I began to awake to the sound of a hazy conversation between two people.

"... mental resistance... mana"

"Maybe he can... Apophis..."

"... aptitude... higher than expected."

"Oh look, he's finally awake."

I was laying on a couch in a fairly spacious room, with a couple of armchairs on either side of the couch. The voices I heard were familiar. I tried to have a look at who the speakers were. I recognized the raincoat girl. This time she had her hood off. I quickly looked around her to see if she still had that stick on her, but it looked like she didn't.

I glanced in the direction of the other chair and saw a tall, handsome guy sitting. He looked about my age, maybe a little older. And his face... I felt like I'd seen him before.

"Where am I?" I asked, slowly raising myself to a sitting position.

The girl turned towards me and spoke. "Good evening, once again. I would like to apologize for how I treated you earlier, but it was necessary to bring you here by any means possible. This is the Moscow University of Wizardry."

"Moscow University of... Lizardry?"

"No, Moscow University of Wizardry."

I tilted my head in confusion. Wizardry? I looked at the other guy, only to see a strangely serious face staring back. 'Are these guys serious?' I thought.

I decided to humor myself a little more and asked, "Then you two must be wizards?"

Without a hint of hesitation, they replied in chorus, "Yes."

"Makes sense." I replied.

'No! It doesn't make any sense! I've never heard of such a place! What is this, H*gwarts? Was I taken to Pl*tform Nine and Three Quarters while I was knocked out? Nah, no way something like that could exist. They're just acting.'

With my inner monologue coming to a conclusion, I stood up and said, "Thanks for bringing me here. This was an exciting and insightful experience. Where's the exit?"

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The girl looked at me and said, "Please hear us out first. After that, if you still want to leave, we'll escort you back home."

The guy stood up, put his hand on my shoulder, and said, "It won't take too long."

I stared at them both for a few seconds, and then gave in. "Fine, but make it quick. For the record, I am convinced that you're spouting shit, so don't try to make me change my mind."

They seemed relieved by my statement, and we sat back down. The guy started speaking.

"Allow us to introduce ourselves. The lady beside me is Natasha Zaitseva. I'm surprised you didn't already recognize me, but I'm Alexei Pavlov. Together with three other people, we are the Five Great Mages of this university. Now-"

"Wait, wait, hold on, you're Alexei?"

"Yes, I'm Alexei."

As I previously mentioned, Alexei was a friend I had in middle school. I was a normie back then, and it was this guy's fault that I ended up spending years balls deep in delusions of power. Though he was a nice guy in general, so I didn't really have any grudges against him.

"Holy fuck... this is the last place I expected to find you."

"I've been expecting you though. I'm the one who got Natasha to bring you here."

Having given it some thought, I remembered that Natasha started our conversation by asking if I'm the guy Alexei wanted her to meet.

Well, whatever. Alexei was in his chuuni phase since before he met me, so he probably found some friends with... similar traits.

"So why'd you bring me here in the first place?" I asked. 'Quite violently, at that,' I wanted to add.

"I was just going to talk about that. You see, you have great potential as a wizard, so much so that you could rival the power of the Five Mages. We usually don't bring outsiders in, but we decided to make an exception for you just because of how powerful you could become."

"And what would I get out of this? I prefer my current life, thank you very much."

"Frankly, nothing. But you do get to be a secret protector of humanity and whatnot. Doesn't that sound cool? Isn't that what you've been fantasizing about this whole while?" Alexei said, while slowly leaning closer in.

He sounded just how he did when we were in middle school. But the secret protector of humanity? Who did this guy think I was? I'd just gotten over that crap. I was still fairly embarrassed about it too. I didn't want to join his little group of friends playing pretend.

"Fantasizing about being a secret protector? Are you twelve? I'm past all that already. Let humanity die, for all I fucking care. Show me to the exit and don't bother contacting me about this ever again. See you never."

I quickly scanned the room for a door, and found one in the wall behind the sofa. I made haste towards it, trying to get away. I was too slow though, because by the time I was halfway there, I heard a familiar incantation, and I blacked out for the second time that night.

I could have sworn that the last thing I heard was, "I hope you reconsider our offer."

---

Meanwhile, in the hallways of the University, a hooded figure slowly walked in the shadows. There was naught but moonlight to illuminate the dark corridors.

"Resistance to magical attacks, huh? Lena wants to see~"

The sound of a fading giggle echoed as the figure vanished out of sight.