nerio should’ve dealt with those artificial espers and not turned his back on humanity.]
[Yeah, but if he really had dealt with the artificial espers, some of you would be crying about how Nerio crushed humanity’s last hope, ha ha ha.]
[Normally, when a god is present, the dungeon closes in one go. I disapprove of Nerio killing someone, but honestly, those artificial espers provoked him!]
[I also like this new project, but couldn’t the government have chosen more normal people? Those are all so arrogant!]
[I used to know Brute. He was just a big dumb guy, nothing like how he acts in the dungeon... I don’t mean anything by it, but it seems like turning into an artificial esper changes you somehow...]
[You’re saying that out loud, ha ha ha, aren’t you afraid the government will ban your chat?]
[Nerio’s believers, stop making things up!]
After Nerio ripped out Lucian’s heart, the voices online grew even more divided than before. However, one notable shift was the emergence of doubts about the artificial Esper project itself.
After all, people often say anger gets misdirected. They saw Nerio as having completely turned his back on humanity because of the arrogance of the artificial espers. Those very artificial espers refused to let Nerio intervene in the dungeon, even denying him outright.
Unless the artificial espers truly succeeded in handling this dungeon, they would face a wave of attacks or never be entirely accepted.
Layla glanced at the reactions online. The worry and sorrow in her eyes were impossible to conceal.
Not only inside the dungeon, but the undercurrents outside were surging violently too—an oncoming tide threatening to swallow everything whole.
Meanwhile, in the office of Curtis Corporation, the female assistant, watching the online situation, said coldly, "Keep controlling public opinion. Either way, comments defending Nerio cannot be fewer than comments cursing him."
The subordinates could only obey her words. The assistant herself sighed silently—what else could she do? The chairman was their superior, the one paying their salaries.
And he... was stubbornly following a little demon...
Public opinion outside kept fermenting without pause, while humanity inside the dungeon remained unaware.
They didn’t even know that Lucian had been skewered to death by Nerio...
The teachers’ dormitory was only five minutes from the students’ dorm.
Susan’s group arrived quickly.
There was no gatekeeper outside the teachers’ dormitory. It loomed there, surrounded by waist-high weeds spreading in all directions. The path was almost entirely swallowed by grass. The walls were decayed and blotched, all shrouded in gloom. To call it a dormitory was generous—it looked more like an abandoned house, eerily similar to their own dorm at night.
Still, there was one difference: the students’ dorm was always dark at night, but the teachers’ dorm had lights.
The window of a room on the far left of the second floor was still faintly glowing. A teacher there hadn’t gone to sleep yet or had forgotten to turn off the light.
"Nana, Sana," Susan called.
The twin sisters didn’t wait for her to say more. They answered in unison, clasped each other’s hands, and instantly vanished, like a wisp of smoke impossible to catch in the dark.
In no time, they reappeared inside the gatehouse, beginning to search for records about which teachers lived in the dormitory.
Susan smiled at the others: "Just wait a moment."
No sooner had she finished speaking than the sound of branches rustling echoed, accompanied by a faintly foul stench. Before the figure even appeared, a booming voice shook the surroundings:
"You insolent brats, daring to defy the rules—where are you hiding?! Don’t think I don’t know you’re skulking around out here!"
Ms. H’s voice at night grew even louder, echoing through the entire forest, accompanied by the squelching sound that drew closer and closer, like some colossal slug frantically crawling its way.
The group exchanged glances and immediately bolted toward the teachers’ dormitory to hide.
The unshakable rule: if possible, hide. Never confront a monster head-on unless necessary.
Because within the dungeon, monsters were endless. At any moment, another could appear. Hurting themselves now would only spell trouble later.
"Come out here, you brats! If you damn students had just followed the rules, this school would have been fine! I wouldn’t have lost my job either! Why won’t you listen, huh? Huh?!"
Ms. H sounded completely deranged. The cracking of collapsing trees rang out repeatedly, the ground groaning under the crushing weight.
Her roars thundered through the night, yet the entire dormitory building remained silent, as if no teacher inside could hear—or cared to.
[This hag always has some sob story on her script, when in truth she’s a tiger pouncing on prey!]
[I thought she’d be the first monster Nerio took out, but turns out the first thing Nerio killed was a human... smiles smiles]
By now, the humans had crammed themselves into a storage room on the first floor. They caught sight of Ms. H’s current form from the crack of the door.
Exactly as they feared—she had grown monstrously huge. Her ulcerated flesh bulged outward, forming a grotesque mass of meat over two meters tall and five meters long. Yet her limbs remained pitifully short; only her hands and feet protruded from the mass, wobbling like four bloated tumors with every movement she made.
She opened her mouth so wide her head nearly split in two. From it burst a slug-like slab of flesh, forcing her upper jaw to flip back while her lower half was swallowed up entirely beneath that slick, writhing mass, more than fifty centimeters long.
The "giant slug" writhed, two tiny black dots dotting its surface like eyes, its body stretching, retracting, bobbing up and down like a probing sensor.
Everywhere she crawled, the blisters and ulcers covering her body burst open, drenching the ground in fresh crimson mixed with oozing black slime—the source of that rank, suffocating stench.