Afterward, the massive disaster that occurred in the underground shopping district of Academy City's Twenty-second District was treated as an accident.
The ceilings of all three underground levels had been split apart. Even if it were called a man-made terrorist attack, not many people would believe it, would they?
Of course, Academy City was a city of advanced technology decades ahead of the outside world. Even if technology capable of causing such a situation truly existed, it would not have been surprising at all.
However, Chibune Misono had already told everyone in the evacuation order that an accident had occurred in the underground district and the crowds needed to be evacuated. With that preconception in place, covering up the lie was not difficult.
After all, if outsiders were told that this disaster had been caused by another invasion of Academy City by a member of the Roman Orthodox Church's God's Right Seat, the scent of war would likely begin to spread again.
To prevent that from happening, Chibune Misono naturally had to do everything she could to control public opinion and keep the spark of war from appearing once more.
Thus, the shattered ceilings across the three underground levels of the Twenty-second District were explained away as a malfunction in the hydroelectric facilities.
Since the entire Twenty-second District primarily relied on hydroelectric power, water pipes ran through virtually every corner of the underground streets. If a malfunction caused a large-scale water-pressure explosion that ultimately cracked the ceilings, it was not an especially strange occurrence.
Fortunately, in order to use large-scale water-element magic, Rearguard Water had drained all the water from the three underground levels. The hydroelectric facilities had indeed malfunctioned, and the destruction on the third level was particularly severe. It could serve as the origin of the incident, and