The Extra's Rise-Chapter 460: Mind Break (5)

Rachel blinked as Lucifer spoke. Then, without warning, she launched forward like a plasma bolt.

Lucifer didn’t even get a chance to flinch before she tackled him, knocking him clean off his feet and onto the carpeted floor of her own room—again. Her knees pinned his shoulders, and her hands gripped his collar tight enough to wrinkle fabric engineered not to wrinkle.

"What did you just say?" she hissed, eyes blazing. The kind of fury that didn’t burn—it froze. Cold, furious logic swirled in her expression, and the emotion underneath it was betrayal.

Lucifer kept his hands raised in the universal gesture of "please don’t murder me before I finish explaining."

"Rach," he said, slowly and carefully, as if trying to disarm a bomb with his words. "Just—"

"Rachel, relax," Rose said quickly, stepping closer, though not close enough to get caught in the splash radius.

"Relax?" Rachel snapped, shoulders trembling. "How the hell do I relax?! We fought Arthur over this. We restrained him. We stabbed him. And now you’re telling me we’re going where he was going?"

There was silence. One of those silences so heavy it had texture.

Seraphina, who hadn’t moved from her place against the wall, spoke next. Her voice was like moonlight over cold steel—soft, but not gentle. "Rachel. Stand down."

Rachel didn’t move. But she was listening.

"I want to draw my sword too," Seraphina said, her golden eyes flickering faintly, "but right now, we need clarity, not revenge. If what Lucifer’s saying is true, then we need to understand the whole picture. Losing control won’t help Arthur."

Slowly, reluctantly, Rachel eased off Lucifer, though her glare remained locked onto him like a targeting laser.

Lucifer sat up, exhaling like someone who’d just been let off death row. He ran a hand through his hair and adjusted his collar with the vague indignity of someone who had been both right and tackled.

He looked at them all—Rachel, still seething; Rose, worried; Seraphina, taut with tension; and Cecilia, whose silence was more dangerous than any insult.

"We need to infiltrate the place Arthur was trying to reach," Lucifer said finally.

There it was. The sentence that made the room recoil.

The four women stiffened as one. Like they’d all been slapped by the same invisible hand.

"No," Rachel said immediately. "No, we fought him to stop him from doing that. He broke. He killed people because he was trying to force his way into that place."

"That place," Rose added, voice tight, "was the reason he—he lost control."

"And now you’re saying we’re going to finish what he started?" Cecilia asked, her tone flat, dangerously flat.

Lucifer’s gaze didn’t waver.

"He wasn’t right."

There was weight in his words. Not anger. Not defensiveness.

Just certainty.

"He wasn’t right," he repeated. "Because he killed innocent guards without care. He saw them as obstacles, not people. He was ready to destroy anyone in his way, even if they had nothing to do with what he suspected."

Rachel looked down, jaw clenched.

"We don’t justify that," Lucifer continued. "But that doesn’t mean he was entirely wrong either. Something is there. Something they’re hiding. But if we go in, we do it properly. Together. And with restraint."

There was a long pause.

And then Seraphina spoke, voice colder than before. "So now we walk the same path. But with regret at our backs."

No one argued.

Because they knew.

Arthur might have broken too far to save that day.

But now they had to follow the pieces he left behind—and pray they could still fix something. Anything. Before it all shattered again.

Rose moved to the center of the room, activating her datapad. A holographic layout of the Southern Sea Sun Palace flickered to life, casting the room in a pale blue glow.

"Let’s be methodical about this," she said, fingers tracing through the light to magnify a section. "If we’re going to infiltrate the lower archives, we need a plan that doesn’t end with us becoming mana-deviated wrecks."

"Or dead," Cecilia added, finally finding her voice again. She approached the hologram, studying it with narrowed eyes.

Lucifer nodded. "The archives are here." He pointed to a sealed section beneath the eastern wing. "Three layers of security, diplomatic clearance required, and a rotating staff of elite guards."

"Sounds delightful," Rachel muttered, arms crossed tight across her chest. "And how exactly do you propose we get in? We can’t just flash our academy badges and hope they roll out the red carpet."

"The festival," Seraphina said suddenly, understanding dawning in her eyes. "That’s why the timing matters. The palace will be full of guests, security stretched thin across multiple zones."

"Exactly," Lucifer confirmed. "Plus, Lord Daedric will be occupied with his duties as host. It’s our best chance to access the restricted areas without triggering every alarm in the place."

After the meeting ended and the last threads of argument and tension had finally settled into uneasy agreement, Lucifer left Rachel’s room—not toward his quarters, but toward another destination entirely.

He stood outside the door of Seol-ah Moyong’s room, staring at it like it might bite.

He took a breath.

Then knocked.

The door slid open with a mechanical hiss that felt far too judgmental.

Seol-ah stood inside, expression unreadable, as always. She didn’t look surprised to see him. Then again, she rarely looked anything—she wore composure like body armor.

Lucifer nodded, shifting awkwardly, a familiar weight pressing down on his chest like guilt dressed in diplomatic robes.

"About earlier," he began. "With Arthur—"

"Stop." Her voice was sharp. Not loud. Just precise, like a knife sliding between thoughts. "If you’re here to justify pushing me behind you while everyone else fought, don’t bother. I’ve heard enough versions of ’it was for your own good’ in my life."

That threw him. Not because she was wrong, but because Seol-ah rarely let irritation slip through her voice. She was one of the few people he knew who could frown without moving a single muscle.

"I’m not here to justify it," Lucifer said, straightening slightly. "I’m here to say I was wrong."

That got a reaction. A flicker in her pale eyes—skepticism, maybe. Or shock in disguise.

"I said it wasn’t your business, that you didn’t need to fight for us," He hesitated, then forced the words out. "But the truth is... I was scared. Scared you’d get hurt. And that fear clouded my judgment."

"You were scared," Seol-ah repeated, testing the word like it might be poisonous.

"Yes." The admission landed with the dull finality of something that had been true for far too long.

"When Arthur started to fall apart, all I could think about was getting you out of harm’s way," he said. "It wasn’t strategy. It wasn’t protocol. It was instinct."

For a moment, there was only silence. The kind that could tip into anything—anger, mockery, forgiveness. She studied him with eyes that felt too ancient for her age. free𝑤ebnovel.com

Lucifer looked away, then back again. "We need your help," he said, pushing past the awkwardness. "We’re going back. To finish what Arthur started."

She narrowed her eyes, not in anger, but focus. "Back there. To the sealed wing."

"During the festival," he nodded. "Security will be light, scattered. Too many nobles, too many guests. It’s the best chance we’ll have."

"And you want me with you."

"We need you," he said. "Not as backup. As part of the core team."

She turned away, back to her window. Moonlight painted her profile in soft silver, cutting a perfect divide between shadow and light.

"The last time something like this happened," she said slowly, "you physically pushed me behind you. Ordered me to stay out of the way. You told me, and I quote, ’This isn’t your fight, Seol-ah.’"

Lucifer winced. "I remember."

"I do too," she said flatly.

"I was wrong to do that."

"Yes," she agreed, calm as ever. "You were."

He stepped closer, careful not to crowd her. "I’m here now not because I need to tick a box on a mission plan. I’m here because I owe you more than that. You’ve always deserved to be part of this. I just... let my personal feelings interfere."

"Your personal feelings?" Her voice was low, but not cold.

"I didn’t want to see you get hurt," he admitted. Each word felt like walking barefoot across sharp glass. "That was selfish. I know that now."

"So you decided for me," she said.

"Yes," he said again.

She didn’t reply right away. Instead, she stared out the window as if the moonlight held answers she couldn’t get from him. Eventually, she nodded—once.

"Yes. You were wrong."

Lucifer stayed quiet.

"But," she added, stepping away from the window, "I understand why you did it."

She stopped in front of him, arms folded, face calm again.

"Tell me about this festival," she said. "And when, exactly, you plan to break into one of the most heavily protected buildings on the island."

Lucifer exhaled, tension slipping off his shoulders like fog.

It wasn’t forgiveness. Not yet.

But it was enough.