Have you ever left a baby to its own devices while observing from far away?

Hopefully you have because that is called good parenting.

On the other hand, there is a sense of entertainment that can be derived from watching over those beneath you.

It wasn’t sadism.

Narcissism? Maybe.

But more than anything, it was schadenfreude. The sight of someone’s misfortune was a simple commodity. And especially for people I wasn’t fond of, it was the perfect treat.

Thing is, the pleasantness was even greater knowing that I did nothing to cause the distress.

“Don’t sweat it,” I said. She probably thought I was comforting her, but I was really taunting her stupidity. After all, what kind of idiot would stress so much over a fucking exam? How close-minded.

It was too small of an affair for me to treat it seriously.

I’m pretty sure she was muttering something, but in all honesty, it didn’t matter enough for me to listen closely. My best guess was something along the lines of, “No, this can’t be!” or “How did I lose the coins?”

Even when I told her to get on with it, she insisted that we descend the tower together.

So I gave the three guys a couple slaps in the face making sure they weren’t awake and planning a sneak attack before we headed down.

And an interesting thing happened when we were making our way. I could have sworn I saw the groups of students sitting about and chatting on each floor. But the moment Melissa and I made it down, it would appear to me that they were still knocked out by me from way back.

I had a feeling something wasn’t right, but oh well.

“Did you put them all like this?” At this point, even Melissa couldn’t keep her melancholy face from turning to a confused one.

So I remarked with the same tone as always, “It’s magic.”

“But magic can’t make people fall asleep.”

‘Yeah, no shit. There ought to be a ton of sexual predators if that were the case.’

“It’s special magic.”

It was best that I kept my mouth shut from now on.

“I’ve never heard of ‘special’ magic unless you are referring to artifacts.”

‘That’s exactly—hmm…’

Yeah if I weren’t mistaking it, it was awfully silent. I could shove it off as my paranoid intuition, but it was exactly my paranoia that helped me survive the thrills of life.

‘Seven minutes.’

I had a feeling that more time went by than my watch indicated—that, and someone was observing me.

“...”

Yeah, I don’t like this feeling.

“Eh—what are you doing!?” Melissa was able to notice my change in direction as I walked to one of the “unconscious” bodies.

“P…”

“Y-you shouldn’t kick them…”

‘Shut the fuck up girl…’

“P…”

And like I thought, he was faking it. Unless specially trained for preventing gag and flinching reflexes, it was impossible for the run-of-the-mill person to fake being knocked out. Heck, not even I could take a hit while pretending to be dead. To the trained eye of a professional like me, I knew that the amount of force I put in that kick would not warrant such resistance. I’ve kicked corpses before, and they didn’t feel like this.

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‘I’ll do it again.’

“P…”

‘And again.’

“P…”

Interestingly enough, the student was adamant on pretending he was out cold.

‘Alright then.’

“PFT!!!”

Like I thought, no one could resist a solid kick to the diaphragm.

“How long have you been awake?” I immediately started the interrogation, pinning his shoulder with my foot.

‘The other two students are probably awake.’

I snuck a glance at the other two bodies laid on the floor with my peripheral vision. Melissa was awfully quiet as well.

“Ah! You returned! Everyone atta—Ack!”

He was talking an awful lot so I placed my foot above his lips, knowing that if he had any shame, he would keep his mouth closed.

“Fireball!”

“Zap—Ack!”

‘Trivial.’

I didn’t even need to look to know that all I needed to do was roll my head and duck—OH SHIT.

Feeling the heatwave slithering across my back, I recognized that my prediction was horribly inaccurate.

I immediately shifted my weight forward and used the student’s body as a cushion.

Two moans came from behind: one masculine and one feminine. Yet they squealed the same “Argh!” at the exact same time. Seconds later, a similar groan came from beside me.

Once I made sure that the fiery balls of Satan had been absorbed by the magical tower walls, I got up to notice a strange discrepancy.

Upon turning, my eyes were immediately drawn to Melissa who was knocked out like the rest of them.

The floor started lighting up as a divine glow shined straight down from the window.

“You are finally here, XXX Thotslayer6969420. I have been looking for you,” greeted the heavenly voice.

‘What the actual fuck?’

“XXX Thotslayer6969420, you shall kneel in my presence.”

‘What the actual fuck am I listening to?’

No seriously, was I hearing correctly? Was the author writing the dialogue correctly? What the heck?

‘No wait, that username sounds familiar.’

“Do you dare to not bow before the presence of God?”

‘Hmm, wasn’t that the name I used in that massive online RPG game? What was it called? Was it… Yeah, wasn’t it something along the lines of Cybershrek 3066? The boring one with a ton of glitches and all you did was waste time grinding skill levels and techniques?’

“Do you hear me, XXX Thot—”

“Shut the hell up, who the hell are you,” I responded, now knowing that this encounter had something to do with my past life: particularly those dark times when I was a useless nihilistic seven-year-old who could be mistaken as an edgy teenager with a couple shovels stuck up my ass.

“Kneel,” the unnaturally deep voice commanded.

“Kneel where?” I asked, trying to make sense of who and what I was talking to. God? I’d doubt harder than a sexually insecure wife. Also, where was this person I was speaking to? Other than the strange light coming from the window, I didn’t have a clue.

“Kneel,” it said again.

“How about no?”

To my proposition, it uttered the same stubborn words, “Kneel!”

‘I guess I’ll just ignore—’

“You shall not ignore my orders, for my orders are prophecies realized!”

“Do you hear? You shan’t ignore—Oy, I said you can’t ignore me! Stop bloody ignoring me, you uncultured swine!” The grand voice suddenly shifted from an intense husky voice that alpha males emitted to that of a child’s pre-pubescent squeal.

“Come bite my ass and I’ll do a little roll,” I taunted, knowing exactly what to do in such a chaotic situation.

And now that I really reminisced, there was only one bastard who was as well versed in my sketchy past as me as to even dare utter that name, XXX th—fuck. Don’t think about it. I’ll bury that name in the deepest hells of heaven.

“Benni?”

“I-I… It really worked!” Chimed the ecstatic voice of the mad child, no longer speaking pretentiously.

The light from the window started glowing brighter and brighter, eventually sending a white flash to blind my eyes.

When I recovered from the flash grenade, a certain figure with the same stature, posture, and silhouette as mine appeared rooted to the ground as sturdily as I was. He was covered by an aura of light with crackling electricity that prevented me from making out his facial features. But that aura didn’t last.

“That’s right you motherf—OOF!”

“What the hell was—Ah Shit! Stop it will you? Was my British impression that bad?”

“Dammit, stop trying to punch me Sung-in! Seriously! You can’t be that mad at me! Your one and only friend! It’s not my fault that you’re a lonesome piece of—.”

“Are you angry about that? What? Is it because of the unnecessary appearance of a mysterious person that happens to know you on Earth? Do you hate having to establish a canonical backstory that much?”

“Alright alright! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Calm down! I’ll explain everything!”