Kaizen dragged his feet toward the massive iron gates of the Zenith Academy, looking less like a student and more like a survivor of a natural disaster.
He slapped his ID card against the scanner held by Brutus, the A-Rank Gatekeeper who looked like he ate bricks for breakfast. The machine beeped with a sound that felt weirdly judgmental, displaying Kaizen's credentials on a holographic screen.
Brutus didn't open the gate immediately. He lowered his sunglasses just a fraction of an inch, revealing eyes that had seen wars, dungeons, and now, a teenager who looked like he had been put through a meat grinder.
"Is your family proficient in domestic abuse arts?" Brutus asked, his voice deadpan and deep enough to rattle Kaizen's fillings.
Kaizen blinked, his brain taking a solid three seconds to buffer the question. He realized with a jolt that he hadn't washed up since the boss fight. He was covered in temple dust, dried sweat, mud from the trek down, and he was pretty sure there was still some blackened demon slime dried on his ear.
He was glad he had drank the healing potion on his way back, or else, Brutus would have seen the injuries he sustained.
"Ha... haha..." Kaizen let out a laugh that sounded like a dying crow. He scratched the back of his head, sending a small cloud of ancient dust into the air. "No, nothing like that, sir. I just met some old friends from middle school... we were just horsing around. You know how boys are. Roughhousing."
Brutus stared at him. He looked at the bruises. He looked at the exhaustion.
"...I see," Brutus said, clearly not believing a single word but not paid enough to file the paperwork. "Try to win next time."
He handed the card back and buzzed the pedestrian gate open.
Kaizen stumbled through, grateful to be back on sovereign soil. He made a beeline for the nearest glowing rune station for the Arcane Caddy System.
It was 8:00 PM, and the campus had transformed.
The sun was gone, replaced by millions of floating mana-lights that bathed the academy in a soft, magical glow. It was beautiful. It was vibrant. It was disgusting.
Everywhere he looked, students were living their best lives. Groups of friends were laughing on the way to the 24-hour malls. Muscular guys were high-fiving on their way to the night gym. Couples were holding hands under the bioluminescent trees, probably sharing overpriced magical boba tea.
In a way, this place really was heaven. If you had money, friends, and didn't have a death flag over your head.
'Man, I wish I could enjoy it too...'
Kaizen mused, slumping against the cold metal of the rune post. He watched a group of students laughing at a joke he didn't hear. A pang of loneliness struck his chest—not the warm, fuzzy kind he felt with the pan seller, but the cold, isolating kind of a transfer student on the first day.
He didn't have friends here. He had a roommate who wanted to dissect him and a Hero who wanted to adopt him.
'Maybe... maybe I should try to socialize? Maybe I should accept Leo's offer?'
In the midst of his melancholy, a phantom sound echoed in his brain.
"MY BESTO FRIENDO!!!"
Kaizen's imagination conjured a vivid, high-definition image of Leo Crimson sprinting toward him with arms wide open, sparkling with friendship and main character energy, ready to drag him into a quest to save a cat from a dragon.
Kaizen shuddered so hard his backpack rattled.
"You know what? I actually don't need a friend at all," he muttered to himself, shaking his head violently to dispel the hallucination. "Nope. Not needed. Friends cost money. Friends get you killed. And frankly, I don't think I would enjoy the night life anyway. It's loud. It's expensive. I prefer the silence of my poverty."
Whirrrrr.
Salvation arrived in the form of a sleek, white Arcane Caddy. It hovered to a stop in front of him, the door sliding open with a welcoming hiss.
'Time to head home, lock the door, and sleep until tomorrow.'
Kaizen stepped inside the plush interior, grateful for the climate control.
"Destination, sir?" the robotic voice chimed.
"Men's Dormitory, Wing L," Kaizen groaned, collapsing into the corner seat.
The system chimed a confirmation. The door began to slide shut. Kaizen closed his eyes, ready to drift off—
Thump.
A shadow moved.
It wasn't a slow entrance. It was a blur of athletic motion. Someone jumped through the closing doors with the grace of a jungle cat, landing silently on the opposite seat.
Kaizen's soul briefly left his body, ascended to the astral plane, realized it was too tired to haunt anyone, and slammed back into his chest. He moved to so back to the side that if the caddy was made of cardboard, he would have broken it and fly outside.
"..."
'Shit!'
He opened his eyes.
It wasn't just another student. It wasn't just some random extra he could ignore.
Sitting directly opposite him, wiping sweat from her forehead with a towel, was a girl.
Her silver hair was tied back in a high, sharp ponytail that whipped around as she settled in. She was wearing a white athletic crop top and high-performance leggings that left absolutely nothing to the imagination regarding her physical fitness. Her skin glistened with a thin sheen of perspiration, evidence of a workout intensity that would kill a normal human.
Kaizen's cheeks flushed red instantly. He tried to look at the floor. He tried to look at the ceiling. He tried to look at the advertising panel for mana-potions.
He wasn't avoiding her gaze because she was beautiful (though, objectively, she was stunning in a terrifying way).
He was avoiding her gaze because of who she was.
Rina Valentine.
The Elf Princess. The S-Rank summoner. The girl who had looked at him during the opening ceremony like he was a particularly uninteresting stain on the carpet.
And worse... she was a known human-hater.
'Why?!' Kaizen screamed internally. 'There are five thousand acres of campus! There are hundreds of Caddies! Why am I trapped in a moving box with the one person who might legally be allowed to hunt me for sport?!'
Rina exhaled a long breath, picked up a water bottle, and then froze.
She sensed him.
Slowly, terrifyingly, her violet eyes shifted from her water bottle to the boy shrinking into the corner seat.
The air in the Caddy dropped ten degrees.