The two students introduced themselves. The girl was a [Thief] named Claire, and the guy she was with was an [Alchemist] named Simon. That explained how Claire got her hands on the arrow she used to almost take my head off. I could tell based on the thick lenses of Claire’s glasses that her vision was particularly poor, and her nervous disposition made me think she would be a liability in a fight.

Carlos introduced us, and I continued walking toward the lecture hall as we spoke. My mind was abuzz with thoughts of my worsening mental state and the time limit we faced. The Revelation System had saved all our lives, but it was making it hard for me to compartmentalize my hallucinations. The line between Vinzadir and me was starting to fray.

I would need to come up with some new way to compartmentalize. The bottle of pills weighed heavily in my pocket. If I were to get back on my medication, the hallucinations would disappear after about a week of consistent use. The side-effects were terrible, though. My hands would shake, my emotions would dull, and my mind would cloud.

Beyond that, I had no idea where I would even find more Risperidone. The pharmaceutical companies definitely weren’t making any more medications. Even if they were, they would prioritize heart medication or dialysis drugs over antipsychotics. In the meantime, they could just hold lunatics like me in insane asylums. One way or another, this was my problem, and I had to figure out how to deal with it alone. Otherwise, they would throw me into a padded room, again.

I stepped into the lecture hall. More than a hundred seats pointed toward a massive whiteboard. The seats were arranged like the seats of a movie theater, with stairs leading up from ground level to the rear row. As a result of this setup, there was minimal open floor space, despite the large size of the room.

Visualizing how I would use my [Workshop], I moved over to a table in the center of the room and tried to push it out of the way. The table didn’t budge when I tried to push it. I looked down at its base and saw that it was welded to the ground.

Taking my utility knife in one hand, I tried to cut into the iron legs that connected to the stone floor, and the knife passed through the iron legs like they were made of butter. Since my knife was an MDC object, I knew it would cut through, but I didn’t expect it to be nearly that effective.

I carried the table over to a corner of the room and threw it to the ground with a loud clang. We were on a time limit. There wasn’t enough time for me to be respectful of university property when the world was ending.

Liz walked into the lecture hall and watched what I was doing. She closed the door behind herself, leaving Carlos in the hallway with the two newcomers to our group.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“I’ve been wondering,” I said to Liz as I tried to imagine where the raw material and finished items would go, “where did all that Mithril come from that your dad used to make those weapons and that barricade?”

“[Knights] and [Thieves] start with Mithril weapons, and the Diluvians’ skeletons are made from Mithril.” Liz spoke quickly. She clearly wanted to talk about something else.

Liz walked up to me and said in a quiet voice that wouldn’t project in such a large room, “What was that back there? You almost killed them, Vincent. Are you really okay?”

Prepared to tell another lie, I turned and looked Liz directly in the eyes. I expected to see aggression in her expression, but I just saw compassion and concern.

“No, I’m not okay,” I said, turning back to my work. “My grasp on reality was frail already, and I can’t even be sure what ‘reality’ is anymore. If not for the testimony of other people, I’d be convinced that these text boxes and stat sheets were all in my head.”

“I hadn’t really considered it that way,” Liz said in a tone filled with pity. I was glad I couldn’t see her expression. “When the blue box appeared, I felt like I was going crazy. I can only imagine what it was like as a schizophrenic.”

I really didn’t like that word, though it was probably the most succinct way to describe me, though that wasn’t the only item on my list of diseases. I was a schizophrenic, a total “schizo.” It was one of those dangerous mental illnesses that people didn’t like to be near, and I didn’t blame them.

In an insane world, however, perhaps being insane would be an advantage? That thought brought me some small amount of satisfaction, and I hoped that Liz couldn’t see the momentary smile appear on my face.

I began to walk toward one of the lecture hall’s walls and, out of the corner of my eye, saw that Liz walked with some awkwardness in her shoulders. It seemed like she was concerned that her use of the word “schizophrenic” had offended me.

“You know, the System gave me the [Lunatic] trait,” I said with a smile.

“That’s not very nice.”

“I mean… it’s not wrong,” I said with a sardonic shrug and a tilted head.

Liz laughed at my self-effacing joke. “Your… condition… had totally slipped my mind ever since you told me a year ago. Whenever I talk to you, you always seem so…”

“Sane?” I finished her sentence. “Don’t be fooled. I’m crazy.” I looked at Liz and did my best Jack Nicholson impression.

Liz laughed once more, perhaps a bit too loudly. It was as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and she became completely convinced of my sanity. That was a funny quirk of human nature. Nothing convinced people that you were sane faster than joking that you were insane, because only a sane person would have the wherewithal to recognize their own insanity. Catch-22.

The other three members of our group opened the door to the lecture hall, and Carlos asked, “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Liz said quickly, looking away from the newcomers in embarrassment. It would be somewhat difficult to explain everything leading up to it, but I could tell that Liz’s reaction would send the wrong message.

While I was speaking with Liz, I had reached the end of the room and was facing one of the walls. Once Liz stepped far enough away from me, I accumulated some saliva in my mouth and spat on the wall.