"And it is done."

Yvenne closed her leather notebook with a soft thud.

She reached over the wooden counter and handed me a small silver badge.

It had the shape of an open book with the academy’s crest right in the centre.

"You are now officially a member of Royal Genesis’s library club," she said, giving me a relieved smile.

"You can read anything you want in here at any time. But please be responsible and respectful of the literature."

"Of course, senior," I nodded politely.

I took the small pin and immediately attached it to the collar of my uniform.

’Perfect,’ I thought to myself, walking away from the front desk.

’This is exactly the free pass I needed to avoid getting drafted into the stupid faction wars. No one bothers the library nerds.’

Leaving the quiet sanctuary of the grand library, the noisy atmosphere of the main academy hallway hit me instantly.

Students were rushing around, carrying bags and talking loudly about the morning sparring sessions.

I was just turning the corner to head toward the cafeteria when Arthur walked straight toward me from the opposite direction.

His face turned into a look of surprise the moment he saw me.

He stopped in his tracks, his eyes scanning my uniform before locking onto my collar.

"What are you doing over here?" Arthur asked, pointing a finger at my chest.

I proudly flexed my shoulder, showing off the shiny new library badge to him.

Arthur frowned, his eyebrows pulling together in deep confusion.

"You are a top ranker now, Shane," he stated flatly.

"You literally scored the highest in the entire freshman class. Why on earth are you joining a library club instead of applying for the student council?"

"The council already has you, senior," I replied, giving him a lazy smirk.

"Someone actually has to sit down and study the books."

I did not wait for his reply.

I just stepped around his shoulders and kept walking down the corridor.

Looking back over my shoulder for a brief second, Arthur was just staring at my back.

His shoulders slumped slightly.

"So lucky," Arthur whispered to himself.

He looked miserable.

Arthur clearly hated his council duties and all the boring paperwork that came with being the top student.

He just wanted to swing his sword, and my total freedom was making him jealous.

The mess hall during lunch hour is a common ground for all three years.

Breakfast and dinner are different affairs since students eat those meals separately in their respective elite or commoner dorms.

But lunch is absolute chaos.

The room was packed with hundreds of noisy teenagers trying to grab a quick meal before the afternoon training blocks.

I grabbed a simple metal tray, loaded it up with a handful of decent, hot food, and scanned the crowded room.

My eyes easily found Zephyr.

He was sitting alone at a long table near the large windows. The hero had a wide, space all around him because the other students were simply too intimidated by his intense aura to sit nearby.

I walked right over and sat down directly across from him.

Zephyr stopped chewing. He was clearly surprised by my sudden company, but he didn’t say a single thing.

He just kept his golden eyes fixed on my face, waiting for me to speak.

"I need your help with something," I started, not looking at him.

I picked up my fork and started pushing the food around my plate to look casual.

"What is it?" Zephyr asked, his voice dropping low so no one walking past could hear us.

"Keep a very close eye on Ray Evenheart."

Zephyr went still. He knew who I was talking about.

He remembered the events of our past life just as clearly as I did.

He didn’t ask any stupid questions about why Ray was important.

Instead, he replied with a different, highly practical question.

"Why wait when we can just subdue him right now?" Zephyr asked, his eyes narrowing.

It was a very fair point, which was honestly the right call from a tactical standpoint.

If we dragged Ray into an empty alley and beat him up right now, we could break his legs and send him to the medical ward.

He wouldn’t be able to betray the class and wouldn’t be able to trap us inside the academy with the monsters.

But there was a problem.

"The cult is behaving differently this time," I explained quietly, finally looking up to meet his intense stare.

"Their entire schedule is broken. Cult’s plan with the trial yesterday was not the same as it was the last time we lived through this."

"If we just sit here and wait, nothing will actually change," Zephyr argued, a hint of frustration leaking into his tone.

"People will die."

"If we beat Ray up today, the cult will simply panic and find another desperate pawn to trigger the trap," I countered, keeping my voice normal.

"We need to cut the head off the snake. If we let Ray play his part, we can track his movements. We would find their hideout before they carry out the main attack on the capital. I am sure Ray would move to secretly visit his sick mother at least once before the deadline."

Zephyr slowly nodded his head, understanding the long game I was proposing.

"Will she be there?" Zephyr asked, his expression turning grim.

"At our current weak level, it will be hard to deal with Anasthesia if she is personally guarding that hideout."

"That is why we need to grind hard right now," I told him, taking a bite of my food.

"Develop as many skills as you possibly can. Use the new dorm resources. I will do the same. We are going to wipe out that cult hideout completely before the real excavation assignment even starts."

We stopped talking after that.

Two of us just sat there and ate our food in silence, looking like two normal classmates taking a break.

’Saving Ray’s mother is out of the question,’ I thought, a bitter taste filling my mouth that had nothing to do with the cafeteria food.

Her illness is fatal. But at the very least, if we kill the cultists early, we can save Ray from turning into a monster himself.

Meanwhile, far away from the noisy cafeteria, the atmosphere was different.

Inside a tiny, cramped room in the commoners’ dorm, Ray Evenheart was suffering.

He shook incredibly hard while lying curled up on his uncomfortable mattress.

Ray refused to eat any of the food sitting on his small wooden desk.

He just hugged his knees to his chest and cried silently into his dirty pillow.

The warm picture of his mother smiling softly formed clearly in his mind.

It was a memory from years ago, back when she was healthy and strong, wearing her city guard armour.

’I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

Suddenly, his body started heating up rapidly.

A terrible pain spiked right through his chest.

He gasped loudly, grabbing his own arms.

The green veins under his pale skin started turning black, lighting with a sick magic that did not belong to him.

"AH. AH. PLEASE," Ray pleaded out loud, begging his own body to stop the intense torture.

The burning sensation moved rapidly down his right arm, settling heavily into his forearm.

His skin literally sizzled and smoked, smelling like burnt flesh.

A few harsh words slowly formed on his skin, carving themselves directly into his flesh as if someone was writing on him with a piece of hot metal.

[KILL SHANE]

Ray read the bleeding words burned into his arm.

He cried out loudly, sobbing uncontrollably due to both the unbearable physical pain and the horror of his impossible situation.

Ray didn’t want to be a murderer.

’Let me just see my mother once, please,’ Ray begged in his mind, squeezing his eyes shut as tears rolled down his pale cheeks.

’Just let me know she is alive.’

A few seconds later, the magic flared up again, burning another word right below the terrifying order on his arm.

[SOON]

The black veins slowly receded under his skin, finally disappearing and leaving Ray alone in his misery.

He collapsed fully onto the bed, staring blankly at the burnt command on his arm, knowing he had no choice but to obey the demons.

’Mom, save me.’