Many of the houses had already begun burning before that fireball even exploded, and Samuel's house—the one the scholar had taken special care to target—was naturally no exception.
The temperature climbed rapidly, and thick smoke started rising, stinging people's noses.
"Ah, there goes the rent we paid for the week." Samuel held his right elbow with his left hand while supporting his chin with his right, staring at the burning house.
The thick smoke dispersed instantly as it approached him, blown away by an invisible wind, not affecting him much at all.
He turned his head to look at Falson, who was frantically muttering and cueing the System not far away.
"Yuanfang, what do you think?" Samuel asked with a smile.
"Huh? Uh... I guess we probably can't keep staying here anymore." Falson stopped his muttering and glanced at the burning inn.
He subtly moved a little closer to Samuel's position, hoping Samuel would help him disperse the surrounding smoke as well.
Having this smoke sucked into his mouth and lungs was still pretty uncomfortable.
"Mhm, that's what I was thinking." Samuel's tone was light and cheerful. "Well, seeing how badly the owner's already been screwed over, I won't bother asking him for the deposit back."
"I'm so kind." Samuel praised himself.
Boom!
At that mont, above everyone's heads, the "torch" that the scholar had condensed with his life, spirituality, and na finally reached its glorious and destructive peak.
It exploded.
A massive wave of heat spread out with the shockwave, countless sparks flying and falling from the sky.
The air twisted from the scorching temperature, but Samuel simply raised one hand. The sparks and the blast of heat stopped imdiately just a few feet in front of him, unable to get any closer.
It was as if an invisible umbrella had opened in front of him, deflecting the attacks that slid along its surface in other directions.
The sparks in particular truly bounced off like raindrops hitting an umbrella, not exploding, and even splashing into tiny "droplets."
"What kind of ability is that?" Falson stared at Samuel with envy, feeling like Samuel was basically omni-capable.
"What ability? I'm just using brute force here." Samuel kept his hand raised and answered matter-of-factly.
He hadn't activated any skill at all; he was simply outputting spirituality.
The enemy was using their life to trigger a self-destruct, and he was countering it with his mana pool.
Strange to say, he had been using extraordinary abilities for no less than ninety years—maybe even a hundred.
But in all those countless tis he'd used them, he had never once run out of spirituality.
It wasn't until he ca to this world that he learned using skills consud mana.
He didn't even know about "spirituality" until he got here; before that, he relied more on pure instinct to use his abilities.
Sotis, he was curious about what exactly he was.
But unfortunately, even the Travel Guide couldn't figure it out—though it did add a few question marks after the entry for Law Rhys.
Four question marks, if he rembered correctly.
Hmm, maybe it was sothing with four characters?
With too little information right now, thinking about it was useless. So Samuel stopped pondering that and turned to face Falson, who was also looking out the window, teasing him with a smile.
"You've grown too. You're starting to handle things like this calmly."
Samuel's voice was quite gentle; just by listening to the tone, you probably couldn't tell he was talking about standing by while tragedy unfolded.
Falson smiled noncommittally.
He also felt like he was becoming more thick-skinned. While he was still afraid of the current scene, that fear had lessened significantly.
What dominated his feelings now was more of a longing to beco a Law Seeker.
"Good, keep that up." Samuel nodded.
Turning back, Samuel reached out and lightly pushed off the railing.
His body imdiately rose, clearing the rail.
He flipped over the barrier, plopped himself down on the railing, and let his legs dangle lazily, his eyes dropping to look at the scene below.
"This is really sothing." Samuel comnted, but there was no pity in his voice.
Houses collapsed, seas of fire churned—the entire city was ablaze.
Still, Samuel felt sothing was off.
The scale of the commotion was too small, not matching the feeling he'd gotten when the scholar first appeared.
Was it because of the "punishnt"? But sohow, Samuel didn't think so.
Right now, Samuel was live-streaming everything he saw to Celt in real ti.
He didn't give a damn about the rules.
Whether it was the existing rules or the so-called "no laughing, no happiness, no fun"—none of it mattered to him.
Celt, who was strolling through the garden with Sereia, also saw what was happening.
He gently stroked Sereia's umbrella cap, a look of pity on his face.
Celt didn't care much about the scale of the scholar's self-destruction; he was concerned about sothing else.
"Aren't you going to save them?" Celt asked through Samuel's eyes, looking at the crowd below, unable to bear it.
This wasn't an accusation, just a simple question.
"Save them? Why would I save them?" Samuel's tone sounded a bit confused.
"They're just a bunch of little programs running on autopilot, acting according to a script." Samuel's voice was matter-of-fact.
"No matter how 'real' they are—so real they even fool themselves—fakes are fakes in the end."
"I can't muster any interest at all."
He had noticed it at noon when he went to buy fish.
Samuel had been a little disappointed in this small town back then.
Watching what was happening now, he casually picked so stones off the railing beside him and tossed them down.
The small stones were quickly swallowed by the sea of flas, hitting no one and putting out no fires.
They were just stones.
His gaze swept around casually, and Samuel quickly noticed that his little area wasn't the only one that had resisted the explosion just now.
Several other spots had also produced so reactions.
A few other "outsiders" had apparently done sothing and managed to withstand part of the damage.
Among them, one huge golden shield stood out particularly.
The shield had appeared the instant the fireball exploded, absorbing most of the damage, and still hadn't disappeared, standing embedded in the ground at the other end of the square. Even from a distance, Samuel found it very conspicuous.
The explosion, theoretically capable of destroying several cities, ended up not even destroying a single town.
The connection between Samuel and Celt's minds didn't break.
Samuel could feel Celt's emotions, could feel Celt's pity for what was happening below.
But it ant nothing.
Doing fake things to fake people in a fake world—that was completely aningless.
"You're right." Celt's voice in his mind returned to normal. "I was letting my sympathy run wild."
"Is that really what you think?" Samuel's tone was peculiar.
"Hm?" Celt answered with a confused nasal sound.
"I'm wondering, since you're the kind side of my personality, can you really see sothing like this and feel like nothing happened deep down?" Samuel raised the index and middle fingers of his right hand, pressed them to the corner of his mouth, and gently pushed upward.
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