Room ’33’ looked almost exactly as it always had—sa wooden beams, sa chalk-scuffed floor, and the sa chairs arranged in a horseshoe arc around the central training circle.
Yet the air felt heavier now, touched by finality and a strange mix of nostalgia and tension.
As Nolan stepped through the shimring magical illusion and into the room, the thirteen students stood up in unison, their voices ringing out like a well-rehearsed choir.
"Good day, Teacher Nolan! Did we disturb you to have a special class?"
He glanced at them, his brows raised ever so slightly. "No... not really. I don’t have anything to do. So," he paused, letting his eyes scan across each of their faces, "you’re all not heading to the City of Murlacks anymore?"
Calien stepped forward, speaking on behalf of the others. "Sir, we’re going to a far better academy—an institution in a Fourth Grade Territory. Nearly at the level of a Baron’s domain, maybe even a true noble’s."
Nolan gave a soft grunt. "I see... So that’s it, huh?"
There was a mont of quiet before he added, "Aren’t you worried? The competition’s bound to be fiercer. That’s no third-grade academy you’re going into. It’s the real thing now. You’ve seen how hard things can get even here—what do you think it’s going to be like there?"
The students exchanged glances, a hum of nervous murmuring spreading among them.
"Teacher Nolan’s right..."
"It was already hard enough here..."
"If this is just a third-grade zone, then what about a fourth-grade one?"
"The gap’s gotta be huge..."
"I heard they don’t even accept students who aren’t already experts..."
"I still have trouble dodging those mutated Infected. What if they test us like that?"
"What if we’re bottom-ranked the mont we get there?"
"Will they laugh at our thods?"
"Will we embarrass ourselves?"
"We’re going from being big fish in a small pond to tiny bugs in a massive lake..."
"Maybe... maybe we’re not ready after all."
"I heard noble academies don’t teach—they let the students figure it out or die trying."
"What if they throw us in real dungeons?"
"Or worse... warzones?"
The murmurs swirled like anxious fog, growing denser by the second.
Nolan watched in silence, and for the first ti in a long while, he didn’t feel annoyed at their chatter.
Normally, their indecisiveness irritated him, but now... he found himself feeling sothing oddly hollow. Empty, even.
He scratched his neck, suppressing a sigh. Damn it, he thought. Why do I feel like this?
Greed had always been his driving force. He was a shaless crystal hoarder, always tweaking lessons for profit, and he never gave more than what was paid for.
Yet, watching these kids now—so unsure, so hopeful, so oblivious—he felt sothing twist inside his chest.
He was about to smirk and say aloud what he’d already resolved in his mind:
Alright, let’s up your ga. I’ll make this harder. Maybe that’ll help you when you arrive at the new academy. Get you more prepared. At least, it’ll increase your chances.
But just as he was about to speak, Selin interrupted.
"Sir! Could you maybe stir up the challenge a bit more this ti?"
"Yeah," Erik added, "It’s starting to feel... too predictable."
"Teacher Nolan can’t really compare to second or third-grade academies," Ruvin said with an awkward laugh. "And certainly not fourth-grade ones. But... at least your class is fun!"
"Fun, yeah!" another student chid in. "But let’s crank it up! One last real test before we go!"
They were smiling. Innocent. Unaware that their casual remarks hit like pebbles flung at a sleeping bear.
Nolan’s jaw tensed. His face twitched once—then again. His eye twitched. And finally...
"Ah!" he growled, raising his hands in the air. "You arrogant little shits!"
The students froze.
He didn’t bother hiding his expression anymore—his irritation was carved plainly on his face. "You think I’m so pushover? You think just ’cause you’re transferring to so fancy-ass territory, you can talk like that?"
The students tried to stifle their laughter, but it was too late.
"Aww, we love you too, Teacher Nolan!"
"We’ll miss you, Teacher!"
"Don’t take it personally!"
"You’ll always be our favorite grumpy instructor!"
"We’re just teasing!"
"Don’t get mad~!"
"You were the first person who didn’t treat us like tools!"
"Except when collecting Mana Crystals!"
"Okay yeah, but still!"
Nolan’s scowl deepened. He was swallowing sothing—maybe a curse, maybe a chuckle. But he spat instead, "Bullshit. You brats..."
He stared at them for a mont longer, his mind wrestling with itself. Then, with a breath of resolve, he straightened.
"You want a challenge? Fine. I cooked sothing special just for all of you."
He cracked his knuckles, and the students straightened up, their faces lighting up in anticipation.
"Let see what you’ve got, you little shitheads!"
"Yes sir!" they answered in unison, eyes gleaming with adrenaline.
"Well," Nolan said, a dangerous glint in his eye, "you’re all so eager, huh? Alright. Let’s do this."
With a flick of his hand, system screens manifested in front of each student, one by one, projecting shimring user interfaces into the air above their respective seats.
Selin’s screen flickered first, then Ruvin’s, then Erik’s, Calien’s, and soon all thirteen displayed the sa ssage—except... sothing was different this ti.
Each of their screens pulsed with a glowing prompt:
[KNOWLEDGE IS NOT FREE]
[Wisdom cos at a cost. To challenge the unknown, paynt must be offered.]
[Please insert Mana Crystals to continue.]
The students blinked.
"What the..."
Nolan smiled, already holding a pouch. "Oh! I forgot to ntion—hehe—PAY FIRST."
Grumbling, the students reluctantly handed over their crystals. Nolan swept them into his sack with practiced ease. By the ti he was done, his total had spiked from 764 to a plump 1,044.
He exhaled with contentnt. "Now that feels good."
The mont they confird paynt, the screens shimred and transported them into their respective simulations.
Each student found themselves alone—no team, no cooperation. This ti, it was pure solo. No distractions. No shared pressure.
And just like before, the objective remained: survive, gather, and outsmart the infected.
Selin crouched behind a derelict wall and whispered into her comm, forgetting for a mont that this was single-player. "Sothing feels... off."
From a parallel sim, Ruvin’s voice echoed from his own interface. "Yeah... I can’t tell what it is, but... it’s different."
Erik peered around a broken structure. "The wind... it’s too fast."
"I noticed it too," Calien muttered. "There’s... tension in the air. Like sothing’s watching."
Their strategies began the sa: kick down barriers, throw objects to create diversions, lure infected into corners and sneak past. But sothing in the environnt had shifted.
Slight distortions in the air. Blurred edges on the infected’s shadows. Movents that felt just a second too quick.
Then they reached the buildings.
Each of them, in their own simulation, entered a crumbling structure—a factory, a school, a warehouse—expecting the usual: one infected at the entrance, a brief pause, and then ti to regroup.
But not this ti.
The mont their digital feet crossed the threshold, everything happened at once.
A flicker.
A blur.
And then—
SLAM!
The infected didn’t walk.
It appeared.
Its movent was a blink.
One second, it was ten ters away.
The next—
"GA OVER."
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