Kuro crossed her arms, stepping subtly to the side to position herself closer to Gil. Greg swallowed loudly, shifting his weight to stand firmly beside both of his partners.
Further off, the red-haired giant and the hummer remained silent, their eyes locked on Mao, demanding answers without a word.
Reading the room, the Scholar realized that backing out or playing games wasn't an option.
He wouldn't just be dealing with Gil—he'd have the entire group coming down on him.
Frustration flared in Mao's chest, immediately followed by a sudden, sly realization.
He had to fight every impulse to let a telltale smirk show on his face.
Taking a loud, heavy breath, he raised his hands placatingly.
"Alright, alright. Look... it's more of a rumor, but—"
"Hey," Gil interrupted smoothly.
His smirk widened by a fraction, even as his eyes remained cold as ice. "I really wouldn't do that if I were you."
Mao's heart skipped a beat, but he forced his expression to stay neutral. "Do what?"
Gil just stared at him, the dangerous smile never leaving his lips. "You know... I can tell when people lie to me. So you might want to rethink whatever line you were about to deliver."
Mao froze on the spot.
He's bluffing, Mao thought frantically.
He has to be.
Yet, looking into the eyes of the guy standing in front of him—someone who clearly wasn't normal—Mao couldn't be a hundred percent sure.
Worse, he definitely didn't want to test the theory and face the consequences if Gil was telling the truth.
Sighing for what felt like the hundredth time, Mao adjusted his posture. "I don't know what prejudice you hold against me, but I had no intention of lying."
Gil let out a short, mocking chuckle, offering no further response.
Dropping the evasive act, Mao's demeanor shifted into absolute seriousness. "This piece of intel borders on an urban legend, but I have solid reasons to believe it's real. To understand it, you have to remember the war from ten years ago."
A sudden, sharp tension gripped the corridor. Every single person present—Gil, Kuro, Greg, and the duo watching from the shadows—flinched slightly at those words.
The War.
Human history had always been marked by conflict—there was nothing new under the sun. With every passing era, the scale of destruction only escalated. But in terms of sheer violence and absolute devastation, the conflict ten years ago had been, without a shadow of a doubt, the most catastrophic of them all.
Mao's words instantly struck a nerve, digging up buried, bitter memories.
Gil's jaw tightened, his brow furrowing into a sharp scowl. Kuro's expression turned utterly cold and unpleasant. As for Greg, the color drained from his face entirely, his eyes staring blankly into the dark as if reliving a nightmare.
"I don't want to bring up bad blood," Mao said, raising his hands slightly to steady the mood. "But you all know how much ambiguity surrounded that war. Considering the sheer amount of damage it caused, you'd expect... well, even before the end, throughout the entire conflict, nobody actually knew who was fighting whom. We just knew we were fighting. But the true enemy? It was never clear."
Mao took a step forward, his voice dropping into a lower register. "Even after the dust settled, the most logical move for the leadership—at least in my opinion—would have been to feed off the public's resentment. They should have used propaganda to unify their power, scapegoating the losing side and painting them as absolute monsters. Yet..."
Gil clicked his tongue, annoyance radiating off him. He had zero interest in a history lesson or political analysis right now. "I don't give a damn about what the higher-ups did or didn't do," Gil cut in harshly. "Get to the point. Where are you going with this?"
Mao shot Gil a look that clearly translated to: Throwing pearls before swine... it's a waste of breath arguing with a guy like him.
Suppressing a sigh, Mao adjusted his stance. "Fine. Short version: there are endless gaps in the official story. And as you know, when those at the top refuse to give answers, the people at the bottom start asking questions. Whispers spread. Rumors build."
Gil just glared at him, waiting.
"Among all those rumors," Mao continued, his tone turning sinister, "there is one in particular that is deeply disturbing. Disturbing because, if the fragments gathered from here and there are to be believed... we didn't actually win the war."
That hit the group like a physical blow.
"Wait... what?!" Greg blurted out, unable to keep his voice down.
Gil's frown deepened. Every instinct in his gut hated where this conversation was heading, but he kept his mouth shut, letting Mao finish.
"Yes," Mao said softly, his eyes scanning their unsettled faces. "There have always been murmurs... quiet whispers suggesting that the conflict, far from being truly won or brought to an end, was simply pushed out of sight. Moved somewhere deep into the shadows, far from where the vast majority of the population could ever see it. And that the situation out there was so desperate, the leadership couldn't even afford the luxury of standard post-war propaganda or normal stabilization tactics."
Kuro clutched her hands into white-knuckled fists.
Greg stood paralyzed, completely lost in his own head. Further back, the hummer and the red-haired giant remained dead silent—the former's gaze hollow, the latter looking bewildered as they absorbed the weight of the revelation.
Gil lowered his head, analyzing Mao's words with sharp focus. Setting aside how absurd or outlandish such rumors might sound at first glance, it actually recontextualized everything.
It could explain a great deal.
If the conflict wasn't over—if it had been locked in a critical, bloody stalemate out of the public eye all these years—it explained why a government usually obsessed with lies and narrative control had opted for total radio silence.
They only resorted to that kind of forced opacity when their hands were tied and they had no other choice.
For Gil, it also brought a cold, buried memory rushing back to the surface. Deep down, he had always wondered about the kind of weapon that had been deployed on the day he lost everything. Even with how advanced military technology was back then, he had never heard of an arsenal capable of that level of hyper-specific destruction.
And then there was the aftermath.
The reconstruction after the war had been impossibly fast—almost unnaturally so. It was as if the advanced tech required to rebuild society overnight had already been sitting there in secret, just waiting to be deployed the second the dust settled.
The breadcrumbs had always been there, scattered across their ruined lives. But putting them together painted a picture far darker than any of them had imagined.
Yet, Gil felt a cold knot tighten in his gut. This wasn't the full picture.
Looking back up at Mao, Gil's eyes narrowed into slits. "When you say sacrifice... what exactly do you mean? Are you talking about the soldiers fighting out of the spotlight—the ones spilling their blood in the dark to maintain this fake peace? Or are you talking about..."
Gil froze, the full realization catching in his throat.
Mao offered a bitter, hollow smile. "It seems you've figured it out."
The Scholar took a slow, heavy step closer. "Did you really think something as brazen as the systemic kidnapping of kids like us could happen without raising massive alarms? Sure, on the surface, you could write it off as simple corruption. But after what I just told you... you have a pretty good idea of what's actually happening, don't you?"
Even Greg felt the horror sink in, his face draining of whatever color was left. Kuro let out a low, icy breath through her teeth, while Gil's lips curved into a dark, sharp smirk—a pure, visceral reaction to the grim reality of their situation.
Mao let out a long, weary sigh, looking around at all of them.
"It took me a while to reach this conclusion. You know, out there, I considered myself to be among the smartest..." He couldn't help but let out a self-deprecating laugh, a dry sound that echoed off the cold walls. "...but I never really paid attention to it. I kept telling myself that even if there was some truth to the rumors, it wouldn't be that bad. That it didn't concern me. But apparently, I was a bit too..."
He abruptly cut himself off, refusing to voice the word naive.
Smoothing down his clothes, he forced his features back into a calm, composed mask, though the underlying dread remained plain to see.
"So... you understand now, don't you?" Mao said, his voice barely above a whisper. "The sacrifices... the fodder being sent to bleed on that hidden battlefield... there's a damn good chance it's us."