The High Priest’s eyes widened the moment he heard my full name.
His breath caught in his throat, and in a trembling voice laced with disbelief, he stammered, “Th-Theosbane?”
I nodded matter-of-factly.
“Wh-What’s a Theosbane doing here?” He asked, his pupils shrinking. “What do you want?”
I arched an eyebrow. “Hmm? What do I want? I want many things, actually. A harem of beautiful sugar mommies who spoil me. A treasure chest that never runs out of gold. A devoted cult of admirers that worships me day and night—”
Before I could continue to voice my ridiculous wishes, the High Priest cut me off. “What do you want from us?!”
“…Oh!” I clapped my hands. “Now you’re being specific. From you? Nothing. I already got what I wanted.”
I gestured vaguely at the room full of dead bodies and smiled amicably. “I wanted you and the Overlord to fight to the death. You did it. Now, you’re useless to me.”
The High Priest’s breath grew shallow. His pupils darted from corpse to corpse before snapping back to me. “W–What?”
I frowned, then let out a soft chuckle as if realizing something funny. “Oh, you still don’t understand what happened here. You see, I am the one who was behind everything. I was the puppeteer pulling the strings. I made you fight each other.”
In the game, after winning the Team Test, Michael and his squad received their first mission as a reward.
They had to investigate the Spirit Beast sightings in Ishtara.
The task was simple. Find out what was happening in the city and report back to the Academy.
It wasn’t supposed to turn ugly.
But it did.
Michael was the first to sense something was off.
At first, it was little things.
Inconsistencies in official statements.
Authorities refusing to answer questions properly.
Witness testimonies that made no sense.
But the deeper he dug, the clearer the picture became.
First, he found that corruption ran deep in the city.
Many high-ranking Knights who should’ve been loyal to the Central Monarch were secretly in the Overlord’s pocket.
The same went for most of the police officers.
Second, he noticed that instead of trying to hunt down the Spirit Beasts, the authorities were using every resource available at their disposal to cover up the attacks.
In fact, it seemed like they weren’t trying to stop the Spirit Beasts at all. All their focus was on erasing the evidence that the attacks ever happened.
And they were going to absurd lengths to do so.
Michael, being the infuriatingly nosy bastard he was, kept investigating. He had a hunch — an itch at the back of his mind — that Lord Everan was somehow at the center of it all.
And he was right.
Under Overlord Everan’s estate was a vast research facility.
It was a laboratory filled with caged Spirit Beasts.
The Overlord was running experiments on those abominations. He had been studying them for years, searching for a way to tame them.
And he had succeeded.
He found a way to mold them from birth — a way to condition their minds using a special device created by his scientists.
By shaping them from a young age and altering the way their minds worked, he ensured they would remain loyal to him even after growing stronger.
It was like training a wolf cub. Raise it young, and no matter how large it grows, it will always see its master as its god.
Michael, like a typical shonen protagonist, led his Squad to confront Overlord Everan.
It was a long, dramatic battle, but in the end, the heroes managed to kill the Overlord and stop him from unleashing his Spirit Beast army on the city.
Michael thought they had won.
The Overlord was dead, and the Academy officials were soon arriving to shut down his lab.
But then came a plot twist.
At the last moment, Michael realized something significant.
He began to question how the Overlord had acquired so many Spirit Beasts?
Where did he get the funds to conduct his experiments?
And how did he manage to recruit such intelligent scientists capable of creating a complex device to control the Beasts?
None of it made any sense — until it did.
Michael recalled that the Overlord wasn’t the only influential man in the city.
There was also Bowden, the High Priest.
While Lord Everan had most of the high-ranking knights and police officers under his thumb, the High Priest had connections with many top businessmen and wealthy families.
The Overlord possessed power, but the High Priest controlled the flow of money.
Therefore, the only way Lord Everan could’ve pulled something like this was if the High Priest had been supporting him from behind the scenes.
And once again, Michael was right.
Beneath the church, there was another research facility — an even larger laboratory than the one under the Overlord’s mansion.
However, this realization came too late.
Because by that time, the High Priest had unleashed his Spirit Beasts into the city, resulting in unprecedented chaos.
Michael and his Squad rushed to battle the monsters and save as many citizens as they could.
The Academy officials also arrived to help protect the city.
But it was all too little, too late.
By the end of this crisis, more than half of the city lay in ruins, and thousands of lives had been lost.
Those who survived were manipulated by the High Priest and ended up blaming the Central Monarch for the widespread destruction.
They accused her of failing to protect her subjects.
The truth about the High Priest’s actions never came to light, since there was no evidence left to paint him as the culprit.
The region of Kandara declared a vote of no confidence in the government and the Central Monarch, proclaiming itself a free nation.
This decision sparked conflicts that eventually led to another war in the Kandara region, which then set off a chain of chaotic events.
Kandara started fighting for freedom, while the Monarchs started fighting to rule over it once again.
It was only much later in the story that Michael learned about a Secret Society known as the Syndicate of the Nameless Lords, which was responsible for everything.
The High Priest and the Overlord had merely been puppets, manipulated by this organization that pulled the strings from the shadows.
The Syndicate was behind everything.
…I didn’t like this storyline. So, I changed it.
High Priest Bowden, still on the ground, looked up in genuine confusion. “What do you mean you were behind everything?”
I smirked, tilting my head as I gazed down at him.
“I’m one of the Cadets sent here by the Apex Academy,” I said casually. “After arriving, I made sure my Squad’s focus stayed locked on the Overlord. I forged some documents — fake, of course — but the things they exposed were real.”
I shrugged. “Like how the Overlord built a network of underground tunnels to deploy his Beasts in the city. Or the blueprints of the research facility hidden under his mansion.”
As I spoke, the color drained from the High Priest’s face.
I continued, my tone light, almost amused:
“I let my Squad discover those fake documents. To make sure they never doubted their authenticity, I had a certain police officer killed. After that, it was only a matter of time before they decided to raid the Overlord’s mansion. It was all just as I had planned.”
I crouched slightly, watching as realization dawned in his widening eyes.
“And from there? Everything fell into place. I broke into your office and stole every bit of sensitive data I could find — evidence of your dealings with the Overlord, proof of how you funded him, how you provided the workers for his construction projects.”
Bowden’s lips parted as he tried to speak, but I didn’t let him.
“I sent you a little blackmail message,” I continued smoothly. “Pretended to be a thief who was looking to make money. I told you that the Overlord had hired me to steal that data. And, naturally, you assumed he was planning to betray you.”
The High Priest’s face twisted in a mix of rage and disbelief.
I chuckled. “You bought my lie. Hook, line, and sinker.”
I straightened up. “Then I sent Overlord a text — this time, pretending to be your informant. I told him that the Cadets were coming for him because you had sold him out. And, as a token of my goodwill, I gave him the location of your safe house.”
His breath hitched.
“The Overlord believed me, too.” I shrugged. “I don’t know what he did with the Cadets, but after dealing with them, he came straight here. The rest? Well, you know the rest.”
I spread my arms, gesturing at the carnage around us. “You came here. He was waiting for you. You both fought. Just as I hoped you would.”
I tilted my head, my smirk turning into a wide grin. “And in the end, you killed each other — or, well, you killed him.”
I took a step closer, watching as the full weight of the truth crashed down on him. “Just like I hoped you would.”