Necrotize stood before the academy gates.
Today was his first day.
Every student in the vicinity had their eyes on him — yet not a single one dared to say a word.
***
Once inside, a staff mber was guiding the new students toward their respective halls. Necrotize spotted one of them and stepped forward.
"Hello, excuse . Could you point toward my hall? That would be a great help."
The mont the staff mber turned and saw who had spoken, his entire body began to tremble. So primal instinct clawed its way up from deep within him — an overwhelming urge to prostrate himself right then and there. His knees buckled. He was already sinking toward the floor.
"I prostrate—"
Necrotize stopped him before his forehead could touch the ground.
"I’ve already told people — I don’t enjoy this sort of thing." He said it calmly, without irritation. "Right now, I’m a student at this academy. Which technically makes you my senior. And I’m fairly certain I made it clear that bowing before is unnecessary."
"A-Aah... Yes... Lord Necrotize..."
The man’s body was still shaking. Necrotize noticed, but there was little he could do about it. Fear like that didn’t disappear overnight — it needed ti to fade on its own. So he let it go without another word.
The staff mber gestured for Necrotize to follow him. After a short walk, he was led to the entrance of an impressively grand hall — elegant, spacious, and clearly built with no expense spared.
"Sir, your hall is inside here. All first-year students have been assigned to dual-occupancy rooms. You will be sharing yours with one other student."
The man handed over the room key, then wasted absolutely no ti retreating. The mont he put a reasonable distance between himself and Necrotize, he finally exhaled — as if he had been holding his breath the entire ti.
Necrotize watched him go and allowed himself a small, quiet smile.
Then he stepped inside.
Every student in the hall went still the instant they saw him. Wide eyes. Open mouths. *The God of Destruction* was about to beco their hallmate.
He could hear all of it — every thought racing through their heads. So were gripped by fear. Others felt a strange, inexplicable excitent. A rare few felt nothing at all.
Necrotize paid none of it any mind.
He simply made his way toward his room: 306.
The door itself was lavish — ornate detailing, polished finish, the kind of craftsmanship that announced its own importance. Inside, the room was even more spacious than expected, furnished with tasteful pieces that sohow struck a balance between luxury and livability. Two single beds sat across from each other.
One of them already had a bag and a few belongings arranged beside it. Its owner, however, was nowhere to be seen.
The other bed was bare — not that it mattered.
Necrotize hadn’t brought anything with him.
He didn’t need to. If he ever required sothing, he simply thought of it — and it would appear before him. Anything. Anything in the entire universe.
Luggage was a concept that didn’t concern him.
***
With class still roughly an hour away, he decided to explore.
He had read about this academy — in the novel, of course — but that was knowledge filtered through soone else’s words, soone else’s perspective. He had never seen any of it with his own eyes.
Now he could.
He wandered through the grounds, taking it all in. Towering buildings stretched toward the sky. Beautiful, well-maintained facilities were spread throughout the campus. Training grounds of various kinds occupied dedicated areas, purpose-built for different disciplines. And countless other things beyond that.
He was satisfied.
Sothing warm stirred quietly inside him — a simple, unguarded sense of joy at seeing all of this in person for the very first ti. He would be spending the next four years here.
He was looking forward to it.
***
He was still observing his surroundings when his gaze drifted toward a corner of the courtyard.
Several boys had a single boy cornered — and they were beating him.
"How dare you bump into ." The one leading the group sneered down at the crumpled figure. "Do you have any idea who I am? I am the third son of the Count Tasrian family. You’re a lowly commoner — what gives you the right to so much as graze ?"
"...I’m sorry." The boy on the ground barely managed the words. Blood was running from his nose. One eye had already swollen shut from a blow. His breathing ca in ragged, laboured pulls — clearly, the damage wasn’t just on the surface. Sothing internal had taken a hit. "I didn’t an to bump into you. It won’t happen again — I swear it won’t happen again."
Necrotize watched from a distance, expression unreadable.
He recognised this scene. He had read it in the novel. The strong preying on the weak — the sa tired story, playing out in every corner of every world.
If he wanted to, he could make those boys simply cease. Erase them from existence so completely that even their own mothers wouldn’t rember their faces, wouldn’t rember their nas — wouldn’t even feel the absence.
But he wouldn’t do that.
He wouldn’t do any of it.
Instead, he reached out — quietly, imperceptibly — and let a sliver of his power flow into the boy on the ground. A fraction so minuscule it barely registered even to him. Like drawing a single drop from an ocean with the whole of eternity to spare.
But for that boy, in that mont?
It was enough.
***
After that, Necrotize did nothing more.
He simply stood there and watched.
The boy on the ground was still taking kicks — but sothing had changed. He noticed it himself, slowly at first, then all at once. The pain wasn’t as sharp as it should have been. The ache that had been spreading through his body from the inside — it was fading. The eye that had swollen shut from the punch was already less inflad. The bleeding from his nose had slowed to almost nothing.
And then he felt it.
Sothing strange was moving through him — a warmth that had no source, an energy unfurling quietly beneath his skin like a second heartbeat. He didn’t know where it had co from. He didn’t understand what it was. But he could feel it, undeniably, threading itself through every part of him.
The boys who had been kicking him noticed sothing was wrong before he did.
Their feet hurt.
"What the—" The Tasrian boy recoiled, staring down at his own leg. "What did you do? Why is your body suddenly like iron?"
The boy on the ground said nothing. He had no answer to give. He didn’t understand it any more than they did.
Then a faint violet aura began to bleed from his skin — quiet and strange, like light leaking through a crack in a door.
He didn’t notice it himself.
But they did.
None of them could na what it was. None of them had ever felt anything quite like it. But every instinct they had was screaming the sa thing — this is not sothing you want to be close to.
"...You got lucky today." The Tasrian boy took a step back, his earlier arrogance clumsily reassembled into a threat. "Next ti you pull sothing like this — you’re dead."
Then they left. All of them, quickly, without looking back.
A few monts passed in silence.
Slowly, the boy pushed himself up from the ground. He straightened, steadied himself — and blinked. He rolled his shoulders. Pressed a hand to his ribs where the kicks had landed hardest.
Nothing.
No pain. Not even a dull throb where the bruises should have been.
He looked around, left and right, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Sothing had shifted the mont that energy passed through him, he was sure of it — but the why and the how were completely beyond him.
That’s when he saw a figure in the distance, walking away.
Only the boy’s back was visible from where he stood — and yet sothing tugged at him. So quiet, wordless certainty settled in his chest, telling him that whatever had just happened to him, that person walking away had sothing to do with it.
He wanted to call out. He wanted to say thank you.
But before he could take a single step, the figure had already slipped into the crowd of students and disappeared entirely.
***
Necrotize heard every word of it.
He heard the thoughts the boy couldn’t bring himself to voice, the quiet gratitude still chasing after a stranger’s retreating back.
And without aning to, he smiled.
Good. I managed to help a fellow classmate.
It was a small thing. An almost laughably small thing, by any asure that applied to him.
But sohow, walking through those crowded academy grounds on his very first day — it felt like exactly enough.
User Comments
0 comments from readers