"Another mysterious hole? And this time it swallowed an entire town? Are you serious...?"
While waiting for Fee during the morning commute, Yugo scanned the front page of the morning paper. His face twisted into a grimace as he processed the headline. Reading further, a sense of dread washed over him. He let out a low, guttural growl at the news of a town simply vanishing.
How many does that make now? he wondered. They started appearing a while back, but the scale is just getting bigger and bigger.
He thought back to when he had first heard the rumors circulating among the students. At first, it had been stories of a massive hole suddenly appearing in the middle of an empty plain. Most people had just been baffled, wondering what could have possibly caused such a thing.
However, as time passed, those great holes grew larger and appeared more frequently. One swallowed a whole building; another opened in the middle of a dense forest; a third seemed to gouge out the side of a small mountain. They kept appearing, each one more massive than the last.
The strangest part was the lack of casualties. Despite numerous reports, not a single person had been hurt. The crater that took the town was the most striking example yet—though every house and structure had vanished, every resident was left completely unharmed. It was a bizarre situation.
When questioned, the survivors all said the same thing: they had no idea how it had happened. It wasn't just Luminous Academy; the entire city, the press, and even the officials in the Royal Capital were scratching their heads in confusion.
Naturally, the mystery had sparked endless debate. Everyone had a theory about who was behind it and why. Some claimed a powerful seeker had created them while training to reach new heights of strength. Others insisted it was the work of a new species of Magic Armor Beast. There were even conspiracy theorists who whispered that the Royal Capital was secretly testing new magic items and covering up the results.
None of these theories held much weight, though. They were nothing more than idle gossip. But while the rest of the world amused itself with rumors, a different concern gripped Luminous Academy and the surrounding city.
The reality was simple: the holes were getting closer. From that first plain to this latest town, the sites followed a nearly straight path. It looked as if the phenomenon was steadily marching toward the academy, growing more destructive with every step. Many locals were starting to panic.
The lack of casualties was a blessing, but no one knew how long that luck would hold. It wasn't a stretch to imagine the academy and the city being swallowed next—and this time, they might not be so lucky.
Yugo, however, was looking at the situation from a very different angle. He suspected the culprits were the group calling themselves the masterminds—Lost and his associates.
They know my true identity, he thought. They definitely aren't from this world. Who—or what—are Lost and those other masterminds?
Lost knew that he was actually Yugo Kurei. Could beings who held such secrets even be considered human?
Whether it was the one who turned Rush and Neid into Magic Armor Beasts, the woman named Drop who granted people the power to transform, or Abyss, the man behind the disaster on Wind Island—they clearly operated as an organization. They didn't always seem to be in perfect sync, often acting on their own whims, but their true nature remained a mystery.
One thing was certain, though: their tactics were shifting. Yugo could feel it. From the assassination of the culprit at the zoo to the large-scale chaos on Wind Island, their crimes were becoming far more ambitious.
It was more than just growth. It felt like they were no longer content to pull strings from the shadows; they had begun to act overtly, asserting their presence to the world.
As Yugo’s sense of dread deepened over the masterminds’ pivot from subtle manipulation to open defiance, he heard a familiar sound. Fee came trotting toward him at a quick pace.