On cue, my summoner shoved me awake again, and I sat up, feeling groggy.

  It felt like I had a really long, chaotic nightmare where Electric Blue was a queen who sentenced me to death, and everyone I’ve met was out for my head. There wasn’t even a bounty; people just wanted to kill me that much.

  Although it was unpleasant, a part of me wanted to see the nightmare to the end, so I’m a little peeved that Jiori woke me up.

  My groggy mind recalled a few moments from the dream, and I immediately decided I was better off not continuing the nightmare.

  I shook my head before slapping my face’s cheeks with both hands twice.

  Focus! I need to survive Electric Blue’s schemes.

  With my Imagination Manifestation, I’m sure I could come up with something that can get me as far away from this school as possible. My main concern is what would happen after.

  Right now, my only option for a livable space is sharing a room with my summoner. Food and amenities were nice, but I’ve become a social outcast for humiliating a girl in front of her peers.

  I’ve tried telling Mr. Blonde that she plans on killing me, but his expressions told me he didn’t believe me.

  Which means my only option now is to prepare for the worst and fight back.

  A direct confrontation could end in her losing, but if I’m ambushed, my chances are slim. From how everyone reacted after I overpowered her, I’m certain she’ll have plenty of followers to do her dirty work for her.

  Do they know of my living situation with my summoner? It’s possible they don’t, but with how close everyone is in the dorms, it’s only a matter of time before they find out if they don’t already know.

  I’ll need to know what life is like outside the school to consider living away from it.

  …

  After getting ready, my summoner and I headed to the classrooms.

  Now that I think about it, I never told him about Electric Blue’s declaration to kill me.

  The comic was still fresh in my mind, as a part of me was proud of it, despite it being an omen of my death. I generated the comic book, excluding the page that showed how the ice spike was split, since he witnessed that yesterday.

  He’s my roommate, and whatever happens to me, he’s affected too, whether he likes it or not. I didn’t want to make this his problem too, but it’d be best if he wasn’t left in the dark.

  After finishing the comic book, I tapped his shoulder with it. He turned around and took the book out of my hands, then started reading as we made our way to the main building. Since I was behind him, it wasn’t difficult to keep track of which pages he read.

  He got to the moment where Electric Blue made an open declaration to murder me before closing the book. Good, now he’s no longer left in the dark.

  Wait. What’s with that expression?

  He made a face similar to the one Mr. Blonde made when he finished the comic book I gave him.

  Hey. Take this seriously! My life is on the line!

  Do they find it so unbelievable that this girl would want to kill me after I humiliated her?

  I shouldn’t have bothered with staying. Perhaps leaving is my best option.

  Unless…

  My mind thought of more violent and grotesque solutions to my predicament, but the more rational part of me shut them down.

  No. I can get through this. I just need to figure out how to survive, maybe prepare visualizing fights with the initial context of self-defense.

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  My summoner and I pushed open the door leading into the main building.

  Standing there in front of the 10 statues was Ms. Electric Blue.

  Fuck!

  I saw my summoner move to give her the comic.

  Panic overran my mind, and I ran up to slam it out of my summoner’s hand, before picking it up and dissipating it all within the span of 5 seconds.

  Embarrassed, I ran to my first period.

  …

  It has to be a history class.

  Textbooks were passed around to everyone, and we were instructed to turn to the same page. I glanced at my neighbors and saw we were to start from page 430.

  When I skimmed through the pages to reach the instructed page number, I saw sketches and portraits of different people.

  After that, it was mostly the teacher talking, pointing at volunteers to answer, which terrified me for a bit when I thought I needed to answer, and repeat. I flipped through the book to match the page everyone was on during the class so that I wasn’t selected or outed.

  …

  The second period seemed to be a similar experience of not having too much involvement. Whatever the teacher wanted to demonstrate to us was done on their desk at the front of the classroom. It felt like a simple demonstration you’d see on kids’ science shows to get them interested in the field.

  I got looks from the girl I threw a dodgeball at. I’m guessing that not only did I not apologize to her, but I also got the person she sought help from expelled. I need to figure out how to apologize to her.

  What was it… “Akoa?”

  Even if it was a partial apology, it’s better than nothing.

  When the period ended, I tried chasing after her, but she simply ran away when I tried following her.

  Yeah, I’ve got no chance of apologizing to her.

  I sighed.

  …

  The third class wasn’t really eventful either. Everyone was given more of those wooden coins, which I put in my coin pouch before sitting and letting the clock run down, listening to the sounds of students talking to each other. I did get a look from the teacher, but that’s the most I could describe as noteworthy happening in that class.

  …

  I gave Ms. Grey the homework my summoner had completed the moment she gave me an expectant look before sitting next to my summoner.

  A few familiar faces caught my eye, those being the snow-white-haired mage with a peculiar eccentricity to him and the blonde girl who was put up against the brown-haired boy in 5th period. Both of them smiled at me, but they carried very different ideas.

  Snow white’s smile carried amusement and intrigue. If I had to guess, he wanted to see how his abilities measured against mine after seeing me overwhelm Electric Blue. The blonde girl’s smile seemed to express sorrow and concern. I couldn’t help but feel touched that there’s someone who’d worried for me. Well… someone else in addition to my summoner.

  On everyone’s desk was a crystal. Unlike yesterday, this one was smaller and lighter, as I saw someone pick it up with relative ease with a single hand before being scolded and told to put it down. I knew that was what happened, because the teacher shouted suddenly and that student yelped from the scare.

  This time, the color of the crystal was white. I had no idea what the purpose of this crystal was, since there was no equivalent to a magic class in my previous life.

  It shouldn’t be too hard to follow along with this period, either.

  After Ms. Grey finished her monologue, everyone’s attention turned toward their crystal. One by one, each crystal glowed a different color. Orange, blue, light blue, green, light green, and brown.

  Snow-white’s crystal glowed with a light blue, nearly filling up the entire volume of the crystal. The blonde had green in hers, but it was a drop compared to Snow-white’s. My summoner had an even smaller amount of green in his. It looked like water poured on a plate.

  Suddenly, there was a loud pop, a scream, and something that sounded like small rocks falling against wood.

  A crystal of a student near the front had exploded, judging by how theirs was comparably smaller than everyone else’s.

  Ms. Grey immediately sped toward that student to check on them before monologuing something in a composed tone. Judging by how calm she sounded, such a thing wasn’t unusual.

  So the goal is simply to put a liquid-like light in the crystal?

  I looked around once more to see what everyone was doing. Ms. Grey passed by Snow-white, glancing at him before seeing the other students' progress. The blonde girl took what little light she poured into the crystal and was manipulating it in an attempt to form a shape. From how close her face was to it, even though I could only see her back, I could tell she was struggling really hard to accomplish something while squinting.

  Whatever snow-white did with his crystal didn’t provide any clues as to what everyone was trying to accomplish, but apparently, filling it up without breaking it was a success.

  I looked behind me to see another student seemingly struggling with the task. The light they were manipulating was dispersed, but the glow seemed really intense at a certain point. After some seconds with a weird-looking expression, the glowing stabilized.

  That student shouted in triumph. This was heard by Ms. Grey, who immediately went to his location to inspect the crystal. There were some words and nods, which seemed to make that student happy.

  I looked at the blonde girl’s progress. She seemed to be getting close, but her light drops sank to the bottom.

  Alright. I think I know what’s going on.

  I ‘poured’ drops of golden light into the crystal with matching luminosity, made them gather into a single point, and anchored that ball of light.

  Now I just need to wait for Ms. Grey to walk nearby so that I can get her attention.

  I didn’t need to do that, as she made rounds throughout the class and saw my work. She stared at it for a moment, face unchanging, before walking off to measure other students’ progress.

  I had no way of knowing if I succeeded or failed.