The first day at the Royal Academy of Pimcy passed like a blade dragged slowly across skin—sharp, deliberate, and impossible to ignore.
For Kenta, the advanced swordsmanship class was an exercise in restraint so suffocating it bordered on torture. The training hall was a vast, vaulted chamber of polished oak and reinforced stone, its walls lined with racks of practice blades and enchanted mirrors that reflected every movement in perfect clarity. Sunlight poured through high clerestory windows, gilding the dust motes that danced in the air. The instructor—a lean, hawk-faced man named Master Veyr—moved among the students with the precision of a predator assessing prey.
"Form seventeen: Crescent Moon Descent," Veyr intoned, voice clipped and expectant. "Execute. Again. Cleaner."
The noble students—sons and daughters of dukes, counts, and merchant-princes—performed with practiced grace, their blades singing through the air in elegant arcs. They wore their privilege like armor: subtle smirks when a commoner stumbled, quiet snickers when a foreigner hesitated.
Kenta executed the form flawlessly.
Every step, every shift of weight, every angle of the wrist was perfect—pure, without waste, without flourish. The blade moved as if it were an extension of his breath. The mirror reflected not a student, but an apex predator forced to mimic the movements of house cats.
Master Veyr paused mid-step, eyes narrowing. "Again," he said, voice flat. "You. Foreigner. Show me once more."
Kenta complied. The same flawless arc. The same silent precision. The noble students exchanged glances—resentment flickering behind polite masks.
Veyr's jaw tightened. "You're holding back."
Kenta met his gaze evenly. "I am performing the form as instructed."
The instructor's eyes narrowed further. "You are mocking the Academy."
Kenta said nothing. He simply sheathed the practice blade with a soft click and stepped back into line.
The class ended in tense silence. Whispers followed him out the door.
---
For Sarah, the torment was quieter, but no less brutal.
The lecture hall for "Historical Foundations of Thaumaturgy" was cavernous—tiered rows of dark wood desks rising like amphitheater seats, illuminated by floating orbs of soft golden light. The air smelled of old parchment, candle wax, and the faint ozone of dormant spells. Students filled the rows: nobles in tailored uniforms lounging with casual arrogance, commoners hunched over notes with desperate focus, foreign scholars scribbling furiously in unfamiliar scripts.
Sarah sat near the back, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the professor—a thin, elderly woman with silver hair pinned in an elaborate knot and a voice like dry leaves scraping stone. The lecture droned on: mana-conversion theorems from the Third Epoch, the political ramifications of the Seal of Khazad, footnotes upon footnotes upon footnotes.
Sarah's System—optimized for real-time combat calculation, predictive mirroring, and adaptive evolution—had no interface for rote memorization. Every word felt like dust clogging her throat. The social isolation was worse. Nobles looked through her as if she were furniture. Commoners kept their heads down, afraid to make eye contact with someone who had already drawn attention.
She tried once—caught the eye of a nervous-looking girl two rows down. The girl flinched, glanced away, and buried her face in her notes.
Sarah's fingers tightened on the edge of her desk until the wood creaked.
When the final bell tolled, she fled the hall like a prisoner granted parole.
---
Kenta received the summons during the midday break: a tersely worded note slipped under the door of their shared study room.
"Private supplementary assessment. Training basement. Now."
He went alone, guard raised, senses sharp.
The basement was cold—stone walls damp with condensation, lit by a single floating orb that cast long, wavering shadows. Mio waited in the center of the chamber, seated on a lone wooden chair, one leg crossed over the other. Her expression was a mask of stern disapproval—no trace of the composed instructor from earlier.
"You're holding back," she stated, voice cutting through the silence like a scalpel.
Kenta opened his mouth to reply.
Mio flicked her wrist.
There was no incantation. No visible projectile. Just pure, concussive force woven from the air itself. It struck Kenta square in the chest—like a runaway carriage at full gallop. His Ki defenses—honed through years of battle—crumpled instantly. His eyes widened in shock. His body went rigid. He collapsed to the stone floor, unconscious before he hit.
When he came to moments later, head throbbing, vision swimming, Mio hadn't moved.
"That was a lesson," she said coldly. "Do not show off. Do not draw that kind of attention. We are not here to be prodigies. We are here to be ghosts. Your performance today made waves. Waves attract sharks. The next time you feel the need to demonstrate your 'purity of form,' remember this feeling. We operate in the shadows, or we do not operate at all."
Kenta pushed himself up on one elbow, a low growl rumbling in his throat. "You could have just said that."
"Words are often insufficient for stubborn minds," Mio retorted, uncrossing her legs and standing. "I trust the message is now clear?"
He glared at her. The resonance of her hidden contract pulsed faintly in his senses—a reminder that her power ran far deeper than she let on. He gave a single, sharp nod.
The argument was over.
The point had been brutally made.
---
Sarah stumbled out of the main campus building, head swimming with mana-conversion principles she couldn't force herself to care about. The social isolation had been just as suffocating as the lecture. She walked with her head down, lost in a fog of frustration and old ghosts, when she turned a corner and collided squarely with someone.
"I-I-I'm so sorry! Oh, no, no, no! It's my fault, entirely my fault! I'm the worst! Please, forgive me! I'll do anything! Please don't be angry! I'll—I'll clean your shoes! Or, or—!"
The voice was a high-pitched, frantic torrent of pure, undiluted panic. The speaker was a girl who seemed to be trying to fold herself into a human apology. She was small, drowning in a standard-issue uniform that hung off her slender frame. Her hair was a vibrant, eye-catching green, styled in soft, voluminous waves that cascaded down her back, with a few delicate strands braided and pinned with tiny silver clips. It was a stark, beautiful contrast to her overwhelming terror. Large, round spectacles magnified her wide, gray-blue eyes, which were already brimming with tears. Her cheeks were flushed a soft, pink hue from her distress.
Books and scrolls were scattered everywhere. The girl was now on her hands and knees, scrambling to gather them, her entire body trembling violently. "I'm so clumsy! I'm a disaster! My brother says I attract misfortune! I've probably cursed you now! I'm so, so sorry! Please, just… just ignore me! I'll vanish! I'll—"
"Hey, hey, it's okay," Sarah said, holding up her hands, utterly taken aback by the sheer force of the girl's anxiety. It was like watching a baby deer have a full-blown existential crisis. "Seriously. It was an accident. My fault too."
"No! No, it wasn't! It's never anyone else's fault! It's always me!" the girl wailed, finally looking up. A tear traced a path down her cheek. "I'm Miko. And I've probably just ruined your entire academic career by bumping into you! You'll fail all your exams now because of my bad luck! I'm a plague!"
Despite the situation, a surprised laugh almost escaped Sarah. This was the most genuine, unscripted interaction she'd had all day. She knelt down to help gather the spilled materials. "I'm Sarah. And trust me, my academic career was already pretty much a smoking crater before you got here. You're an improvement, honestly."
As their hands brushed while reaching for the same scroll, a familiar blue screen materialized in Sarah's vision—visible only to her.
[SYSTEM ANALYSIS: INITIATED]
TARGET: Miko Naein
STATUS:
· Rank: USR
· Strength: USR
· Speed: USR
· Endurance: USR
· Intelligence: A+
· Potential: SSS+
· Primary Ability: [Imaginary]
ASSESSMENT: Anomaly Detected. Power level inconsistent with physical presentation and behavioral data. Extreme threat potential. Recommend extreme caution.
Sarah froze, her fingers going numb on the parchment. Her blood seemed to crystallize in her veins.
Naein.
The name Kanji bore. The clan Nox's bloodline had been bred to rival. And those stats… USR. Unranked. Below the lowest measurable grade. Her physical parameters were essentially nonexistent. Yet her Potential was SSS+—a tier beyond comprehension, a theoretical ceiling she had never seen before. And her Primary Ability was simply listed as [Imaginary], a classification that made no logical sense. This girl was a paradox: a statistical zero with the latent potential of a supernova, wrapped in a package of pure, trembling anxiety.
Miko finally managed to gather her things into a haphazard bundle, clutching them to her chest like a shield. She peeked over the top, her magnified eyes blinking rapidly. "Y-you're not… going to h-hit me, are you? Or report me to the proctors? I… I understand if you do. I deserve it. I'm a nuisance."
Sarah stared, her mind struggling to reconcile the System's cold, terrifying analysis with the desperately timid girl in front of her. The girl with the power to potentially shatter worlds was on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of a minor collision.
The game had just changed entirely. And the most dangerous piece on the board was a sobbing, anxiety-ridden girl named Miko.