ONE WEEK LATER.
WOEWYN: TRINEUM ACADEMY.
Damon sat at the very back of the classroom, holding a dark leather sketchbook and pencil between his fingers.
The sun hit Damon's uniform like it was trying to expose him. Thin gold lines slid across the charcoal‑black jacket, catching the muted blue threads woven through it. A soft breeze drifted through the open window behind him, shifting the loose strands of his dark‑blue hair just enough to make him look awake.
At the front, Ms Eldara stood with her green hair tied back and her bright orange eyes locked onto the class. She lectured with a short wand‑stick, flicking holograms into existence like she was conducting an orchestra.
At the front of the grand hall, Ms. Eldara stood with her green hair tight back and bright orange eyes locked onto the class while flicking holograms into existence with a short wand-stick. Above the main board, glowing letters floated in the air directly behind her desk, spelling out:
PREDATORY ECOLOGY.
Beside Damon sat Cythera. Her eyes were focused on her note-taking, her pen moving with natural precision—much like the rest of the eager class, though Cythera's eyes carried an underlying lethality. She lifted her head to her left at the rows of students scribbling. Then, she turned her head to the right.
Damon was staring blankly at his page, his pencil moving in smooth, sweeping loops that looked nothing like shorthand notes.
'What is he doing?' Cythera thought.
Daichi popped out from Damon's pocket with a banana in his mouth, and Damon's eyes noticed him.
"You see? Fruits aren't so bad," Damon murmured back.
Daichi let out a low, muffled bark as he poked from Damon's pocket—a sassy little huff that said: "Fruits to me are like alcohol to vampires. It only stops my urges."
"Not all vamps are like that, Daichi," Damon said with a chuckle.
With a flick of his wrist, thin, invisible blades of light peeled and sliced the fruit into perfect rounds. A microscopic flare of invisible fire roasted the pieces in mid-air. Daichi's tongue flopped out, his eyes wide with eager anticipation.
'Perfect,' the hound thought as Damon dropped the warm, caramelized slices straight into his pocket. Daichi ducked back inside after them with a satisfied grunt.
Cythera watched the absurd sequence unfold beside her. Her usual deadpan expression softened for a fraction of a second into something warm.
Damon picked his dark book back up, but as he adjusted it, Cythera caught a glimpse of the page. It was a detailed overhead sketch of a girl with a bright, radiant smile.
'He's drawing...'
An uncalled memory flashed in Cythera's mind—watching from across the grand hall on Natsuki's first day on Eternum, as Lady Seraphine had gracefully bent down to kiss the Earth girl's hand at the royal ball.
'He's drawing her...'
Cythera's eyes drifted upward, tracing his side profile: his dark hair falling casually over his temples as the sun caught his equally blue highlights, his sharp ramus cutting cleanly into his jaw, the straight slope of his nose, and the faint gold dot on his dark blue irises in the sunlight.
A subtle, sharp inhale escaped her lips.
"Are you gonna keep admiring my face or focus on the lesson?" Damon murmured without looking up. "You've got two people depending on your notes, lady. Technically three, considering Lior's passing out."
Cythera and Damon both glanced to their left. A few seats over but still at the back, Mirea was under her desk, secretly pinching her fingernails into Lior's forearm, trying to shock him awake.
Cythera snapped her eyes back to Damon. "My gaze was far from admiration."
"Oh yeah? What was it then?"
"I was imagining drowning you the second you awaken your water affinity."
Damon sighed softly. "Why... just why are all of you obsessed with killing me?"
Cythera turned back to her parchment; a faint, thin smile touched her lips. "We're not. We're obsessed with winning the bet. You're like a hammer, Damon, or a nail. You just have to take the pain until the artwork is finished."
"Nice, nice. And I get absolutely nothing in return," Damon muttered, leaning back. "Perfectly fine."
Cythera's eyes dropped back to his desk. "Speaking of artwork... what atrocities are you committing over there?"
Damon smirked, turning the dark sketchbook toward her. "She's an atrocity, alright. A beautiful one."
The page revealed a meticulously detailed pencil portrait with soft, half-erased gridlines. It was an overhead view of Natsuki looking up, wearing a loose-fitting blouse, holding a sticker-covered phone in her left hand as if taking a mirror selfie from above, and throwing up a casual peace sign with her right. Drawn in an aesthetic style right above her hair was a crisp, four-pointed star.
Cythera's gaze locked onto Natsuki's smile, then the star, instantly recognizing the exact four-pointed iris pattern that had seared into Damon's eyes at the Trineum festival when he conquered Mirror Damon.
"Mhm? What do you think?" Damon asked softly.
Cythera's distant expression settled into a thoughtful stillness. "We've always been told that the simplest mark of an Earth dweller lies in their average appearance. The people of Eternum are vastly superior in that regard. I wonder if she truly looks as you've portrayed her... because if so, I wouldn't be able to tell she was from Earth."
Daichi's snout popped back out of Damon's pocket, resting on the fabric rim as he squinted at the drawing. "Looks pretty accurate to me," he barked softly.
Damon chuckled, patting the hound's head before turning back to Cythera. "All those words just to say my girlfriend's pretty? Thanks, but you're way too complex. Harder than whatever Ms. Eldara's rambling about down there."
Cythera glanced toward the front, where the green-haired woman was now sitting cross-legged on the edge of her desk, lazily swinging her short staff while delivering a casual lecture.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Cythera asked with genuine curiosity.
Damon shrugged. "I dunno. I just like to live life—"
"—ON EASY MODE, I GUESS."
The words boomed through the hall, violently amplified directly over Damon's desk.
Damon flinched, his head snapping up as every single eye in the auditorium locked onto him. At the front of the room, Ms. Eldara had one palm casually raised, a swirling dome of compressed wind spinning above her skin, laced with glowing green diagonal rings.
'She bent sound...' Damon thought, impressed despite himself. 'Even crazier, she isolated and redirected just my voice out of a hundred whispering students. That's impressive.'
Daichi offered a panic-laced whisper from his coat: WIs that seriously what you're focusing on right now?! You just got caught slacking!"
"Prince Damon," Ms Eldara said, her voice smooth but edged with authority; every syllable from her voice landed with deliberate precision, and she wore a knowing smirk that spoke volumes. "Hypocrisy will not be tolerated in my class."
"Okaaayy..." Damon drawled, closing his book. "What does that have to do with me?"
Ms. Eldara stepped off her desk, walking down the center aisle with slow, deliberate steps. "Whispering whatnot, sketching, and offering roasted bananas to a..." Her orange eyes flicked to the dark snout peeking from his chest, "...tolerated hound in an environment that demands absolute concentration, knowing full well the consequences, isn't exactly..."
She stopped beside his desk, leaning down with a teasing, seductive curve to her lips.
"...easy mode behaviour."
A wave of laughter erupted through the classroom, but Mirea immediately facepalmed into her desk and slapped Lior to wake him up when she noticed he'd passed out.
'There it is again,' Damon thought dryly. 'So many fancy words for a simple callout.'
"I was fully concentrated, if that helps," Damon offered smoothly.
"Is that so?" Ms. Eldara crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow. "Do you even remember the question you pretended to ask right before you started drawing?"
A single bead of sweat trickled down Damon's temple. 'Daichi... what was the question?'
'Uhh... I... don't know. I was eating fruit'
"Speechless?" Ms. Eldara asked smoothly, turning back toward the front as another chorus of snickers broke out.
THWACK.
"Ow!" Damon winced, clutching the side of his head as a tiny pebble bounced off his temple.
He glanced left. Mirea was glaring at him, a miniature, spinning diamond of floating Earth floating above her palm with tiny static sparks fading around it. Beside her, Lior pointed a lazy, sleepy finger at it.
Damon's eyes widened as the memory unlocked.
"Why is the Earth affinity called 'Earth' when we're not even on Earth?" Damon called out across the room.
Ms. Eldara paused at her desk, turning around slowly. "For a light user, you are slow, but yes... That was indeed the question you asked. And what was my answer?"
"Your response," Damon continued calmly, "was that it's always been called Earth since before Eternum was severed from the Multiverse—because the vast majority of original Eternum dwellers stayed on Earth thousands of years before Earth's understanding of the initial human. You threw in a random fact that it was millions of years before the naming of The Three, commonly known on Earth as the first three primary continents."
The laughter died instantly. The entire classroom fell dead silent, staring at the back row. The class turned their gaze back to Ms Eldara now.
Ms. Eldara's smirk faltered for a fraction of a second before regaining its composure. "I see," she said coolly. "And what was our main topic today?"
The class turned their gaze to Damon.
"The Wild: Apexes and Phantoms," Damon replied without missing a beat.
The class turned back to Ms Eldara.
"And what exactly are they?"
The class turned back to Damon.
"The Wild, in the context of Predators, are grouped into two categories," Damon said, resting his forearms on his desk.
"Apexes and Phantoms. An Apex will always be physically stronger than you. An Apex forces hunters to rely entirely on traps, poisons, or long-range whatnot, because fighting one head-on is a guaranteed death sentence—or at least, it was before certain law amendments. Phantoms will always be faster than you. Phantoms force you to rely on wide-area elemental coverage, sensory magic, or heavy armor, because you can't dodge what you can't see coming. Sensing ki doesn't help, 'cause sensing Ki in motion requires you to be at least as fast as what you're sensing. Phantoms are always faster."
He stopped speaking for a while. The room was completely silent. Even a pair of blue-feathered birds perched on the windowsill outside had their beaks agape, staring inside.
Damon shifted slightly under the weight of hundreds of staring faces. "...Heavy on the 'always'."
Ms. Eldara let out a short, amused laugh. "You've made your point, Prince Damon. You listen. Though, I never asked for the entire backstory."
"A few weeks ago," Damon said, leaning back and snapping his dark sketchbook shut, "you explicitly told the class that whenever you ask a 'what' question, you expect us to know every single detail you've ever taught us on the topic."
RINGGGGG!
The heavy academy bell chimed, echoing through the halls.
Damon stood up, slipping his pencil and sketchpad effortlessly into his pocket dimension. He pulled out his phone, untangling his earpods as he stepped out from behind his desk.
"You made your point, Ms. Eldara," Damon said smoothly, slinging his bag over one shoulder as he walked past her desk toward the double doors. "You don't listen. Not even to your own words."
Leaving the entire class sitting in stunned, breathless silence, Prince Damon put his earpods in and, ignorant of the atmosphere, walked out the door.