After Zach collapsed like a pile of laundry in the courtyard, Mika and Elle were the first to groan back to life.

  Bruised, battered, and full of secondhand regret, they did what heroes do best in moments of crisis—dragged the boys’ unconscious bodies back to the dorm room with the grace of two gremlins running a moving service.

  “Fuck, how did he do that?!” Mika hissed, breath ragged as she hauled Sato in by the arm. “We had numbers! And timing! And drones!”

  “He was outclassed, outmatched, and injured,” Elle muttered, not even out of breath. Calm as always. “Yet somehow, he managed to break down our plan, build one of his own, and execute it perfectly.”

  She reached Sato’s bunk—paused for a second—then gave up and tossed him on the edge.

  Thud.

  “Ugh—!” Sato jolted awake with a confused blink. “Why do I taste copper?”

  “You lost,” Mika said flatly, kicking the bunk with her heel. “To Zach.”

  She threw her own body onto her mattress like it owed her something.

  “I mean seriously—he’s walking around with, what, two broken ribs? And somehow still managed to shift his center of gravity fast enough to throw me like a ragdoll. I blinked—and suddenly I’m in the air!”

  Elle, now kneeling beside Derrin, gently eased him onto the floor and stood up, stretching.

  “And then he immediately predicted my follow-up.”

  She crossed the room and reached Zach’s bunk, where the boy in question was still half-dead, breathing like he’d fought God and made it a draw.

  She lifted him gently, placed him on the bed, and straightened the pillow with a quiet kind of respect.

  Mika sat up, arms crossed, pouting like a kid who lost a game of tag.

  “Ughhh, it’s not fair! Why give the genius tactical brain to the smug little shit?” she groaned, flopping back onto her bed with a dramatic bounce. “If he gets cool sword skills and brain buffs, what do I even have?”

  Sato rubbed his eyes from the floor. “A right hook that nearly collapsed his jaw.”

  “And a personality like a chaotic crow,” Elle added without looking.

  “I like crows!” Mika shot back.

  Zach stirred slightly in bed, murmuring something incoherent that might’ve been “M’lady” or maybe just a snore. Either way, it earned a collective eye-roll from everyone still awake.

  It took a couple more hours for the last two boys to wake up—each one rising like they’d been dug out of rubble.

  Derrin was first.

  He sat up, cracked his neck, and slowly stood like a specter rising from a grave. His expression was unreadable as he crossed the room and stood over a barely conscious Zach, who blinked up at him from the bunk, ribs still screaming with every breath.

  Zach stared.

  Derrin stared harder.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Zach squinted. He couldn’t tell if Derrin looked blank, betrayed… or murderous.

  ‘I knew he’d be mad,’ Zach thought, already regretting his entire lower leg.

  He shifted upright with a grunt, one arm cradling his ribs.

  “…Hi?”

  Derrin didn’t blink. “You killed my ants.”

  Zach frowned. “They bit me first.”

  “You killed my ants,” Derrin repeated, voice flat as a shovel.

  Zach sighed, dragging a hand down his face. The annoyance was subtle, but it was there—just behind the “I’m too sore for this” glaze in his eyes.

  ‘He’s never gonna let this go.’

  “I’m sorry, dude. What do you want from me?”

  Derrin didn’t hesitate.

  “I want my ants.”

  Zach just sighed, defeated, rubbing his temples as he tried to think of a solution.

  “Alright… I’ll buy you two ant queens if you stop looking like you’re gonna murder me.”

  Derrin didn’t respond.

  Just stared at him for another silent, painful second… then nodded once and walked back to his bunk without a word.

  Zach slumped back into his pillow.

  Mika leaned over the edge of her bunk above him, grinning like a cat who’d watched the mouse escape only to fall into a pit of spikes.

  “He’s like, totally gonna murder you in your sleep.”

  “It’s fine. I don’t plan to sleep today,” Zach muttered, already halfway gone.

  He shifted, exhaled, and was unconscious again within seconds, body finally giving up its last thread of consciousness.

  Mika watched him for a beat longer, arms folded across the edge of the bunk.

  “Weirdly enough… I don’t blame him,” she said, voice softer now. “Guy fought four of us. At once. With busted ribs. That’s… kinda psycho.”

  “Statistically impressive,” Sato added, not looking up from the floor where he was reassembling one of his busted drones. “Also probably concussed. But impressive.”

  The room quieted again, and for the first time all day, no one was fighting, yelling, or launching a blunt round at anyone’s head.

  Zach snored.

  Sato tinkered.

  Mika kicked her legs slowly in the air.

  And for the first time since arriving at Halcyon Academy…

  Maybe just maybe this shitty dorm was more then that

  Zach woke up in the middle of the night, still in the same dirt-smudged clothes he’d passed out in. His back ached. His ribs throbbed. His mouth tasted like floor.

  He didn’t move right away.

  Instead, he slowly opened one eye and glanced around the dark dorm room like a soldier checking for landmines.

  Derrin’s bunk was across from his.

  Occupied.

  Peaceful.

  Still.

  Zach squinted harder.

  Was he breathing, or just waiting?

  ‘Okay… no bug vengeance. Yet.’

  He let out a slow exhale and finally sat up, cracking his back loud enough to echo through the room.

  Pop—pop—pop.

  ‘Alright… let’s go find those ant queens before I wake up with a spider glued to my face.’

  He slipped on his haori, stuffed his arms inside the sleeves like usual, and padded quietly out the door, doing his best not to wake the others. The hallway was still. Humid. The kind of sticky night that clung to your skin.

  Rain had fallen earlier, and the earth was soft—damp dirt clinging to his boots as he made his way across campus, eyes low to the ground.

  ‘C’mon, c’mon… where would I hide if I were a creepy little insect monarch…’

  He paused near a cluster of mulch by a bush. Bent down.

  There.

  Two ant queens, trailing with a small entourage of male worker ants.

  Zach grinned.

  ‘There we go. Gotcha, you little royalty.’

  He pulled out a plastic enclosure he’d borrowed—read: stolen—from Derrin’s bug kit on the way out. Carefully, he scooped them inside and snapped it shut.

  ‘There. No more murder in my sleep.’

  He turned, feeling triumphant, and started back toward the D-Class dorm—

  Only to pause.

  And stare.

  Right outside the Class C dorms sat a mini fridge. Just… sitting there. Untouched. Clean.

  Pristine.

  Zach squinted.

  “What the hell…?”

  He walked over and inspected it like it might be a trap. Bent down. Gave it a little shake.

  Whrrnk.

  The compressor inside shifted slightly. Still functional.

  He opened the door—light still worked. Shelves intact. Cold air. No smell of death.

  He looked around again.

  ‘This thing’s perfect. Why the hell would they throw it out?’

  He stared at the Class C windows above.

  Nothing but silence and soft lighting.

  Zach scowled.

  ‘God, rich kids piss me off.’

  He hoisted the fridge under one arm and started dragging it like a man possessed.

  The rest of the night was uneventful.

  Zach made it back to the dorm without getting caught or collapsing, fridge and ant royalty in tow. He set the enclosure gently on the windowsill—Derrin’s spot, where he always sat when everyone else was still half-asleep. Quiet. Intentional.

  Then, with all the grace of a man on his last hit point, he dragged the mini fridge next to Sato’s tech pile, wedged it by the only working outlet, and flopped face-first onto his bed.

  Out cold.

  Again.

  Morning came without any explosions or fights. For once.

  Class 1-D shuffled into their usual barely-functioning routine. No alarms. No yelling. Just groans, mild suffering, and the scent of whatever burnt plastic Sato was experimenting with again.

  Derrin was the first to notice the enclosure.

  He didn’t say a word.

  Just nodded once at Zach—quiet, satisfied—and took his seat by the window, lifting the container with a little care and curiosity. He didn’t smile.

  But his silence said enough.

  Mika, meanwhile, let out a squeal the second she saw the fridge.

  “NO WAY. WE HAVE A FRIDGE?!”

  She threw herself down beside it, shaking it like a kid on Christmas.

  Sato turned from his tools, adjusted his glasses, and immediately began measuring the available shelf space.

  “We need a shopping plan,” he said with eerie seriousness.

  “We need money first,” Mika replied, pressing her forehead to the door. “But we’re putting ice cream in here. Good ice cream.”

  Zach sat on his bunk, arms still in his haori sleeves, watching it all unfold through half-lidded eyes.

  He didn’t say anything.

  But he felt it.

  Things were… better.

  The day unfolded the same way it always did.

  Wake up. Suffer through hell.

  Also known as: Homeroom with Ishino.

  And then?

  Absolutely nothing.

  Class D, being the school’s lowest priority, was apparently too irrelevant to warrant more structured classes. No combat drills. No social lectures. Just vibes and free time.

  So they made their own schedule.

  Sato buried himself in drone repairs.

  Derrin fed his ants.

  Mika napped in weird positions and flipped through catalogs of junk food and off-brand soda.

  And Zach?

  He leaned against the wall, wooden sword across his lap, quietly watching it all.

  Not bad for a bunch of rejects.

  Not bad at all.