Chapter 299: Ch 298: In Regular Life

Gaining closure with someone from his past helped Kael focus a little, and he returned to the labs.

Somehow, he had a feeling that today was going to be a calm day that he would look back on and think about often. He even hummed to show how nice it felt.

He could feel a lot of human presence lingering just outside his greenhouse, not daring to come in but also wanting to know what he was doing.

Kael allowed them to linger around because he could not be bothered to sort through such things. Besides, if one person was outside, he might as well allow everyone to check what he was doing...

As long as they left him alone.

Once work finished, he decided to head back home. And he was sure that he was going the right way until he realized he had taken the wrong turn and ended up near a familiar place.

"How weird. What made me come back near my old workplace?"

Kael questioned before he suddenly realized how quiet it had gotten. There was no one around the place, which should not have been the case. After all, this street was one of the busiest in the town.

It was at that point that he felt the lingering aura around him.

It was a familiar sensation of magic.

"This...did I walk into a magical barrier? But why?"

Kael’s feet kept him moving until he noticed a building covered entirely by corruption. There was not even a brick to be seen.

"What the—"

Those words escaped Kael’s mouth the same second someone covered his eyes and pulled him back.

Kael panicked and used his magic to throw the other person back, only to hear the other person let out a pained grunt.

"What the hell—! I am just trying to help you. Why are you getting so defensive?"

The person asked, and it took Kael a few seconds to notice who it was.

"Officer Tyson? What happened here? This place..."

Tyson rubbed his shoulder where Kael’s magic had thrown him back, but he did not seem particularly angry about it, especially when he noticed the confused expression on Kael’s face.

"I was going to ask you the same thing. You suddenly walked into the barrier without realizing it, and I had to pull you back before the corruption noticed you."

Kael looked back at the building covered in corruption, his expression becoming more serious as he tried to understand what he was seeing.

"What happened here? Why is this building covered in corruption?"

Tyson hesitated for a moment before he let out a tired sigh.

"We don’t know. It happened sometime during the night, and by the time we noticed it, the entire building had already been swallowed up. This is the first time it has happened during the day. We tried sending people inside, but the moment they approached the entrance, their equipment started malfunctioning."

"That does not explain why this place was targeted."

"That is the problem. We have no idea why it happened. Not that there is usually a reason or pattern where the corruption strikes."

Tyson looked toward the building with a frustrated expression.

"Honestly, there is not much we know about this thing. All we know is that it comes and goes wherever it pleases and it leaves devastation in its way."

Kael stared at the building without saying anything.

Something about this situation felt wrong...or rather, personal.

The corruption had been acting strangely ever since he returned to this world, and now it had decided to swallow the very place where he had once worked.

Could it really be a coincidence?

Or was the corruption following him?

Kael did not want to believe that he was somehow responsible for this, but after everything that had happened to him, ignoring the possibility would have been foolish.

"Have you tried getting rid of it?"

"Of course we have. We tried everything we could think of, but none of our weapons are powerful enough to clear something this dense. We could probably burn through most of our remaining energy reserves just trying to make a hole."

Tyson gave a bitter laugh before looking at Kael.

"But if you have an idea, I would love to hear it."

Kael took another look at the building before slowly nodding.

"I think I can help."

Tyson’s tired expression immediately changed.

"You can?"

"I cannot promise that I will be able to remove all of it, but I should be able to drive the corruption away from this building."

Hope appeared in Tyson’s eyes so quickly that Kael almost felt bad about what he was going to say next.

"However, there is something you need to understand first."

Tyson’s expression became cautious.

"What is it?"

"The people inside are almost certainly dead. The human body cannot take corruption without having a lot of mana to balance it."

The hope in Tyson’s eyes disappeared.

Kael did not say anything else for a few seconds because he knew exactly what those words meant to someone like Tyson.

"If the corruption has completely covered the building like this, then there is no way the people inside could have survived for this long. Even if they were protected by something, the corruption would have eventually reached them."

Tyson clenched his fists.

"You are sure?"

"I have seen corruption before. This is not something that normal people can survive on. I bet those humans died the second the corruption covered the building."

Kael looked at the building again, his expression grim.

"Even if I manage to clear the corruption, I doubt we will find anyone alive inside."

Tyson remained silent for a while before finally letting out a long sigh.

"Then there is no point."

Kael turned toward him.

"What do you mean?"

"If there is no one left to save, then we should not waste our remaining firepower on this place."

Tyson pointed toward the corrupted building.

"The corruption will eventually fade on its own once it runs out of energy. We have observed it before. It usually takes a few days, but it eventually disappears when there is nothing left for it to consume."

Kael frowned.

"So you are suggesting we just leave it alone?"

"I am suggesting that we save our resources for places where people are still alive. It will take less power to keep this barrier up than to help dead bodies."

Tyson looked exhausted as he spoke, but there was a strange calmness in his eyes.

"We are already running out of power. Every artifact we use takes time to recharge, and every attack against the corruption drains resources we cannot easily replace. If there is no one inside this building who can be saved, then there is no reason to waste our firepower here."

Kael stared at the building again.

He understood the logic behind Tyson’s words.

From a purely practical perspective, there was no reason to waste precious resources on a building full of corpses.

But something inside Kael refused to accept that answer. He wanted to help since he felt partially responsible for what happened.

In the end, the only thing he could do was head back home.

Kael reacherd home and immediately opened the news, expecting to see the incident plastered across every major news channel and website.

After all, a building being completely swallowed by corruption was not exactly something that could be ignored, especially in a world where people were already terrified of what the corruption could do.

But surprisingly, there was nothing.

Kael checked one news website after another, scrolling through the latest headlines and searching for anything related to the incident. He even tried looking through smaller local websites, but there was still nothing that mentioned the corrupted building or the people who had been inside it.

It was as if the entire incident had never happened.

"What the hell...?"

Kael muttered as he stared at his screen, his confusion slowly turning into relief.

Someone had clearly managed to suppress the news before it could spread to the public, which meant that there would not be a wave of panic caused by what had happened.

Still, the relief came with a strange sense of regret.

He knew that hiding something like this was probably for the best, especially when there was already enough fear surrounding the corruption. If people learned that an entire building could be swallowed without warning, there was no telling how quickly society would start falling apart.

At the same time, Kael could not help but feel uncomfortable knowing that the people who had been inside that building had simply disappeared from the world without anyone knowing.

"They probably won’t even be listed as missing for a while..."

Kael leaned back against his chair and rubbed his forehead, trying to push the thought out of his mind. But even knowing this did not make him feel better.

The knowledge of what happened made him wish he could go back to the life before he knew what was happening.