An entire week had passed, and Holenia had become a walking plague. Whenever eyes caught a glimpse of her in the corridors, people scattered like withered leaves caught in a violent gale. To her, this mass avoidance was a luxury; silence was a cold, precious prize. Even the professors, who repeatedly tried to flex their intellectual muscles with impossible equations, found themselves looking like dwarves before her sharp wit. She solved the most complex problems with a lethal indifference, then turned to them with a mocking smirk:
"Don't you dare compare your minds to mine... you ancient relics from a troop of failing apes!"
The Folly of Speaking Beasts
As she strutted down the hallway toward the East Lecture Hall, Holenia's steps came to a sudden halt. In the corner, a nauseating scene unfolded: a group of boys and girls had cornered a petite girl with cherry-blossom pink hair and golden eyes drowned in tears.
Holenia muttered to herself with disdain, "Just ignore it... the weak aren't worth the glance." But something deep within—perhaps a nagging shard of conscience or a simple urge to vent her rage—pushed her to intervene. She stepped forward, eyes flashing with sparks of fury.
"I see you've graduated from being fools to being talking beasts. Bullying a girl this fragile? How utterly pathetic."
One of the boys, blinded by rage and forgetting exactly who stood before him, raised his hand to strike. In the blink of an eye, Holenia's hand clamped around his wrist like a shackle of iron.
"Darling... you've made a fatal error in choosing your opponent."
— CRACK! —
A thunderous punch landed square on his face, sending him crashing to the floor as blood sprayed from his nose. She didn't stop there. She grabbed the blonde ringleader by her hair, shaking her violently like a bottle of soda before tossing her aside. As for the third one who tried to flee? A swift kick to the back of the head sent him down, screaming in agony.
She dusted off her hands, sneering, "Thank you for the delightful trip through the paths of your stupidity... you power-tripping morons!"
The Squirrel and the Crow
Holenia turned to the pink-haired girl, who stammered shyly, "Thank you... for helping me."
Holenia replied coldly, "I didn't help you. I helped my ears escape the noise. And tell me... why do you act like a newborn squirrel? Try being strong for once!"
As she walked away, Holenia hissed under her breath, "Damn it, violence is the only language this filthy world understands!"
Suddenly, a rich, smooth voice echoed from behind: "You know? You're right. Sometimes fools just need a good slapping."
"Gah! A ghost!" Holenia shrieked, jumping a meter forward. "You bastard! Do you lack the basic decency to make a sound before appearing?"
The Crown Prince smirked wickedly. "Oh? Do you actually believe in ghosts?"
She snapped back, "If you were a ghost, I wouldn't be nearly as terrified as I am of seeing your narcissistic face!"
The Crown Prince pulled out a small mirror, admiring his features with vanity. "But I am handsome and charming. Why the hostility?"
She looked at him with a mix of pity and utter contempt, curling her lip. "Disgusting. You are a narcissist of the highest order."
Clash with "The Shroud"
On her way to the cafeteria, her path was blocked by Lucian, or as she preferred to call him: "The Shroud."
"Holenia, welcome," he said with a calm, gentle smile.
She ignored him completely, brushing her shoulder against his as she passed. But he dared to reach out, grabbing her forearm to stop her. At that moment, a fire of jealousy ignited in the Crown Prince's eyes as he watched from afar, but Holenia was faster.
— SLAP! —
The sound of her palm hitting Lucian's face echoed through the hall. "Don't you ever touch me again, you wretch! This time it's a slap; next time, I'll annihilate your entire future!"
She had desperately wanted to punch him, but the "System" began flashing red warnings in her vision, making her seethe with suppressed rage.
The "Heroine" Shock
Reaching the cafeteria, she kicked the door so hard it nearly splintered off its hinges. She sat in a corner, piling a mountain of food before her. Before she could take a bite, someone pulled out a chair and sat beside her. It was her persistent shadow—the Crown Prince.
"Are you going to keep following me like a head louse?" she asked, chewing aggressively.
He replied with a broad, infuriating grin, "Yes. I believe I will."
Holenia stabbed her fork into a piece of meat as if piercing his heart, muttering, "I'll skin you alive in secret... I swear I will."
Just then, the pink-haired girl approached, her voice soft: "Thank you again..."
Suddenly, a blue System window flickered into existence before Holenia's eyes:
[Alert: You have become the Heroine's Best Friend!]
[Note: The Heroine now sees you as her ultimate role model. Affection points have increased by 500! Well done!]
The spoon fell from Holenia's hand. She froze, her mind screaming: "The Heroine?! That pathetic girl is the protagonist?! I promised myself I'd stay away from the main cast, and now I'm at the center of the storm!"
Losing her mind completely, Holenia grabbed her hair and screamed in madness as the room fell silent. "You damn System! Are you trying to kill me?! I'll burn it all down! I'll turn this academy into hell!"
She slammed her foot against the table, sending food flying everywhere, and stormed out, vowing to leave nothing but ashes behind. Meanwhile, the Crown Prince watched from the corner, laughing hysterically. "I think she's finally lost it completely!"