“Stupid fucking Academy, with their stupid fucking rules and stupid fucking professors!”

Jonah couldn’t even hear his grumbling over the roaring thunder, crackling lightning, and crashing rain, all of which seemed to compete to make as much noise as possible.

But grumbling was the only way he could vent his frustrations at having to walk home through one of the worst storms in modern history just because of a mandatory lesson held at the Academy.

“They couldn’t even let me wait it out inside the barrier, those rude, pompous pricks.”

He tried swiping his drenched hair out of his eyes as he walked. But it fell back down as soon as he moved his hand. Even if his bangs hadn’t started tickling his eyes, there wasn’t much to see.

The rain coming down was so dense it was like walking through a faucet. And with the dark grey, almost pitch-black, clouds blotting out the skies and trying their best to erase the sun from human memory, there was barely any light to guide Jonah’s path. Only a few tendrils from the few street lamps that were somehow still intact made their way through the mat of rain.

Fortunately, Jonah knew the path between his apartment and the Academy like the back of his hand, so he should be able to make it back home before the storm worsened even further.

“Ah, fuck!”

A lightning bolt striking ground uncomfortably close to Jonah made him jump and step in one of the inconspicuously deep puddles. His entire shoe sank into the water with a splash.

Jonah was already soaked to the bone. But rainwater penetrating his clothes with a steady, relentless assault was different from burying his whole shoe and foot in cold water.

“I really shouldn’t have worn white socks today.”

Jonah’s sigh disappeared in the rumbling of thunder as another bout of lightning strikes blasted the ground nearby.

After the first one, Jonah wasn’t as jumpy, but it was still uncomfortable and frightening to be caught up in the middle of the storm, raging as if carrying a vendetta against the entire city.

The hum of electricity spreading through the air and the not-so-subtle fluctuations in air pressure didn’t exactly alleviate Jonah’s worries. But most of his fear came from the tumultuous mana brushing against his wet skin like a herd of stampeding buffalos.

It was only natural for a natural phenomenon or disaster to stir the atmospheric mana. But the storm was causing the mana to bubble and boil. And that mana pushed hard against Jonah’s heart, causing his blood to surge wildly.

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However, even when he covered his ears, the lightning and thunder were so loud that it was the only thing Jonah heard.

He tried shouting. Nothing.

It was as if the only thing allowed to make a sound in the world was the storm.

Jonah picked up his pace. Running through the heavy rain when the ground was slick with water and nonexistent visibility wasn’t wise. Jonah knew that. But as the lightning bolts crept closer to him, paranoia introduced itself to Jonah.

The bright white flashes turned the world into a large rave, and Jonah’s eyes struggled to keep up with the abrupt brightness before the world was plunged back into darkness.

With the storm beating on his senses, Jonah didn’t know how much time had passed as he ran, his feet pelting the streets. But he could tell that he was breathing heavily, even if he couldn’t hear it or sense it due to the storm pressuring his heart. The only indication was how quickly his chest was expanding and deflating.

Eventually, Jonah finally caught sight of his building in the distance.

There were a bunch of lightning rods in the nearby area, both permanent ones and ones recently erected in anticipation of the storm.

“If the code doesn’t work, I’m beating the shit out of that geezer. Landlord, my ass.”

Jonah gritted his teeth as he dreaded the possibility of the keypad deciding to take a vacation.

However, it turned out to be a needless worry.

Before Jonah could even reach his house, the beams of lightning caught up to Jonah, and an especially large one struck him dead-on.

“W…-”

Jonah’s eyes went white as the lightning enveloped him before he lost consciousness and, like a puppet with its strings cut, slumped on the ground. The storm raged on, uncaring of Jonah’s fate.

***

“...at the fuck…?”

Jonah tried to open his eyes, but the skull-splitting headache rearing its head put a stop to that and any other attempts at moving.

Jonah could only wait for the nauseating pain to subside as he confirmed that he was at least alive. He didn’t need to open his eyes to confirm that. Now, the only question was how bad the condition of his body was.

He tried to estimate the situation by using senses that didn’t provoke his headache. But his entire body was numb as if he had been bathed in electric fences. However, when he opened his mouth, he could feel cold water trickle into it.

It was still raining.

‘Not much time should have passed. Of course, I get struck by lightning. This would have never happened if those stupid fucking professors could bend the sticks up their asses even a little. I am so claiming compensation for this.’

Jonah realized he could still move his limbs. And lying on the cold hard ground in the middle of a storm wasn’t that good for his health, so despite the pain, he planned to get up and try to fumble his way inside.

Jonah took a deep breath in anticipation of the pain that would flare up as soon as he would try to move. He realized two things.

The ground wasn’t as hard as it had been when he ran on it.

“Ooholy fuck…!”

The air was intoxicatingly dense with mana.

Jonah’s first thoughts weren’t those of celebration.

‘Where the fuck am I?’

There was too much mana for it to be anywhere on Earth.