Well, while it was indeed a great deal, it’s still a tedious deal. He glanced at the setting sun in the distant horizon through the glass window inside the classroom and closed his eyes.

At an imperceptible level, a strange power emanated from his very existence and took form in the classroom right beside his, in Class 1-B. The students within it, including the teacher, no matter how magically strong or physically gifted, were oblivious to the unknown - ugly - man.

He sat right on Rob’s table that he shared with Elaine and Anna, and wore a playful smile.

“A school setting, how nostalgic,” Sloth murmured and stared down at Elaine’s haphazardly written notes with a bemused smile. “It seems your sister isn’t faring too well in regards to the theoretical side of things.”

“She manages,” voiced Rob. He directed his gaze to the blackboard and not once looked at Sloth, but Sloth wasn’t bothered by the lack of eye contact and instead continued to play around the large room.

Of course, he wasn’t here to just have fun and laze around. He still had a stupidly fucking hard task to accomplish, and that task isn’t going to be easy.

Even the almighty cheat of Fortune Stealer can only do so much with its undeveloped self, and he has to rely on other means to deal with the giant winged lizard and its labyrinth of high-level monsters. Filled to the brim with loot as it may be, what good is that if he can’t even begin to access a tiny smidgen of them?

What he needed now was a breakthrough, a power that could help him gain a solid foundation and build a tiny peephole into that land of valuables.

Rob smiled lightly as he took a quick peek at Anna. From her body, a strange trace of metaphysical iridescent light was sucked out and entered Sloth’s body, which caused a slight change regarding his overall presence.

If Rob had to describe the change, it would be that he appeared more… friendlier.

“So you’re really going with the spirit slave route?” Rob asked nonchalantly and jotted down notes on the side.

“Well, that’s one of the easier ways I can finish the stupid task. Don’t tell me you want me to go with the Luck All The Way route and fuck myself completely,” Sloth chided.

“I mean, that’s the entire reason we even started all over, right? Our previous form of stealing was too inefficient and we needed fresh blood injected into our veins.” Rob shrugged his shoulders and leaned back to look at the sky. “The higher we go, the more our Truth forms and solidifies, but this itself forms a sort of bubble to the way we think.”

“Our thought process goes from an unfiltered sponge to a solid palace. While powerful and grand, it also serves as a boundary, a limiter of sorts from the way we think. Supreme Truths are even more obvious with that effect, where the omniverse itself contorts to the ideologies and reality of the supreme god.”

“I say stealing is this, then stealing becomes this. I say stealing becomes that, then stealing becomes that. But in a way, innovation would come to a halt because nothing can challenge our perception of the concept that we have strived to understand for our entire life.”

“Even when we ascended to the throne of supremacy, our stealing was never able to steal the supreme truths of others, which is a clear sign we’ve hit our limits.”

“Only by innovation, or as Buddha would like to say - transcendence, could we further reach new heights. The concept of stealing shouldn’t just be limited to what we have previously stated.” A golden glimmer flashed in Rob’s eyes for a moment before they returned to a normal dark brown color. But, there was a minor shift in his aura that radiated boundless confidence and thrill.

Sloth, who was listening in on Rob’s monologue, chuckled and nodded his head. “That’s true… So, did your plan to innovate further bear fruit already?”

“Not yet… But the threads of fate and fluctuations of destiny are telling me…” Rob shook his head playfully and leaned forward to rest his hands on the table. “Is telling me that the first step would reveal itself on the day before summer breaks.”

“Summer… The Summer Festival?” Sloth tilted his head before his eyes lit up with realization. He slammed his fist on his palm and laughed, “I get it!”

“You’re planning on doing it and stealing her fate, her fucking identity!” Sloth rubbed the back of his head with an amazed face. “Damn, you’re really going for the long route with this one.”

“Duh, why wouldn’t I? We’re gonna suck this world dry anyways, so might as well get this rare opportunity and witness life…” Rob smirked. “Witness life through the eyes of a protagonist.”

…

Winston, who was listening in on the conversation, chuckled softly and looked to the front of the class with a helpless smile.

Sigh, these maniacs. And to think we’re just having fun rather than trying hard. Ugh, just imagining a version of us who forgo fun for speed-running power makes me tremble slightly in fear. Winston idly wrote down some formulas in his notebook before his mind dozed off until school ended.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When he woke up again, he found his fellow classmates were already packing things up and the teacher had left the room. Yawning lightly, he turned to look towards Noel and nodded his head with a grin.

Noel silently walked away and Winston followed from behind before the two then met Anna from the hallway outside.

Anna took a quick glance at Winston with a strange glint in her eyes, and then a trace of helplessness washed over her face as she inwardly sighed. Ugh, there are just too many characters who’ve never been in the game before suddenly taking center stage.

At this rate, my hair might just start graying from all the stress piling on me! Anna begrudgingly followed Noel from behind who had already taken the lead as she took another glance at Winston.

“Yo,” Winston greeted with a friendly smile and waved his hand.

“Y-Yo…” Anna awkwardly greeted back and waved her hand.

Winston ignored her unnatural greeting and approached her with a grin. When he was right beside her, he leaned in and whispered, “So, how long do you two have known each other?”

“Uh… A couple of months now I think?” Anna replied with furrowed brows. Damn, has it been that long already? I think it was a bit shorter than that, maybe a bit over a month.

“Woah, it has been that long, huh?” Winston chuckled and pocketed his hands into his pockets. “So, do you know his type of magic too?”

“His magic?” Anna scoffed. “As if I’d ever know how to do that.”

“True, even his multi-elemental magic proficiency doesn’t seem to have too much of an effect on his skill with that nameless magic. It’s like the magic wasn’t made for human casting,” Winston casually analyzed. “But on the topic of his gobsmacking elemental talent, are you also like him?”

“Or do you two have some super secret ground-breaking practice method that allows one to proficiently cast spells of various elements? Or, or… maybe you also have some special type of magic like him? Maybe something like Sky Magic? But that doesn’t explain your proficiency with earth magic.” Winston eyed Anna curiously.

“It’s nothing like that when it comes to Noel,” Anna sighed helplessly but was inwardly surprised by Winston’s scarily accurate guesses. “He’s just that talented, but besides his innate gift, he also focused on one thing others ignored upon reaching a certain level.”

“And that’s mana control,” Noel finished her sentence.

The trio then found themselves right outside the main gate of the royal academy, and with a wave of his hand, they teleported right to the entrance of a simple yet clean household with a dark brown wooden door locked by multiple magical arrays.

Winston looked around curiously and looked around the neighborhood, while Anna habitually began to take off her shoes as Noel unlocked the door with his nondescript magic key.

The door then opened on its own with a click and Noel walked in first before taking off his shoes and placing them on a nearby shoe rack. Anna did the same and tossed her bag to the couch in the living room as if the place was basically a second home to her.

“Oho,” Winston chuckled mischievously when he saw this unusual display of comfortableness from the noble lady inside another man’s house and then did the same as the other two.

He took off his shoes and placed them on the shoe rack, and the door automatically locked itself on its own as magical arrays covered the lock like a dense web of squiggly lines. Winston looked around the neat and clean living room and sat down on another chair with a smirk.

Noel had already walked upstairs to change into more comfortable clothes, so Anna and Winston were left alone in the living room.

With his unusual smirk, Anna couldn’t help but cough and ask, “Why are you looking at me weird like that?”

“It’s nothing,” Winston said mysterious as he looked away with a sheepish grin. “I just didn’t know Lady Auburn from the Noble Auburn House would be this close to a common man.”

“Does your parents already know, or is this like a secret thing? If it is a secret, then I promise I’ll keep my lips shut!” Winston did a zipping motion on his mouth and chuckled playfully.

At first, Anna didn’t understand what Winston was saying, but the more he said, the redder her face became.

“We’re not like that, idiot!” Anna huffed and crossed her arms with a glare. “Why would in God’s name would you even think that we’re dating in the first place?”

“Huh? You’re not?” Winston, who flinched from her sudden outrage, wore a surprised look and couldn’t help but ask, “Then you guys are just friends?”

“Yes, we’re just friends,” Anna declared with an authoritative voice.

“Just friends…” Winston’s eyes lit up as he seemed to have an epiphany. “Friends with benefits?! Damn!”

“W-What are you even saying!” Anna’s face flushed into a brighter red as she launched a small pellet of water at Winston in her outburst of anger. “Do you even hear yourself right now?!”

“I told you we were just friends! Just friends! Nothing more, nothing less!”

Winston, who was clearly teasing Anna, nonchalantly waved his arm and caught the pellet of water using a web of mana and then tossed the blob of liquid to a potted plant placed on a nearby shelf.

“Okay, okay, fine. Jeez.” Winston rubbed the back of his head when he suddenly squinted his eyes. From the dark shadows behind Anna, a young man walked out with a gleeful smirk. “I… was only kidding.”

“Ugh, you’re quite different from what I first thought, and not in a good way,” Anna said and leaned back on her chair.

“Yeah, Pride, you’re a fucking bastard who has left dear little Sloth here to slave away at Mirakal Village. Isn’t that also your hometown? Hmm?” Sloth berated and sat right beside Anna. With a golden gleam in his ordinary eyes, a cloud of colorful spiritual light floated out of Anna’s body and into his, further strengthening the strange friendly aura he radiated.

But, compared to Anna, he appeared like a small wick of flame placed right beside a bright burning bonfire.

Winston ignored Sloth entirely, fixated his eyes on Anna, and replied casually, “Well, first impressions are just impressions. You really can’t get to know a person better other than actually interacting with them.”

“That’s true.” Anna flicked back her hair and leaned back on the couch, plunging deep into the abyss of softness as she clicked her tongue. “You really can’t judge a person based on looks alone.”

In her mind, images of Rob and Noel appeared and she sighed… Two handsome men, two handsome bastards. With the gift of the heavens by their side, and personalities that, while okay for the most part, hid a sinister and lazy side.

Just like how Rob was a lazy jackass from the start of school who likes to read boys’ love, and Noel who wouldn’t bathe an eye from killing another person, those two boys really do bear an ironic truth.