"Teaching Assistant"

"She came in with a bang, then slipped away in silence, without taking a single cloud with her..."

The guy with a thing for queens sighed dreamily.

Just as everyone was still reeling from the Red Queen, three people filed into the classroom.

There were two men and one woman. The woman was average-looking but had a great figure, the kind that grew more appealing the longer you looked at her. Her casual tracksuit suited her perfectly, and she stood in the middle. The two men flanking her were one tall and one short. The one on the left was nearly two meters tall, broad-shouldered and muscular, like a polar bear, with sharp, alert eyes. The one on the right wasn't exactly short either, standing around 170 centimeters. He was thin, with a pale face like an otaku's and an unkempt appearance.

"Are these three the teaching assistants?"

Everyone was puzzled.

The woman in the middle answered their question. She stepped forward and said, "Let me introduce myself. I'm Ji Wen, one of your teaching assistants."

"Xiong Ba!"

He lived up to his name, exuding the domineering presence of a bear.

"Hello, everyone. I'm Otaku."

Quiet murmurs began to rise from the students, and the once-silent classroom grew noisy.

Xiong Ba swept his cold gaze across the room and snorted. "You'd better shut your mouths, or I'll tear them apart with my bare hands." He licked his lips, looking almost eager. "As your teaching assistant, I can't kill you, but I can still punish you... and I won't have to pay your medical bills. Heh."

"Cut it out! You're just some lowly teaching assistant, and you've got the nerve to run your mouth? Hmph, even the headmaster of this so-called university would have to call me Young Master Qin. Who do you think you are?" A student who seemed to have been holding it in for a long time slammed a hand on the desk and stood up, pointing angrily at Xiong Ba.

The three teaching assistants exchanged glances.

Their expressions were extremely strange: some looked sympathetic, some amused, some angry, and some gleeful.

Yin Kuang and Li Shuangmu, seated at their desks, exchanged puzzled looks, confused.

"What do you say?" Xiong Ba asked Otaku as if no one else were there. He didn't even spare the shouting student a glance.

Otaku shrugged. "Up to you."

Ji Wen said, "Just don't kill him."

Xiong Ba chuckled, showing a mouthful of bright white teeth. Then he headed toward the arrogant student.

At that moment, Yin Kuang suddenly caught a very strong smell... the smell of blood. He had once helped someone slaughter pigs, so he knew the scent all too well. But... why did such a strong stench of blood come from Xiong Ba?

He wasn't the only one. Many people's expressions changed, turning strange, frightened, sickened, and pale.

"Danger!" Li Shuangmu said.

The arrogant student's face changed too. "Y-you... what are you going to do?"

Xiong Ba chuckled. "Nothing much. Just teach you a lesson you'll never forget." He reached out with his huge hand and lifted the arrogant student by the collar like a chick. "Listen, kid. Remember to show your seniors some respect from now on. Otherwise, I'll kill you. You look like you've got at most fifty or sixty years left to live. I can kill you six times over. Let's see if you still won't die. Got it?"

Then he grabbed the student's arm. "Heh. Enjoy the pain. Hopefully you won't get addicted to it..."

The next moment, the arrogant student let out a bloodcurdling scream!

Xiong Ba tore off both his arms as casually as if plucking weeds. Blood sprayed everywhere! He tossed the severed arms onto the floor like garbage.

"Ah!!"

It wasn't just the arrogant student screaming. The entire class was.

"He's killing someone!"

"Call the police... hurry!"

"Blood! There's blood!"

Everyone looked at Xiong Ba with terror and wariness. Some were so scared they tried to rush out, only to find the classroom door wouldn't open no matter what they did. Others were so frightened that they wet themselves.

At that moment, the Red Queen's words echoed in their minds: "You'd better be polite to your teaching assistants."

These weren't teaching assistants. They were demons who killed without batting an eye!

"I... I want to drop out! I'm not going to school anymore. Mom... I want my mom..." a girl who had wet herself wailed.

"Tsk!" Xiong Ba snorted. "Quiet down! What are you yelling for? You're giving me a headache. All of you, back to your seats. Now!"

No one dared defy him. After witnessing his cruelty, they all behaved like meek little lambs.

"Kid, make another sound and I'll kill you!"

The arrogant student, now missing both arms, could no longer act so arrogant. The pain of losing his arms nearly drove him to the brink, but his fear of Xiong Ba overcame everything. He obediently shut his mouth.

"Don't worry. If you've got money on you, just silently say 'Heal,' and it'll reattach them for you. But if you're broke, you're out of luck. You won't die, but you'll be in pain for a while."

"I... have... Heal! Heal, aaah!"

The arrogant student screamed hysterically. Suddenly, he heard a strange voice in his mind: "Scanning body... F-class injury... both arms severed... estimated cost: 100 'Study Points'... student Xiao Zhang carries 10,000 yuan in cash, convertible to 100 Study Points... 'Rookie Student' title effect activated... treatment cost halved... treatment commencing..."

The still-terrified students then saw something that left them dumbfounded: the two severed arms on the floor suddenly rose into the air and reattached themselves to the student's shoulders. The blood pooled across the floor flowed into his wounds like a tide—the scene looked like a video of spilled water playing in reverse.

"No matter what unbelievable things you see, don't be surprised."

The Red Queen's voice echoed in everyone's minds once again.

"Fuck! What kind of place is this?!" the queen-loving guy couldn't help whispering angrily.

Ji Wen looked at everyone's reactions and said, "All right. Now it's finally quiet, isn't it?"

No one dared speak again.

"Now, take out your admission letters. Silently imagine turning them into a watch, a ring, glasses, or something else. Pick something small and convenient to carry. Do it!"

Everyone obeyed.

Yin Kuang stared at his admission letter from North Xia University, his mind blank. In the end, he could only sigh and say, "A watch."

With a bang, the admission letter suddenly burst into flames. A moment later, the flames went out, and an ordinary electronic watch appeared in Yin Kuang's hand.

The others had done the same. Some had watches, others rings or bracelets, and one person had turned his into an iPhone.

"Then pick up whatever you turned it into and silently say, 'Personal Attributes.'"

Everyone mechanically did as they were told. The entire classroom then fell into a deathly silence.

They all stared straight ahead, though there was nothing there. Still, they watched intently, their expressions changing constantly.

"Want to see their attributes?" Otaku suddenly asked with a grin.

"Not interested," Ji Wen replied curtly.

"Forget it," Xiong Ba said. "I know what you're thinking. But this isn't something we can get involved in... The seniors won't be happy if they find out."

"Fine... Heh, being a teaching assistant is pretty nice. I bet our teaching assistants last year were just like us. They were so full of themselves back then. I remember Lone Wolf slapping me once. Too bad I never got the chance to get back at him. He ran out of 'Lifespan' and died before I could. What a lucky bastard..."

Xiong Ba smiled. "True enough. I didn't expect the 'Teaching Assistant' title to have such a powerful effect. We don't lose 'Lifespan' when we die, and we can earn 50 credits. And the 'freshman' courses are so easy. We might be able to gain a lot from them. The only trouble is that when a new student dies, we lose 1 point of 'Comprehensive Evaluation' and 5 points of 'F-class Evaluation.'"

Ji Wen sighed as well. "That's right. We only get 2 points of basic 'Comprehensive Evaluation' for each 'scenario' we go through. That means if two people die, we've gone through a whole 'scenario' for nothing. Earning 'class Evaluation' points is even harder. 'It' isn't easy to fool. At 'university,' no free pie is ever going to fall from the sky and hit you. We'd better take good care of these rookies."