"…Why do group exercises exist?"
On Earth or here, it didn't matter.
Soren hated them equally, and it wasn't even about being antisocial; it was about having no energy left for forced conversation, no patience for pretending he was fine, especially when he still hadn't spoken to anyone in days beyond Lilliana's roll call.
For a moment, a bleak thought rose up before he could stop it.
'…I can't even remember the sound of my own voice.'
He paused, then sighed internally.
'That's a lie. I remember perfectly.'
Looking around, he confirmed the obvious: everyone else already had a partner.
'Figures.'
He slumped slightly where he stood, letting the defeat show only in the way his shoulders sagged.
"This A+ Charm stat is a fucking lie," he muttered.
It was supposed to make him likeable, approachable, the sort of protagonist-adjacent advantage that smoothed social friction, but here he was, unpaired, ignored, radiating loneliness like some awkward otaku in a cheap romance manga.
His mouth tightened, and he couldn't help thinking the world was unfair in a way that felt painfully consistent, as if even when he had been given a new start, nothing had changed.
"Soren Arden, come here."
His spine went rigid.
'Shit.'
He turned, forcing his expression neutral, and answered before hesitation could be mistaken for disrespect.
"Yes, Professor Roseblood…"
Lilliana looked up from her clipboard with a mild frown, then glanced across the hall as if selecting something off a shelf.
"Umm… you can pair up with him over there."
Soren followed her gaze.
He froze.
His soul left his body.
'No,' he thought, the word landing with the weight of prophecy. 'Not him.'
His throat worked as he swallowed, and a part of him, childish and betrayed, suddenly regretted every kind thought he'd had about Lilliana being "adorable," because an adorable person didn't do this to people.
'How could you betray me like this?'
Disobeying a professor wasn't an option, not when he had no idea what Soren Arden's existing reputation was, and no desire to add "insubordinate" to the list of reasons people avoided him, so he forced his legs into motion and started walking toward his new partner, silently praying to every deity that existed in this world.
The closer he got, the heavier his footsteps felt, not because the distance was far, but because his brain kept supplying context he didn't want, the kind of context that made his skin itch.
When he finally stopped in front of the other boy, his first thought was immediate and instinctive.
'He looks exactly like a walking red flag.'
Then, because his mind was unhelpful, it supplied a second thought, somehow worse.
'No, more like an NTR antagonist.'
Soren kept his expression polite through sheer force of will and whispered the command under his breath.
"「Information」"
.
[Felix]
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Race: Half-Elf
.
Felix.
The name alone made something in Soren's stomach twist, because it came bundled with forum threads, rage posts, memes, and the kind of collective hatred only a playerbase could sustain for a character who kept ruining their favourite quests.
And now he was standing right there.
Up close.
Smirking.
Felix looked exactly like the sort of character the developers would design to be attractive on purpose: sharp features softened by a half-elf's elegance, hair too neat to have ever been cut by someone who struggled with money, posture loose and confident in a way that suggested he had never once worried about whether he belonged in a room.
He also carried himself as if he knew it.
Soren's mind, cursed with perfect recall and years of community osmosis, immediately supplied the rest.
Felix was infamous across the TKS community during the early days, and not because he was particularly strong or particularly important to the main plot, but because he was persistent in the worst way.
A flirt who treated romance like a buffet, and the playerbase had given him countless nicknames ranging from Scum to Trash to Playboy to Garbage, with Womaniser being the least creative and most accurate.
The guy hit on any woman who breathed.
He flirted, charmed, then tossed them aside the second they got attached, and it wasn't even presented as a tragic flaw in the game; it was just… him, unrepentant and smug.
'He even went after one of the main heroines, Saintess Olivia,' Soren thought, irritation bubbling up on instinct. 'Absolute human trash.'
Standing next to him already felt like a reputation hazard, and that alone was enough to sour Soren's mood, because he had only just arrived, he had only just managed a few quiet days, and the last thing he needed was to be associated with someone the academy would inevitably gossip about.
Unfortunately, "arguing with a professor" did not sit high on his list of survival strategies, so he swallowed his resentment, forced his mouth to open, and spoke with all the enthusiasm of a man reading his own death sentence.
"…I was told to pair up with you."
"Hmm…"
Felix's gaze dragged over him slowly, lingering an uncomfortable second too long, not quite leering, but not quite innocent either, the sort of look that made Soren's skin prickle.
He resisted the urge to step back.
'…I should clear things up to be safe,' he decided, because paranoia was better than regret.
"Just so you know, I'm a guy," he muttered, voice low.
He wasn't sure how he looked to other people in this world, but with the long hair, the slight build, and the androgynous voice that still didn't quite feel like his, he couldn't shake the worry that someone might mistake him for a girl from a distance, and Felix felt like exactly the kind of person who would make that mistake everyone else's problem.
Felix blinked.
Then he laughed, the sound bright and annoying.
"What, you thought I was going to eat you alive?" he said, waving a hand as if Soren's concern was ridiculous. "Relax. You're not my type anyway."
Soren narrowed his eyes.
"Do I even want to ask what your type is?"
Felix didn't hesitate for even half a second, grin widening as if he had been waiting for the opportunity.
"Big boobs and a nice ass."
Soren's face contorted before he could stop it.
'Who answers like that?'
"…Gross," he said aloud, because his mouth had apparently decided subtlety was no longer available.
He had nothing against people having preferences, but the way Felix said it, casual and proud, like he had just described a good breakfast, was, as he had already said, gross.
Felix only looked more amused.
"Haha, you're pretty interesting."
"Once again," Soren said flatly, "I'm a guy."
"You know what?" Felix tilted his head, eyes glittering with mischief. "I think I'm starting to realise why you weren't able to find a partner."
A vein twitched in Soren's forehead.
'Is there any need?' he thought, and the irritation was sharper because it struck too close to something he had been trying not to examine.
The way people avoided him, the way his presence seemed to make others recoil, the way he had learned in another life that being the reason attention shifted could have consequences far beyond your own discomfort.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a slow breath, forcing himself to keep his temper from spilling, because losing control in front of a room full of strangers wasn't going to help him.
Felix extended a hand anyway, still smirking, as if nothing had happened.
"Felix, Class B, but I'm sure you already knew that."
'Wow,' Soren thought, deadpan. 'Modesty of a saint.'
He hesitated, then reluctantly shook Felix's hand, the grip firm, warm, and annoyingly normal.
"Soren Arden. Class F."
Felix's grin widened, and Soren immediately regretted giving him anything, even a name.
"Ohhh," Felix drawled, voice loud enough to carry. "You're that sickly-looking guy the girls keep whispering about."
Soren blinked.
"…Excuse me?"
The words landed wrong, not just insulting, but specific, and before he could press for details, Lilliana clapped her hands at the front of the hall, drawing attention like a bell.
"Alright! Now that everyone's paired up, I'll explain today's lesson."
The exercise, as Lilliana described it, was essentially glorified target practice, only the targets were other students.
Pairs would take turns casting magic at each other, carefully, with controlled output and clear intentions, no free-for-all, no reckless blasting, and if anyone tried something stupid, they would be removed and punished.
The priests along the side were there "just in case," which, given the variety of talent in the room and the fact that Class A students were participating, sounded less like a precaution and more like an inevitability.
When Soren and Felix reached their designated section, a marked rectangle on the floor that functioned as their "lane," Felix rolled his shoulders like he was warming up for something fun.
"Are you sure it's safe to hit you?" Felix asked, smirk returning. "You look like you'd crumble from a strong breeze."
'Why does he keep provoking me?' Soren wondered, then smiled back sweetly, the kind of smile that promised violence without actually saying it.
"Don't worry," he said lightly. "I'll make sure you're the one needing the healers."
Felix's brows lifted, pleased rather than offended.
"I guess we'll see, won't we?"
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
Ten minutes later, Soren was drenched in sweat and barely standing.
"Huff… huff…"
His uniform clung unpleasantly to his back, his lungs burning, and his hands shook with the strain of repeatedly building fragile magic circles in his mind, infusing them with miserably low mana, and trying to release spells that felt like they should have been child's play, except reality didn't care what the game had labelled "basic."
Needless to say, he had been thoroughly humbled.
Felix, meanwhile, looked entirely unbothered, hair still neat, posture relaxed, as if he had spent the last ten minutes doing light stretches rather than dodging spells and firing back with irritating precision.
"You're kind of like a hedgehog," Felix mused aloud, as if offering a sincere observation.
Soren blinked up at him, equal parts confused and furious.
"What are you even talking about?"
Felix gestured vaguely at him, grin sharpening.
"You're small, prickly, and angry," he said. "A perfect little hedgehog."
'This bastard,' Soren thought, and the urge to throw something, anything, at Felix's smug face was only restrained by the fact that the "something" would have to be a spell, and his spells were currently doing the magical equivalent of wet slaps.
Actually, even if they were that strong, maybe he might've been able to wipe that grin off of his opponent's face, but unfortunately, they fell short of even that.
He forced his trembling legs to steady, planted his feet, and glared.
"Huff… I am so going to kill you."
Felix clapped his hands like a proud parent watching a toddler finally say its first words.
"That's the spirit!" he said brightly. "Come on, little hedgehog!"
Soren bared his teeth, then gathered his focus again, because if he didn't land at least one good hit before the end of the lesson, his pride was going to crawl out of his body and die of shame in the corner.
He tried to remember the steps properly, picture the circle, activate the circuit, form the shape, infuse mana, chant, release, and he tried to do it while Felix moved just enough to force him to track, just enough to break concentration if he let his mind slip even a fraction.
He managed a clean [Aqua] once, a tight orb that shot forward, and Felix sidestepped it with insulting ease.
He tried [Gaia], aiming for Felix's footing, willing the earth to soften, and for a heartbeat it worked, the stone grit shifting under Felix's boot, but Felix simply hopped back, laughing, and the spell collapsed the moment Soren's focus wavered.
Each failure cost mana, and each recast cost more, and by the time the instructor called for them to switch again, Soren's head was pounding with the dull ache of mana exhaustion, bringing the kind that made his vision feel too bright.
Felix hadn't even broken a sweat.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
Unfortunately, by the end of the lesson, the situation had not improved whatsoever.
Even at the very end, when Soren was running on sheer stubbornness and the last scraps of mana he could squeeze out, he wasn't able to leave so much as a scratch on the human trash standing in front of him, and Felix remained irritatingly pristine.
Soren's pride lay in pieces at his feet.
"Didn't you say I'd be the one needing the healers?" Felix teased, hands behind his head as if lounging. "Weird. I feel perfectly fine."
Soren's eye twitched.
"Will you please just shut up?"
Felix chuckled, not offended in the slightest.
"Alright, alright," he said, then tilted his head as if remembering something. "Here. I'll even do you a favour."
Woooongggg—
A soft light enveloped Soren as a magic circle flared to life, clean and effortless, the kind of casting that made Soren feel personally insulted.
"「Clean」."
The spell washed over him, and the sweat and grime vanished, leaving his uniform fresh again, as if the last hour of humiliation had never happened, which was almost worse, because he still felt it in his muscles.
Soren blinked, thrown off by the sudden normality of the gesture.
"Uh… thanks?"
Felix shrugged as if it cost nothing, which, given his performance, it probably didn't.
"No problem," he said, then smiled like they were old friends. "Wanna grab lunch?"
Soren stared at him in disbelief.
'…Is this guy serious?'
He dragged a hand down his face, exhausted, confused, and deeply suspicious.
'This world really doesn't make any sense.'
————「❤︎」————