[Inside the dungeon]
Among all the academy's first-years, every group struggled against the foes they faced.
The trolls, the chimeras, the wraiths—each beast was a brutal lesson in humility.
They hadn't adapted, nor did they truly wish to fight—their first instinct had always been to flee. Their courage was a fragile thing, easily shattered by the sight of true power.
But there was one boy who didn't run.
One boy who charged recklessly at the beast.
Lucas.
"Keep it distracted! Don't let that fool die!" Aldric barked, his voice sharp as steel. The words were a command, but they were also a plea.
Despite the order, none of them could hide their thoughts. Many would call it bravery. Yet every one there—every student, every teammate, even the troll itself—thought the same thing in that moment.
Foolishness.
The troll staggered as arrows rained down, as fireballs and bursts of magic hammered its hide. For a heartbeat, its green eyes flickered away, its attention momentarily divided.
Lucas didn't retreat. He saw that single gap—that fleeting moment of opportunity—and dove in.
He wasn't thinking. He wasn't strategizing. He was simply moving, driven by a desperate, hollow resolve.
Clash!
His blade bit deep, tearing through purple flesh and scraping bone.
"GRRAAAAAA!" The troll's roar shook the walls, a wave of pain and fury that threatened to knock Lucas off his feet.
Blood sprayed, hot and heavy, as it thrashed in pain.
Lucas gritted his teeth, the pain in his own body a faint echo of the beast's.
How much time? he wondered. Five minutes? Six, at best. Once the buff was gone, the spell that gave him temporary strength and speed, he was dead.
But even as he thought it, a cold certainty settled over him. It won't be enough. "Even with more time… I can't kill this thing."
Muttering the bitter truth under his breath, he ducked low, hacking at its calves, shins, ankles—anything to slow its monstrous stride, anything to prolong the inevitable.
"Get the fuck back, you crazy bastard! While it's distracted—fall back!" Arthur screamed, his voice raw with a desperate urgency. He knew what Lucas was doing, and he was terrified.
But Lucas wasn't satisfied. Not yet. Not when the troll still stood.
They all knew the truth—even if no one said it aloud.
Arrows pierced its back. Fire scorched its skin. Aldric's axe carved deep grooves. Lucas's sword tore open wounds. Yet none of it lasted.
The troll's flesh writhed and mended. The blood sealed. Every cut, every gash—slowly knitting itself back together, a grotesque display of unholy resilience.
That was what made the troll truly terrifying. Not just its brute strength. Not its towering bulk.
Its regeneration.
Unless they could strike it down in one devastating blow, something powerful enough to overwhelm that unnatural healing—the beast would keep standing.
No matter how much it bled.
Despite knowing the truth, Lucas still charged like an idiot—mindless, reckless, diving toward death as if embracing it would somehow make a difference. He wasn't thinking about winning. He was just thinking about fighting.
"How many times today have I made a fool of myself?"
His mind drifted even in the middle of battle, a strange, disjointed reflection.
The first time was when he blanked out during Aldric's strategy talk, staring off into nothing while the others looked at him like dead weight. Then there was when he decided—out of nowhere—to apologize to Evan.
As if that would fix years of distance, as if mending things with his childhood friend, with the boy of Ravenshade, was as simple as one sorry.
And the words he'd rushed out… pathetic. A mess of stammering, nonsensical gibberish that embarrassed him the second it left his mouth. Shameful. Cringe-worthy.
And yet, in that moment, he hadn't realized. Only now, with a monster towering above him and blood spraying the dirt, did it all come crashing back.
But even now—his body didn't stop. His mind didn't react. He just kept swinging, a mindless drone of a warrior.
Even as his teammates screamed at him, desperate, begging him to fall back. Even as every teammate in the dungeon stared, calling him an idiot under their breath.
He still pressed forward. Blind. Swinging, slashing, crossing that line between courage and stupidity—and throwing himself past it without hesitation.
The beast roared, tearing chunks of stone from the wall before hurling them straight at Lucas.
He ducked, but not fast enough—fragments slammed into his ribs and abdomen, pain ripping through his body.
Yet his feet, possessed by something beyond reason, refused to stop moving forward.
"What makes a human different from the rest?" Lucas wondered between ragged breaths."Is it birth? Status? The hierarchy forced on us?"
He clenched his teeth, shaking his head. "I don't know. I am not educated enough to answer that philosophical question. All I know is this—
—I'm a boy from a small village, with nothing but a dream too big for me to hold."
His buff flickered, its light weakening—he didn't have much time.
The troll steadied itself, towering back onto its feet. In an instant, its massive hand wrapped around him, crushing, lifting him up to its eye level.
Bones strained, breath leaving his lungs. But before the grip could end him—
With a desperate slash, Lucas drove his blade across the troll's eye.
A wet splshh! burst out as black ichor sprayed, the beast howling in agony.
"The first time I truly felt alive in this world… was when I discovered I had something in me. Amidst the fading background and hidden noise of daily life, my awakening revealed a high-level talent with the sword."
Escaping the troll's crushing grip, Lucas didn't let the moment slip away. The beast, blinded and thrashing, became his prey. He launched into a storm of slashes—merciless, unrelenting.
Flesh, muscle, bone, skin, fingers, even strands of coarse hair—nothing survived the steel.
His blade carved through the troll like a butcher who cared nothing for what flesh lay beneath his edge.
"I remember how joyful that day was… The first time I told my mother. The second time—the news that I had been chosen for the Royal Academy, a place only for the gifted."
The memory burned in his chest as the troll howled. "I remember the pride in her eyes… like I was the moon in a star-filled sky, shining brightest of all. And I remember the farewell—the joy, the sadness—the longing on her tear-stained face, unwilling to let me go."
She had given him a parting gift—a sword. Not one born of noble wealth, but a sacrifice.
His mother, a nanny in the Nightshade Viscount's household, earned just enough to feed them and keep their home warm.
Yet she had saved, quietly and painfully, to buy that sword. Expensive not in coin, but in meaning. Heavier than any burden of gold.
Even as he remembered, his sword never stopped. The ground was soaked red, his body painted with blood not all his own.
And then came the day of change… the day I forgot my place.
Evan and his friends had reminded him—brutally. He remembered lying broken on the ground, his cherished sword in Evan's hands.
He remembered the snap, the way steel cracked like bone. As if each fracture tore into his own chest.
When Evan left, he had gathered every shard with trembling hands, even as the jagged edges pierced his fingers. Each drop of blood whispered: This is your fault. It isn't just the sword that broke… but your mother's trust and her hope in you.
Still, he carried every piece back to his room, as if the broken fragments held meaning only he could understand.
Now—his breath came in ragged gasps, his body swaying. The troll still stood.
The world's noise faded to nothing but the pounding of his heart. The buff was gone—burned out, leaving nothing but a torn, exhausted body. And still, the troll stood.
Bloodied, mangled, but unyielding. Lucas could only hope—hope that maybe the beast would collapse on its own, or die standing where it was.
For a moment, silence fell. A silence so heavy it felt like minutes stretched inside a single second. Everyone held their breath.
Did Lucas really… succeed? Did he actually kill—
The thought never finished.
"GRRAAAAAAAAAA!"
The troll's scream tore the air. It lunged forward, its massive hand snatching Lucas like he was nothing.
With a savage swing, it slammed him into the ground. The impact cracked the earth, rattling bones, and promised nothing less than death.
"Lucas!"
Aldric roared, charging with Arthur.
Together, axe and mace crashed down on the troll's back, steel biting deep. But pain didn't exist for the beast anymore.
Enraged beyond reason, it ignored them, sweeping its arm with monstrous force. Both men were hurled across the chamber, slamming into the stone wall like discarded dolls.
The troll abandoned all sense of defense, all awareness of wounds. There was only one thought consuming it now—kill the insect writhing at its feet. Crush him into nothing.
Lucas lay there, his body broken, his will shattered. No strength left, not even the instinct to crawl away. He could only stare up at the towering figure looming over him.
"Why didn't I run?"
The question burned in his skull, bitter and sharp. "Why didn't I flee… like Evan did?"
He remembered it—Evan's back, retreating without a glance. Evan hadn't hesitated. He'd known there was no victory here. He had chosen survival.
And Lucas? He had chosen to stand.
Evan was stronger—always stronger. More skilled, more capable. If he had stayed, maybe this fight would've meant something.
Maybe together with Aldric and Arthur, they would've stood a chance. Lucas wasn't blind; he knew Evan's strength was above his own, above theirs.
But did he feel disappointment that Evan had left?
No.
Disappointment only exists when expectations are betrayed. Lucas had none. Not for Evan. Not for Aldric, Arthur, or Elara. Not even for himself.
And lying there, breath shallow, body ruined, he realized that was the truth.
"What did I achieve? What did I lose?"
"I remember the first time I stepped onto the academy grounds. Back then, I swore that once I graduated, I'd let my mother finally rest from her endless duties. No more rising before dawn on winter mornings, no more rushing to serve nobles their warm meals.
I thought I'd earn enough, achieve enough, that she could finally live for herself. And maybe… maybe if I proved myself, my first love would recognize me.
Maybe she'd look at me differently—see me as more than a childhood friend, more than the boy from a small village.
There were so many dreams. So many foolish hopes.
Now, lying here, I want to laugh at myself. Or at least smile bitterly at the thought that I ever believed I was some kind of hero. That if I struggled hard enough, fate would eventually reward me. That's the kind of story I thought I was in. How stupid."
Lucas felt the shadow of the troll above him, his teammates' voices echoing faint and desperate.
But his face stayed blank, as always. He was used to losing. Used to failure. This… this was nothing new.
The troll stared at him with its one good eye, red and burning with blood, its claw rising high, ready to rip him apart.
Lucas saw death coming closer.
Clang.
The heavy sound of steel tearing flesh echoed through the dungeon.
The girls—Elara, Jasmine, Saraphina—closed their eyes, too afraid to watch.
But Lucas kept his open.
The sound wasn't his flesh being ripped apart. It was the troll's.
Instead, a spear had rammed straight through the troll's chest from behind, the iron tip bursting out the front, blood spraying in a thick arc and drenching him like a storm.
The spear was yanked free—and then rammed again, harder. The troll convulsed, choking on its own roar.
But it didn't stop there.
A blur stepped from the shadows, hands gripping twin daggers.
The steel sank into the beast's neck, dragging deep, cruel lines as flesh tore open. He didn't cut to kill cleanly. He cut to butcher. To make it suffer.
The troll screamed, staggering, its eye wild, blood gushing like a river. The blades dug deeper, twisting, ripping through tendon, through bone, until finally—
RIP.
The neck half tore open, and the giant collapsed with a thunderous thud, the ground trembling beneath its weight.
For the first and last time, the dungeon fell silent.
And only then, standing atop the corpse like it was nothing more than slaughtered cattle, the figure came into view.
Fingers running lazily through blood-slick hair, his voice calm, almost mocking—
"My, my… looks like I was late. But still on time."
It was Evan Ravenshade.
The troll's body still twitched under him, the heart impaled, the throat butchered, blood pooling around his boots.
But Evan didn't spare it a glance. His eyes were only on the broken boy beneath it all.