The harassment began subtly, a campaign of a thousand tiny cuts designed to bleed his sanity. His bunk would be mysteriously soaked with water. His clean laundry would vanish from the washhouse, only to be found later, shredded and discarded in a trash bin. They were childish, petty acts of intimidation, but they were constant, a persistent, low-grade psychological warfare that kept him perpetually on edge.
Zero endured it with a cold, silent stoicism. He knew this was just the overture, the prelude to the real performance. Marcus was not just a bully; he was a predator, and a predator does not just chase its prey. It tests its defenses, probes for weaknesses, and enjoys the terror it creates before the final, killing blow.
The first true attempt on his life came a week after the alleyway.
The setting was insultingly mundane: the academy's sprawling greenhouse, during the mandatory F-Rank practical on 'Basic Arcane Herbology.' The air was thick and humid, a soupy mixture of damp earth, blooming flowers, and the faint, alchemical tang of magical fertilizers. It was a place of life, of growth, of quiet, academic study. A perfect place for a quiet, academic murder.
The class was a mind-numbing exercise in taxonomy. The students, mostly porters, farmers, and other designated 'non-combatants,' were tasked with identifying and sketching a dozen common magical plants. It was the kind of class Ashe, in his first life, had excelled at.
Zero sat at a long, wooden workbench, a tray of potted plants before him. He worked with a quiet, detached efficiency, his charcoal pencil moving with a practiced, scholarly grace. He sketched the serrated leaves of a Sun-Dew Fern, noted the faint, glowing aura of a Moonpetal Blossom, and endured the droning voice of the instructor, a wizened old botanist with a passion for moss.
He felt a strange, dual-mindedness. The ghost of Ashe, the brilliant theorist, was fascinated by the specimens, his mind automatically cataloging their properties, their uses, their ecological niches. The cold, vigilant Zero, however, was scanning, constantly assessing. He noted the exits. He watched the other students. He saw two particular students—burly, dull-eyed boys he recognized as part of Marcus's extended clique—watching him from the far end of the greenhouse, their attempts at subtlety clumsy and obvious.
The instructor finally assigned their final task: to take a cutting from a Nightshade Borer, a mildly toxic but otherwise harmless vine, and prepare it for potting. The students shuffled to a large, vine-covered wall at the back of the greenhouse. There was a brief, chaotic jostle as everyone tried to get the best cutting.
It was during this moment of orchestrated chaos that the swap was made.
Zero returned to his workbench, a small, dark-leafed cutting in his hand. He laid it on his desk beside his other samples and picked up his sketching pencil to make his final notes.
As he did, his glitched perception flared to life, an unbidden, ice-cold rush of pure information.
The world fractured, overlaid with the familiar, corrupted white text. He saw the faint, glowing lines of the water pipes running beneath the floor. He saw the stress fractures in the glass panels of the roof. And when his gaze fell upon the Nightshade cutting on his desk, the text flared with an urgent, screaming intensity.
[OBJECT: Crimson-Veil Creeper (Leaf Cutting). CLASS: Lethal Toxin (Class 4 Neuro-Agent).]
[ANALYSIS: Visually identical to Nightshade Borer. Toxin is absorbed through skin contact. Onset: 30 seconds. Effect: Total respiratory failure. Antidote: None.]
[WARNING! WARNING! LETHAL THREAT DETECTED!]
Zero's blood ran cold. He froze, his hand hovering mere inches from the deceptively innocent-looking leaf. A single touch. Thirty seconds. A quiet, untraceable death that would be dismissed as a tragic, clumsy accident by a stupid F-Ranker.
It was a clever, almost elegant trap.
The ghost of Ashe screamed in his mind, a sound of pure, white-hot panic. It's poison! Get away! Call the instructor!
Zero ruthlessly suppressed the fear. He did not flinch. He did not cry out. To do so would be to reveal his impossible knowledge, to show his hand. He was being watched.
His mind worked with a speed that defied the encroaching terror. He needed to create a scenario where he could avoid touching the leaf without arousing suspicion. He needed a plausible accident.
He looked at his workbench. The tray of potted plants. The heavy, ceramic pot containing the Sun-Dew Fern. A plan, desperate and risky, clicked into place.
He took a slow, deliberate breath, and then he acted.
He let his charcoal pencil "slip" from his fingers. As he bent down to retrieve it, he deliberately hooked his foot around the leg of his stool and pulled.
The stool lurched. He threw his body off-balance, turning the small movement into a wild, flailing stumble. He crashed into his own workbench, his arms pinwheeling for balance.
The heavy ceramic pot containing the Sun-Dew Fern wobbled at the edge of the table. He gave it one last, subtle nudge with his elbow.
The pot tipped, toppling over the edge and crashing to the stone floor with a spectacular, deafening shatter.
Soil, shards of pottery, and the fern itself exploded across the floor. But more importantly, the falling pot swept the entire tray of plant samples—including the poisoned Crimson-Veil cutting—off the workbench. The deadly leaf was lost, buried in the chaos of dirt and broken ceramics.
The entire greenhouse went silent. Every head turned to stare at the clumsy, F-Rank Porter who had just caused such a commotion.
"Ashe!" the instructor barked, his face a mask of academic fury. "What in the Founders' name do you think you're doing? That was a prize specimen!"
Zero slowly pushed himself up from the mess, his face a perfect picture of horrified, apologetic embarrassment. "I'm so sorry, Professor! My stool… I think a leg is loose. I just… I stumbled."
The two students from Marcus's clique were staring at the scene, their faces a mixture of confusion and thwarted rage. Their perfect, silent assassination had just been ruined by a moment of sheer, unbelievable clumsiness. Or so it seemed.
"Clumsy oaf," one of them muttered, just loud enough for Zero to hear.
Zero kept his head down, feigning shame, but inside, a cold, grim satisfaction was settling. He had survived. He had used his enemy's perception of him as a clumsy, useless failure as the very tool to defeat them.
"Clean this up," the instructor snapped, his tone dismissive. "Immediately. You will, of course, be receiving a failing grade for this practical."
"Yes, Professor," Zero mumbled, kneeling down to begin the slow, painstaking process of cleaning up the mess he had so deliberately created.
He worked in silence, his hands carefully sifting through the dirt, meticulously separating the shards of pottery from the leaves of the plants. He was no longer just a student. He was a survivor in a silent, deadly war he had not asked for, but one he was now determined to win.
He finally found the Crimson-Veil cutting, its dark leaf partially hidden beneath a piece of broken pot. He carefully, using two large shards of ceramic like a pair of tongs, picked it up and wrapped it in his handkerchief.
Marcus had made his move. He had escalated the game from bullying to murder. And he had failed.
Zero knew this was not the end. The attempts would become more frequent, more desperate. But something inside him had changed. The constant, oppressive fear he had felt in the last week was gone, replaced by a cold, hard, and utterly ruthless resolve.
He was done reacting. He was done waiting for the next attack. He looked at the small, cloth-wrapped bundle in his hand. He had the proof of their attempt. He had the weapon.
It was time to stop playing defense. It was time to set a trap of his own.