The classroom did not smell like the sterile floor wax of the hallway.
It smelled of ozone and old blood.
Forty desks were arranged in a perfect semicircle.
The students sitting in them were not fidgeting or whispering.
They sat with their hands flat on the desks and their eyes fixed forward with a glazed and terrifying intensity.
Anya stepped into the room first with her hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of a sword that was no longer there.
Ren followed her while his eyes scanned the room in a single and fluid motion.
He didn't look at the students' faces.
He looked at the small and silver cameras embedded in every corner of the ceiling.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Location: Class 1-F (The Death Row).
Average Survival Rate: 0.05%.
Current Script: The First Lesson.
The woman at the front of the room tapped her robotic arm against the chalkboard.
The sound was a harsh and metallic ring that made the silent students flinch in unison.
Scarred Lena looked at Ren with a gaze that could have frozen a sun.
"You're late, Subject 101," she said.
Her voice was a mechanical rasp that lacked the warmth of the Lena Ren had known.
"But in this class, being late is usually the only way to stay alive."
Ren walked toward an empty desk in the back row.
He didn't rush. He didn't show fear.
"You look different, Lena," Ren said.
"The Unwritten Territories weren't kind to you."
The room went even colder.
The forty students turned their heads to look at Ren with a mixture of pity and horror.
Scarred Lena walked toward him with her heavy and rusted boots thudding against the floor.
She stopped inches from his face.
"That name belongs to a girl who died in a draft you ruined," she whispered.
"I am Professor Vane."
"And I was hired by the Syndicate to ensure your 'Season 2' is as painful as possible."
Professor Vane raised her robotic hand and pointed at the chalkboard.
Suddenly the black surface flickered and turned into a massive holographic screen.
It showed the live ranking list from the orientation hall.
[RANK 1: SUBJECT 101]
[STATUS: HIGH-TARGET PRIORITY]
"Do you see that, class?" Vane asked without turning around.
"This is our star. The one who thinks he can sabotage the billing system."
She looked at Ren and a cruel and jagged smile touched her lips.
"The Syndicate doesn't care about your 'Strategy 126'."
"They simply increased the Bounty."
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
World Event: The Hunter's Choice.
Condition: Kill Rank 1 to receive 'Protagonist' status.
Duration: The next 60 minutes.
Suddenly the forty students were no longer silent.
They stood up as one.
Their glazed eyes turned a bright and predatory crimson.
They didn't draw weapons.
Their fingers began to elongate into sharp and obsidian needles.
These weren't students.
They were Bio-Logical Exploits.
Creatures designed to find the gaps in a Sovereign's logic and tear them open.
"Ren, their mana signatures... they're identical!" Anya shouted.
She stepped in front of Ren with her silver light flaring to life.
"It's a hive-mind! They aren't thinking! They're just executing a command!"
Ren sat down in his desk and crossed his legs.
He didn't look at the students.
He looked at Professor Vane.
"Strategy 4," Ren whispered.
"If the teacher is the one who wrote the lesson... you find the Typo."
Ren reached into his desk and found a single piece of paper and a dull pencil.
He didn't write a spell.
He drew a simple and geometric diagram of the room.
"Vane, you said you were hired to make me suffer," Ren said.
His voice was a calm and steady anchor in the rising chaos.
"But the Syndicate is cheap."
"They wouldn't pay a Sovereign-level survivor like you just to be a teacher."
"You're not here to kill me."
Ren looked at the rusted gears in her robotic arm.
"You're here because you're a Firewall."
"You're the only thing keeping the Syndicate from realizing that this classroom is actually a Dead Zone."
The forty students froze in mid-motion.
Their crimson eyes flickered and turned grey.
Professor Vane's expression didn't change but the gears in her arm began to grind with a violent intensity.
"What are you talking about, 101?"
"This facility is the most secure server in the galaxy."
Ren stood up and walked toward her.
He didn't care about the obsidian needles inches from his skin.
"The orientation hall rebooted but the classroom didn't," Ren explained.
"I felt it the moment I walked in."
"The air doesn't vibrate. The cameras are recording but they aren't broadcasting."
Ren pointed to the silver lenses in the ceiling.
"You've been looping the feed for the last five minutes."
"You're hiding something from the Syndicate, Lena."
"Or should I say... you're hiding Someone."
Suddenly a small and muffled sound came from behind the chalkboard.
It was a heartbeat.
Slow. Rhythmic. And very familiar.
Professor Vane's robotic arm suddenly lunged at Ren's throat.
She didn't use an obsidian needle.
She used a burst of raw and unedited magic from the 0th Iteration.
"You should have just died for the camera, Ren!" she roared.
But Ren was faster.
He jammed his dull pencil into a specific joint in her robotic wrist.
[SOVEREIGN SKILL: LOGIC JAM]
The arm sparked and locked.
The chalkboard behind her shattered into a thousand pieces of glass.
A hidden chamber was revealed.
Inside the chamber sat a girl in a white dress with a silver visor over her eyes.
It was Sarah.
The "Delete Key" from the simulation.
But she was covered in hundreds of black and pulsing wires.
She was being used as a Manual Server.
"She's the one powering the 'Professional League'!" Anya gasped.
Sarah turned her head toward Ren and her visor flickered.
"Ren..." she whispered.
"The Audience... they aren't real people anymore."
"They're... Them."
Suddenly the ceiling of the classroom didn't just crack.
It was ripped away by a massive and spectral hand made of pure white light.
It was the Archivist Prime.
But it wasn't a digital avatar this time.
It was a physical and cosmic entity that loomed over the entire academy.
"The Error has been located," the Archivist boomed.
"Initiating Physical Deletion of Class 1-F."