The Rising Of The Anomaly - Chapter 171

Today’s the 25th of December, a little under two months after the end of that combat exam. Public opinion of the X-Warrior Zone had continued to grow worse and worse since then, which was to be expected.

Considering how many people had died in the last year, you can’t exactly blame the public for their outrage. A lot of people had lost loved ones thanks to the string of incidents we’ve gone through lately, and that’s not counting the victims that were currently stuck in vegetative states.

Most of their loved ones were probably still clinging to the false hope that they might wake up someday, but those hopes will never come true.

A few days after the end of the combat exam, I went to apologize to Kiran’s parents, who were both devastated. But they didn’t blame me at all, instead directing their hatred towards the Academy and the X-Warrior Zone in general, as most others had done and were doing.

It was starting to get out of hand, there were protests in the streets, severe criticism online, many of those involved in the running and operations of the X-Warrior Zone were being harrassed with stuff like vandalism to their homes, death threats, and other harassment methods inspired by the pre-WWIII era.

Director Silva bore a significant amount of all that, since she was the highest authority in charge of the X-Warrior Zone. The governments of each of the four quadrants understood the situation a lot better than the people did, since they’ve been actively involved in the X-Warrior Zone too, but they’ve kept that quiet and stayed neutral in this conflict.

Pretty cowardly if you ask me, the governments had always kept their involvement in the X-Warrior Zone a secret, I only knew because Director Silva had once let it slip by accident. I kept it to myself though, I have no intention of stirring up more trouble and controversy.

Anyway, while the governments may be staying quiet for now, it probably won’t be long before the public uproar pressures them into taking action. I find myself doubting that the higher ups of the X-Warrior Zone will remain the same after this year.

Here’s how it works, at the start of each new year, the top members of each of the four governments gather and discuss whether the X-Warrior Zone should continue as it is or if a new administration should take over. If they go with the former, then they discuss whether or not the current director is good enough or if a new director needs to be chosen.

And if they go with the latter, they discuss whether anyone from the previous administration should stay on, in order to ensure a smooth transition. After that, candidates are picked for the director position and other important roles, which are decided by a good old-fashioned public vote. Usually, it’s mostly just X-Warriors that actually bother to vote, but I have a feeling that a lot more people are going to vote this time.

Several X-Warriors are invited to attend these annual meetings, and the meetings are also livestreamed online, to assure the public that there’s no corruption or politics in the process.

Public opinion is also taken into account, using online polls to see where the opinion of the majority lies. Director Silva and the current administration had gone largely unchanged for the past eight years, during which Director Silva had been in charge for the last six, after the previous director retired and highly recommended her to be his successor.

In the past, the live streams of these election meetings didn’t get many views. Since things rarely went wrong back then, most people didn’t really care about the administration of the X-Warrior Zone.

But now, with so much having gone wrong in the span of less than a year, very few people can remain indifferent anymore. Of course, most of what’s gone wrong hasn’t been the fault of the administration, but they’re the only ones that the public can really blame.

Things had certainly been tense at the Academy too, it’s not like we were all silent or something, but there was a definite sense of tension in the air, so it all felt kinda half-hearted, though that was slowly starting to fade, as things began settling down a bit. Oh, and the final round of exams for Level Q finished two days ago.

But unlike the exams that were held two months ago, we didn’t go outside the Sanctuary at all, most of our exams back in Level J were easier than this batch of exams were…well, except for the written exam, which was kinda difficult this time around, but the combat and teamwork exams were as easy as they come.

Following Kiran’s death, the number of students in my class was down to eleven, having started out with sixteen. And the difference of five didn’t include a single dropout, all of them had died…Alex Jaice, Jian Lee, Misaki Aki, Andre Phillips…and Kiran Sigdel.

With the two most recent deaths, the assigned teams in my class were now lopsided, so a change was made. For the rest of our time at the Academy, we’d be split into two teams, my team of five remained as it was, while the rest were combined into a team of six.

Our official teams would also remain as such once we graduate. No one had dropped out from my class, but there were some dropouts from the Level K and A classes. I’m guessing some of those were pressured by their parents to do so.

Well, on the bright side, there hadn’t been any large-scale Mutant attacks, nor were there any sign of the Wights approaching the Sanctuary. Additionally, the area outside the Sanctuary was now highly secure, roads had been built, connecting all the various bases…though it seemed kinda unnecessary since people can easily just teleport between them.

And on the outermost ring of bases surrounding the Sanctuary, a wall that was about a hundred meters tall had been built, spanning the entire circle of a hundred and twenty-five kilometer radius around the Sanctuary.

With the Disintegration and Dampening Fields in place, infiltration was effectively impossible. At least, on paper…the Wights might still have some Anomalies with powers that can bypass our security measures. Anomaly powers are highly unpredictable and dangerous, it’s pretty much impossible to account for all of them, especially when the majority are unknown.

Well, anyway, like I said, today’s the 25th of December, aka Christmas, so let’s set aside all the heavy stuff for today. Religions aren’t a thing anymore, so it has no religious significance to anyone in this era, but despite that, it’s still the biggest holiday in the Sanctuary.

Usually, I don’t really do anything on Christmas, at most I’ll hang out with my sister or something like that, nothing major. But this time, I had something to do…well, it’s more accurate to call it an option, but I think I just might go for it.

Specifically, Mitchell had invited me to a party at his place, along with the rest of the class, since his parents were apparently out and wouldn’t be back till the next say.

I’ve never been to a party at someone’s house before, and I kinda found the idea appealing, but the problem is that he invited everyone in the class, and by that, I mean EVERYONE. So I was a little bit reluctant to go and hadn’t yet confirmed whether or not I was going to be there, but I feel like I’m leaning more towards going than not going.

I let out a sigh and tapped on my I-Watch, bringing up the holoscreen and opening my messaging app. Mitchell had made a group chat with everyone in the class, so that he could confirm who was coming and who wasn’t.

It was supposed to start at 7 PM, and it’s currently a little past 5 PM right now, which means that I’m one of the last ones left who’s yet to confirm. So far, seven people had confirmed, and one had turned down the invitation due to having other plans. That was Makoto, and of the three remaining that were yet to respond, there was myself, Taayin and Asshole.

I didn’t realize it at first, but I was waiting for Asshole to respond, and hopefully, say that he can’t come…if that happens, I won’t have any reason to hesitate. I mean, yeah, Bytra’s gonna be there and all, but a bit of my animosity towards her has subsided, just a little.

After the combat exam, she contacted me a few days later, gave me a call. It was a pretty awkward conversation, not gonna lie. But, admittedly, it wasn’t unpleasant. She just asked me if I was doing alright, and I thanked her for trying to drag me back after I passed out, since I was genuinely grateful.

Since then, I haven’t really interacted with her all that much, excluding a few minor arguments here and there.

My I-Watch then suddenly buzzed as I got a notification, a new message in the group text. Please be Asshole saying that he won’t be able to make it, that’d mean the world to me right now…

‘I’ll be there, though might be a bit late!’, it was a response from Taayin.

Crap, that only leaves me and Asshole…not good, I don’t want to be the last one to respond, that seems a little arrogant. Not sure why or how that even makes sense, but somehow, it did. Fuck it, I’ll respond too…

‘I can make it too’, I typed and sent, letting out a sigh.

Oh, someone sent another message, literally seconds after I sent mine…and sure enough, it’s him…

‘Sorry for the late response, I didn’t feel right responding before Kilzachs, I didn’t want to offend him. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it, I’ve got other plans. But thank you for the invitation!’

Are you…are you kidding me right now!? The reason why he didn’t respond all this time…was because he was waiting for me to respond first!?

Wha-…what the fuck, man!?

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