I hit the ground running, literally, tearing through the forest with a full horde of giant monkey beasts pounding after me.

Big ones.

Loud ones.

C-rank, but not Gemini stage, which meant no dualflow energy, just raw mana and ugliness.

Honestly?

They weren't even a threat.

If I wanted to, I could've wiped the entire group in under a minute. A few well-placed sword strikes, a death-Word or two, maybe a little ice for dramatic flair, done.

Clean.

Efficient.

Boring.

But why would I do that…

When there was a far better use for them?

Annoying my teammates.

The idea of their faces, Annalise's deadpan expression, Nora's unimpressed stare, Kent's deranged excitement, lit something in me. Something primal and petty. A joy so intense it made my chest feel warm.

So, naturally, I kept running.

And I kept luring more monsters into the chase.

They roared behind me, the pounding of their limbs shaking mud loose from the trees. One hurled a rock that could've turned my skull into confetti. I ducked without breaking pace.

And then I laughed.

A real, unhinged, maniacal laugh that echoed through the demonic forest like a lunatic wind chime. I even tilted my head back as I did it because commitment mattered.

It was so cathartic I almost missed a tree mouth snapping at my throat.

I snapped back to composure instantly.

Ahem.

Professionalism.

I looked up, straight toward the spot where I felt a gaze lingering, one of the instructors watching through illusion magic. Their attention prickled along my skin like soft needles.

I mouthed, clearly and slowly:

"You didn't see anything."

Then, because subtlety was for cowards, I dragged a finger across my neck in a slicing motion.

The gaze twitched.

Good. They should know their place in the pecking order.

A stream of toxic mouth-acid whistled past my cheek, steaming a hole into the dirt. I didn't even blink, just swerved around a tree root and glanced down at the device on my wrist.

Four dots.

My team.

One glowing bright red, close, very close.

A wicked smile pulled at my lips.

Seconds away.

"Oh, this is going to be fun."

I adjusted my grip on Sacha, picked up speed, and let the entire jungle of abominations chase me straight toward my unsuspecting teammate.

Chaos, impending doom, and the promise of priceless reactions.

Be Honest

What could be better than annoying a bunch of teenagers?

Annalise Astraeus

I was having a bad day.

A spectacularly bad day.

Even worse than my usual bad days which, frankly, were already terrible.

Now, don't get me wrong, having a bad day is part of life, and I understand that, but what I was enduring was fucking terrible.

First off, the absolute walking dumpster fire named Kent and the prissy porcelain princess were arguing about rabbit rocket launchers for an entire hour.

An hour.

Do you understand the level of brainrot and ashtagram memes are required to listen to that without committing a felony?

Meanwhile, Sebastian, my supposed teammate, my supposed ally, was ignoring me. Just nodding absentmindedly at the idiots while staring into the distance like some tragic protagonist in a romantic drama.

And me?

I could feel my mask slipping.

My precious, carefully-crafted, "I am calm and nonchalant and totally not plotting to scam the entire world" mask.

Honestly, I felt like strangling someone.

But no.

Apparently, that was illegal.

Apparently, you can't kill a student, especially if the student is a princess. The law was biased, clearly.

Still, it was fine.

Everything was fine.

We were almost at the forest. Monsters were waiting. Monsters did not have human rights. Monsters did not send you to court for ripping them apart. Monsters would be a perfect outlet for the mountain of stress I had accumulated from babysitting these three menaces to public sanity.

But I didn't even make it to the forest.

Because the idiots detonated my patience.

"What came first? The egg or the chicken?"

They said it.

Out loud.

With full sincerity.

I could feel my soul leaving my body.

I snapped.

Fully, gloriously snapped.

I gave them both a verbal bashing so thorough that generations of their ancestors probably felt it. And when Kent asked, actually asked, whether the mommy chicken had to "breed with the egg," I punched him so hard in the stomach he folded like wet cardboard on a humid day.

He deserved it.

He deserved worse.

And then my day got worse.

Significantly worse.

Because she appeared.

The fucking reaper of humanity herself.

Belle.

Honestly, what a cringe name. I would burn down the person who named me if I were in her place, but alas, I wasn't.

Anyways, she was a woman whose blindfold alone had more authority than most kingdoms. She stood on that stage, cold and emotionless, and then...

She released her aura.

Her death aura.

My knees almost gave out.

I genuinely thought about screaming.

I thought about cursing the heavens, cursing fate, cursing whatever cosmic entity paired me with this group of lunatics.

But I couldn't.

Because I had to maintain my stupid mask.

The "nonchalant, mysterious classmate" mask.

The "I am totally fine and not internally screaming" mask.

So I stood there, trying not to visibly shake, while every instinct in my body shrieked:

You are going to die. Right now. Right here. Goodbye.

Belle finally retracted her aura.

I was still alive.

Barely.

And that was how my day, the one I expected to be merely bad, became a living nightmare crafted by the universe specifically to bully me.

And we hadn't even entered the forest yet.

Just fantastic.

Truly.

I could almost imagine some heavenly demon looking down at my suffering from the sky, and laughing at my misery, because isn't that what those demon bastards do?

Peak suffering.

Just then, black fog suddenly wrapped around my body.

Just, whoosh, darkness hugging me like some depressed octopus.

And the very first thought that entered my mind raw, unfiltered, straight from the depths of my soul, was:

Am I going to become a fog thing?!

No. No, no, no. I don't want to.

My beautiful white face. My flawless complexion. Nooooo...

Truly, I was a role model for inner strength.

But instead of turning into a charcoal fog monster, I simply vanished.

And reappeared.

Mid-air.

Above a forest filled with trees that had faces.

Of course.

Of course, this would happen.

The universe clearly hated me on a personal, spiritual level.

I didn't even have time to scream before I crashed straight into a nest no, a den of monsters. And not the cute fluffy kind. Not the "aw, this will make good XP" kind.

No.

These were humanoid, twisted, dripping nightmares that looked like they crawled out of a sewer and immediately died, resurrected, and died again for good measure.

It took my entire life's worth of willpower not to puke.

But hey.

At least there were monsters.

Disgusting? Yes.

Traumatizing? Also yes.

But an outlet for my stress? Absolutely.

And I had a lot of stress.

They surrounded me from all sides, shambling forward like a discount horror movie cast.

I sighed, cracked my neck, and said loudly with a dramatic flair that would win awards...

"I'm not locked in here with you.You're locked in here with me."

A masterpiece, honestly.

And then I snapped.

Blue strings erupted around me, sharp enough to slice bone and pride. My illusions layered over them, warping the monsters' senses, turning their movements sluggish and confused. They staggered, flailed, reached out blindly,

And I cut them.

Again and again.

Clean, precise, and purifying, like a deranged surgeon who took pleasure in dissecting his patients.

Limbs dropped.

Heads rolled.

A few of them popped like overripe fruit.

It was beautiful.

I was finally starting to feel a whisper of peace…A sliver of serenity…

And then

BOOM.

Something slammed through the forest behind me, barreling forward at insane speed. Trees exploded. The ground shook. Birds, or whatever the hell this forest had instead of birds, screeched and ran for their lives.

I stared at the growing destruction, blinking.

Because of course.

OF COURSE.

The moment things went slightly well, something enormous had to come bulldozing its way straight toward me.

Just perfect.

My day really was determined to reach new levels of fuckery.

I froze.

Just stood there.

Silent.

Still.

Thinking very, very hard.

A single, peaceful thought drifted through my mind:

Should I just jump into whatever the hell is coming at me and let fate take the wheel?

Honestly?

Tempting.

Extremely tempting.

But no.

I had goals.

Ambitions.

People to scam.

Money to make.

A future filled with luxury and lying.

So unfortunately, I couldn't die yet.

In the few seconds it took me to reluctantly choose life, the incoming chaos finally broke through the trees.

And I saw it.

I saw him.

Sebastian.

Running at full speed.

Laughing like an unmedicated lunatic who escaped a mental hospital.

With a dozen giant, overgrown, nightmarish midnight black monkeys stampeding after him like he'd insulted their mothers.

My eye twitched.

My soul cracked.

My patience evaporated.

So I did the only logical, reasonable, emotionally mature thing I could do.

I raised my hand.

And I gave Sebastian the middle finger.

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