Chapter 8: The Hundred-Percent Trip Debuff
Tessa shivered from head to toe.
Vanessa Rose’s dangerous, teasing eyes were already bad enough. Behind her, Chloe Hart and Iris Lane wore the same gossip-hungry expressions, clearly ready to drag Tessa back to the dorm and hold a full interrogation.
Tessa did not even dare imagine what kind of “confession session” and public embarrassment awaited her once they got back.
“I… I just remembered my mom told me I have to call her tonight! I’m leaving first!”
The excuse was terrible, but Tessa no longer cared. She practically scrambled out of Seraphina Frost’s gentle orbit on all fours, then sprinted away at full speed without looking back, heading in the exact opposite direction of the dorm.
Behind her came Vanessa’s bright, wickedly sweet laughter. Mixed into it, she seemed to hear Seraphina calling after her with confusion and concern.
But Tessa heard none of it clearly.
All she wanted was to escape. Escape this massive social-death scene. Escape those three merciless roommates.
⸻
The next day began with a whistle in gym class.
Halewick University’s physical education courses were university-wide electives. To minimize both social interaction and physical effort, Tessa had deliberately chosen badminton, which looked like the most low-stress option available.
Unfortunately, she had calculated everything except for the system being an absolute menace.
The gym teacher had just blown the gathering whistle. Tessa, dressed in loose athletic clothes, was preparing to find a corner and coast through class when the familiar, flashy chibi devil UI appeared again, glowing with a suspicious red light.
[Hehe, my dear little Master.]
That syrupy mature voice sounded in her head, instantly giving Tessa a terrible feeling.
[You unlocked the new feature [Sweet Whisper] yesterday, but it seems you failed to complete your first skill trial within the required time. The system is very strict, you know. So here comes a tiny punishment.]
A punishment window decorated with a crying face and a bomb appeared in front of her.
[Punishment Debuff Activated: Hundred-Percent Trip!]
[Effect: For the next 30 minutes, whenever the Host performs any form of movement, there will be a 99.9% chance of falling for no reason. Please enjoy this loving gift from the system.]
No!
Tessa let out a silent wail in her heart.
Gym class. Thirty minutes. A hundred-percent trip debuff?
At this point, she might as well die.
The system did not give her a chance to protest. The UI flashed once and vanished.
“Everyone, jog two laps around the field for warm-up!” the gym teacher called in a loud voice.
Tessa’s face went pale.
She froze in place, unable to move. Her whole body seemed to have been hit by a binding spell.
“Um… Tessa? Are you okay?” a girl from her class asked with concern.
“I’m… I’m fine.”
Tessa forced out a smile uglier than crying. Under the teacher’s gaze, she had no choice but to grit her teeth and take one shaky step forward.
One step. Two steps.
Huh? Maybe it’s fine?
The instant a tiny spark of hope rose in her heart, a mysterious and irresistible force seemed to rise from the center of the earth. Her left toes hooked around the heel of her right shoe with perfect, impossible precision.
“Ah!”
With a short cry, Tessa lost her balance and pitched forward in the most humiliating way possible.
Thud.
The soft grass saved her face, but the impact still left her dizzy, disoriented, and seeing stars.
Gasps and suppressed laughter rose around her.
“Are you okay?”
“Pfft. How does someone fall that badly while jogging?”
Tessa’s cheeks burned hot enough to fry an egg. She wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury herself on the spot. Struggling up, she brushed grass off her clothes and pretended nothing had happened, then continued forward at the crawling speed of a very cautious turtle.
But the debuff was merciless.
She had not gone ten meters before the soles of her shoes seemed to turn slick. The track was perfectly dry, yet she moved as if she had stepped onto ice. Her legs slid apart, and she sat down on the ground again in an absurdly graceful split.
This time, because the pose was far too “elegant,” the laughter around her grew even louder.
“Pfft… Hahaha! Is she here for dance practice or gym class?”
“That flexibility gets full marks from me.”
The rest of the warm-up became a hell-level public execution for Tessa.
It felt as if gravity itself had decided to target her. Running, walking, even marching in place, no matter what she did, she found a new and creative angle to fall from.
Tripping over her own feet was the basic version. Air itself could apparently become an obstacle. At one point, she was simply standing still when her body suddenly tipped backward without warning. If a classmate behind her had not caught her, the back of her head would have had a very intimate meeting with the ground.
By the time the warm-up finally ended and badminton group practice began, Tessa had fallen so many times that her whole body felt weak. Her mind was dazed. Her life seemed gray and hopeless.
She was assigned to a four-person group, and one girl immediately drew all of her attention.
The girl had neat short hair, a tall athletic build, and sharp, handsome features. She wore a fitted sports tank and shorts, and the exposed lines of her arms and legs were smooth, powerful, and full of healthy energy.
A sports scholarship student.
Riley Summers.
Riley had clearly noticed this “legendary” girl who had been falling in every possible style since warm-up. Looking at Tessa’s pitiful state, as if she might topple over again at any second, Riley’s lips curved with a smile she was trying very hard to hold back.
“Are you… okay?” Riley asked, picking up her badminton racket and walking over. Her strong brows lifted slightly, and her tone carried a bit of teasing along with a trace of concern she did not seem to notice herself. “Want to sit out and rest?”
“I… I’m fine.”
Tessa wanted to cry. She wanted to rest, of course, but the debuff timer had not ended yet.
“Then be careful.”
Riley tossed the shuttlecock lightly into the air. With a flick of her wrist, she sent a clean high clear flying toward Tessa.
Tessa watched the incoming shuttlecock and took a deep breath. She focused all her attention, carefully stepped back twice, and raised her racket.
Now!
She judged the timing and swung with all her strength.
Then her foot slipped again.
Thump.
She fell sideways in a particularly pathetic pose. The racket flew out of her hand, while the shuttlecock drifted down and landed lightly on top of her head, as if mocking her without mercy.
“Pfft… Hahahahaha!”
This time, Riley finally lost the fight and burst out laughing. She bent over, shoulders shaking, as she looked at Tessa sitting on the ground with a shuttlecock on her head and an expression of total despair.
Somehow, this clumsy girl was just too cute.
Just as Tessa was about to die of shame and crawl up from the ground, something unexpected happened.
On the neighboring soccer field, a few boys were chasing one another around. One buzz-cut boy, trying to show off in front of the girls passing by, suddenly took a powerful kick at the soccer ball.
The ball came screaming toward the badminton court.
Black and white panels spun through the air like a cannonball, flying straight toward Tessa’s face just as she lifted her head.
“Watch out!”
Terrified screams broke out around her.
It was too fast. Too close.
Tessa’s pupils shrank. Between the debuff and fear rising from the depths of her soul, her mind went blank. Her body felt nailed in place. She could not dodge at all.
All she could do was watch the soccer ball grow larger and larger in her vision before squeezing her eyes shut in terror.
I’m done. My face is done.
At the last possible second, a swift figure charged out from beside her and blocked the ball.
It was Riley Summers.
Without the slightest hesitation, her body cut through the air in a sharp arc. Her right leg snapped up with tremendous force, and with a precise flying side kick, she struck the incoming soccer ball dead-on.
Bang!
The sound cracked across the field.
The ball shot back even faster than it had come, screaming through the air like a missile. It skimmed past the buzz-cut boy’s scalp and slammed into the chain-link fence several meters behind him with a harsh metallic crash.
The entire field fell silent.
Everyone was stunned by the sudden turn of events.
Riley landed steadily on the ground without even glancing at the boy, who had gone completely pale.
She stood in front of Tessa and slowly turned around.
When she saw Tessa’s face, paper-white from fear, and those amber eyes misted over from shock, a surge of anger she could not suppress shot up through her chest.
Riley’s sharp brows drew tightly together. Her clear eyes burned with undisguised worry and fury.
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