Result
639 Words
According to their account, the events unfolded as follows: My adoptive mother, Helen, was the victim of a home invasion. The trauma of witnessing the crime scene had a profound psychological impact on me, leading to an unprecedented awakening as a guide in adulthood and an explosive surge in my mental power. Not only did I incapacitate everyone in the entire block, but my mental energy also damaged the mental power detection devices in the area, preventing them from triggering the necessary alarm. Given the situation, it would have taken at least twenty minutes for the local Tower to discover my condition and respond. I wouldn't have been able to last that long. I would have released uncontrolled psychic shocks, killing all nearby living beings and ultimately dying from the exhaustion of my mental energy.
Fortunately, at that moment, an S-rank sentinel on a covert mission several streets away sensed me. He arrived immediately, performed an emergency bonding with me, and calmed me down, intercepting my psychic shocks. Afterward, I fell into a deep sleep due to the extreme depletion of my mental energy.
"That's not true," I said coldly, "He's the one who killed Helen. He was waiting for me there."
A man and a woman were in front of me. The woman, upon hearing my words, stepped forward with a gentle and sympathetic look. She explained that a frenzy is a state detached from the objective world, where one's sense of self distorts the objective reality of the material world, similar to a psychotic break. She expressed regret for my adoptive mother's death but hoped I would understand that everything I felt at the time was an illusion created by my frenzied state. I was in so much pain that I mistook the sentinel who had jumped in through my bedroom window for an emergency rescue for the killer. Although involuntary bonding is painful, she, though not a guide, understood my feelings as a woman. However, I needed to recognize that had that sentinel not forcibly performed the bonding at that time, many lives—those of everyone nearby, including my own—would have been lost.
I realized: that they do not believe my testimony; they trust his.
"Let me see him," I said. "Let me confront him—he's lying!"
They told me: no.
According to the Alliance's Sentinel-Guide Bonding Act, sentinels or guides who have not completed the Tower's compulsory education are not allowed to undergo a deep bonding with others. The safest and least painful way to dissolve an emergency bond is to separate the individuals involved, allowing the unstable bond to disintegrate over time naturally. I was prohibited from any contact with him, and he was similarly restricted, to prevent the continuation and deepening of our bond, which could affect my future bond with a truly compatible sentinel.
The man added that this was for my benefit.
"Then, I want to know his identity."
No. Since he was not at fault, the Tower could not disclose any information about him to me. He was an active S-rank sentinel, and everything related to him was confidential. As I had not completed the guide curriculum and was still considered an ordinary citizen, I had no right to know his identity.
They left. They were not there to question me but to announce the outcome and make me accept it.
Lying on my hospital bed, I clenched my fists. I knew he was an S-rank sentinel. Although I had lived an ordinary life until then, with no acquaintances who were sentinels or guides and limited knowledge of this group, I knew that S-rank sentinels were rare. I could search for him, one by one.
I closed my eyes.
And I had a hunch: he would come to find me again.
I shall kill him.
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- Writer
