"Are you seriously not dating each other?" Reo leaned across the desk, his chin propped on one hand and an irrepressible grin on his face. Kyle didn’t even lift his eyes from the notes sprawled on the desk. His answer came out flat, and thoroughly tired. Reo blinked, unbothered. As if Kyle hadn’t just given him the same answer for the tenth time this week. "But Senior Elizabeth said she’s supposed to be your fiancée." Kyle closed his eyes. He could already feel the headache pressing at the back of his skull. "I told you. We didn’t agree to the marriage. There was just... a talk." Reo sat up straighter, pouncing on that little gap in his words like a predator who had finally scented blood. "But you haven’t rejected each other, right? That means you’re both interested! And Senior—" His voice dropped dramatically, eyes gleaming with mock conspiracy, "—she seemed very interested in you. Like... really into yo—" A long, suffering sigh escaped Kyle before Reo could finish. His forehead came to rest on the desk with a dull thud. ’Why is this still a thing?’ It had already been a week since Elizabeth Veyl had so dramatically marched into the first-year building, casually dropped the word "fiancé" into the air, and detonated his social life like a mana bomb. Every single person in the building had heard. And of course, the rumors hadn’t stopped there. By evening, the gossip had already leaked into the senior years. Other students. Boys, girls, strangers who had never spoken to him before, had suddenly found reasons to stop him in hallways, corners, even stairwells, their voices dripping with curiosity. "Hey, are you two really engaged?" "What’s it like dating Senior Elizabeth?" "So you’re the lucky bastard who caught her eye." Some of the senior boys hadn’t even bothered with subtlety, straight-up cornering him like thugs after class to demand if it was true. A few senior girls had, disturbingly, asked him if he planned to break it off and "leave Elizabeth free." He’d tried explaining. Over and over. That there was nothing between them. That it was all a misunderstanding. That Elizabeth had been stirring the pot on purpose. And yet, his so-called friends weren’t helping either. In fact, they were his biggest problem. Especially Reo, who seemed to find endless joy in pestering him, and Luna, who had the same unholy gleam in her eyes whenever his "love life" came up. Kyle groaned inwardly. ’This is why I was irritated when she barged in that day.’ He felt a light poke on his shoulder. Kyle shifted just enough to glance sideways. Luna sat beside him. Her lips curved in that infuriatingly gentle, composed smile that always made it impossible to tell whether she was about to give genuine advice or tease him until he broke. Her voice came out soft, almost conspiratorial, barely above a whisper. "You know how Princess feels about you... right?" The words slid into him like a stone dropped in still water. His back stiffened despite himself. Automatically, his gaze flicked forward. Eleanora sat a few rows ahead, Serena quietly at her side. Her pale blonde hair framed her face as she focused on her notes. But Kyle noticed the subtle stiffness in her shoulders. The way her pen paused every now and then as if she was more aware of him than she wanted to admit. ’...Luna, why are you bringing this up now?’ When he turned back, Luna’s expression hadn’t changed. Still composed, still bright, but there was something oddly sincere in her eyes. "Listen," she murmured, "whatever anyone else says, you should just remember this: You can choose whoever you want. As long as you’re happy, it doesn’t matter what others expect. Don’t let someone else’s games tie you down." For once, she didn’t sound like she was trying to corner him or stir trouble. She sounded... like she meant it. A breath of laughter slipped out of him before he could stop it. He gave her a look, one eyebrow raised. "It feels strange hearing something that good come out of your mouth." Luna’s expression cracked into a scowl. "What’s that supposed to mean?" Kyle chuckled under his breath, leaning back in his chair. The tension that had been gathering in his chest eased, if only slightly. Reo glanced between them, confusion mixing with amusement, but said nothing, for once. Moments later, another voice cut through the low chatter. The source of this content ɪs N()velFire.net "Hey, Kyle," Josh asked from the row front, his tone casual but curious. "Why hasn’t Instructor Aurelia come yet?" Josh was one of the more studious types who always tried to be on top of schedules. Kyle glanced toward the door, surprised. His sister wasn’t just punctual. She was the type who’d scold students for showing up thirty seconds late. For her to miss the start of class altogether... unusual. He checked his mana band. "I don’t know," Kyle admitted, frowning. "We left at the same time. Maybe she got caught up in something." His words sounded reasonable enough, but unease pricked at the back of his mind. ’Where is Aurelia? This isn’t like her.’ Reo tapped his desk idly, muttering, "Strange..." before leaning back with a yawn. "You know when the midterm is?" another voice asked from front. Kyle turned slightly, opening his mouth to admit he didn’t know, but the words never left. The classroom around him... shifted. One heartbeat he was staring at wooden desks and chalkboards. The next, the air warped, colors bending, sounds muffled. His vision blurred, the faces of his classmates melting like watercolors caught in rain. His breath hitched as the floor dissolved beneath his feet, replaced by a vast emptiness that swallowed everything whole. The word never finished. It broke apart on his tongue, stolen from him as reality itself shattered around him. Kyle staggered. A sharp intake of breath catching in his chest. He was back in the classroom... yet not. The walls were the same shape, the desks still aligned in rows, but everything was... twisted. Black vines thicker than a man’s arm snaked along the floorboards, crawling over desks and choking the ceiling beams. They pulsed faintly, as though something alive throbbed beneath the surface. Red, fleshy tendrils clung to the walls, slick and wet, beating with a sound that echoed faintly like the rhythm of a heart. Kyle’s throat tightened. The air smelled of iron and decay, heavy with damp rot. Every breath scraped cold against his lungs. His hand tightened into a fist at his side. ’What is this place...?’ One second, he had been in the classroom with the others. The next, he was here, standing in a nightmare wearing the face of familiarity. His temples throbbed with sharp, stabbing pain, like someone had driven needles of mana straight through his skull. The voice echoed inside his mind, calm and commanding. He froze, senses sharpening as the mana around him shifted. A ripple in the air. Kyle tilted his head to the left, his white hair brushing across his cheek. Something hissed through the air where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. The sound was sharp, slicing, fast enough to tear the wind apart. Kyle’s hand rose without hesitation. A crescent of lightning flared alive across his fingers, condensed, shaped into a blade of pure lightning. He slashed upward in one clean stroke. Purple ichor sprayed across the air, hissing as it struck the warped floorboards. Something hit the ground. For a moment it was invisible, just a ripple in space. But then its form come into sight. A grotesque, elongated tongue lay twitching on the floor, purplish-black, thick as a whip. It writhed against the boards like a fish gasping for air, slapping wetly with every spasm. Kyle’s stomach clenched. His instincts moved him faster than thought. He stepped back, then surged forward in one fluid motion. His body twisted as he pivoted, turning sharply to face the wall. A monster clung to the back wall, half-merged with the walls. Its body was lean, reptilian, cloaked in black, armor-like scales that shimmered faintly with the light. Two sharp, curved horns jutted from its head, framing eyes that glowed blood-red with raw hatred. Its jaws hung open, showing a gaping maw filled with teeth like jagged glass. Kyle met its gaze for only a second, then it vanished. The air stilled for the barest heartbeat. He pulled Zalrielle free. From the outside. It would look like he had drawn her from the storage ring on his finger. But in truth, she had become the weapon in his grip, shifting from her ring form into the familiar tachi. Her voice brushed against his mind again, cool and precise. He twisted right without hesitation. A ripple of air tore past his ribs. An unseen attack cutting through the space he had just left. He bent low and rolled. The floor vibrating under another impact. Invisible blades of air. Claws. Tongues. He wasn’t sure. But there was more than one. ’They’re attacking in group... more than one of them.’ Kyle’s breathing slowed as he slid one foot back, lowering his stance. Sparks of lightning hummed faintly at the edges of his blade. Attacks rained from nowhere. One from the ceiling, another sweeping upward from the floor, then two from opposite sides. Kyle’s body moved without conscious thought. Sidesteps, pivots, lightning-fast shifts in balance that carried him clear every time. His eyes narrowed. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel them. He drew in a long, deliberate breath. Then closed his eyes. He felt the mana currents ripple around him, like the hidden undertow beneath the surface of the sea. Each disturbance pressed against his senses, an invisible map forming in his mind. Shapes. Pulses. Predators circling unseen. His mind sharpened with every dodge. And in that instant, lightning flared across his body. The floor cracked under his feet as he vanished. White-blue light streaked across the corrupted classroom, faster than the eye could follow. Each flash of lightning carried Kyle through an arc of motion. Zalrielle slicing through empty space that became solid flesh an instant later. The ceiling split as something fell screeching, its head severed. A claw was cut clean in half before it could even land. The air was filled with shrieks and the wet sound of bodies torn open. Lightning lit the walls like a storm caged in too small a space. Shadows danced grotesquely across the fleshy vines. Kyle stood exactly where he had begun. Zalrielle rested quietly at his side, half-sheathed, crackling faintly with fading sparks. His breathing was steady. Calm. The blade slid into the scabbard with a quiet click. A heartbeat later, the sound of bodies falling filled the room. Eight shapes crashed to the corrupted floor, one after another. The illusion of invisibility peeled away from them, revealing their forms at last. Chameleon-like monsters sprawled across the ground, twisted and hideous. Some had been sliced clean in half, their innards spilling across the black vines. Others were frozen, where Kyle’s strikes had carved through them. Their armor-like hides were split open, jagged edges smoking faintly where lightning had seared flesh. Kyle exhaled, his shoulders lowering just slightly. The air smelled of burnt flesh, blood, and rot. Around him, the classroom was still warped, still wrong. The fleshy walls pulsed faintly, feeding some rhythm he couldn’t place. The black vines writhed as though disturbed, coiling tighter around the shattered desks.