The class began with an unfamiliar face.
Teacher Rio stood before them with both hands behind his back. His neat short black hair, his grey eyes scanning the room with a calm that didn't resemble ordinary calm. In his late twenties, but his record said something entirely different about his age. He wore the formal uniform with a precision that left no room for comment.
He stood and said nothing for several full seconds.
The students grew quieter than usual. Something in that silence told them that what was coming mattered.
"Next week," Rio said. "A practical exam in the virtual world."
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
"A Level Seven dungeon. Hostile environment, limited resources, tight time. The objective: survive and collect as many points as possible through the materials available inside the dungeon. The rules are simple — whoever gets out, gets out. Whoever doesn't stays until time runs out."
He paused.
"You will choose your teams today. Three people per team. No less."
The class erupted into immediate murmurs.
In the middle row, Nour spun toward Shina and Iris quickly. His orange hair, slightly long, moved with the motion, the white bandana on his head tilted slightly, his warm honey eyes gleaming with enthusiasm that didn't match the seriousness of the moment. He held the fourteenth rank.
"Shina, Iris," Nour said. "One team again? Like middle school?"
"You weren't useful in middle school," Shina said.
"I was very useful. Who stopped that monster in the third exam?"
"You fell flat on your face right after," Iris said.
"But I stopped it first."
His smile didn't change. It never changed no matter what was said to him.
In the far corner of the class, Kaya, who held the fifth rank, was slowly chewing something small wrapped in white paper. Her short black wolf-cut hair leaned slightly purple under the classroom light, her beautiful calm face reflecting no opinion on anything happening around her. Her sword on her back as always.
She didn't speak. She only watched and ate.
Neon, who held the sixth rank, sat in the adjacent row, his calm styled black hair, his ordinary face that drew no attention except for his orange eyes. He was leaning on his elbow looking forward with the expression of someone listening while thinking about something else entirely.
"Level Seven," Neon murmured to Zikro beside him. "Serious this time."
Zikro didn't look at him.
"I said serious."
"I know."
"Just making sure you heard."
Fili from the other side gave him a single look.
"Alright," Neon said. "I'll be quiet."
Shina and Iris stepped forward toward Rio.
"Our team is ready," Shina said.
"How many members?"
"Two."
The room didn't explode immediately. But the air changed. Then it did.
"Two?" a student from the front row said. "They're first and second in the rankings. That's not fair to the other teams."
"If they're together no one can compete with them," a girl from the middle said. "The dungeon will be decided in their favor from the start."
"They should be separated," a voice from the back said. "The protocol is clear."
"Equal distribution of power," another student said. "That's basic."
The voices overlapped. Everyone talked at the same time. Even students who never usually spoke opened their mouths.
Zikro didn't speak. But his face said enough.
Fili noted something on her device with complete calm as though the noise around her didn't exist.
Neon looked at the ceiling. Then at Shina and Iris. Then at the ceiling again and said: "Another loss then."
Kaya stopped eating for a moment. She looked at Rio. Then returned to her food.
Rio didn't move throughout the noise.
He stood with the same posture, the same expression, the same unbreakable calm. He waited until the voices settled on their own — not because he asked them to, but because something in his silence made them stop.
He looked at everyone.
"The objection is understandable," Rio said. "But before you judge, understand the system."
He turned toward the board and wrote a simple equation.
"The point system in this dungeon operates on the basis of rank difference. Every team that includes a member from the bottom of the rankings receives bonus points calculated from the gap between their rank and the strongest member of the team."
He paused.
"Ozoki is completely outside the classification. The gap between him and the first and second ranks is the largest in the academy."
The class quieted with a different kind of quiet this time. The quiet of people who understand the equation and feel its weight.
"So the bonus points will be…" a student said.
"Enormous," Rio said. "Yes."
"But the burden—"
"A real burden. I won't lie to you. A person with no Response in a Level Seven dungeon is a weight that cannot be ignored."
He looked at Shina and Iris.
"The question is not whether he is a burden. The question is whether you can carry him."
A short silence.
Then in a quieter tone, as though saying something to himself as much as to them:
"And sometimes the burden you carry surprises you."
He said nothing more. He turned toward the board.
In his seat, Neon lowered his eyes from the ceiling.
He looked at Rio. One long look. Something in the way that last sentence was said, in the way he had chosen Ozoki specifically, in the calm that never cracked throughout the whole discussion.
This was not simply applying the point system.
This was deliberate.
Fine. This doesn't matter. At least we have a chance.
He returned to looking forward.
Shina and Iris stepped two paces away from everyone.
"The equation is clear," Shina said. "The bonus points will give us a real advantage."
"And he is a real burden," Iris said.
"Yes. But there's something else."
Iris looked at her.
"The data doesn't match up with him. The strike in the match, the instinctive movement, the empty file. I want to see more. The dungeon will give me the chance to do that."
A short silence.
"You want to use the dungeon to study him," Iris said.
"I want to understand him. Yes."
Iris looked ahead.
Inside her, something entirely different from Shina's logic. No data, no numbers, no questions about the strike or the empty file.
Just something simple and unsettling at the same time.
A person with this broken body, with no Response, in a Level Seven dungeon.
Alone.
That thought — just that thought — unsettled her more than she expected.
"No," Iris said.
Shina looked at her.
"I don't agree with the logic." She paused. "But I'll accept."
She said nothing more. She turned toward Rio.
"We accept the condition," Shina and Iris said together.
The class didn't explode this time. A kind of quiet astonishment settled in. Worse than the noise.
Rio looked at them for a moment.
"The exam is in one week," Rio said. "You have a week to prepare. No classes either."
Nour waited until they left the classroom then approached Shina with his usual smile.
"Ozoki," Nour said. "That person from the Response exam."
"Yes."
"The one whose body—"
"Yes."
"And who doesn't have any—"
"Yes, Nour."
He looked at her for a moment. His smile didn't change.
"Are you sure?"
"No."
"Excellent." He stepped away. "Good luck then."
Iris watched his back as he walked away.
"How did he spend three years with us?" Iris said.
"That's a question I still haven't found an answer to."
In the corridor, Neon walked beside Zikro.
"Shina and Iris chose Ozoki," Neon said.
"I know."
"And Rio suggested Ozoki specifically." He said it in the same tone as ordinary conversation. "Out of every student at the bottom of the rankings."
Zikro didn't respond.
"Interesting, isn't it?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He looked ahead.
And went quiet.
Zikro looked at his side. Neon didn't go quiet usually. When he did it meant he had reached something he didn't want to say out loud.
Fili, who had been a few steps behind them, lifted her eyes from her device for a moment.
Then returned to writing.
Evening.
The quiet street. The old house at its end.
Shina and Iris stood before the door.
The old grey walls, the windows shut with dark curtains that let no light through. Complete silence from inside. No sound, no movement, no trace saying that life was passing behind this door.
They remembered this place from the first time. The night they found him in the rain and walked him here. The paper that fell from his pocket and gave them the address without him knowing.
Shina raised her hand and knocked.
The sound was muffled in the silent air.
They waited.
Nothing.
She knocked again — a little harder.
Nothing.
Iris looked at the window. The dark curtain didn't move. The darkness behind the glass was complete and unbroken.
A house that didn't look like anyone lived in it. Complete darkness even in the evening.
She raised her hand.
She knocked this time.
And they waited in the silence of the street.
End of Chapter Nine