The next day, Drew woke up with a yawn, the pain still gnawing at him, making him grit his teeth. There was no need to hide his discomfort—there was no one but the sleeping teacher in the classroom.

The pain was so intense he wanted to bang his head against the wall.

After a minute, he calmed down and went to the cafeteria. There, he saw Bein sitting alone, looking stressed, like he'd just received some bad news.

The other kids shot Drew the same suspicious stares as the day before, still thinking he was a cheater. Even Shun was staring this time, but his expression was hard to read. It wasn’t envy or anger—it was more like he felt compelled to look at Drew, as if Drew were some kind of exotic bird.

Drew grabbed something to eat. As he sat, he kept an eye out for Milia, but she never showed up.

That was weird—too weird. What could’ve happened to her? No one would dare touch her unless they wanted trouble with the patriarch himself.

He considered that the patriarch's associates wanted him replaced, but Milia was supposed to be safe, and none of the changes he’d made to the timeline should’ve affected her. Not yet, at least.

Maybe some emergency had come up and she had to leave school. He frowned. He couldn't remember what happened around this time in the alternate timeline/future—they weren’t friends in the alternate timeline.

'Future Drew' hung around with other mediocre guys. But those friendships didn’t last.

As Drew stood up to leave, Shun called out to him. Drew turned.

"Is your wound okay?" Shun hesitated to ask.

Maybe he’d hesitated because of what others might think—caring about someone they saw as a ‘cheater.’

"Yeah, it's fine. Thanks for asking," Drew replied, then left.

Shun wanted to say something else, to prolong the conversation, but it was clear that Drew didn't want that.

Drew found shade under a coconut tree, leaning against it. He wasn’t cultivating, just thinking about Milia.

Where had that girl gone? He could ask Maroon, but she clearly didn’t like him anymore, so there was no point. She wouldn’t tell him the truth.

He supposed he had to just wait for her to make her sudden appearance. He couldn't spend all his time worrying about her.

He was also certain he was being tailed whenever he left the school grounds. He knew how the system worked, so he wasn’t too worried about it.

He had no interest in cultivating at the moment either. Finding the hidden trials was more important. Since he had no idea how long it would take for Milia to come back, he had to rely on obtaining more Core points to unlock the library.

He’d spend the week earning as many school points as possible—unless the tasks were ridiculous.

With no classes going on at the moment, he had two options left: achievements or community service tasks.

Drew headed to the service tasks office. It looked like most of the other buildings. The only thing that stood out about it was the label, 'Community service tasks' above the door frame.

About ten other kids were already clustered around the task board, each one peering at the enormous grid of tasks pinned haphazardly across a blocky wooden wall. It stretched from floor to ceiling,

The low murmur of voices surrounded Drew, and he could hear snippets of complaints, discontent simmering under each kid’s breath. Most of the tasks involved tedious chores—collecting firewood, cleaning the streets, helping the elderly—and while they were necessary, they offered barely any point.,

So, Drew looked for the one that gave the most. And it didn't take long for him to find it.

20 Core points.

That was the exact number of points he needed to gain access to the library.

And he’d only need three more points to open a bank account, which he badly needed.

But the task itself… it was probably out of his league. It involved cleaning up exploding starfish on the southern beach.

To handle that, he’d need a better monster. A movement-based monster would be perfect. But with the investigation on him, he couldn’t risk buying one from the black market.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Buying a monster from the school wasn’t an option either, not without a hundred points.

Drew thought about it for a few seconds before making his decision. He accepted the task. He grabbed the paper, and a duplicate was made. It would track his actions and confirm his progress.

He briefly considered going to the item shop to buy Ferna bottles but decided against it—it would only raise suspicion about where he got his money.

He had already made way too much big spending. Drew would have to wait until he got Bein's father's money for him to get rid of suspicions. Which should be rather soon. In a day or two.

Drew smiled to himself and made his way outside. He had to show the task paper to the gate guards so that they could allow him to leave without checking how many more hours off-compass he had. Those hours wouldn't be counted as long as he was performing the task he had taken.

It took him about twenty minutes to leave the village and run down the short mountain to the beach.

They used to live much closer to the center, on mountains that took days to descend. But after over-hunting deer and cows—the predators’ prey—those same predators started attacking the clan for food. The fighting was so intense that if they hadn’t moved, they would’ve been wiped out.

Drew moved through the trees and grass, hearing the waves crash against the shore.

About a hundred meters of the southern side of the beach, from left to right, was covered in black—detonating starfish.

Drew grunted. The thing about those animals was that their name was misleading.

You’d think clearing that side of the beach would be easy—just trigger one and cause a chain reaction.

But it didn’t work that way. The starfish weren’t affected by their brethren explosions. So chain explosions couldn't work.

Individually, they weren’t strong, but in groups, they were formidable. At his level, it was impossible to take them on one by one.

And that said a lot, considering his monster was a defense/counter type.

So, instead of acting, Drew waited. He waited for one hour, then two, and on the fourth hour, it finally happened.

Down the hill, a group of eleven kids approached, checking a paper and looking ahead.

“It’s down there!” one of them said excitedly.

They had taken the same quest as Drew. He didn’t hide and was openly sitting under a coconut tree, watching the starfishes.

They sneered at him, walking past, until one of them had a change of heart.

A girl with long hair turned to the others. “Do you think if we get him to confess to cheating, the teacher will see us in a new light?”

“I don’t know, but Shun definitely would!”

“Yeah...”

Drew could tell by their expressions what they were thinking.

Before they could make a move, he stood up and summoned the Whirlwind Hands monster around his hands.

They hesitated for a moment, but with the numbers on their side—10 against 1—they were confident. Drew had dodged a fight with them yesterday, afraid of being outnumbered.

Yes, with numbers, they had the advantage. They would be the ones to take down the person who humiliated Rei.

They moved closer to Drew. The girl’s fingers glittered with bright light. The light became strings that protectively coiled around her entire body.

Drew eyed her. "You're a defense type?"

"Yeah?"

"Good."

"What's good about that?"

Drew shrugged. "I wonder."

She dashed at him. “You talk a lot of shit for a cheater!”

The others followed behind her. Drew stood his ground, then... turned and ran.

This surprised them, boosting their morale. They hurled insults, chasing him toward the sea. They knew that once he got within 12 meters of the starfish, they would attack. They planned to stay back and let him get himself killed.

They didn’t actually want to kill him—they just intended to beat him so badly that it would take months to recover. But if he walked into a death trap, he would only have himself to blame.

Drew swiped his hand toward the shore, and the 'hand' on his left shot in that direction, stopping just within the range of the starfish. Instantly, a starfish reacted.

One pounced toward Drew, and he batted it away with his other 'hand', sending it flying toward the girl chasing him.

Before she could react, it hit her square in the face. Or rather, on the light strings that functioned as some kind of weird armor for her.

The impact alerted all the nearby starfish that their territory was under threat.

The girl panicked, screaming and trying to pull the starfish from her face. “Get off!”

The rest of the starfish swarmed her like a cloud of bees.

It wasn’t just her—they were all targets, including Drew. But unlike the others, who were frozen in shock, Drew immediately turned and ran toward them.

"Move out of the way!" he shouted, but they still didn't react.

Drew pushed through them and kept running. They finally started to panic and tried to escape.

"Help me!"

"H-help!"

They all screamed as they felt the impact of something hitting their backs.

Drew covered his ears as a series of deafening booms went off. The explosions continued for several seconds before finally stopping.

Drew stood up and surveyed the scene. Many of the kids were all over, propelled by the explosions of sound and water. Their clothes were ripped apart and their backs were red with blood.

But they were alive. Including the girl who had her entire body covered with starfish.

"It... hurts..." Drew heard from her.

If it wasn't for her defensive monster ability she would have died. Of course, it was because she had that ability that Drew made her the biggest target.

Drew knew her bones were probably broken, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be healed. For now, she and the others weren’t his priority. He'd help them once his mission was complete.

It was the least he could do. Without them, the task would have been far more excruciating.

The starfishes, now displaced, began to crawl back toward the beach, but Drew wasn’t about to let that happen.

He needed them scattered for a reason.

Drew walked toward one, his pace much faster than their slow crawl. Since they had just exploded, their brains needed time to recover from the self-inflicted concussions.

He crushed one under his shoe before it could send a signal. Then he summoned his monster to eat its flesh. Each starfish weighed about five pounds, and with so many scattered around, he needed to move quickly.

Jumping from one to another, Drew killed them rapidly. If they made it back to the shore, they would bury themselves in the sand to hide from predators and rest, weakened from the battle.