Just what exactly had he gotten himself into?

Lionel is lost to the static once more, he couldn’t hear anything or feel anything. No matter how many times Eva called out to him, he was far gone from reality as his head attempts to rewire itself. Dead? Jane Addawick is dead? And the school isn’t doing anything? Wait, the school is probably the reason why Jane Addawick is dead. Probably? More like exactly. These thoughts run through Lionel’s brain, swirling around like a tempest.

It was difficult to grasp all at once.

He came to this school to be educated, to take one step closer to his dreams.

But now he’s walking straight into a nightmare.

“Lionel, snap out of it!”

Lionel feels his body shaking. To bring him back to reality, Eva had firmly gripped his shoulders and rocked him back and forth. This seems to do the trick as Lionel finally showed signs of curious movement. The first-year looked left to right, right to left, attuning himself to his surroundings.

“T-The dungeon…” Dungeons as in those places that mages and knights raid? Get loot and defeat monsters?

“Eva, what exactly is this school?” Lionel questioned, sweat dripping down the side of his face.

“...Like I said, it has a reward and punishment system.” Eva says, pulling her hands away from Lionel. “Death can be one of the punishments.”

“Why!? How is this even possible!?” There were so many questions, so many that it made Lionel’s headache. “What about the law? Guardian Council? Parents? Anyone outside!?”

“Shh!” Eva shushes him, slamming her palm against Lionel’s mouth. His classmate grabs Lionel by the arm with her other hand, and drags him to a more secluded area of the hall. Since everybody went straight to the classrooms, the halls emptied quickly.

“The Guardian Council from the outside know nothing. Parents? Most of us are orphans and those who do have parents consented. From the outside world, Wisiria looks like a prestigious Academy for rich kids, it’s like any other expensive school out there. At least, that’s how Wisiria likes to advertise themselves.”

“Consented?” Lionel gasps. He repeated in disbelief, “They consented!?”

“Yeah…” Eva lowers her gaze, frowning. “I don’t know why…”

Lionel took note of every word that left Eva’s lips. Most of the Wisiria students are orphans, those who had parents consented to this horrible system, the Guardian Council knew nothing and the school looked innocent.

Eva suddenly turns her head, looking at the classroom door. “We have to go, being late has penalties.”

Lionel had no choice but to follow Eva into the classroom. He forced his body to move despite it wanting to collapse from mental exhaustion. Fear crawls all over his body and his head is clouded with numerous horrific scenarios.

Death is like nothing to them.

Death is nothing to this school.

And Lionel considered that terrifying. It was terrifying how they consider life as worthless, just a punishment.

And finally, Lionel feared death and the possibility it could happen to him. He finally understood the reason why almost everybody bombarded him with questions concerning his grade. They were sizing him up, they were trying to see if they had prey, predator or a rival.

They most likely considered him as prey since he was far back from everyone else.

His late entrance is their advantage.

The sight of the door reminded him of the large gates of the academy. Would he be able to escape this “Fortress of Magic”? If he was going to survive against his opponents, then being able to use magic to fight is the best option. But what of the Guards? He can’t even fight off the guards let alone anyone with the collar on him.

Eva opens the door to their classroom and Lionel trailed behind slowly, eventually reaching his respective desk. Now the classroom felt completely different for Lionel. It felt more like a room full of sociopaths and psychopaths. His realization caused him to become acutely aware of intuition and insight. Every glance pricked at his skin, eyeing him dangerously.

They consider me a chance to raise their grades…

“Good morning class!” Mrs. Dewitt enters with a smile.

How can you smile like that?

You sent your student to a dungeon.

And she died.

There’s an empty desk right over there.

Wait…There wasn’t just a single empty desk. Now Lionel’s eyes open up to reality. They weren’t absent, they were most likely gone. Their classroom could hold about sixty students and there were a total of twenty two empty desks.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Lionel felt like puking at this point.

And so class began, like nothing ever happened.

And it ended, like nothing ever happened.

Lionel panicked by the end of the day. He barely got any points, could barely signal in despite knowing some of the answers. This is what Eva meant by difficulty through signalling, submitting work and the rest. There’s thirty-eight of them here and the chances of actually getting to signal an answer is low. This is why students opted to take tests against or duel other students because it was faster to get a grade that way.

Everyone left the classroom immediately, leaving Eva and Lionel.

“Hey, let’s go.”

“...You go first.”

Eva frowns, “You okay? It’s dangerous to walk alone…”

“...I’ll be fine. I just need some time to think.”

“Okay then…I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Lionel forces a weak smile on his face, thanking Eva as usual. His classmate finally left and Lionel sat alone in the classroom. The sun was dipping below the horizon, the warm hues of the sunset painted the classroom through the large windows. A few seconds later, Lionel’s eyes land on Jane Addawick’s desk.

He gets to his feet and walks to the seat where the girl once sat.

“...”

She probably wasn’t all that innocent since everybody in this school had a loose screw, but still…

Lionel presses his hand against the desk, gliding his palm against the smooth wood. The fact that he just saw this girl yesterday and now she’s gone is still tough to wrap his mind around, but Lionel didn’t have a choice but to accept that fact. And most likely, the number of occupied desks in the classroom will decline.

And he tries not to think that he could be next.

“I have to study.” He tells himself.

Then he sees the drawer underneath the desk. As of now, Lionel’s desk drawer was empty, and Lionel hopes it doesn’t remain empty. He was the type to fill drawers with notes and papers after all.

“Excuse my intrusion…” Lionel places his hand under the drawer to feel a gap, then pulls it open.

“...Huh?”

There was a small notepad on top of notebooks and textbooks in Jane's drawer. It’s been arranged neatly but the notepad seemed to be out of place with how it looked. He takes it and examines its appearance, it was definitely used as it was battered up. Lionel presses his thumbs against the cover and back, it was pretty thin and barely had any pages. He flips the notepad open and realizes why. There were traces of some of the pages ripped out.

He flips through the pages, scanning through the notes of different school subjects. History, Arithmetics, ManaBio, Spellcasting…

Then Lionel reaches the middle pages of the notepad. He eyes it in momentary curiosity before looking through the rest of the pages.

“Eh?” Lionel quickly flips through the pages, then returns to the page in the middle.

-Study

-Archives

-Mana Output Class

-Alchemy Class

-Magic Theory

-Research Experiment

It’s different from the rest of the notepad. This isn’t notes…It’s just a list of words. A reminder maybe?

“...Research Experiment?” Lionel mutters.

“Research what?”

“Huh?!” Lionel turns around to see a classmate by the doors. If Lionel wasn’t mistaken, isn’t her name Erica Walker? The Aloof looking girl with long black hair and dark blue eyes.

She was picture-perfect of what Lionel considers to be a diligent yet an intimidating student. She exuded an air of unapproachability, perhaps stemming from the way she carried herself with such height and confidence or perhaps with the icy look she directed at him just now.

“Nothing.” Lionel replies immediately, shoving the notepad into his pocket.

Erica raises an eyebrow at him curiously, but doesn’t push. She walks down the stairs to talk to him properly. “What are you doing here?”

Lionel repeats himself, “Nothing, I’m just…”

He looks over at Jane’s desk.

“Mourning.”

“...Mourning?” Erica crosses her arms, but also follows Lionel’s gaze and stares at the desk.

“That’s useless. She wasn’t really a good person.”

“...But don’t you think what happened to her was…” Lionel tries to contain his anger. Erica was right, most of the students in this school are messed up in the head. Still, it feels like there was something off about Jane, at least that’s what it seems like from her notepad. Lionel would admit it’s just from his intuition.

“It was upsetting, yes.” Erica admits monotonically. “But there’s nothing we can do. We can’t fight the system.”

“...”

“That’s why…” Erica looks at Lionel, her gaze piercing into his eyes. “Don’t trust anybody. Be observant of your surroundings. That includes me.”

Lionel suddenly remembers Kaius. She’s warning him like he did…

“...Why are you telling me this?”

Erica shrugs, “Because you’re a transfer student…I guess.”

“...What?”

“You should get going. The cleaning staff will come and clean Addawick’s desk.”

Cleaning staff? Seeing Lionel’s confusion, Erica explained. “When a student passes away, the cleaning staff comes the next day to clean everything up, as well as retrieve all the student’s belongings.”

“I understand. Um…Thank you…and goodbye.” Lionel begins to walk up the stairs, but pauses. He glances over his shoulder to see Erica staring at Jane’s desk. The lack of emotion on her face made it impossible to decipher her thoughts. He also couldn’t help but question her,

“What are you doing here?”

Erica doesn’t bother to look at him.

“...Doing something useless.”

“...I see.” And with those final words of their exchange, Lionel leaves the classroom. Once he was in the hallway, he saw faces that made his blood boil and his throat itch. He was itching to scream at them, question their actions, but he held himself back. Jonathan Astor looked satisfied with himself, chatting with the two girls who Lionel assumed to be Taylor and Georgia.

Lionel tells himself to ignore them, to move on.

“Who should we target next? Erica’s pretty annoying. Acting all high and mighty like she owns the place.”

Screw moving on.

Lionel could only see red, his nerves pulsating. His body and mind intertwined, acting in rage as he stormed his way to Jonathan. Jonathan flinches, startled at the sudden appearance of the transfer student. They were just about to say something, but Lionel beat them to it.

“Jonathan Astor, I challenge you to a test.”