"Beep beep, beep beep."
Fingel rolled over on the top bunk, switched off his phone alarm, and sat up to shout at the newly risen sun outside the window. "Good morning, Cassell!"
Then he wriggled his backside a few more times, making the bed creak and rattle.
"Today is the official drill day for Operation Bedrock. The sixty-four combatants jointly assembled by the Student Union and the Lionheart Society completed all prebattle preparations last night. The biggest draw of this exercise is our S-Rank, who has never appeared in an official match since enrolling. He'll be playing the Dragon King alone, taking on all sixty-four opponents. Betting opened on the Nightwatch Forum at midnight. As of press time-which is to say, right now, while I'm looking at my phone-the odds of the S-Rank wiping out the entire field within twenty minutes have dropped to 1.3 to one. Total betting turnover has topped eight thousand forum coins, breaking the record set by Caesar and Chu Zihang's duel on the Day of Freedom!"
The dorm room was silent. No one applauded this brilliant opening report. Fingel lay back down and tried a few kip-ups, slamming the bed boards with loud bangs.
"Professor Schneider is personally serving as referee. The Equipment Department spent all night calibrating the Alchemical Gravity Field, and Professor Guderian announced that he'll be taking real-time samples of Word Spirit fluctuations on-site. Do you know what that means? It means every professor and student at this school will be packed onto the eastern field this morning, and every pair of eyes will be focused on one person."
Bang. Bang. Bang. Fingel clenched his fist and pounded the bed boards a few more times.
"And the man at the center of all this, the man who has eight thousand forum coins spinning in limbo, who made sixty-four people get up at the crack of dawn and gear up for battle, who prompted our two great student leaders to join forces for the first time just to challenge him-"
"Is still sleeping like a log!" Propping himself against the railing, Fingel hung upside down from the top bunk, dangling half his body over the edge. "He clearly has no respect for his fellow students or the entire faculty-"
"Huh? He's not here?"
Cassell College's training field, 8:45 a.m.
Sixty-four fully armed students stood in formation in the center of the field. Caesar and Chu Zihang stood in front of them, making final adjustments to an exercise plan.
"Your Assault Team will enter from the northwest. My pincer teams will squeeze in from the southeast and due south. We'll leave him an opening and see how he reacts," Caesar said, gesturing over the map. "In our earlier tabletop simulations, the third round-the one that came closest to success-the window opened while the Dragon King team was changing positions."
"That was because twelve people were playing the Dragon King, and their coordination was poor," Chu Zihang said. "The Dragon King played by Lu Mingfei won't have that weakness."
"I've taken that into account. My plan is..."
On the training field, sixty-four people tightened their protective gear and tested their communication headsets, their expressions a mixture of nerves and eagerness. Last week, these two teams had still been fighting each other. Now they wore standardized combat uniforms and stood on the same battle line, waiting for the same person.
Everything was ready. All they lacked was the Dragon King himself.
At nine sharp, Lu Mingfei failed to appear.
A few students craned their necks toward the field entrance, only to be forced back into line by stern looks from their squad leaders.
"He's late." Chu Zihang glanced at his watch.
"He's waging psychological warfare," Caesar said. "We're simulating the awakening of a Dragon King, but humans don't get to decide when a Dragon King wakes up."
He swept his gaze across the formation and addressed everyone. "The exercise has already begun. Lu Mingfei wants to make us anxious and wear down our fighting spirit. We can't let him dictate our tempo. Everyone, warm up and be ready for the Dragon King's arrival at any moment!"
"Schneider! Do you see that? The S-Rank's tactical acumen!" Guderian said from the stands. "The official confrontation hasn't even begun, and he's already draining his opponents' psychological resources! Being late is itself a form of suppression. He's making sixty-four people grow increasingly anxious as they wait. By the time he actually appears, everyone will already be past their mental peak! In psychology, this is called-"
"Exactly," Schneider interrupted. "Classic pre-match pressure."
Guderian had prepared an entire chain of arguments stretching from Pavlov to the tactical psychology of Word Spirits. He had never expected Schneider to agree with him this time.
Hearing Schneider give Lu Mingfei a positive assessment excited Guderian more than receiving tenure had. He was already drafting an academic paper in his head, titled "A Brief Analysis of Tactical Innovation and Psychological Maneuvering in Operation Bedrock."
At 9:25, Lu Mingfei still hadn't arrived, and low murmurs began to spread across the training field.
"Why isn't the S-Rank here yet?"
"Don't tell me he's afraid to show up?"
"Are you kidding? Even the Equipment Department couldn't measure the upper limit of his defenses. What would he be afraid of?"
"Social anxiety?"
Caesar's gaze swept across the formation before finally finding Fingel, who was hiding at the back and trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.
"Fingel."
Fingel shuddered. "Here!"
"Where's Lu Mingfei?"
Fingel's expression shifted from grief and indignation to utter anguish. Finally, he slapped his thigh and said, with bitter disappointment:
"Even heroes can't resist a beautiful woman!"
"Last night-no," Fingel declared loudly, "at one thirty this morning, that Russian Woman knocked on our door and called our poor S-Rank outside. He left and never came back. When I woke up this morning, his bed was empty and his covers were cold! Everyone, our S-Rank has stood us up!"
A stir ran through the formation. After all the scenarios everyone had imagined, it turned out Lu Mingfei really wasn't coming!
The boys exchanged discreet, knowing looks. One girl muttered, "I knew it," in a tone that might have been either jealousy or annoyance.
Guderian cast an embarrassed glance at Schneider. Just moments ago, he had been explaining the S-Rank's tactical psychology to him. He had even come up with a title for his paper. But his S-Rank wasn't waging psychological warfare at all. He had run off with his girlfriend.
Schneider's expression remained calm, however, and he didn't mock him. It was probably the sort of "just as expected" look worn by someone who had seen too many absurd things and was now witnessing one more.
"Enough." Caesar raised a hand, silencing the whispers in the ranks.
"Refusing a lady's late-night invitation is unforgivable. Lu Mingfei made the right choice."
Several people nearly burst out laughing.
"Since the S-Rank is absent, today's exercise will revert to the original contingency plan." Caesar turned to face everyone. "Red Plan. Pazzi, take a team and play the Dragon King. The pincer teams will retain their previous composition. Add one person to the Medical Team."
Nono stood at the referees' station, recorded the final piece of exercise data, and closed her clipboard.
She had said very little that day.
When Caesar asked whether she wanted to adjust the refereeing rules, she said there was no need. Susie handed her some water and casually remarked, "Our S-Rank really is a ladies' man," but she didn't respond to that either.
After the exercise ended, Caesar and Chu Zihang reviewed it with Professor Schneider while the students drifted away in twos and threes.
Nono sat in a chair at the referees' station and took out her phone.
Her chat with Lu Mingfei was still stuck on the afternoon before last. He had asked her for the exercise's refereeing rules document. She had sent him a link, and he had replied, "Got it."
But now, at one thirty in the morning, Zero had knocked on his door. He had gone out and never returned.
There was no need for profiling here. Hundreds of people across campus could all give the same answer.
Someone was laughing, and the wind carried the sound over to her. Nono looked up. Several historical fencing enthusiasts were laughing and sparring with shields and greatswords, the clatter of carbon-fiber shields ringing out across the field.
That day on the field, she had told him, "There's something about you that draws me in."
Lu Mingfei had left, but Nono was still thinking about him.