{Four-Star: Gauntlet of Flesh}

  [1 Hp 1 Str]

  [This unit has been afflicted with {Unknown affliction}]

  The Core stepped forward without a care in the world. “Well? Aren’t you going to say something?”

  Xoiae watched him.

  “No?” Reggie grumbled under his breath. “You upright types are no fun at all.”

  He flicked his hand and Xoiae’s arm tore from her shoulder, landing like a wet rag on the ground.

  Xoiae hesitated, glancing down to the growing pool of blood. “Figures.” Three swords the size of buildings appeared from her inventory, spinning over themselves in the air. “Jujud, get those kids out of here.”

  Everyone had long since turned pale.

  “What’s she doing?” Ardenidi hissed. “That attack didn’t have nearly enough power to hurt her!”

  “Xoiae only has mental energy protecting her vitals,” I stated. “She couldn’t care less about her arms and legs. It’s not like she needs them to fight.”

  “So that thing isn’t as strong as she is, right?”

  I bit my lip to keep from answering.

  If this unknown affliction worked how I thought it did…

  Reggie perked up, flicking a piece of fat from between his front teeth. “Finally! I can’t even begin to describe how much that’d been bothering me. Seriously you bite one guy and get a headache for the rest of the—”

  Mental energy tore through against the ash, baking it into the rock below. Each of the swords revved up, spinning faster and faster until they became flickering blurs appearing and disappearing as they split the core down the middle.

  The two halves of Reggie pulled themselves back together, entirely disinterested, if not annoyed. “It’s awfully rude to interrupt someone when they’re—”

  A sword cleaved down, igniting in ghostly blue fire.

  It broke on the back of the Core’s hand. Metal shrapnel fell like rain, glittering on the way down.

  Reggie groaned. “Geez, I haven’t even done anything yet.”

  “JUJUD! GO!” Xoiae shouted.

  “Come on.” Jujud grit her teeth, grabbing me by the shoulder. “We’re only holding her back.”

  The rest of the party snapped out of their shock, bolting for safety somewhere in the mountains.

  The Core chuckled. “You can’t be seriously holding back, Xoiae, could you? You’re supposed to be the single strongest player in the second area. The Crystal Maiden.” He glanced at the rest of us as we ran. “Allow me to clear your mind.”

  I felt the mental energy before I saw it, shimmering, distorting the air into a wave of sharp color, clawing toward us, vaporizing whatever pathetic mental defenses we had.

  Then the wave stopped, blowing apart like a glass balloon.

  Xoiae spat blood on the ground.

  Reggie had grabbed one of her own swords, cutting a gouge into her side. His hands shook, crushing the enchanted handle to dust with a scolding wave of power. “You cannot be serious.”

  Xoiae turned sickly pale, blood running from the wound in her chest like a flooded river. She started choking.

  Reggie clenched his hands, aiming another mental wave toward us.

  Before he even started, the force fizzled out of existence, along with most of the skin on his hand, charred to dust by a frequency of mental energy I could scarcely register.

  {Members of Jujud’s party : Xoiae’s Mercy}

  [Grants temporarily immunity to fatigue, forced teleportation or relocation and Cripple-type effects]

  “RUN!” Xoiae screamed.

  We did.

  There wasn’t anything to be done.

  Reggie didn’t know what to do with himself. The veins in his face bulged. “You’re actually wasting energy protecting children?”

  She grinned. “What kind of Headmaster do you think I am?”

  Xoiae was reduced to a smear of bright red over the black wasteland. What little inventory she had spilled over the cracks, along with her two remaining swords, their enchantments blowing holes on contact with the ground. The sunlight turned hazy in the billowing clouds of dust.

  Reggie twitched, covered in a blistering red hue. “This can’t be happening. You’re supposed to be the strongest, remember?!” The core shouted, scooping handfuls of dirt. His eyes bulged. “Oh. I can just resurrect you, can’t I? We could fight again.” He laughed, clapping his hands like a delighted child. “I could even wait a day or two for her to rebuild some of that mental energy!”

  Jujud turned over her shoulder, watching the monster’s shadowy silhouette in the distance. She looked queasy. “We need to move faster.”

  “I’m running as fast as I can!” Catania shouted, adjusting her hold on Sip who was too slow to escape on his own. “We need to grab Soise!”

  “She’s too far and we don’t have time!” Toya barked. “Stop talking and keep yourself moving!”

  Reggie’s laughter echoed, clear as a whistle. “Before we can get into that, I ought to take out the trash.”

  “I’ll handle this.”

  The others jolted, spinning toward me.

  “I’ll handle this,” I sighed. “But you have to get Soise out of here, okay?”

  Jujud grabbed me as I started slowing down. “Absolutely not, it’s a suicide mission.”

  I pushed Jujud back. “I got it.”

  A shimmering wave of mental force hit like a train, blasting the scorched dirt from underneath our feet, only to stop all at once, as if it had never existed in the first place.

  “I told you, he’s mine,” I stated, ignoring the numbness in my body, courtesy of the absolutely stupid amount of mental energy I just used. One of my eyes had actually stopped working. “I can give you a minute.”

  I started walking forward, stopped by a hand on my arm.

  “Grind—” Ardenidi whispered. “I-I—don’t end it like this. ”

  “This isn’t the end,” I stated.

  “I wasn’t talking about the end of your life,” she snapped, then flushed, clamping a hand over her face, fidgeting with her scarf. “I meant, what I meant to say was that I still, I don’t want you to hate me, and even if we don’t see the same things the same ways I still—”

  I kissed her. On the lips.

  That was fantastic.

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  “Get a room,” Sip groaned.

  Catania laughed. “You’re just jealous,”

  “So what?

  The Core had stopped moving toward us. He was frozen stiff. “That was some of the most efficient mental energy control I’d ever seen? Who are you?”

  “Two minutes,” I muttered. “I can give you that much, but you’ll have to start running.”

  Ardenidi almost stayed.

  But, eventually, they started running again.

  Reggie cleared his throat. “Hello? Do none of you players have any manners? I’m just asking a basic question.”

  “I’m Grind. Why’d you pick ‘Reggie?’” I asked, stepping toward him. “That’s not even mentioning your appearance.”

  He gestured down toward his bloodless white suit. “Oh, this little thing?”

  “I meant having a nose and eyes.”

  Reggie nodded. “Very astute of you. Actually, I try to appear human before killing important people. It makes the whole process so much easier, so you should be honored. But enough with formalities.” He brought his hands up, motioning me forward. “Try your luck.”

  I knelt to the ground. “I’ll be with you in a moment, so don’t do anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve spent all my mental energy on that last shield,” I stated. “Like I said, I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  I slammed my head on the rock, waiting a few seconds, then repeated it, over and over and over again, immediately nauseous, teetering on the verge of unconsciousness. “There we go.”

  Reggie stared at me, utterly forgetting the rest of my party. He was always like that. The Core only cared about the shiny new things in front of him.

  “Let’s play a game,” I said. “We take turns hitting each other until someone dies. No moving or attacking when it’s not your turn.”

  The Core laughed out loud. “Absolutely not. What kind of a moron do you think I am?”

  Worth a shot.

  He unleashed the full weight of his perspective.

  I blinked.

  “How are you doing that?” The Core asked, laughing through rows of clenched teeth.

  “Doing what?” I mumbled back, doing my best to ignore the numbness creeping through my feet and shoulders. Despite the pounding in my chest, I was becoming cold, almost as if my limbs were distant.

  Then I hit my limit, and the force of his attack punched a hole through my chest.

  I sighed, watching black blood pool over the dry dirt. “That went about as well as I expected.”

  Both eyes no longer worked, and, judging from the total numbness over my entire body, I could assume whatever I’d used to force mental energy severed my spine in the process, if not destroying all the nerves in my body.

  Black blood ran down, catching Reggie’s eye.

  The Core took a second. “What…what are you?” He laughed without mirth as our eyes met.

  I died with a smile.

  “See you soon.”

  …

  Wind rustled in the trees, howling around the forest in a mighty gale.

  I took a breath, then out.

  My visit to the Academy was over. The friends I made no longer knew me. All the mistakes I’d made had never happened.

  A tear ran down my face.

  I flicked it off, glad to be more or less normal again.

  “I’ll start again tomorrow.”

  My head hurt like crazy, so I laid back, allowing myself refuge in a deep, quiet sleep.

  A hand forced one of my eyes open.

  “Wake up, sleepy head!” Dena whispered, smiling like a wolf as she swung her scythe into my neck, tearing grass from the earth in a shockwave.

  I flicked it away like a rubber toy. “Not now.” I said, shooing her in a vague direction.

  Dena stopped. “Huh?”

  No matter how much more skill she had than me, I’d reached the point where a minute of her time passed like an hour to me. No matter what bonuses or abilities she had to amplify her strength and speed, I was no less than a thousand times stronger. More, if I used aura weaponization.

  I closed my eyes again. “Dena. You’re outclassed.”

  “Asiel sent you, didn’t she?” Dena hissed. “You think you’re—”

  She died instantly, struck four times through the heart with her own scythe.

  I frowned, clenching and unclenching my numb fingers as I sat back down on the rock.

  My hands had blood on them.

  “I’m a mess, as usual.” I wiped the blood on my pants, glancing at Dena’s body.

  It was only a matter of time before I killed Reggie. Only a matter of time before I surpassed anything the union could do to stop me.

  But how much time?

  I had to be smart about this.

  “Alright.” I suppressed a groan.

  115x {Comostasis : Active}

  “I’ll give it a shot.”

  My vision sharpened to a gleam of light, and I died again.

  …

  I sat on a rock and patiently waited for Dena to burst from the bushes, make some attempt at small talk, release I didn’t care, and then readily try to kill me.

  I killed Dena three times.

  She staggered backward in disbelief, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. She stumbled over herself and fell down.

  I squatted next to her. “What are you even doing?”

  “Huh?” Dena blinked. “Aren’t you going to—”

  “Nah.”

  She stared. “HA! Y-you coward, can’t kill a girl, can you?”

  I watched her.

  She stopped smiling, growing steadily self-conscious.

  “Alright, out with it, what do you want,” Dena hissed. “I don’t know what tricks you pulled to get stats like this in the tutorial area, but I’d like to see you try pulling any information out of me.” She smiled. “Go on, make me talk.”

  “I prefer if you shut up.”

  Dena choked. “What you think I’m going to just because—”

  “Or do I want you to talk so I tell you not to?”

  She stopped talking. “What?”

  “I didn’t realize you were so easy to confuse,” I chuckled, getting up and brushing myself off. “That’ll simplify things. You’re coming with me.”

  “And why would I do that?” she snarled, whipping her summoned scythe into my back. I grabbed it and spun it, pointing the tip under her chin.

  “I’ll kill you if you stay here,” I stated. “Because I know what you’re going to do.”

  “How noble of you.”

  “Hardly.” I tossed the scythe back to her before my hands started melting. “But everyone deserves a second chance, right?”

  “No,” Dena scoffed. “I’ll just kill you the moment you let your guard down.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t mind a little danger. There’s a Core in the second area I need you to kill.”

  I turned around and walked away.

  She lunged, immediately blocked by the back of my hand, striking her in the face.

  “Hey, you’d be stronger in the second area, right?” I asked with a smirk. “You don’t have any shot killing me here.”

  Dena glowered. “Do you want to die?”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  I continued walking. “I’ll be at the stormwall tomorrow morning. There’s just a few things I need to wrap up before I go.”

  Dena watched me leave, tensing and relaxing sporadically as she fought with herself whether or not she was going to kill me.

  Finally she stuck the scythe back in her inventory.

  “There goes the stupidest man I’ve ever seen.” Dena growled.

  She took a step, then another, following in my direction.

  She smirked.

  “He’s starting to get my hopes up.”

  …

  A cry of agony shook the forest, rattling floorboards and rafters alike

  “It’s not that bad,” Dexten mumbled. “Right guys?”

  Mall had her hands over her face. “No, that’s actually awful.”

  “H-how?” Cierin went pale. “How could you even manage something like this?”

  I was crying on the floor.

  Naturally.

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