𝔫𝔬𝒱𝗲𝓵𝑵𝖾xt.𝒸𝒪𝓜

”Huuaaaa~” yawning as if I had not slept for years, I drowsily navigated my way through the campus to get to my class.

Even in another world, my sleep schedule was still messed up. I guess what they say is true– you can’t escape your old habits.

I still remember the day when my sleep schedule got fucked up so bad that I could never recover it.

It all started the night before the graduation day of my college.

By that time, I was already affiliated with several writing platforms as their content editor.

I was making decent money while doing some side hustle, was about to graduate college and get a degree, had a pretty girlfriend and was part of a big social group.

Yes, in a way, it was ‘the’ perfect life.

Hmm? What went wrong, you ask? Let me explain.

The night before graduation, I went drinking with my friend group and we got dead drunk.

It was understandable since we were about to enter the real world soon. It was our last day as students.

However, even after drinking to the point of practically passing out, we didn’t stop! Oh, no! We decided to drink more and play a game of truth and dare!

Yes.

The stupidest thing you can possibly ever do in life is play a game of truth and dare while being drunk!

Never, and I mean never, do that.

Eat dirt and do a backflip rather than playing truth and dare while being under the influence.

Anyway, extremely long story super short, we discovered that this guy from our group was sleeping with this other guy’s mother.

Yeah….

Let’s just say shit got messy.

Both boys got into a fight and by the time our drunk asses could split them, they nearly killed each other.

We had to admit them to a hospital and ask the doctors to keep them in separate wards so that they might not try to kill each other again.

I got home late that night and since I had a graduation ceremony the next day to attend, I did not sleep at all.

After the graduation ceremony, I had to go visit my parents across the country. I didn’t sleep on the flight either because this woman right next to me couldn’t keep her baby from crying right in my fucking ears.

Anyhow, after arriving at my parent’s place, I spent that whole night talking to them.

Just like that, thing after thing kept on happening and I went six days without getting a single ounce of sleep.

Yeah, six fucking days!

When I did get to sleep on the evening of the 6th day, I slept for a full 24 hours.

I woke up in the evening the next day. And naturally, I couldn’t sleep that night because I had already slept for basically a whole day.

Like that, night after night, I started staying awake. Before I knew it, it became a habit. And not long after… I started enjoying staying awake at night.

The arrival of the moon at its highest point in the night sky brought a peaceful silence, which became my norm for completing my work.

And that was it. All it took was one day and I could never recover from that….

After that day, I would go to sleep late at night and would wake up late in the afternoon. I may recover my sleep schedule for a day or two at most but not more than that.

At that point, I had to accept my reality. I was not a normal person anymore. I had become something else.

I had become a… night crawler!

“Hey, stop! Lucas!”

Pat—!

“Aaaa!”

Right when I was lost in my thoughts and reminiscing about the past while walking through the crowd of cadets to get to Building 1, a loud voice called out to me and I felt a sharp slap on my back in the next second, causing me to squeak in surprise.

Shifting my gaze to the left, I saw a light blue-haired elven boy matching my gaze with a stupid grin on his face.

“Kent?” I raised an eyebrow.

That’s it. I just said his name and stopped.

Did he come to talk to me?

But we weren’t even friends. I don’t know what to say?

Should I say hello, maybe?

God, was I always this socially awkward?!

Thankfully, Kent took the lead and started talking, “Yeah, good morning, Lucas. Thank you for yesterday. Although I still couldn’t cast my spell perfectly till the end. Aahaha!”

Ahh yes, after teaching Amelia, Nero and I gave personal pointers to both Kent and Anastasia.

To be precise, I was the one who assisted them while Nero just babbled some onomatopoeias like swoosh and fwoosh and called them ‘pointers.’

Anyway, Anastasia managed to cast a perfect spell but Kent, even after practicing the whole evening, couldn’t.

To be honest, Kent did pretty well for someone practicing spellcasting for the first time.

Being able to cast perfect magic on the first day of practicing spellcasting is borderline impossible.

Anastasia and Amelia were able to do it because, well, they are two of the main characters in this story.

This whole world revolves around them.

Kent, however, is not a main character. He’s not even an important character.

The world does not revolve around him.

The plot won’t bless him with ‘fruitful encounters’ or ‘once in a generation talent’ and stuff like that.

But in spite of all that, Kent actually did pretty well.

He was actually able to materialize his spell but couldn’t find the right amount of mana to supply it with. That’s why his spells kept on failing.

“Don’t get worked up, Kent.” putting up a reassuring smile on my face, I continued. “With a bit of practice, you’ll catch up to Amelia and Anastasia in a week.”

“Oh,” Kent looked at me with sparkly eyes as if he was looking at a holy being belonging out of this world. “You are not bad! The rumors were far-fetched! They made you out to be some kind of brat from a rich family!”

No, the rumors were true.

“You’re an angel! A kind and holy angel!”

No, you’re just stupid.

“Amelia said that you may have had an ulterior motive for helping us, but I don’t believe it! Whatever your past may have been, I believe that you have changed for the better! To reward your effort in changing yourself, I’ll become your best friend!”

No, Amelia is right.

I did have an ulterior motive for wasting my sweet evening by teaching spellcasting to a monkey brain like you.

“And let me tell you–”

“Oh-kay, buddy! Calm down! Haha! I’m not that great,” cutting Kent off since his voice was starting to give me a headache, I spoke up with the sweetest smile I could muster. “But thank you, though. For believing in me, I mean. But it would be best if you don’t associate with me. It’s not good for your reputation.”

By this point, Kent looked like someone who was ready to get down on his knees and worship me.

The guy was too easy to read.

“No, no! Thank you, dude, for believing in me and thinking about me!” but despite my clear indications of asking him to stop, he continued talking. “To express my gratitude, I, Kent Takeahint, will teach you how to live life!”

The guy was too easy to read. However, he just can’t take a hint of when to stop talking.

He kept talking and talking and talking while walking beside me.

I am not a morning person so listening to him talk this much in such a loud voice felt as if someone was hammering a nail in my head.

Every word that he spoke was just another nail being hammered in the head for me.

When an extended sigh escaped my mouth, I gave up on making him stop talking as he accompanied me to our building.

“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you why I called you.”

Just as we were about to reach our class, Kent clapped his hands together as if he had suddenly remembered something.

“Yeah, what’s up?” I asked.

“Actually, on the way here, Amelia was following you like a stalker. I saw her and thought she wanted to talk to you but she was hesitating. So I felt like telling you to go talk to her.” Kent responded.

“What? Where is she?”

“Right behind us.”

“…..”

And suddenly, a chill ran down my spine as I was made aware of the pair of eyes stalking me.

Abruptly, I turned around in hopes of spotting a black-haired girl amidst the crowd of cadets, and sure enough, she was indeed standing right behind me.

Her cold and emotionless gaze met mine which once again made me shiver. Of course, I didn’t show it.

On the surface, I acted cool.

“W-Why are you following me?” I asked.

Okay, I may or may not have been stuttering. But I did try to act cool! Give me some credit for trying!

“Following you? We are in the same class and this is the only way unless you want to take a detour around the hallway. Do you think I care that much about you to avoid you by walking extra steps?” Amelia replied with a scoff.

“So you’re saying you were not stalking me on our way here as Kent implied?” easing down my tension, I raised my eyebrows as I questioned her.

“…..”

And sure enough, she replied with silence.

After a second or two though, she finally spoke up, “I meant to thank you. I didn’t do so yesterday and I’m not so petty as to forget someone’s favors. Even if that ‘someone’ happens to be you.”

I know that, you dumb girl.

I knew you wouldn’t forget my gesture of goodwill.

That was the main reason I volunteered to help you by forcing myself into the situation.

Amelia and literally everyone else in the main cast was like that. They were heroes.

They were the ‘good guys.’

They are the type of people who’ll suffer in your place so that you won’t have to.

They won’t forget if you help them and even the smallest gesture of goodwill will make them start to believe in you.

Every single character in the main cast was the same in this story.

And for some reason, that’s something that disgusted me to the core about them.

This is merely a story written by some third-rate author. However, in the real world, people like them are the first ones to be stepped on.

The kind-hearted ones. The ones who blindly believe in others. The ones who are too good to get a real read on other people.

They are the ones who get used by others.

For example, I could bet that Amelia has already started to believe that I, Lucas, have changed.

Although she won’t show it and would probably be on guard for a long time, she won’t make my life a living hell like she made Lucas’ in the novel.

She may keep an eye on me, believing that I’m only putting on an act but if I continue to show that I’ve indeed changed, she will eventually start to believe me despite her past experience with me.

How stupid can she be?

Let me be clear, being honorable, kind-hearted and forgiving is not wrong.

Believing in others is not wrong.

However, being kind-hearted and thinking that everyone else is the same is stupid.

Blindly believing in others despite knowing their past is stupid.

If a man has shot someone in the past for no reason, you would never willingly hand him a gun, no matter what he does after to make up for it.

That’s just common sense.

But some people, like this girl standing in front of me, will hand him the gun anyway if the man would apologize.

The ideology of believing that people change is just stupid. They don’t change.

People never change.

They grow.

That means their past will always be with them. Their past will always be the same.

The man who has shot a person for no reason in the past will always be the man who has once shot a person for no reason.

Just because he has grown into a different person doesn’t mean that his past has disappeared.

Blindly believing that he would not shoot you too if you hand him the gun after he has apologized will only get you killed.

This ideology is flawed. So flawed that those who practice it are just plain stupid.

And their stupidity disgusts me.

Even now, I was barely able to hold myself back from frowning when I listened to Amelia talk.

I wanted to lecture this girl about how stupid she was but I restrained myself.

Why? Simple.

I’m not the person who blindly hands over the gun to the man. I am the man who takes the gun from people like her.

As long as it’s benefiting me, you can follow whatever ideology you want and I could not give a single fuck about it.

So putting on a sweet smile, I calmly said, “No need to think of it as a favor. I only did it to make my place in the Unit.”

Amelia gave me a strange, conflicted look. In her mind, she was fighting over whether to believe me or not.

She averted her eyes and pondered over the situation for a second. After nodding, she gave me a stern look.

“Fine, I will not think of it as a favor,” she said understandably. Her gaze was still as cold as ever. “In return, I will act as if I didn’t watch you acting like you knew how to play shogi.”

“..…”

Without waiting a single second, she flipped back her hair and walked past me to enter our class.

“Dude, I think she’s into you,” Kent commented without reading the atmosphere.

This guy just can’t take a hi…..