When the double doors opened to the courtroom, the majority, if not, all of the people inside set their gazes on our direction. The two polices, surprised at the reaction, stiffened up for a moment before guiding me to my designated area calmly.

As expected from veteran police officers, you can count on them to be calm during a crisis.

While I took a seat, majority of the people on the other side glared at me like I was some kind of killer of their children. Heck, some were even murmuring that I should just die and disappear for doing something to their children.

‘… Idiots…’

That was all I could think of about their behavior. Anyway, while I was thinking that, the judge declared order on the court.

“Order, order in the court! We are gathered here today on the account of the missing school and students of the Bermuda Triangle University. Ren Cruz, the sole witness and suspect, has been ordered by law to attend this trial as a defendant.”

With one more slam, the entire courtroom went silent and next came the prosecutor and my lawyer.

“Prosecutor Miles Worthedge will be the leading prosecutor for the day, while Attorney Phoenix Write will be leading the defense.”

The two gave their greetings to the judge and started with the case. The first one to speak up was the prosecutor. Judging by his face, he was at a loss on what to do with this trial. There were no evidences save for the sole witness that is me, so all he can hope for him to win this case was for me to admit that I did something.

The same could be said about my lawyer. No evidences, no other witnesses, no nothing. All he could do was wait for my testimony and come up with an answer about that.

“May the defendant Ren Cruz please come to the stand.”

I complied and silently walked towards the stand while calmly observing the audience with the corner of my eye in case they do something rash. Nothing beats being too careful.

Once I got to my position, the prosecutor nodded calmly and began dishing out his questions.

“What did you see during the disappearance of the school?”

Easy question, and easy to answer, the real question was could they even believe my answer?

I relayed to them what had happened during the time the blue circle appeared and disappeared. Of course, I withheld information about the Status Card because this could be my one time lifeline in case I need to escape.

Their reactions were as I expected. Nobody believed it, even though you couldn’t explain the disappearance of the school with logic. It was outside the boundaries of common sense so who in the world would believe that your school disappeared because of a giant blue circle?

Naturally, the audience began to become noisy in the blink of an eye once they heard my testimony.

“ORDER!!! ORDER IN THE COURT!!!”

Seeing that the judge used his full voice to calm the masses down indicated how riled up the audience was. The loud smashing sound of the gavel brought back the people to their calm demeanor, even though the police were nervous because of the sudden clamor of the people.

The prosecutor had also gotten his calm back as he tried to assess any gaps in my testimony, be it my body behavior, habits, sudden moves, pitch of my voice, etc. Sad to say, he wasn’t able to figure out any gaps because he didn’t know that I was telling the truth.

Just when I was about to ask if I could sit down again, my lawyer spoke up.

“Permission to question the defendant.”

“… Granted.”

The judge hesitated before giving the approval.

‘… Excuse me…?’

I was at a loss on how my lawyer turned sides at once.

“Sorry but, we just want to know the truth, right Edge?”

“…”

‘… You’ve got to be kidding me…’

I got extreme déjà vu of a game I used to play where you controlled an attorney and find clues to help solve cases. This lawyer was like that exact attorney.

He bombarded me with questions about my lifestyle, and I answered them honestly. Questions about my relationships, family, etc., to get something that could be used as a motive for making the school and students disappear.

‘How the fuck am I supposed to have a motive? And how in the hell could I even make a whole school disappear like that…?’

Judging the situation to be dangerous when something supernatural happens, I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t use the power I have in public, even though I don’t know how to use it.

Once his question spree was over, he was at a loss too. Nothing of note could be pointed out as a motive, nor any actions be pointed out as a grudge towards specific people. Much more since I was the only witness/suspect in the case, and there were no evidences.

“I see…”

The judge had no other choice but to give the verdict ‘Not Guilty’ to me and dismissed the entire trial. They also ushered me out and left me to my own devices.

“…”

‘No ride back home…?’

Since they left me outside, I thought they would bring me back to where I lived, but apparently, they had their hands full with the case of the school disappearing.

I had to call a taxi so that I can get to my apartment before sundown, but no matter how many times I called one, they just drove right past me.

“…”

‘Well this sucks…’

I had no other choice but to huff it back home with my own two feet. Just then, an idea came to mind.

‘Didn’t it say Space-Time Magic…?’

I went to a secluded area, one where no people would go to and where no CCTV were posted and tried to think about Space-Time Magic. If something was associated with this type of magic, then teleportation would be one.

‘How do you do this…?’

I recalled how some novel characters do it by imagining the area where you want to go and using Mana to open a portal to the location.

‘Wait, how do I control Mana…?’

Imagining is easy, but Mana was a whole different problem. Based on some novels, anime, or mangas about magic, they say that Mana is a flow in your body like Qi, sometimes just the air, and others say that Mana is your own blood.

Since there were a lot of speculations about Mana but not too in depth when explained, I had no idea on what to do.

‘… You know what, let’s just wing it.’

I tried to imagining the apartment, not, but the alleyway behind it instead. I don’t want to teleport where I could be seen appearing out of thin air. Next thing was I tried doing all kind of things to manipulate Mana.

Seconds passed, minutes, and hours and somehow, I was able to feel it. Feeling it would be a wrong word though, it was like Mana was synonymous to thinking. It was like your brain gained another part where that specific part was responsible for manipulating Mana.

Once I was able to get a feel for it, it took me a few more minutes, actually, maybe hours to try and use it for something practical. It got me excited actually so there was no problem about concentrating for hours, like how you’re enjoying playing video games.

And finally, I was able to create a portal to the alleyway. It took me a good 7 hours just sitting down and trying to manipulate it, and now, my work paid off.

I push my hand through the portal where I can see the other side and found out that it was safe. Next, I pushed my whole arm, then next my whole body. Once I was on the other side of the portal, I saw the familiar apartment in my eyes, as well as the portal dissipating into thin air.

“This could be useful.”

My excitement couldn’t be controlled as I thought of multiple ways to use this [Space-Time Magic].

Once I got over it, I headed to my apartment and saw someone familiar.

“REEEEENNNN!!!!!”

A cute girl in her mid-teens(maybe) was running towards me.

‘… Here we go again…’