The Extra is a Hero?-Chapter 301: ADMINISTRATION

Chapter 297: Administration

​The explosion didn’t sound like a bomb. It sounded like a choir screaming in a vacuum.

​CRASH.

​The reinforced glass of the stasis pods didn’t just break; it pulverized. A shockwave of condensed mana—half freezing blue, half crimson mist—erupted outward, turning the medical bay into a vortex of chaotic energy.

​"Shield!" Leon roared.

​He tackled me, twisting his body mid-air to place his armored back between me and the blast.

​We hit the floor hard, sliding across the linoleum as shards of mana-hardened glass embedded themselves in the metal cabinets above us like shrapnel.

​"Gah!" Leon grunted, his body jerking as debris pinged off his plate mail.

​"Stay down!" I shouted, pressing my face into the cold floor. "Don’t breathe the mist! It’s raw mana!"

​The air in the carriage instantly became heavier than lead. The [Tear of Gaia] wasn’t a gentle potion. It was the concentrated vitality of a planet, a legendary elixir meant for gods and dragons, not level 40 students. Pouring it into their systems was like trying to fuel a lawnmower with rocket propellant.

​WHIRRRRR.

​The sound of the reaction intensified. The temperature in the room plummeted on the left side, frosting the metal walls instantly, while the right side grew heavy with the humid, metallic scent of accelerated biological growth.

​"Did we kill them?" Leon yelled over the roar of the energy storm. He looked over his shoulder, his eyes wide with panic. "Michael! The pods exploded! We killed them!"

​"No," I rasped, coughing as the pressure popped my ears. "We didn’t kill them. We jump-started them."

​I forced myself to look up.

​My [Quantum Analysis Mind] was still active, burning the last dregs of my stamina, but it gave me the view I needed.

​Through the swirling vortex of ice and red mist, I saw them.

​Maria and Selena weren’t slumped on the floor. They were suspended in the air, held aloft by the violent output of their own cores.

​[Target: Maria Frostheart]

[Status: Metamorphosis]

[Assimilation: 45%]

​The golden liquid of the Life Dew was visible inside Maria’s veins, glowing through her translucent, pale skin. It was fighting the [Cursed Ice Body], hunting down the necrotic frost that had been killing her.

​Where the gold met the blue, it didn’t heal—it fused.

​The ice clinging to her skin wasn’t melting. It was changing structure. The jagged, chaotic frost was smoothing out, becoming geometrical, perfect. Her hair, once a soft blonde, was bleaching into a stark, absolute white.

​[Target: Selena Leafwalker]

[Status: Metamorphosis]

[Assimilation: 42%]

​On the other side, Selena was undergoing a more visceral transformation. The internal injuries she had sustained—the punctured lung, the shattered ribs—were knitting together at a speed visible to the naked eye.

​But it wasn’t just healing.

​Roots—fine, crimson tendrils—were erupting from her pores, weaving a natural armor over her skin. The Life Dew was reacting with her Elven bloodline, awakening something ancient. Something that the High Council had tried to breed out of their race.

​Primal Vitality.

​"They’re absorbing it," I whispered, awe overcoming my exhaustion. "But the reaction... it’s too violent. The carriage can’t take it."

​The metal walls of the medical bay groaned. Rivets popped. The floor buckled under the conflicting gravitational forces of the two awakening powers.

​Outside, the howling of the wolves intensified. They could smell the mana. To the Starved Beasts of the Zone, the medical bay was currently a lighthouse of delicious energy.

​THUD.

​A massive impact shook the train. General Vargr was tired of waiting.

​"Open this can!" Vargr’s voice boomed from outside, muffled but terrifyingly close. "I want the meat!"

​The roof of the medical bay dented inward. A set of three massive claw marks tore through the outer steel, letting in a blast of the blizzard.

​"They’re breaching!" Leon scrambled to his feet, raising his shield. "Michael, get back! I’ll hold the door!"

​"Don’t engage!" I ordered, struggling to stand. My legs felt like rubber. "If you distract the energy flow now, the girls will go into mana shock!"

​"But Vargr is—"

​CRUNCH.

​A massive section of the roof peeled back like a sardine can lid.

​Snow and wind blasted into the room, swirling with the magical storm already raging inside.

​Above us, standing on the edge of the torn roof, was General Vargr.

​He looked demonic against the grey sky. His white wolf-pelt cloak whipped around him, and his red spear pulsed with hunger.

​"Found you," Vargr grinned, revealing sharpened teeth.

​He looked at the two floating girls, at the golden light coursing through them.

​"And I found dessert."

​He raised his spear to strike Maria, who was defenseless in her trance.

​"NO!" Leon roared.

​He didn’t have the angle to block. He threw the [Breaker’s Hammer].

​The heavy iron weapon spun through the air, aimed at Vargr’s head.

​Vargr didn’t even flinch. He swatted the hammer aside with the shaft of his spear as if it were a toy. The hammer clattered uselessly onto the snowy roof.

​"Pathetic," Vargr sneered. "A broken knight and a crippled tactician."

​He drove the spear downward.

​Time seemed to freeze.

​I reached for my sword, but I had none. I reached for a spell, but my mana was empty.

​Is this it? I thought. We saved them just to watch them die?

​The red spear tip descended toward Maria’s chest.

​But it never connected.

​SNAP.

​A sound rang out. Sharp. Instant. Absolute.

​It was the sound of the universe freezing.

​The storm inside the room stopped. The swirling mist vanished. The red fog coalesced.

​The chaotic energy didn’t dissipate; it solidified.

​Vargr’s spear stopped inches from Maria’s skin. Not because he halted, but because the air around Maria had turned into a solid block of transparent, diamond-hard ice.

​The spear tip hit the ice. It didn’t crack it. It didn’t scratch it.

​It bounced.

​Vargr’s eyes widened. "What?"

​At the same time, the crimson roots surrounding Selena snapped tight. They didn’t just cover her; they expanded, shooting upward like jagged spikes, forcing Vargr to leap back to avoid being skewered.

​The two girls lowered slowly to the floor.

​The golden glow in their veins faded, absorbed completely into their cores.

​The Life Dew was gone.

​The stasis pods were dust.

​Maria stood on the left. The ice beneath her boots spread in a perfect fractal pattern. She wasn’t shivering. She was stillness personified.

​Selena stood on the right. She crouched low, her fingernails elongated into red talons, a low growl vibrating in her chest.

​They were alive.

​But looking at them—at the dull, matte blue of Maria’s eyes and the feral, slit-pupils of Selena—I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

​The Administration was complete.

​But the side effects... were just beginning.

​[System Alert: Allied Units Awakened.]

[Maria Frostheart: Rank Up -> B+ (Pseudo-Awakened)]

[Selena Veylan: Rank Up -> B+ (Primal Reversion)]

​Leon lowered his shield, staring at his friends.

​"Maria?" he whispered. "Selena?"

​They didn’t answer him. They were looking up at the hole in the roof. At the Beastmaster.

​The silence that filled the carriage now was heavier than the storm. It was the silence of a predator recognizing a threat.

​And for the first time since the crash, I wasn’t afraid of the monsters outside.

​I was afraid of what we had just created inside.

(To be Continued)