Novel Bin Chapter 5: The Rulers (2)
Chapter 5: The Rulers (2)
Sensing a deep hatred for the Rulers in him, professor Nina was stunned for a while and thought suddenly popped into her mind, 'Has he been influenced by the Rebels?'
Professor Nina wasn't the only who had this thought, as Ben and Alice were speculating the same because only the infamous Rebel group that opposed the Rulers with passion had such hatred toward them. As for ordinary people like them, the Rulers were a boon to the humanity.
Professor Nina became angry at the thought of him manipulated by the Rebels and shouted out, "I know everything there is to know! But what do you know about the Rebels? You should know they are just a group of misguided people, foolishly wanting to overthrow the Rulers."
Luke was slightly stunned by her outburst. After hearing her mention the Rebels out of nowhere, he knew she must have assumed he was influenced by the Rebels.
But he didn't try to correct her and said, "Then tell me about them."
"Huh?"
"The Rulers. Tell me what you know about them." Luke repeated. He really didn't want to waste his precious time debating about the Rulers right now, but seeing her and Ben not believe him, he had no choice. At this, he came to like Alice's decisiveness even more.
"Before the 'calamity' the Rulers were ordinary people just like us. After the calamity, when all was in disarray, they rose to the occasion and established their rule."
"If not for them, we would've never recovered from after the 'calamity'. In the absence of a powerful government, people would've become lawless, causing atrocities everyone. Under their lead, we developed our technology from the scratch and had many breakthroughs in science that helped us better our lives." Professor Nina counted their achievements in a single breath.
She then continued, "Although they can be a bit controlling at times, I don't think there is anything wrong with that as…"
She was going to continue, but Luke raised his hand. "Alright, that's enough."
The 'calamity' professor Nina mentioned was a world destroying disaster that occurred more than a hundred years ago without any forewarning. Over 70 percent of the total population and all the technology was lost.
The seven major continents broke apart and shifted positions and created the current 5 continents and millions of smaller islands throughout the vast ocean.
The central continent was the biggest among the five, situated on the equator, with a landmass of several hundred million square miles, almost touching the northern pole in the north and the southern pole in the south.
The other four continents were pitiful in comparison, with an area of only a little over 1 million square miles.
They were surrounding the giant central continent from the four ordinal directions, northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest, respectively. The continent Luke was on was the northeastern continent.
After stopping professor Nina from continuing, Luke asked with interest, "Now let me ask, how come these 'ordinary' people were so ingenious that they restored and even exceeded what we had before the 'calamity' in the short span of what almost 50 years?"
"This…" Professor Nina hesitated.
If Luke had asked some student this same question, they wouldn't hesitate and just say, 'The Rulers had a team of excellent scientists who devoted their lives to the cause and ended up taking the technology to the new heights.'
However, professor Nina was different because one of her ancestors who was a scientist and worked under the Rulers had said that there wasn't any 'excellent scientist' and the Rulers developed the technology through some other means.
Luke didn't give her any more time to think and asked, "Since you are a geography teacher, how about you tell me what kind of disaster could destroy and reshape the world in a single night and alter the geography completely?"
"This… I don't know since the Rulers have classified this information and none who survived the calamity left anything substantial before their death."
Professor Nina shook her head. Then suddenly her eyes widened, and she asked in shock, "Are you saying the Rulers caused the calamity?"
"Yes." Luke nodded without hesitation. Then his eyes flashed with coldness as he added, "They will also be one of our most formidable enemy after the apocalypse. If you are not powerful enough, they will make you their slave. If you are powerful and has chance to resist them, they will kill you."
Hearing this, Alice creased her brows, already regretting telling her parents to lock themselves in their homes. This guy was... really delusional.
Ben was also speechless. Smiling wryly, he thought, 'It seems he saw some bad dream and thought of it as reality.'
Professor Nina looked at him, stunned. Then a worried look appeared on her face. She could confirm something was wrong with his head now.
Seeing their reactions, Luke forced a smile but didn't try to convince them again as he knew trying to convince them through normal means would be ineffective.
He looked at professor Nina and then Ben and seriously said, "If you think of me as someone important to you, then just do what I said. If you can't tell your families to leave their work and go into hiding, then tell they have to stay somewhere safe for the next twenty minutes. Remember, places with people aren't safe."
Professor Nina still looked concerned, but nodded nonetheless. She then went to the side to call her family.
Ben didn't move and sighed helplessly, "You know my family doesn't take me seriously. It's no use telling them. They won't believe anything I say."
"All you can do is try. If they don't believe, so be it. That way, at least you won't regret not telling them later." Luke said and then checked the time. There were only 15 minutes left now.
Ben came back one minute later with a dark face. "My father and sibling rejected my calls while my mom asked me if I was doing drugs?"
Luke patted his shoulder without saying anything. His only concern was these two, not their families. He had to urge them repeatedly so they won't blame him later on. New novel chapt𝒆rs are published on novel(b)in(.)com
After another two minutes, professor Nina came back. Her eyes were red, clearly, she had cried.
Luke wanted to ask what happened that made her cry, but because they only had 12 minutes left, he stopped himself and started running away from the college. "Follow me."
The area around the college was the most crowded and, hence, the most dangerous.
After running madly for 9-10 minutes, although they couldn't get out of the city, they reached a deserted area which only had few houses and a general store.