[Location]: Yggdrasil Academy · Dormitory [Golden Bough] · Room 302
"I want to see exactly what kind of 'Power' gave that barbarian the audacity to open her mouth."
Victoria’s command hung in the freezing air of the crypt-like room.
Hathaway swallowed hard. The pressure radiating from the silver-haired Witch was physical, like standing next to a reactor core with a cracked casing.
"Y-Yes! Right away!"
Hathaway scrambled back, creating distance. She closed her eyes, diving into her "Mind Palace" to retrieve the cached video file of Rhode’s attack.
Okay, Hathaway. Don't screw this up. She wants the mana flow. She wants the technical specs.
[System Check: Mana Pool - 42,000 Units (S-Class)]
[Control Precision: F- (Newbie)]
[Spell Loading: Illusion · Tier 2 · Scene Replay]
"Construct!" Hathaway shouted.
BOOM.
It wasn't a sound of success. It was the sound of a dam breaking.
Hathaway’s problem wasn’t a lack of mana; it was too much mana. She was trying to fill a shot glass with a fire hose.
The air in the room twisted violently. A torrent of raw, unrefined ether gushed out of her circuits, flooding the delicate [Silent Black] environment with chaotic noise.
The illusion manifested. But it was a disaster.
The image of Rhode and the Mech appeared, but it was hyper-saturated, vibrating with blinding white light, and emitting a high-pitched screeching audio feedback. It looked less like a memory and more like a corrupt video file playing on a broken CRT monitor during a lightning storm.
"Stop."
Victoria’s voice cut through the noise like a scalpel. She sounded physically pained. "My eyes. My ears."
She pressed her fingers against her temples, her face twisting in sheer disgust.
"Too bright. Too loud. Your mana overflow is so severe it looks like static on an ancient analog TV. Do you not know what a 'Limiter' is?"
"I-I'm trying!" Hathaway gritted her teeth, sweat pouring down her forehead as she wrestled with her own power. "It's slippery!"
"Lower the brightness. Increase the contrast," Victoria commanded, her voice dropping to a clinically cold tone. "Cut the audio. I don't need to hear the explosion; I need to see the structure. Focus the rendering on the contact surface between the finger and the mech."
Hathaway scrambled to adjust the parameters, feeling like a hapless grad student getting roasted by her advisor during a thesis defense.
"O-Okay! Compressing dynamic range... Sharpening edges... Is this good?"
The blinding light faded. The screeching stopped.
The holographic image in the center of the dark room cleared up, turning into a silent, ghostly blue 3D model.
It froze at the critical millisecond:
Rhode’s index finger was mere millimeters away from the glowing blue shield of the Mach-3 Alchemy Mech.
"Freeze Frame."
The image solidified.
Victoria stepped out of the shadows.
Her bare feet made no sound on the thick carpet. She walked up to the glowing illusion, her face illuminated by the phantom light of the spell.
She didn't look at Rhode’s face. She didn't look at the mech’s design. Her unfocused, deep blue eyes—eyes that couldn't see the physical world but could dissect the metaphysical—locked onto a tiny, insignificant point on the shield.
"Watch, Hathaway."
Victoria extended a pale, translucent finger and tapped the air, pointing at a specific cluster of runes on the mech’s barrier in the hologram.
"In the eyes of mortals—and in the eyes of that barbarian Rhode—this is a show of force. A Goddess of War poking a fortress to death."
"But in my eyes..." Victoria's finger traced an elegant, complex geometric shape in the air, highlighting a section of the spell matrix. "...This is Defense Matrix Rune Node No. 427."
Hathaway squinted at the glowing lights. "This node? It looks... normal? It’s just part of the honeycomb structure."
"That is because you have not read enough books," Victoria scoffed. Her tone carried the specific, crushing rigor of a top-tier Academic looking down on an illiterate peasant.
"Modern Rune Architecture (3rd Edition), Chapter 12, Subsection 4:" Victoria recited the citation from memory, her voice devoid of emotion. "This node is responsible for Mana Recirculation and Thermal Cooling. It is the exhaust port of the shield."
She waved her hand, and the illusion zoomed in under her command.
"The Alchemist who designed this mech was chasing extreme burst speed (Mach 3). To achieve that, they overclocked the core. But look here." Victoria pointed to a tiny gap in the mana flow. "To save weight, they omitted a set of 'Resonance Stabilization Runes'. They assumed the sheer velocity would dissipate the heat."
Victoria's fingers gently plucked at the logical lines in the air, as if checking a piece of imperfect code.
"It is a classic engineering hazard. A rookie mistake disguised as innovation. Under Mach 3 load, Node 427 is screaming. It is vibrating at a frequency of 14,000 Hertz. It is a structural wail that signifies imminent collapse."
Victoria turned her head slowly.
Her "blind" gaze moved from the technical flaw to the figure of Rhode in the hologram. The look on her face wasn't fear. It wasn't even anger anymore.
It was a profound, aristocratic Disappointment. The kind a master watchmaker feels when they see someone using a Patek Philippe to hammer a nail.
"Rhode passed the A3 exam. She understands this principle," Victoria whispered. "She has more formulas in her head than I do. She heard the scream of Node 427. But that is exactly what makes her so infuriating."
Victoria's fingers tightened, her knuckles turning white.
"An ordinary Witch, upon seeing such a beautiful, fatal flaw, would choose to dismantle it elegantly with Deconstruction Magic. Just like my sister, Cecilia."
When mentioning that name, the harshness in Victoria's voice vanished instantly. The cold crypt warmed up for a split second.
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"Cecilia wouldn't even need to lift a finger. She would simply cast a 'Counter-Resonance' spell. She would whisper a single syllable, and the mech would disassemble itself into spare parts, gently and quietly. That is Art. That is Efficiency."
But soon, the warmth froze over. Victoria turned her gaze back to Rhode, reverting to undisguised disdain.
"But Rhode... she is too Vulgar. She saw the weak point (Node 427). But instead of untying the knot, she chose to break the rope."
"She didn't use 'Astronomical Power'—that would imply she is a god. No, she simply poured Five Times the Necessary Yield into her fingertip to Overload it."
Victoria shook her head gently, like an art critic looking at a masterpiece ruined by graffiti.
"It is pure, unadulterated waste. She treats mana like it's free tap water. Where 50 M-Units of precision would suffice, she uses 250 M-Units of blunt force."
"She writes the answer on the exam paper, beats up the teacher, burns the classroom, and forces the world to admit she is correct. She calls this 'Ludwig Dominance.' At the Wellington dinner table, we call this—Nouveau Riche Squandering."
Hathaway stood there, stunned.
So this is how a genius brain works?
To Victoria, Rhode is like a billionaire who lights cigars with burning paintings just to show she can afford the matches.
Victoria spun around abruptly, her black Gothic skirt slicing a sharp arc through the air. She walked to the small tea table in the darkness.
"Hathaway, listen well."
Her back was to Hathaway, her voice cold, every word hitting like a steel nail on ice.
"Academic debates between Witches often end with one party in the ICU. The more profound the theory, the more firepower is needed to support the argument. In this ivory tower, Truth is only valid within shooting range."
She picked up a small object from the plate.
It was the Hardtack Biscuit Hathaway had been gnawing on earlier.
It wasn't Witch food. It was a grey, rock-hard block of compressed nutrients, wrapped in cheap foil. Hathaway had picked it up for free at the School Cafeteria during lunch.
The "Logistics & Necromancy Department" was running a promotion near the dessert station:
(“New High-Density Soul-Ash Blocks! 20% More Calcium! Perfect for your Skeleton Warriors! Free Samples for Commanders!”)
Being a cheapskate with a "Loot Everything" gamer instinct, Hathaway took one.
Being curious, she bit it.
It tasted like chalk mixed with the ashes of a failed dream.
Victoria held the "Skeleton Feed" between two fingers, looking at it with the same disgust she held for Rhode.
"You are eating... minion rations?"
She didn't wait for an answer. She simply treated it as another symptom of Hathaway's lack of standards.
"Rhode dares to be so reckless because she has internalized the basics into instinct. She stands at the summit, so she mocks the climbing path."
Victoria turned around.
In her originally unfocused deep blue eyes, a ring of painfully complex Geometric Light suddenly lit up. It was the activation of the [Wellington Mystic Eye].
"...But you haven't earned the right to imitate her. You haven't even learned to crawl, and you want to fly like her?"
Victoria extended a pale, slender pinky finger.
She didn't clench a fist. She didn't channel a visible aura of power. Without any force, as if finding a harmonic point on a violin string, she gently touched a microscopic texture fault on the edge of the rock-hard biscuit.
Ding.
A sound so crisp it was almost inaudible.
It wasn't the sound of breaking. It was the sound of a definition being deleted.
Under Hathaway's horrified gaze, the biscuit—dense enough to break a goblin's tooth—didn't explode. If Rhode had touched it, it would have shattered into shrapnel.
But under Victoria's finger, the biscuit simply... ceased to be solid.
The flour, the sugar, the oil molecules, the mana binders that held the object together—Victoria had severed the "Logic" that connected them.
The Structural Integrity was revoked.
Shhh...
Like a sandcastle collapsing in the wind, the biscuit disintegrated.
It turned into a pile of the most primitive, finest white powder. It flowed like water, stacking obediently into a perfect, symmetrical cone in the center of Victoria's palm.
"No brute force. No explosion. No waste."
Victoria blew gently.
Poufff.
The white powder in her palm scattered into the darkness like mist.
"Deconstruction from within. This is Art." She clapped her dusty hands, her eyes filled with a bone-deep contempt—the kind a Type-II Civilization holds for a caveman banging rocks together.
"Rhode thinks Instinct is King? Fine."
"Since she treats you like a pet, and mocks me as a 'nerd' who is weak..." Victoria’s voice dropped to a whisper, but the air in the room grew heavy, charged with the static electricity of immense knowledge. "...I will conduct an experiment."
"I will prove that Structure is Superior to Instinct."
She pointed a pale finger towards the ceiling—directly at Hathaway's room on the second floor.
"Go upstairs." The command was absolute. "Bring down the rest of your Standard A1 Textbooks."
Hathaway blinked, glancing at the thick The Ruthless History she had placed on the table earlier.
"The rest? You mean..."
"All of them." Victoria listed them, her tone cold and precise, like a doctor listing surgical instruments:
"A1 International Standard: A Brief History of Spells (2,540 Pages)."
"A1 International Standard: The General Manual of Language, Spells, and Runes (3rd Edition) (3,250 Pages)."
"And the remaining five 'A1 Standards' for Alchemy, Metallurgy, Biology, Botany, and Liberal Arts."
"Do not leave a single page behind."
Hathaway’s face paled.
"But... the Rune Manual alone is five kilograms. The Alchemy one has a lead cover... That’s... that's over twenty thousand pages."
"Go." Victoria didn't blink. "Or do you want me to test your memory on the spot?"
Hathaway scrambled toward the stairs.
Ten minutes later.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Hathaway staggered back into Room 302, dumping a mountain of books onto the table next to the existing Ruthless History. Dust danced wildly in the slivers of phantom light.
The eight main books stacked together like four heavy tombstones, reaching a height that surpassed her chin.
"Sit."
Victoria commanded.
The authority that erupted in that moment was like a tangible shackle. It was the pressure of a Headmaster, a Judge, and a Torturer all rolled into one.
Hathaway's knees went weak. She fell involuntarily into the chair, gripping the armrests, breathing cautiously.
"Put the black tea on your tab; that is a 'debt' you owe me." Victoria loomed over the stack of books, her silhouette blending with the darkness. "But now, we are going to proceed with 'The Indoctrination of Truth'."
The corner of Victoria's mouth curled into a terrifying arc—the manic expression of an academic demon seeing a challenging piece of rotten wood that she intends to carve into a masterpiece, even if the wood screams.
"I am going to prove to that barbarian who writes answers on her fists... That as long as one masters my 'Logical Architecture,' even a newbie like you—with zero talent, zero foundation, and an empty brain—can pass."
She leaned down, her pale face approaching Hathaway through the gap in the book stack.
"Do not mistake this for ordinary tutoring, Miss Ludwig."
Victoria tapped the cover of the General Manual of Runes (3,250 pages).
"Any parrot can repeat a spell. I don't want you to be a parrot."
"I will force-feed you the Logic. I will make you understand why the rune curves left and not right. I will make you derive the formula from scratch."
"Tonight, if you cannot replicate the Logical Architecture of the first one hundred basic circuits in your mind..." Victoria’s unfocused eyes narrowed, the blue light within them pulsing dangerously. "...I will engrave a permanent [High-Frequency Strobe Spell] on your retinas."
"It will flash white light at 50 Hertz, 24 hours a day. Trust me, Miss Ludwig. That feels infinitely worse than being blind."
Hathaway shuddered.
She looked at the mountain of books. She looked at the demon teacher. She looked at the pile of biscuit dust that used to be a (terrible) snack.
She lowered her head. She curled up like a frightened quail, trembling visibly.
"...Y-Yes, Teacher!" She answered with a trembling voice, sounding full of fear, awe, and total submission to authority. "I will learn! I will understand!"
Satisfied with the fear, Victoria straightened up.
"Good. Begin at Chapter One. Do not vocalize. I hate noise."
She turned around, walking back into the depths of the darkness to resume conducting her silent symphony of floating books.
...
However.
The moment Victoria turned her back.
The moment the [Wellington's Gaze] lifted its pressure.
Hathaway, buried behind the fortress of heavy tomes, used the cover of the books to hide her face.
She stopped trembling.
She lowered her hands from her face.
And slowly, the corners of her mouth curled up wildly into a triumphant, bandit-like grin.
Scared?
Of course she was scared.
The ten thousand pages were real. The threat of retinal torture was real. The biscuit disintegration was terrifying.
Victoria Wellington was a monster. A bona fide, S-Tier Monster.
But...
This is exactly what I wanted!
Hathaway's fingers caressed the cold, rough cover of the Universal Rune Manual. Was there any fear in her red eyes?
No.
Instead, there was a Fanatical, Greedy Light. The look of a player who had just unlocked a Legendary Skill Trainer.
She didn't need gentle comfort.
She didn't need step-by-step "Introduction to Magic for Dummies."
She didn't have time for normal school.
In this desperate situation of "Expulsion if I fail A1 in a month," ordinary teachers were useless.
What she needed was exactly this kind of Devil Instructor who would push her to the brink of physiological collapse! Only someone like Victoria—someone with a pathological obsession for "Perfect Logic" and a grudge against Rhode—could drag a "stat-stick idiot" like Hathaway across the passing line in 30 days.
Scold me all you want.
Despise me all you want.
Throw all your pride, your arrogance, and your centuries of family knowledge at me.
To get that damn A1 Certificate (and save my life)...
To learn how to disintegrate matter with a touch...
I'd kneel and call you Queen if I had to.
Hathaway took a deep breath. She inhaled the scent of old paper and ink. It smelled like Victory.
She opened the first page.
In this cold, deep-sea-like dorm room, Hathaway finally understood a supreme truth of social engineering:
The best Hunter is the one who baits the trap with themselves.
"Page one," Hathaway whispered silently. "Let's grind."