Villainous Instructor at the Academy

The next morning arrived like a punch to the skull.

Felix groaned from under a table, clutching his stomach like he’d swallowed a brick. Julien was nursing a bruised ego after Cassandra effortlessly flipped him when he got "too friendly" in his sleep. Garrick snored like a collapsing cave. Mira sat on a barrel outside, already fully dressed, sharpening a knife with way too much focus for this early in the day.

I stepped over Wallace, who’d somehow built a nest of tavern napkins, and shoved the mission board’s posting into the center of the group.

"Wake up, Future Corpses. Fieldwork officially begins today."

Felix peeked out from beneath the table. "I think I’m dying."

"Good. You’ll be lighter to carry when you collapse halfway through."

Julien raised a finger. "Wait—fieldwork? You mean like real missions? With pay?"

"With everything, including death by stupidity. And considering this group, that’s likely."

I slapped the parchment again. "Three missions available. One’s a simple supply run to a nearby village. Another’s a beast-warding job along the trade route. Last is a pest problem in a mining town—something about aggressive fire sprites."

Leo, somehow awake just enough to hear the last part, groaned. "Please not the fire ones. I just regrew my eyebrows from last time."

"No votes. You’re all doing the third one," I said. "Sprites are easy. If you get burned, you deserve it."