The Vice-Principal finally stopped shouting about dismembering demons with his dentures.
He cleared his throat roughly, adjusting his tie like he hadn't just mentally traumatized half the entire student body.
"Listen well, hatchlings!"
"Classes do not begin until Monday morning. You have two days. Two whole days to settle into your dormitories. Two days to explore the campus grounds. Two days to make allies... or enemies."
He grinned wide, showing all his teeth. They sparkled in the light like they were polished with something menacing.
"Use this time wisely. Dismissed!"
The word hung in the air for half a second.
Then chaos erupted as students started standing up all at once.
'Finally,' Kaizen thought, barely holding back a sigh of relief. 'Freedom. Sweet, blessed freedom.'
He hadn't moved a single muscle for the last twenty minutes straight. His entire body was stiff as a wooden board.
Why?
Because the stupid, shiny, over-friendly Protagonist sitting next to him absolutely would not stop yapping into his ear.
"Dude, look at that chandelier hanging up there," Leo had whispered earlier, pointing upward. "It's absolutely massive. I bet that thing costs way more than my entire village back home."
Kaizen had just stared straight ahead.
"Dude, do you think they serve meat every single day here? Man, I really love meat. Like, really love it."
Kaizen hadn't even blinked.
"Dude, that Vice-Principal is so incredibly cool. When I grow up, I want to be exactly like him. So strong and inspiring."
'Please,' Kaizen had begged internally, over and over.
'Just shut up. Please stop talking to me. Every single word that comes out of your mouth actively decreases my overall life expectancy by at least a week.'
But worse than Leo's constant chatter was something else Kaizen could feel pressing against his back.
Eyes. So many eyes staring at them.
It wasn't just Lance Wind burning a hole through the back of his skull with pure hatred anymore. It was everyone in the entire massive auditorium.
Leo Crimson was a walking beacon of attention. He was a glowing anomaly that naturally drew every single gaze in the room.
In this year's intake of thousands upon thousands of new students, ninety-nine percent of them were ranked E or F. They were fodder. Extras. Background characters meant to fill seats and die in cutscenes. Just like Kaizen was supposed to be.
But there were four exceptions to that iron rule.
The "Four Heavenly Kings" of the First Year intake. Four absolute monsters who had somehow started their academy life at Rank D right from day one.
First: Leo Crimson. The Hero. The Protagonist. The guy currently drooling over the mere thought of what the cafeteria might serve for dinner tonight.
Second: Lance Wind. The Villain. The Trash Young Master. The guy currently fantasizing in graphic detail about seventeen different ways to murder Kaizen and make it look like an accident.
Third: Klaus Silver. The Demon King candidate. The future Final Boss. The guy calmly reading a thick book about Runes and Hieroglyphs while completely ignoring the reality happening around him.
Fourth: Cedric Alexander. The Rival. The cool, edgy spear-wielding prodigy that... wait, Kaizen hadn't actually seen him anywhere yet. Where was he?
Every single eye in the packed hall was glued to these four legendary prodigies. They were the stars of the entire show. The solar system itself revolved around their existence.
And Kaizen?
He was just a random piece of space debris that had gotten caught in their overwhelming gravity well by pure, terrible luck. He didn't want any of this attention.
He didn't want the death glare burning into his back from Lance.
He didn't want the dismissive sniff from the Ice Princess Rina sitting to his left.
He definitely didn't want the so-called "Hero's Friendship" that would inevitably get him killed.
He just wanted to escape to his assigned dorm room, curl up into a tight ball under the blankets, and sleep for twelve straight hours until this nightmare of a day was finally over.
"Alright!"
Leo clapped his hands together enthusiastically.
Around them, students were beginning to stand up from their seats. The sound of hundreds of shuffling feet filled the enormous hall like rolling thunder.
"That was a pretty great ceremony! Hey, Kaizen, right? Which dorm building did they assign you to? We should totally walk there together and—"
Leo turned to his left, already flashing his signature blinding protagonist smile. The kind of smile that could convince people to run into burning buildings.
"I was thinking maybe we could grab some food first on the way and—"
Leo paused mid-sentence.
His smile froze on his face.
The seat beside him was completely empty.
There was no sound of retreating footsteps fading into the crowd. No glimpse of someone's back disappearing into the mass of moving students. Just an empty cushion slowly expanding back to its original shape, still warm from where someone had been sitting just moments ago.
"Huh?"
Leo blinked once. Then twice. He looked to his left. Then to his right. He stood up fully from his seat and scanned the entire moving crowd of students flooding toward the exits.
Nothing. No sign of Kaizen anywhere in the sea of uniforms.
It was like the guy had literally evaporated into thin air the exact millisecond the word "Dismissed" had left the Vice-Principal's mouth.
"Where did he go?"
Leo scratched the back of his head, genuinely puzzled by the disappearance.
"He was sitting right here just a second ago. I was talking to him and everything."
He let out a short, confused chuckle, shaking his head slightly.
"Man. That guy is seriously fast. Like, really fast. He didn't even say goodbye or anything. What a strange guy..."
A small, interested smile crossed Leo's face. His eyes glinted with curiosity.
"He's kind of interesting though."
Doomed! Kaizen would have had a stroke just from hearing those words.
Leo turned to his other side, shifting his attention.
Rina, the Elf Princess, was gracefully standing up from her seat. She moved with practiced elegance, delicately dusting off her perfectly pressed skirt with small, refined motions.
She looked like she had just endured some great personal trial by being forced to sit near filthy, disgusting commoners for an entire hour.
Leo beamed at her with his usual friendly warmth, completely unfazed by her cold demeanor.
"Pretty good opening ceremony, right? I thought the Vice-Principal's stories were really cool."
Rina looked at him with those freezing violet eyes.
Then her gaze shifted to the empty seat where Kaizen had been sitting moments before. Then back to Leo's face. She didn't say a single word in response. She just made a refined, dismissive sound deep in the back of her throat.
"Hmph."
Then she turned sharply on her heel and walked away with the elegant grace of a professional runway model, her silver hair swaying behind her like a curtain of moonlight.
"Tough crowd," Leo laughed good-naturedly to himself, not bothered at all by the rejection.
Then he turned to his right side.
Klaus Silver was closing his thick book with a deliberate motion.
SNAP.
The sound cut through the ambient noise like a blade. Sharp and final.
Klaus stood up smoothly from his seat. He was tall, noticeably taller than Leo by several inches.
He reached up and adjusted his collar with practiced, precise movements. His facial expression remained completely unreadable, like a mask carved from ice.
They stood face to face in the narrow aisle between seats.
The air between them suddenly grew heavy. Thick. Dense.
Two D-Rankers standing in a crowd of weaklings. Two monsters pretending to be students.
Leo's friendly smile didn't fade from his face, but something changed in his eyes. They sharpened, grew more focused.
He could sense it now, feel it pressing against his skin.
The pressure rolling off this dark-haired boy in invisible waves wasn't normal at all. It was dense and dark and heavy, like standing at the bottom of a deep ocean trench.
"I can sense you're strong."
Leo said simply. His voice had dropped the playful, friendly tone for just a split second. This was the voice of someone acknowledging a threat.
Klaus looked down at the Hero standing before him. His blood-red eyes glinted in the light like polished rubies.
"Likewise."
They held direct eye contact for a long moment. Neither blinked. Neither looked away.
A silent clash of pure willpower happening on a level invisible to everyone else. Fire against ice. Light against darkness. Good versus evil. The Hero and the Demon King, meeting for the first time without knowing each other's true nature.
Then Leo broke the building tension with another easy, disarming grin.
"I'm Leo! Leo Crimson. Nice to meet you. I have a feeling we're going to be seeing a lot of each other this year."
"Klaus Silver."
The dark-haired boy replied simply. He tucked his thick book neatly under one arm, like it weighed nothing.
"Nice to meet you properly, Klaus! Hey, since we ended up sitting next to each other in the auditorium, maybe we'll end up being neighbors in the dorms too, right? Which room number did you get assigned?"
Klaus reached into his pocket and pulled out a Black key card. He glanced at it briefly.
"Wing L, Room 616."
Leo let out an impressed whistle.
"Wing L? Wow, that's on the complete opposite side of campus from mine. They put me all the way over in Wing A. Pretty far apart, huh? Oh well, I'll definitely catch you around later, Klaus!"
Leo waved cheerfully with one hand and then bounded off into the moving crowd like an excited puppy, chasing after whatever adventure the plot had waiting for him next.
Klaus stood there in the aisle and watched him disappear into the sea of moving students. His crimson eyes narrowed ever so slightly, calculating something.
"Room 616..." Klaus muttered quietly to himself, so low that nobody around him could hear. "I hope my assigned roommate turns out to be quiet. I require complete silence for my research."
He turned smoothly on his heel and began walking toward the main exit with calm, measured steps. Completely unaware that the plot, that invisible narrative force controlling this world, had already decided exactly who would be waiting for him in Room 616.