The class let out and Arthur was already moving.
He had the relic stone out before he cleared the door.
"What's the rush, brat." Roz was on his shoulder, fixing his bow tie against the movement.
"Someone has tried to kill me twice," Arthur said. "Once they succeeded. So the logical thing to do is to not be the kind of person that keeps happening to."
"And how are you planning to do that."
"Get strong enough that it stops being an option."
He took the stairs toward the rear gate.
'Get strong.' Vexis appeared at his left, arms crossed. 'Our density is enormous and our output is weak. You tire yourself out producing a coin-sized shadow. There is a faster route. If you simply approached father and explained the situation he would—'
Vexis.
'He has resources. Connections. If someone is targeting this family—'
Watch and learn.
'That is not a plan. That is a sentence. You cannot watch and learn your way out of an assassination attempt you absolute—'
Arthur pressed the relic stone.
The academy disappeared.
The public dispatch point sat two roads from the main gate. A row of shared carriages. No crests on the doors. A driver up top who didn't look back.
Arthur got in and found the last open seat.
The carriage smelled like someone's lunch. The man across from him was asleep with his mouth open. The suspension had one specific complaint every time the wheel caught a groove.
A few days ago he had ridden through this city in a Lestilaut carriage. Brass fittings. A butler who bowed before opening the door. Seats that didn't vibrate.
He looked out the window.
Welcome to Class F, he thought. Population: me.
'This is beneath us,' Vexis said from somewhere near the ceiling.
Arthur ignored him.
The kingdom was massive. An hour in the carriage and the city was still going. District after district bleeding into each other until eventually the buildings got shorter and older and the outer wall came into view.
He thought about Xavier the whole ride.
Xavier Almonth was a regressor. He had lived this timeline once already. Died at the end of it, or something close enough that the universe sent him back to the start with his memories intact. Every shortcut. Every location. Every trick a normal second year would spend months stumbling toward, Xavier already knew.
That wasn't the part that bothered Arthur.
The part that bothered him was simpler.
In this world, killing creatures releases aetheric essence. It flows directly into the body of whoever lands the kill and strengthens their Mageia core output over time. More kills, more essence, stronger flow. It was the most basic and most effective way to get stronger fast and almost nobody in the second year had figured it out yet.
Xavier had. In his previous life. Which meant he knew exactly where to go, exactly what spawned there, and exactly how to run it efficiently.
Arthur knew all of this because he had read Xavier's point of view chapters.
He was about to use the protagonist's own information against him.
He kept that thought brief and moved on.
He got out past the outer wall and went left.
Tree lines. Tall and close, the kind of forest that had just been left alone long enough to become one. The soil at the edge was dark and undisturbed. No worn path.
He pushed through.
Roz went quiet the moment the trees closed around them. Not asleep. Just present in the way he got when something was worth paying attention to.
Arthur kept walking.
The sound of water came first.
Then beneath it, something sharper.
Metal. Clean and fast.
Arthur slowed. Found the largest tree in the line and put it between himself and the sound. Leaned out just enough.
Waterfall. Wide pool at the base. Open clearing with good sight lines.
And in the middle of it, white hair catching the light through the branches, academy uniform, the Almonth crest at his collar.
Xavier.
Arthur pulled his head back.
Of course.
He pressed his back against the bark.
This was his plan. His one logical proactive move after two near-deaths and a tournament he'd voluntarily enrolled in. Go to the farm spot. Get stronger. Stop being the kind of person who kept almost dying.
Xavier moved through the clearing like he'd done it a thousand times. A creature came in from the left. Three legs, two heads, the body of something that had started as one animal and then made a series of bad decisions. It hit the ground fast.
The purple glow that came off it flowed directly into Xavier's chest. Smooth. Like it already knew the way.
Aetheric essence. The real reason Arthur had come all the way out here.
He watched it disappear into Xavier and felt something that wasn't quite frustration and wasn't quite admiration but sat somewhere between the two.
This person had died with the knowledge of this place and come back and walked straight here in the third chapter because he already knew it was the best move. He existed in this forest like he owned it.
Because in every version of this timeline he had.
Arthur thought about blue eyes that didn't flinch. The way Xavier looked at Vexis across a room like he was reading a page he'd already finished once.
He needed to stay small. Stay boring. Give Xavier nothing new to file away.
He heard something.
Low. Close.
He looked down.
A creature was at his ankle. Rounded body. Two heads, both pointing up at him with the expression of something that had found an obstacle and hadn't decided what to do about it yet.
He stared at it.
It stared back.
One head tilted.
Arthur's leg moved before he told it to. The creature left the ground, crossed four meters of air, and hit a tree on the other side of the clearing with a sound that had no business being that loud.
He went still.
The waterfall kept falling.
Everything else didn't.
He turned his head.
Xavier was looking at him.
Sword up. Eyes steady. Not surprised. The specific stillness of someone who had already located the source and was deciding what came next.
Blue eyes met gold across the clearing.
Neither of them moved.
Xavier's chin dropped slightly.
"What are you doing here."
A beat.
"Bully."