They Called Me Trash? Now I'll Hack Their World

"You're still a loser!"

Thud!

I quickly turned my head and saw Kyle hit the stone floor of the adjacent sparring ring hard, letting out a pained groan as his wooden sword clattered out of his grip.

Standing over him was Marcus, who was scowling down at Kyle with utter disdain, his training blade still smoking slightly from the residual heat of his spell.

Professor Kael stepped up to the edge of their ring, making a quick note on his clipboard.

"Nice work, Marcus. Your initial mana control over your flames went very well today. You managed to condense the heat entirely into the edge of the blade without wasting excess mana on the backswing."

Marcus scoffed, running a gloved hand casually through his hair. He didn't even bother looking at the professor.

"What do you expect, Professor? How could a dirt-blooded commoner like him ever think of going against me?"

Without offering Kyle a hand up, Marcus turned on his heel and arrogantly marched out of the ring.

Kyle slowly pushed himself up from the floor, clutching his bruised ribs and cursing quietly under his breath.

Sira stepped up beside me, crossing her arms over her chest as she glared daggers at Marcus's retreating back.

"I don't like him. Not even a little bit."

I left my ring and jogged over to Kyle, offering him a hand to pull him the rest of the way up.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Kyle wheezed, wincing slightly as he leaned against the stone wall. "Just got the wind knocked out of me."

The combat evaluations continued for another grueling hour. I fought a few more matches.

Finally, the heavy brass bell rang across the courtyard. Professor Kael dismissed the class, warning us to ice our bruises before afternoon lectures.

As the crowd of exhausted students began to file out of the training hall, I swiped my spatial ring and pulled out a standard, low-grade health potion I had brewed in Oakmere and then tossed the glass vial to Kyle.

He caught it, popped the cork, and chugged the bitter liquid down in one go.

Then let out a long, pathetic sigh, his bruised ribs visibly mending.

"Man, I messed up pretty bad today. Only won a single match out of four." He chuckled, shaking his head in self-deprecation.

"Guess those meat pies really did slow me down."

I sighed, giving him an encouraging pat on the back.

"Let's go and eat. There's absolutely no good in brooding over a practice spar."

Kyle brightened up instantly. "Food. Yes. I desperately need food."

He stepped forward, heavily slinging his arm over my shoulder and leaning half his body weight on me as we began moving toward the dining hall block.

Suddenly, Sira stepped up to my other side, casually grabbing my left arm. "Alright then. Your treat, Jin."

I stopped walking, turning my head to look at her and raised a single, skeptical eyebrow.

Sira stopped, glaring back at me. "What?"

"You've... changed?" I muttered, the words leaving my mouth before my brain could fully process the strange, jarring sensation suddenly creeping up my spine.

Sira's brow furrowed in genuine confusion.

"What are you talking about? I've always been like this. I literally always make you pay for the food."

Kyle leaned over, looking at me like I had completely lost my mind. "Bruh, did you hit your head during that spar or something? She's right. She always extorts you."

I just blinked, offering a stiff shrug, and started moving again. "Never mind. I must be tired."

But as we walked, a cold, deeply unsettling knot formed in my stomach.

Was I wrong?

I forcibly pulled up my memories of our first ever meetup at the Academy. I remembered Kyle, Tobias. And I remembered Sira... The memories were perfectly intact, crystal clear, and flawlessly detailed.

But as I looked at her walking beside me, laughing at a joke Kyle just made, a bizarre, dissonance rang in my head.

It felt like looking at a line of code where the variable name was correct, but the underlying data string felt entirely alien.

What exactly is happening? I thought, staring blankly ahead.

Before I could dive any deeper into this, Kyle let out a loud shout.

"Tobias!"

We had just turned the corner near the magical theory wing, completely ambushing the tall, bespectacled noble as he stepped out of his advanced classroom.

Before Tobias could even adjust his glasses or utter a single complaint, Kyle and Sira seamlessly grabbed him by the arms, dragging the deeply irritated mage along with us toward the dining hall.

The Academy's grand dining hall was a massive, vaulted chamber filled with long, polished wooden tables and the deafening, echoing chatter of hundreds of hungry students.

Glowing mana chandeliers floated near the arched ceiling, casting a warm light over the bustling room.

Sira practically dragged us all the way to the front of the main serving line.

"Eat as much as you like, boys," She announced loudly, grabbing a large wooden tray and flashing a highly opportunistic grin.

She slapped her hand against my back. "It's Jin's treat today!"

I groaned, glaring at her.

"Praise the Founder," Kyle cheered as he reached for the serving tongs.

He immediately began piling a literal mountain of roasted boar, glazed potatoes, and thick slices of buttered bread onto his tray.

Tobias let out a long sigh, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses.

"Extorting our peers the moment they return from the break. How incredibly dignified of you, Sira. Though, the classes have thoroughly drained my patience for the day, I suppose I won't object."

Then he plated a modest portion of roasted fowl and a crisp greens salad, leaving me to pay the serving staff with a handful of silver coins from my dimensional ring.

Damn these brats!

I pinched bridge of my nose, and then just grabbed a simple bowl of stew and followed the chaotic trio to an empty section of a long table near the back of the hall.

The moment we sat down, Kyle inhaled half his plate.

"Chew your food, Kyle," Tobias scolded, looking at him with profound disgust. "You are eating like a starved goblin. Have some basic decorum."

"I burn a lot of calories!" Kyle argued with his mouth completely full, using his fork to point defensively at him.

"You try getting thrown onto the floor all day and see how hungry you get. And that Marcus guy is a total jerk, by the way."

"Marcus is an arrogant brute who compensates for his lack of intellect with raw firepower," Tobias replied smoothly, cutting a small, perfectly square piece of roasted fowl.

"His theoretical scores are abysmal. Do not let a primitive physical evaluation bother you."

"Yeah, Kyle, don't sweat it," Sira chimed in, leaning over her tray to grab a piece of Kyle's bread before he could stop her.

"Give it a few weeks. Jin practically wiped the floor with you today, maybe he can teach you how to actually block him."

"Hey!" Kyle protested, swatting Sira's hand away a second too late. "Jin was moving unnaturally fast! I swear he's been secretly training."

I shrugged. "I just told you, it was basic conditioning. You just telegraphed your swing."

But as I sat there listening to them argue over combat forms and stolen bread, the faint, lingering sense of unease from earlier continued to hum quietly in the back of my mind.

I watched Sira laugh at Tobias's dry insults.

She's not only one... Tobias seems a little different too.

But...

I looked at Kyle, who was just practically behaving like I had seen him to.

Or maybe it's just me, after all the shit happened, I think I really had hit my head.

Kyle was halfway through complaining about his bruised ribs again when Sira suddenly paused, her fork hovering in the air.

"Wait..." she mumbled, squinting past Tobias's shoulder toward the massive arched windows lining the far wall of the dining hall.

"Isn't that Emma?"

Kyle practically choked on his bread. His head instantly whipped around to follow her gaze.

I set my spoon down and looked out through the thick glass. The afternoon sun was casting long shadows across the cobblestone courtyard outside.

Standing right near the edge of the manicured hedges, completely isolated from the bustling crowds of students, was Emma.

She looked incredibly small. Her head was bowed, and she was clutching her heavy leather bookbag tightly to her chest like it was a physical shield.

A second later, a male student strolled into view, flanked by two larger boys who carried themselves with the unmistakable, aggressive swagger of aristocratic lackeys.

"Who are those guys?" Kyle muttered, leaning forward until his chest hit the edge of the table.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to get a better look at the leader. But the angle was terrible. The thick, sprawling branches of an ancient oak tree just outside the window perfectly obscured the upper half of his face.

I could only see the sharp, aristocratic cut of his jaw and the pristine, immaculately tailored fit of his dark blue Academy uniform.

The boy stopped directly in front of Emma.

He leaned in slightly and said something to her. We couldn't hear the words.

Emma visibly flinched. She didn't argue, didn't look up, and certainly didn't try to run away the way she had from Kyle.

She just gave a stiff, miserable nod, keeping her bright blue eyes glued firmly to the cobblestones.

The boy let out an arrogant, dismissive click of his tongue and then. Without waiting for any further response, he turned on his heel and began walking down the pathway.

His lackeys sneered at her before turning to follow their leader.

And then, moving with the heavy, reluctant steps of a prisoner marching to the gallows, Emma tightened her grip on her bag and followed right behind them, disappearing from our line of sight.