Tok Tok Tok
A rhythmic clacking caused by high heels echoed proudly through the corridor, walking through the corridor was a figure invisible to the naked eye, their elegant clothes being the only thing visible.
"Hm~ Hm~ Hm~"
A slow hum came from the individual, it was playful and it carried a sense of carelessness, parried with laziness.
Her name was Iye Idiyele, a teacher at Gardenia and the one usually in charge of handling students who are sent to detention.
She usually doesn't get assigned to any other work, leaving her with plenty of free time at her hands.
Of course she still did her job flawlessly, since it was really important to do.
But...that was in the past.
Staring out of the window, her eyes gazed at the view that laid bare before her.
A bottomless abyssal void where nothing could be seen.
In contrast, from above, a beautiful sun sat behind the fake moon, no eclipse could be seen, almost like the moon was an illusion.
Even though physics entail that there should be an eerie eclipse that hung on the sky if the sun were perfectly aligned with the moon.
There was not, almost as if it were translucent, the rays of light pierced right through the moon and reached the void.
The structure housing students who were sent to detention was not exempt from this.
Below it, no ground supported it, it merely floated stationery in the air, motionless and ready to fall into the void anytime.
Iye stretched her arms, yawning as she trudged forward to her destination.
"I kind of made it a big deal the first day....But the previous generation of students did really good surviving and maintaining their sanity, so those two are probably fine~"
She spoke as if it were natural for Cale and Gravel to come out unscathed out of a place meant to completely bent someone mentally.
"Now that I think about it, every century the newer generation students are always better than the last"
To be exact, each century that passes. Gardenia would pull in new 'students' and they would always be better than the last batch that came before them, more talent was gained this way of course, but their mental strength was more worth to note than their talent.
"They were truly unbreakable a century ago, too bad they couldn't become the Top student of Gardenia, I even gambled a lot of my money on that Feigling fellow...bastard made me lose almost half a million.." She grumbled under her breath
Even the unbreakable may break, and those people were not exempt from this concept.
Their mental state had eventually been wrung and stretched to the absolute limit till they broke, they kept on being destroyed relentlessly without any stop, until they became an 'Echo'
A husk-like state, one merely an imitation of what they once were, a sound with no form and a sound that can be forgotten.
"Haaa, should I stop gambling?"
She sighed, her movements had all but stopped, she couldn't help but keep on staring at the creation her lord had created himself.
It was a giant sphere, but that was the case only for now.
As time passed, the moon would shrink without stop, like a ball deflating further into the distance until it looked like a normal marble floating in the air.
"Ah…I shouldn't get distracted"
Iye had forgotten that she had a job to do.
'Not having anything to do makes someone very lazy, very quickly'
This was learned very thoroughly whenever the previous generations students kept sending themselves to detention and always made Iye work herself more and more than she had to, for no reason, to the point that she slowly became more lazy.
She rubbed her temples that even light itself refused to reflect and reveal.
Since Gardenia became functional just two months ago and there were already people that sent themselves to detention, she didn't want to suffer by overworking and keep on stalking the students movements for no reason at all.
Of course, since there was nothing to do in this special space separate from Gardenia and the trials, she decided to at least by courtesy, put in more effort doing a background check on the two first time troublemakers.
"The first one is Gravel Stone…"
'Gravel huh….I heard he is pretty talented and powerful'
Results from the trials showed that Gravel passed the trial very easily after realizing the extent of his abilities.
"How many has he killed, I wonder?"
She took a document out of her leather purse she took on a whim.
Flipping through the pages, she settled her gaze on Gravel's information.
"Almost a hundred?"
An impressive number for just two months.
'That is about 20% of the population of the students within Gardenia'
It wasn't exactly a good thing, after all if a lot of students were to die, then the practical exams couldn't be held, so this number was very troublesome in fact.
"Apparently he also has an extremely sadistic side that makes him want to torture his victims"
The confirmed reports showed that Gravel had enjoyed torturing and terrorizing the students of Gardenia.
"Will he learn his lesson though is the real question, detention does put through a lot of mental distress, but it isn't enough to completely Re-educate someone like him"
While he did get punished severely, even his use of teleportation being limited to a certain degree.
It wasn't like he couldn't do it again, he'd just have to be a lot more sneaky than before, without anyone finding out.
"Now onto the next one…"
She flicked through the papers, until she found the one she had been looking for.
"There he is"
Analytical processed information laid neatly on the paper, everything Iye needed to know about Cale, she could find out by just reading it slowly and carefu-
"What?"
A complete overhauling surprise surged within her, something that didn't make any sense had appeared on the paper whilst Iye was reading Cale's information intently.
To be more specific, she was bewildered by two things.
First being the history that bled and told within the trials.
A strange anomaly had occurred within said trials, making the filth inside to rampage and regain their free will.
Because of such anomaly.
"...He had been saved"
They were only two whose spirits had not yet been broken.
And they moved to protect Cale.
A tall lanky figure who was a colorless but could take a shade of pitch black when fighting seriously, an example was seen with him fighting against the blue fist 'Gala' and emerging victorious.
And the other was simply a nobody who had hypnotized and filled himself with a delusional faith that he would be saved eventually, it was the one that saved Cale from being choked to death.
The other failures of Gardenia were all still lifeless husks devoid of any spirit or any hope.
"Not only that…"
There had first been an infighting between them before the bells rang, that allowed Cale to move without anyone watching his actions closely.
The infighting had been caused by a sudden rampage in a classroom above Cale that happened for no reason whatsoever.
Multiple others also started to rampage, diminishing the original numbers Cale had to face by more than half.
A literal cake walk.