Day of Freedom

Friday.

AM.10:15

The midsummer sunlight flowed into the tiered classroom on a warm breeze.

It was an ordinary alchemy chemistry class. Notes on the Emerald Tablet covered the blackboard, yet not a single student in the packed room was taking notes.

Half of them wore the Student Union's dark red combat uniforms, while the other half wore the Lionheart Society's black combat uniforms. Only a very few wore dark green school uniforms, and the dense clatter of guns being cocked and loaded filled the room.

Seeing this, the instructor at the podium glanced up at the clock. There were still about ten minutes until Day of Freedom began.

Is there enough time for me to run to the Executive Department and take shelter...

The professor muttered to himself, but when he saw the predatory looks in the students' eyes below, he knew he probably would not escape.

Ah, I have to get hit by Frigg Bullets again.

With a mournful sigh, he simply accepted his fate, pulled out his phone, and began bidding farewell to his colleagues one by one in the work group chat.

From the back of the classroom, Li Lin could clearly hear the clicks of guns being assembled all around him.

Xia Mi sat right beside him, both hands beneath her desk as she screwed a flash suppressor onto an Equipment Department-modified AR-15.

"Xia Mi, what does fighting mean to you?"

Li Lin's unprompted question left Xia Mi silent.

Xia Mi lightly kicked his shin. "Aren't we joining Day of Freedom to justify the one million on the club's books, and Caesar's bounty?"

"You are betraying martial arts. You are defiling the purity of Baji Essence."

Li Lin watched Xia Mi skillfully chamber the AR-15, his tone sorrowful.

"Eek, this is the West Coast Five Thunder Technique that this heroine just learned."

"But the martial artist's soul you are about to dissolve is weeping."

"Enough nonsense. Take it."

Xia Mi tossed the assembled, loaded assault rifle into Li Lin's hands, along with three magazines full of Frigg Bullets.

The weight in his hands made Li Lin beam, while Xia Mi dug another pile of parts out of her backpack and began assembling them.

As she worked, Xia Mi took the time to question Li Lin.

"What's with you, anyway? Didn't you complain they were too expensive when you went with me to buy guns and bullets from the Equipment Department? I remember you grumbling nonstop while loading magazines."

"Let's not talk about that. I'm a little worried these Equipment Department-modified guns might suddenly blow up in our hands while we're using them."

Remembering how he had nearly been sent to the campus hospital by an Equipment Department-modified treadmill the previous night, Li Lin scrutinized the rifle in his hands warily.

"Don't change the subject. You've really been working hard lately. It's the first time I've seen you exercising so late..."

As she spoke, Xia Mi gave Li Lin a teasing smile.

"You didn't meet some girl you like, did you? Are you planning to start dating her by taking advantage of Day of Freedom?"

The girl bent slightly at the waist. As she smiled, sunlight brushed across her pale face, her translucent hair flowing with an orange halo, while a softness flooded her clear, bright eyes that instinctively made one's heart race.

If not for the AR-15 in her hand, its muzzle pointed at Li Lin, everything would have looked so beautiful.

Li Lin guessed that if he jokingly said, "I really do want to date a pretty upperclassman," Xia Mi would not hesitate to pull the trigger and spray him until she emptied an entire magazine.

He could consider teasing the girl after securing the final victor's reward.

Li Lin answered Xia Mi cautiously.

"Actually, I noticed that you're really interested in this kind of event, so I planned to spar with you after defeating the Lionheart Society."

The perfect answer precisely avoided the girl's minefield.

Xia Mi happily lowered her gun, then took Li Lin's backpack and pulled out the gun parts hidden inside to continue assembling them.

She had made thorough preparations for Day of Freedom.

For her primary weapon, she had chosen a fully equipped, modified AR-15 produced by the Equipment Department. For her secondary weapon, she had chosen the famous UMP45 submachine gun, and she had even specially purchased a box of smoke grenades and alchemical anesthetic grenades.

"Don't worry. If we both make it to the end, I'll throw away my gun and compete with you fairly."

Xia Mi said smugly.

"Then I really have to thank you."

"Hehe, Little Li, Little Li. If I win the final reward, I'll definitely name you my personal manservant. Every night, I'll order you to go to Norton Hall to wash my feet, rub my back, serve tea, and pour water."

"Actually, I wouldn't mind serving Lady Xia Mi while she bathes."

"Ptui! Have you no shame?!"

"..."

Li Lin watched the clock hands move with some anxiety. His gaze swept across the entire tiered classroom as he began considering how to avoid the first wave of chaos.

Xia Mi's mouth still would not stop, and Li Lin had been contaminated by her terrible-joke memes as well.

The two bickered back and forth until the hands of the clock reached 10:30, when a shrill, piercing alarm suddenly rang out across the campus.

Intense muzzle flashes erupted in the classroom. The roar of gunfire nearly shattered the windows on both sides, and the once warm, peaceful campus instantly became a battlefield.

Even with the podium as cover, the professor standing before the blackboard was immediately riddled with bullets by the students' concentrated fire.

But as he lost consciousness, he did not forget to hurl a workbook containing five assigned term papers at the girl in the front row who had been pointing a gun at him and pulling the trigger, leaving her staring blankly in place, nearly covering her face as she burst into tears.

In that brief moment of distraction, the girl was also struck down with a wail by a stream of Frigg Bullets focused on her by the opposing side. A Student Union freshman officer, holding a Remington 870 shotgun, charged forward in a crouch under the cover of desks and chairs. As he passed the "corpse of his colleague," he did not forget to pick up the workbook and lay it over her lovely face, whose eyes could not close in peace.

Before the alarm sounded, Li Lin had already pulled Xia Mi beneath a desk. Xia Mi instantly understood his intention, so the two of them each hugged a rifle, preparing to rise and reap the battlefield together once the gunfire outside thinned out a little.

After taking down five Lionheart Society members in succession, the brave freshman officer was hit squarely by an alchemical anesthetic grenade thrown in from the hallway. He let out a scream, then collapsed into unconsciousness.

The remaining students from both sides were locked in a fierce firefight. Someone from the Lionheart Society could even be seen raising an RPG with bloodshot eyes.

That was when Xia Mi could no longer resist making a move. She wanted to seize that big thing, so she immediately raised her rifle and fired a string of precise, rapid shots. In an instant, she headshot and dropped three enemies, directly disrupting their formation.

Li Lin was still beneath the desk, planning tactics and analyzing how to fight his way from the teaching building to the Lionheart Society's club headquarters, when Xia Mi's flowing skirt suddenly appeared before his eyes. He could even smell the rich scent of laundry detergent warmed by her body heat from the fabric, and his brain completely crashed.