Meanwhile, not too far away, a white-haired boy watched the crowd gathering around the human successor of his father.

Noah didn't care.

…Or rather, he thought he didn't care.

Still, for some reason, he just couldn't hold his curiosity and decided to activate his ability, the one that let him see through everything.

Katsuragami.

He had seen the threads around that boy behave strangely before at the time of the entrance examination but now, with his increased strength and new blessings… he wanted to try again.

The moment his vision landed on Rael, Noah's eyes widened.

Then blood began to drip down his cheeks as his vision became cloudy.

"…What is that?"

Before he could even process it, his entire body lost strength.

His legs buckled and vision spun.

He collapsed backward but instead of hitting the hard floor, something soft cushioned the back of his head.

A… pillow?

And why is the pillow so… warm?

He didn't have time to wonder.

A sharp slap cracked through the air.

SLAP!!!

"You pervert."

His head snapped ninety degrees to the side.

The slap blasted every trace of confusion out of Noah's head as even his vision shifted back into perfect clarity and he finally saw…

… Standing over him was a human girl with violet eyes and blonde hair, staring down with the fury of a goddess whose divine territory had been violated.

For the first time in his life, Noah felt death reaching out to him in a sweet, welcoming embrace.

It felt even closer than when he fought Arza.

But of course, the rude human woman had no intention of letting him drift peacefully into the void.

Just as he finished the spin from the slap and was falling like a broken toy, she grabbed his collar and pulled him upright.

Noah wanted to retaliate, he could see a thread, an opening to attack her, but for some reason, after using his ability on Rael, his body refused to move.

He couldn't even lift a finger.

Only one thing still worked:

His mouth.

"Let me go, you bitch."

So, he decided to use that.

He had seen this barbaric woman before, right after the entrance exam ended and even back then, she had been exactly the same.

Noah generally hated her kind and ignored her without a second thought.

But now…

"Let go of me, you barbaric woman." His tone wasn't childish, it was disturbingly flat, like he genuinely couldn't understand why she was angry.

In his entire life, Noah had never been slapped.

Plenty of his siblings had tried… but none had succeeded. Because he always cut off their arms before they could even get close.

The woman smiled but for some reason Noah had an ominous feeling.

He never got this feeling even when he was close to death… because he loved to die.

But this was something different entirely.

A feeling he had never felt before.

What the hell is happening?

"First of all, my name is Viola." The woman muttered, pulling her hands back.

"… And I dared to slap you like this."

She didn't even hesitate as she gave Noah another good whack.

Meanwhile, most of the crowd was packed in the center of the room around Rael, so this little drama unfolded in a quiet corner, witnessed only by a handful of students…

…who were secretly trying not to laugh.

And Seraphina, who kept shifting her gaze back and forth between Rael and Viola, as if torn between fascination, horror, and mild suspicion about which one of them would create a bigger trouble.

—

After a few more whacking sessions, Viola finally calmed down, while Noah kept glaring at her like she had committed a war crime.

"So… let's start this again. Will you say sorry?"

Viola asked gently as if she hadn't just slapped the soul out of him multiple times but Noah, being Noah, kept his expression perfectly blank and said the one thing guaranteed to cause maximum damage.

"Can you just kill me? The slaps are getting boring now."

Viola blinked. "Why would I do that?"

"Isn't that natural?" Noah replied in a completely cold voice. "People only want two things, to be killed or to kill. And aren't you angry about me touching your fat tits?"

He said it without hesitation, shame or even awareness.

That was simply how his brain worked.

From childhood, he had been raised alone.

Not because people bullied him but because after he chopped off a few limbs from some of his siblings…

…no one dared to talk to him anymore.

Silence became his environment and isolation became normal.

So, he never had a chance to learn the social cues.

So to him, saying things that could start a war was the same as stating the weather.

"The world is too beautiful to die… and life is too precious to be taken for trivial issues." Viola said seriously.

As Noah's eyes widened.

Life being beautiful?

"Haah, what a load of bullshit." He scoffed.

But Viola didn't care about his response at all.

Instead, she smiled even more brightly, the kind of smile that made grown men reconsider their life choices.

"But clearly," she said sweetly, "you can't see the beauty of life without first seeing the ugliness of violence… so don't worry."

She leaned closer.

"And what you did was by no means trivial," Viola continued, still smiling. "So I'll do you a favor and…

…kill you."

Noah didn't know why but the moment he heard those words… words he had always desired, his heart skipped a beat.

No woman had ever told him she would kill him before.

He wasn't sure whether he wanted to kill her… or hear her say it again.

But either way, every trace of anger from before vanished instantly.

He slowly closed his eyes… fully accepting her words… almost hoping she would really do it.

For the first time in his life, he felt strangely at peace.

—

Meanwhile, Viola frowned.

She just couldn't understand the nutcase standing, well, collapsing, in front of her.

He was weird… and strange…

and concerning in a way she didn't have the vocabulary for.

When she met him yesterday, he randomly bumped into her.

And today, she was literally just standing still and he fell on her like his body lost all his strength or something.

What was his problem?

She genuinely couldn't figure it out.

Did he fall for me or something?

That was the only explanation that vaguely made sense.

But what bothered her even more was how he didn't react at all to being slapped.

Not an emotion, flinch or even an attempt to defend himself. It was like she had hit a brick wall with nerves made of steel.

And even when she said she would kill him…

Instead of panicking, resisting or at least looking mildly concerned, he actually closed his eyes as if he was accepting his fate.

He even had that tiny, peaceful smile on his face.

Is he… a masochist?

She had heard about those people who found pleasure in pain.

No.

No, he can't be.

She denied the thought immediately because what kind of pleasure could someone possibly feel… after death?

So, she finally came to a single conclusion…

He was a nutcase.

And with that realization, Viola decided she had absolutely no reason to waste even another second on him. She had far more important things to deal with.

Like checking what kind of trouble Rael was causing this time.

She let go of Noah's collar without warning. He dropped straight onto the floor with a loud thud. Without even glancing back, she turned on her heel and started walking away.

Seraphina glanced once at the fallen boy, sighed softly and used her skill to heal the damage Viola had inflicted on him, at least a little, before following after her.

But before they could get far from that strange little corner of the orientation hall…

A cold voice echoed behind them.

"Hey, weren't you going to kill me? I'm still waiting."

Viola froze.

Then she turned slowly.

Seriously… What the hell is his problem?

Why did he want to die by my hands of all people?

"If you keep doing that, I might kill you for real," she muttered, thoroughly annoyed now.

And this time, it wasn't an empty threat.

She was genuinely getting irritated by whatever deranged game this boy was playing.

But instead of shutting up like a normal person, the boy lifted his head slightly and replied in that cold, emotionless voice:

"Is that… a promise?"

"Yes," Viola replied without even hesitating, her voice flat and terrifyingly sincere.

Then she turned and walked away.

—

Left alone in that corner, Noah stared up at the plain ceiling, still lying flat on the ground.

"A promise…?"

He couldn't even remember the last time he had made one with anyone.

He didn't know why but that woman, that strange, barbaric, unpredictable woman, he just couldn't understand her.

She was sincere and cruel at the same time.

Gentle one second, violent the next.

Not that he cared…

As long as she could kill him, it didn't matter who or what she was.

He didn't even know if she could do it.

But something deep inside him, something he didn't have a name for, for some reason… wanted to believe in that woman.

Just then, Noah's eyes caught something impossible.

A brilliant thread, filled with countless shifting colors, stretched out from him toward the barbaric woman's retreating figure… as if it had always been there.

The thread vanished the very next instant as abruptly as it appeared.

As if its appearance had been a mistake.

Or maybe…

…something far stronger was trying to hide it.

But before the thread vanished completely, Noah caught a sight of something even stranger.

Similar threads, all shimmering with those same impossible colors, stretched out from him in six more directions, branching away like the roots of some cosmic tree.

"What the hell is this…?"

That was the last thought he managed before he fell unconscious.

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