"Y’know, don’t you find it odd how we only ever see boars?"

Sera ran her hands through the water, playing with the sensation of her electricity mingling with her wet fingers.

"Not really. I read once that the academy deliberately modified the ecosystem to make it perfect for farming. Apparently this portal used to be filled with D-ranks, until the academy brought in two boars from farther out and let them breed."

"So... the academy just turned a relatively peaceful area into a near hellscape for new resonators?"

"Pretty much."

"Well, not my place to complain."

"Exactly. We get our exp and that’s it. Better become S-ranks first before we start arguing about portal morality."

Damon sat beside Sera and cupped his hands in the water, splashing his face and feeling the cool refreshment. The two of them lingered there for a moment, talking and resting.

But of course, it didn’t last long.

They heard a scream. Unlike the other cries for help Damon had answered before, this one wasn’t someone struggling against beasts.

"H-help, we have a rogue resonator!"

The voice was faint, but the two of them clearly heard it, and what it said was almost unbelievable.

A rogue resonator, in the academy’s C-rank portal? That was nearly impossible... unless the rogue resonator was an academy student. But what motive could a student possibly have?

Still, they both knew that sitting around wouldn’t help.

"Sera."

"Got it, boss!"

They moved before the echo faded.

Damon pushed off the rock, water still dripping from his face, and Sera was already on her feet beside him. Her staff crackled to life, golden lightning arcing along its length where yesterday it had been blue-white.

The scream had come from the northeast, deeper into the forest, past the marked trail.

"Rogue resonator," Sera said, her voice low and tight. "In an academy portal. That’s not supposed to happen."

"I know."

They ran.

The forest blurred past them. Damon ate up the distance, and Sera kept pace beside him, her newly combined stats letting her move faster than any caster had a right to.

The rune-carved trail markers fell behind them, and the undergrowth grew thicker, wilder. Whatever had happened, it was off the authorized path.

The trees thinned abruptly into a clearing. Damon skidded to a halt, Sera pulling up beside him.

Three Resonators lay sprawled across the forest floor. Students, by the look of their gear, second or third-years. One was clutching a broken arm, his face pale with shock.

Another was slumped against a tree trunk, a gash across her forehead bleeding freely. The third was on his knees, hands raised, and standing over him—

Was a man in academy robes.

But the robes were torn, stained with dirt and something darker. His hair was wild, unkempt, and his eyes had the hollow, fevered look of someone who hadn’t slept in days.

In his right hand, a blade crackled with unstable red energy, not a standard-issue weapon. Something modified.

Something dangerous.

"You don’t understand," the rogue was saying, his voice cracking. "None of you understand. The system is broken, it’s all broken, and I saw it. I saw what’s on the other side of the portals, and it’s—"

"Step away from them."

Damon’s voice cut through the clearing.

The rogue’s head snapped toward him. Those hollow eyes scanned Damon, then Sera, and his lips peeled back in something that was less a smile and more a grimace of despair.

"More students. Of course. They always send more students."

Damon’s eyes narrowed as he studied the rogue’s fevered rambling. The broken system, the portal stuff.

It wasn’t textbook knowledge, exactly, but he’d heard of it before. Years of having nothing to do, no system to train, no combat drills to run, had given him time to dig through the most random rabbit holes imaginable.

And this one was familiar.

The Broken System Conspiracy.

A bizarre phenomenon documented among younger Resonators at an academy abroad, isolated cases of students who claimed their systems had "shown them the truth."

Hallucinations, paranoia, and in the worst cases, violence. The official reports dismissed it as a psychological break brought on by trauma.

If this was the same thing, this would be the first recorded case on this continent.

But Damon wasn’t naive. He knew random theories from obscure forums weren’t gospel. Still, the rogue’s blade was crackling with that unstable red energy, and the three students behind him were bleeding and terrified. Theories could wait.

He moved.

Damon lunged forward, closing the gap in a single explosive stride. His elbow drove into the rogue’s chest with a satisfying crack, sending the man hurtling backward into a nearby tree.

Bark splintered on impact, and the rogue’s modified blade spun from his grip, clattering uselessly onto the grass.

"All three of you, leave! Now!"

Damon planted himself between the rogue and the escaping students. Behind him, Sera’s staff was already raised, golden lightning coiled and ready along its length.

"W-What...?"

The rogue crumpled to his hands and knees, emerging from the dust cloud that billowed from the impact. His weapon lay out of reach. For a moment, his eyes flickered with something close to clarity, confusion, maybe even fear.

Then it vanished.

His face contorted. His fingers clawed at the dirt, and the red energy flared around his hands, unstable and wrong.

"D-Die!"

He lunged again.

But Damon was fast. He quickly stepped to the side, completely avoiding the rogue, and waiting right in front of the man was Sera’s staff, pointed directly at his face.

But none of them was in a particularly murderous mood tonight.

So instead of a lethal lightning lance,

Sera settled for a simple smack to the top of his head, knocking him unconscious with her newfound strength.

"So... think he ate some weird mushroom?" she said.

"Honestly, that’s a more reasonable explanation than what I came up with."

"What’s your theory?"

"A random internet forum."

"Seriously... Damon?"

"Don’t look at me like I’m a child who can’t stop using his device..."