Alan was hunched over a cluttered workbench in the empty Rune Engineering lab, the low hum of mana lamps painting his face in cold light. His hands were stained faintly with ink and oil, moving with the precision of a man who enjoyed the slow craft of his work.
The door creaked.
A boy stepped inside, clutching a folded letter like it was both shield and offering.
"Professor Alan… I—I need to pass," the boy said, voice timid but urgent. "Could you… teach me after hours? Maybe… tonight at six? Just to… get me on track."
Alan didn't answer right away. His eyes tracked the boy the way a hawk followed something wounded — not for the fight, but for the easy kill.
He set his pen down, fingers tapping the desk once… twice… before he took the letter. He unfolded it slowly, reading the careful handwriting.
The corners of his mouth curled.
Not a warm smile. Something thinner. Sharper. Like a blade's reflection before it draws blood.
"At six, you say?" Alan's tone was gentle, almost kind — but it carried the weight of something buried deep. "You've come to me… of your own accord. That's… admirable."
He leaned back in his chair, eyes half-lidded as if savoring a taste only he could feel. Inside, his mind was already wandering — to the dark corners of the lab where the lights didn't reach, to the subtle ways desperation made people pliable, to the slow, deliberate way prey stopped resisting once they realized no one was coming to help.
He folded the letter again, slipping it into his coat pocket as if it were already his.
"Six o'clock, then," he said softly, his gaze locking on the boy's face. "Don't be late… it would be a shame to waste such… enthusiasm."
The boy nodded quickly, retreating without another word.
Alan watched him leave, his smile lingering long after the door clicked shut.
He could already smell the fear.
____________________________________
The clock was ticking in Nex's head, not with panic, but with that slow, mechanical rhythm that came when every move had to fall exactly into place.
Principal Eve was gone — attending some political council meeting with the four races. That meant the Academy's leash had been handed over to Vice Principal Orien. And Orien… was a man with eyes everywhere. A man who didn't need to ask twice to have someone dragged into his office and broken open.
If Nex so much as breathed suspicion in Alan's direction, even through an anonymous channel, the risk of it being traced back was too high. Orien didn't believe in coincidences — and Nex's face would be one he'd remember.
No. This wasn't the time for moral righteousness. This was the time for bloodless precision.
He sat at his desk in the dim dorm room, the blinds drawn, only the glow of his mana-tab lighting his face. His fingers moved across the screen in a pattern that looked like idle browsing — scrolling past pictures of beaches, scenic train rides, and overpriced hotels.
Anyone watching would see a boy looking for a vacation.
But Nex's fingertips hesitated on a tiny, faded icon at the bottom corner — a compass rose with one point chipped. He tapped it.
The travel site flickered once… then melted away, the glossy blues and whites draining into a black interface that bled crimson text across the screen.
WELCOME BACK, TRAVELER.
A hidden marketplace. A place the Academy pretended didn't exist — because pretending was easier than burning out the rot.
Nex typed in the password without looking. As he had read in the novel, where lucas orders items through it for a mission. They were extremely rare and dangerous to be sold in markets
The page shifted again, and the categories appeared:
Venomous Flora
Cursed Tomes
Illicit Aether
Demonic Beast Components
He didn't hesitate. Demonic Beast Mana.
The list was long — unrefined cores, crystallized mana vials, shards of beast essence. Some still dripped with ichor in their preview images. Nex scrolled until he found what he needed: Fangborn Claws — soaked in compressed mana, sharp enough to shred steel, volatile enough to corrupt whatever they touched.
Price: 150,000 Zen Points.
He added them to the cart.
Then, without blinking, he tapped the "Quick Deliver" option.
+1,000 Zen Points — delivery within the hour, no questions asked, no records kept.
The total bled red on the screen. Nex didn't even feel the sting.
He confirmed the purchase, leaning back as the screen shifted to a single line:
DELIVERY ETA: 05:00. STAY AVAILABLE.
It wasn't just the claws he had bought. He had bought time. He had bought a weapon that couldn't be traced. He had bought the shadow of someone else's crime — to plant it exactly where it needed to be.
The body's predecessor had been a hoarder, storing away over a million Zen Points from years of saving, as knowing his family he could get millions of zen points easily and Nex had inherited all of it. And tonight, he was going to spend it like blood money.
Outside his window, the Academy was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that wasn't peace, but the heavy pause before a predator struck.
Nex's lips curved faintly as he shut off the screen.
He would wait. The claws would come.
And Alan… would never see it coming.
--
By late afternoon, the shadows had begun to stretch across the Academy grounds, the sun bleeding into an amber haze.
At exactly five, Nex left the dorms, his steps unhurried but deliberate, the faint hum of a distant song still lingering in his ears. He didn't want the delivery inside his room — not with the security wards, not with the eyes that might be watching. He'd read enough in the novel to know: caution was the difference between the hunter and the hunted.
The western gate's guards stiffened as he approached. Both of them were ranked students assigned to watch the perimeter, their gazes narrowing automatically when they saw a second-year heading out without formal clearance.
"Purpose?" one of them asked, his voice flat.
Nex didn't break stride.
"The Calder family sent me a parcel."
The moment the name Calder left his lips, their suspicion cracked. One guard coughed into his fist, suddenly avoiding his gaze. The other gave a curt nod and stepped aside. Nobody questioned the Calder family. Not openly.
The streets beyond the Academy gates felt quieter, heavier. A plain-looking courier in a faded travel company uniform was waiting in the alley behind a row of shuttered shops, leaning casually against a parked mana-bike. His expression didn't change when Nex appeared. Without a word, the man handed over a modest wooden box wrapped in brown sealing paper — the kind of package that wouldn't earn a second glance from anyone.
The handoff was smooth, almost mundane. And yet, Nex could feel the contained weight, the faint pulse of something wrong within the box. He slipped it into his spatial pocket without breaking eye contact, his face unreadable.
On the way back through the gates, he made his move. He reached into the spatial pocket again — this time drawing his katana, its black lacquered sheath catching the fading sunlight.
The guards eyed the weapon instinctively.
"Any problems with this?" Nex asked, not with arrogance, but with that quiet confidence that left little room for argument. His tone was calm, as if he were merely indulging a formality.
They inspected the blade from a distance — and, seeing nothing suspicious, gave him a bored shake of the head.
When their attention slid elsewhere, Nex's fingers moved. The spatial pocket rippled in his mind, the box of Fangborn Claws exchanging places with the katana in a blink. The swap happened between heartbeats.
By the time he passed fully inside the Academy gates, he looked every bit the unremarkable second-year returning from a casual errand.
But in his spatial pocket now rested a piece of violence — a weapon that could not be traced, hidden behind the illusion of normalcy.
And Alan would never know it was already in motion.