Fear.
That was the first thing that came to mind when a being saw something that was never meant to be understood.
The creature appeared differently to everyone.
Some saw countless eyes opening and closing across a shapeless body.
Some saw a mass of flesh that refused to remain flesh.
Some saw something beautiful.
Some saw nothing at all.
And yet, somehow, every interpretation was correct.
The creature changed constantly.
But never randomly.
Every movement followed an impossible sequence.
Every distortion returned to its original position.
Every shape collapsed into another shape with the precision of something following laws that did not belong to this world.
It was chaos.
Forced into perfect order.
And the human mind did not know what to do with it.
Fear had many responses.
Panic came first.
Students screamed.
Some ran.
Some cried.
Some desperately searched for professors, friends, parents, anyone who could tell them that everything was going to be alright.
They were the ones still trying to preserve the world they knew.
Then came freezing.
Bodies stopped.
Breathing became shallow.
Eyes remained fixed upon the impossible thing.
Their minds had encountered something that could not be processed, and so they simply stopped trying.
Denial followed.
It was not there.
It could not be there.
There was no creature.
There was no distortion.
There was no reason for reality to suddenly behave incorrectly.
If they refused to acknowledge it, perhaps the world would correct itself.
Others shut down completely.
Their bodies remained standing while their minds retreated somewhere quieter.
Some sought protection.
They clung to stronger people.
Professors.
Friends.
Strangers.
Anyone who looked capable of surviving.
And then there was the final response.
Existential terror.
The realization that the world had never been as stable as they believed.
That magic had rules only because something allowed those rules to exist.
That perception could be deceived.
That matter could become something else.
That something could exist without obeying the definitions used to describe existence.
That reality itself could be contradicted.
Not destroyed.
Not shattered.
Simply...
Disagreed with.
Most people could not withstand that realization.
And their was the eight playable characters.
Hans reacted first.
Flight.
The moment he understood that something profoundly wrong had appeared, his survival instinct took control.
He ran.
Reasonable conclusion that remaining near the creature was a terrible idea.
Raksha reacted differently.
Disbelief came first.
Her eyes widened.
Her instincts struggled to categorize what stood before her.
Then fascination replaced fear.
The impossible became interesting.
And then she laughed.
Not because she found it funny.
Because her mind had reached the edge of comprehension and found nothing waiting beyond it.
The laughter became louder.
Wild.
Almost delighted.
She was looking at something that could not be hunted because it could not even be properly defined.
And that made it fascinating.
Balin did not look at the creature for long.
He looked at Iris.
Her fear had frozen her.
So he moved toward her.
Not toward the creature.
Toward her.
His instincts had already selected a priority.
Get her out.
Get her moving.
Keep her alive.
The monster could wait.
Iris could not.
Noah stared.
Curiosity.
He observed.
The changing shape.
The way every transformation somehow followed a pattern.
His mind searched for a rule.
There had to be one.
Everything had a principle.
Everything had a cause.
Everything.
His thoughts stopped there.
Because the creature was behaving according to rules that Noah did not possess the vocabulary to describe.
And still, he continued looking.
Aldren moved.
Reason had disappeared.
There was no strategy.
No consideration of the consequences.
Only the instinctive conviction that he needed to reach it.
Perhaps he believed he could help.
Perhaps he simply could not tolerate standing still while something incomprehensible threatened everyone around him.
He took a step.
Then another.
And then a professor stopped him.
She understood something he did not.
There were battles where courage was necessary.
There were battles where retreat was necessary.
And there were things that should never be approached simply because they had appeared within reach.
Hjördis watched.
She understood.
Then continued moving.
Barry did not react at all.
The thing existed.
He could see it.
That was enough.
And then there was Mei Mei.
The most unfortunate of them all.
Because she was enclosed with it to experience it fully.
She rationalized.
Her mind immediately began constructing explanations.
A Phenomenon.
A magical principle.
An illusion.
A distortion of perception.
Something.
Anything.
The mind would rather invent an explanation than accept that it had encountered something it could not explain.
So Mei Mei created one.
Then another.
Then another.
Each explanation lasted only seconds before the creature contradicted it.
Her mind adapted.
The explanation changed.
Then changed again.
And again.
And again.
Until the process itself became terrifying.
Because eventually she realized what was happening.
She wasn't studying the creature anymore.
She was studying her own mind desperately trying to protect itself.
Because everyone who looked at it was forced to confront the same unbearable possibility.
Perhaps reality was not a set of rules.
Perhaps reality was simply whatever was currently permitted to exist.
And perhaps something had just entered their world that had never agreed to those rules in the first place.
The creature continued to change.
Perfectly.
Silently.
And endlessly.
...
"You gotta be fucking kidding me!!!., I had to deal with my hat getting stolen and now this?!?!."
Miss Lunaria stood between Mei Mei and the creature.
Space bent around her.
The distance between them should have been nothing.
Instead, the closer the creature came to Mei Mei, the farther away it seemed to become.
One step.
Then another.
Its movement slowed.
Not because it was losing speed.
Because space itself was becoming increasingly difficult to cross.
The same thing was happening to the barrier.
And to Lunaria.
The closer the creature got, the more the world seemed to stretch between them.
Should I be glad the barrier was present when it emerged?
Thank God for small miracles.
Because although this creature had been born wrong, it still had to obey certain rules of the universe.
One of them was simple.
Something could not become larger than the space containing it.
The creature could distort.
Rearrange.
Contradict.
But it could not simply ignore the existence of its enclosure.
That rule was keeping everyone alive.
Barely.
The other professors couldn't help.
What a pain.
It was a good thing her ability was practically a perfect counter to this thing.
Unfortunately, countering something and surviving it were two very different things.
If this continued...
She was going to die.
The creature known as a slime had existed before the first contradiction.
Before the universe had established the boundaries that separated one truth from another.
The dead could not be alive.
The alive could not be dead.
Chaos could not be Order.
Order could not be Chaos.
And so on.
Those contradictions were not merely rules.
They were boundaries.
The things that prevented existence from collapsing into nonsense.
The world had been separated from destruction by those contradictions.
And yet this creature had been born before them.
It was something that existed before existence had decided what it was allowed to be.
A being from before the rules.
A mistake that had survived the creation of the laws meant to make such a mistake impossible.
Lunaria stared at it.
She sighed.
She really didn't get paid enough for this.
Why was all the work always dumped on her?
Seriously.
Where was the headmaster?
Then.
Everything stopped.
No movement.
No sound.
No wind.
No falling dust.
Nothing.
Time itself had frozen.
Except for the Seven-Tier Mage of Sloth.
"What a mess."
....
The professors were shouting.
"Everyone move!"
"Don't look back!"
"Keep moving!"
"Stay together!"
The students listened, for once, nobody argued, nobody complained.
Which is understandable, considering the reputation that the academy is the safest place in the World, only for a being out of our biology comprehension to have appeared.
So they simply ran.
I walked with them.
Not because I was afraid.
At least, that was what I told myself.
Was I?.
I didn't know.
The academy had already begun evacuating the examination grounds. Professors moved through the crowd, directing students toward the evacuation corridors while barriers rose behind us one after another.
I glanced over my shoulder.
The creature was still there.
That thing.
I still couldn't decide what to call it.
Monster didn't feel appropriate.
Creature didn't feel appropriate either.
Even the word thing felt like an insultingly simple description.
My mind returned to what I had seen.
The shapes.
The movements.
The contradictions.
Every time I thought I understood one of its patterns, it changed.
Yet somehow...
It remained consistent.
That was what bothered me.
If it had been random, I could have accepted it.
Randomness had rules too.
Probability.
Cause and effect.
Even chaos had structure.
But that thing...
It behaved as though the rules themselves were optional.
"Keep moving!"
A professor grabbed my shoulder and pushed me forward.
I obeyed.
But I kept looking back, looking toward the examination grounds.
Of the platform which belong to the Clan daughter of the He family, mei mei
The creature wasn't moving anymore.
What?.
What happen?...
A woman stood between it and the academy.
White hair, and crimson eyes.
Calm expression.
The Seven-Tier Mage of Sloth.
I had heard stories about her.
Everyone had.
But stories were different from seeing someone like that in person.
She raised one hand.
The space around the creature compressed.
It simply stopped.
The creature continued trying to change.
Shapes appeared across its body.
But none of it could escape, the creature was contained.
Just like that.
How amazing
I stared.
So this was the difference between us.
The difference between students who had trained for years...
and someone who had reached the seventh tier.
I felt a strange mixture of relief and disappointment.
Relief because everyone was safe.
Disappointment because I still didn't understand what I had seen.
I wanted to know.
What was it?
Where did it come from?
What laws governed it?
Could it be killed?
Could it even be considered alive?
Why.
"Enough."
I stopped.
I know these man, I remember seeing him althought I don't know his name, how annoying, they've gone so far to replace a professor just to watch me.
"Don't think about it, Noah"
I frowned, he doesn't even try to hide it.
"Why?."
"Because you won't find an answer."
I looked back at the creature.
I said nothing.
We continued walking.
....
By the time we reached the academy's main grounds, the trial was officially over and a professor standing in front of us and telling us that the examination had been terminated.
Some students immediately started crying.
Others were angry.
A few demanded to know whether they had passed.
They all did, just with different ranking.
The only trial where you can actually get eliminated is the first trial.
I suppose they know that but, Emotion often clouds reason.
There were students who had decided they were finished with the academy entirely.
Some handed in their withdrawal papers that same evening.
Their choices were diverse.
Beings who possessed a Will are truly interesting.
If the academy was supposed to create heroes...
Then perhaps they had learned something important, being a hero wasn't simply about defeating monsters, sometimes it meant standing in front of something you couldn't understand.
And sometimes it meant knowing when you couldn't.
I wondered which one I would choose.
.....
We were assigned dormitories shortly afterward.
The academy had decided that asking us to choose our classes immediately after an encounter with an incomprehensible creature would be "counterproductive."
A reasonable decision.
We were given food.
Medical examinations.
Fresh clothes.
A few hours to ourselves.
Nobody talked much.
The halls were unusually quiet.
I passed several students sitting together, staring blankly at the floor.
Others were already discussing leaving.
One student had packed everything he owned.
He walked past me without saying a word.
I contemplating whether to give him a speech or anything, but I decided against it, That is their choice after all.
Perhaps there was nothing wrong with leaving.
Perhaps courage wasn't measured by how long you stayed.
I reached my dorm.
Opened the door.
A bed.
A desk.
A window overlooking the academy grounds.
Simple.
Clean.
Safe.
I placed my sword against the wall.
Then sat down.
For several minutes, I simply stared at the ceiling.
I thought about the creature.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I closed my eyes.
I could still see it.
Not one form.
Not one shape.
Every shape.
All of them.
None of them.
I opened my eyes.
"Why?"
I smiled faintly.
Soon, the academy would return to normal.
Classes would begin.
Training would continue.
Students would complain about professors.
People would laugh.
People would fight.
Life would continue.
But I knew something now.
There were things in this world I didn't understand.
And for the first time in my life...
I was interested.
I picked up my sword.
Then I looked toward the window.
Tomorrow, I'd start learning.
Not because I had to.
Because I wanted answers.
And if this academy truly intended to make us heroes...
Then I intended to learn everything it was willing to teach me.
Even if I had to start with the things I didn't understand.
Especially those.
I'm looking forward to it.
.....
The faculty members of the academy had been summoned.
Weapon & Combat Department
Holden Beau.
Magitech Department
Ramona Hawkins.
Arcane Department
Asher Lunaria.
Magical Biology & Alchemy Department
Mara Bell.
Healing & Medical Department
Lin He.
Exploration Department
Jonas Reed.
Intelligence Department
Simon Crowe.
Leadership & Strategy Department
Helena Ward.
History & Civilization Department
Ravi Sen.
Beast & Monster Studies Department
Thomas Voldigoad.
Arts & Social Sciences Department
Nora Ellis.
At the head of the table sat the academy's Headmaster, the Seven-Tier Mage of Sloth.
"You might wonder why I asked you all to gather."
She yawned.
"Let's skip all the unnecessary buildup. We have an infiltrator."
Silence.
"Or a traitor, to be exact."
Every professor looked toward one person.
Thomas Voldigoad.
Thomas adjusted his robe.
"How undignified."
Jonas Reed immediately chuckled.
"Can't blame us, man. The moment you got this job, all the crazy stuff suddenly started happening."
Thomas sighed.
"I'll be honest. I was simply brought here to observe Master Noah, and report his growth, Nothing more, nothing less."
Jonas leaned back.
"Quite the favoritism I see."
Holden Beau crossed her arms.
"That explains why you're here. It doesn't explain why we're supposed to suspect you."
Her voice was blunt, but her eyes remained fixed on Thomas.
Ramona Hawkins looked nervous.
"Wait... we're actually accusing Professor Thomas?"
She glanced between everyone.
"I mean... shouldn't we make sure there's evidence first?"
Mara Bell adjusted the papers in front of her.
"Considering what happened with the creature, I would prefer we determine whether there is a biological connection before making accusations."
She paused.
"Assuming that thing can even be classified biologically."
Lin Mei frowned.
"Whatever it was, people were hurt."
Her expression hardened.
"I don't care who released it. I want the person responsible found."
Jonas shrugged.
"Still feels a little ridiculous."
He gestured toward Thomas.
"Thomas is weird, sure, but he's not exactly subtle enough to pull off something like this."
Helena Ward remained silent for several seconds.
Then she spoke.
"If Thomas is innocent, we should be able to establish that."
Her gaze moved toward Simon.
"But if he's responsible, we cannot afford to ignore the possibility simply because he's a colleague."
Ravi Sen nodded slowly.
"History teaches us that institutions often fail because they refuse to suspect the people closest to them."
Nora Ellis stared at Thomas.
"Well, this meeting certainly became uncomfortable."
Thomas looked at her.
"Thank you for your valuable contribution."
"You're welcome."
Finally, Simon Crowe spoke.
"Then allow me to explain why you're being suspected."
He placed several reports onto the table.
"First, the western barrier. Two infiltrators managed to enter the academy's examination grounds despite security that should have made that impossible, And the attempted murder of He Mei"
He placed another report down.
"And finally, the release of the creature we now refer to as the Slime."
Simon looked directly at Thomas.
"Two major security breaches occurring shortly after your appointment."
Thomas narrowed his eyes.
"You believe coincidence is evidence?"
"No."
Simon leaned back.
"I believe access is evidence."
"All of us have access to specific thing."
"exactly Specific things."
The room became quiet.
"You teach Beast & Monster Studies. You have access to creature records, containment facilities, examination grounds, and information concerning the academy's magical ecosystem."
Mara frowned.
"That describes half the departments here."
Simon nodded.
"Correct."
He tapped the reports.
"But unlike most of us, Thomas has a legitimate reason to investigate unusual creatures without anyone questioning why."
Holden's eyes narrowed.
"So you're saying his position gives him an excuse to investigate the creature."
"Exactly."
Simon continued.
"He could have learned where it was contained. What it was capable of. How it reacted to magical barriers."
He paused.
"Or how to release it."
Ramona's eyes widened.
"Professor Thomas wouldn't..."
She stopped herself.
"I mean... we don't know that."
Thomas gave her a small nod.
"At least someone here possesses manners."
Lin He crossed her arms.
"Don't mistake caution for trust."
Thomas sighed.
Simon continued.
"And there's another problem."
He placed one final document on the table.
"The incidents began after Thomas was appointed."
Helena looked at the report.
"Correlation."
"Yes."
Ravi added quietly.
"Not proof."
Simon nodded.
"Not proof."
He looked directly at Thomas.
"But enough to investigate."
Thomas remained completely calm.
"An interesting theory."
"It's not a theory yet."
Simon folded his hands.
"It's a suspicion."
The Headmaster yawned.
"Which means?"
Simon looked around the table.
"We don't know if Thomas Voldigoad is guilty."
He looked back at Thomas.
"But until we know who is responsible..."
"We watch him."
Holden nodded reluctantly.
"Fair."
Ramona still looked uneasy.
"I suppose that's reasonable."
Mara muttered,
"I want access to those reports."
Lin He nodded.
"So do I."
Helena simply said,
"Agreed."
Ravi gave Thomas an apologetic look.
"Nothing personal."
Nora smiled awkwardly.
"Unfortunately, this is probably going to make staff meetings very awkward."
Jonas laughed.
"Probably?"
Thomas stared at them all.
"How flattering."
Jonas grinned.
"Congratulations, Thomas. You've officially become interesting."
Thomas sighed.
"I've always been interesting."
The Headmaster stood.
"Meeting dismissed."
"Alre-?."
"Finally!"
Asher Lunaria bolted out of there.
Silence
"You may continue Ramona."
"What I wanted to say is, what about the situation of He Mei."
"I'm glad your concerned to a student of ours but... Theirs not much we can do." Cracking her neck she continued "The assassination of He Mei is the fastest way to start a war, and not like we could ask her clan considering they want a war two."
"I see... What a bunch of greedy bastard." Ramona said with the most innocent face
Making the headmaster chuckle.
"The only thing we can do is try our best to protect her, perhaps give her a Magitech as a gift, you can send it through the compensation box we prepared for her."
She paused.
"And Thomas?"
"Yes?"
"Try not to get everyone to accuse you in the academy next time, it's exhausting."
"Understood."