Chapter 118: Witness
I slept with one eye open.
Not literally. That’d be exhausting. But my mana circuits hummed in passive sync all night, keyed to any shift in ambient flow. The kind of over-alert tension I used to feel during group raids with permadeath toggled on. Even in the safety of my quarters, wrapped in the illusion of calm, there was a whisper at the edge of thought: He’s still watching.
By morning, there was nothing. No new messages. No flickers of movement in shadows. The book from the library sat neatly on the shelf where I’d returned it—still blank, still silent, like it had never housed a name at all.
I decided not to push further. Not yet.
Instead, I took a breath, threw on my coat, and walked out into the storm of adolescence that was Class C.
They were already gathered in the training yard when I arrived. Garrick was doing squats with a training dummy on each shoulder. Mira sat on a bench, legs crossed, whispering something to Felix, who looked increasingly like a man being dragged toward his own funeral. Julien waved lazily with the same smirk he always wore before trying to kill me in a "friendly match."
"Morning, Professor," Mira said, her voice innocent. Too innocent. "You’re late. Should we dock your pay?"
"If you want a performance review, Trickster, I can set up a live demonstration. You stand still, I throw knives. Audience votes on precision."
"Do I at least get hazard pay?"
"Your life is the hazard. Consider yourself compensated."
They laughed. Not because it was that funny—but because I was back. Present. Grounded. The quiet tension in my mind didn’t bleed into my tone. Not yet.