The combat practice ended after that and I moved towards the teacher who was supposed to give me the advice.
I walked toward the instructor with my usual glacial stride, every muscle in my body working overtime to maintain the fiction of my indifference. The combat session was over, and I needed to collect my evaluation before I made a break for it.
The man waiting for me was scrawny, with greasy black hair and eyes that looked like two hollowed out sockets. His nameplate read Instructor Thomas. He looked like the kind of man who enjoyed grading papers in a room that smelled faintly of mildew.
"Cadet Ellen," he said, his voice raspy as he flipped through his clipboard. "That was wonderful. Your mana control and spellwork were excellent, and your physical abilities are... well, they're on top."
"Thank you," I said. Flat. Cold. Monotone. The perfect Ice Queen response.
But as he spoke, his gaze shifted. He didn't look at my face. He didn't look at my stance. His eyes dropped lower, lingering on my thighs.
Because I had kicked so high, my skirt had ridden up dangerously far, exposing the pale, flawless expanse of my thighs. In the harsh gymnasium lighting, my skin looked almost luminous firm, smooth, and impossibly inviting. The muscles in my thighs were still taut from the exertion, the pale flesh gleaming with a thin sheen of sweat that made them look like polished marble. They were the kind of thighs that suggested both athletic power and a devastating softness.
I felt it immediately. The moment his eyes landed on that bare flesh, my crotch didn't just tingle it flooded.
The Third Rate Sensitivity was responding to his predatory stare as if it were a physical caress. The heat between my legs intensified, a throbbing, wet ache that made my hips twitch involuntarily.
"Instructor?" I called out, my voice remaining perfectly level, though internally I was screaming at the top of my lungs. Stop looking at them! Stop looking at them right now, you creep!
"Oh yes," Instructor Thomas said, his voice taking on a syrupy, unsettling quality. A slow, creepy smile spread across his face as he finally met my eyes. "You may go, Cadet Ellen. Well done."
I didn't wait for another word. I turned on my heel and walked away. I could feel his gaze sliding down my back, lingering on the curve of my ass as I retreated, but I didn't give him the satisfaction of a glance back.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
My mind was racing. I had attracted attention. Not from some random student, but from a B rank instructor. In this world, a D rank girl with an SS rank beauty who kept exposing herself during combat wasn't just a student she was prey. And the predators here were professionals.
The original plan had been to wait. To build up my SP, to get my defenses up, and then start moving on Rose Mira. But the game had already started playing itself. The corruption was already hunting me.
I walked faster, my steps quickening as I made my way toward the dormitories. The physical sensation was becoming impossible to ignore. A warm, slick trail began to flow down my inner thigh, the evidence of my body's betrayal unmistakable. My thong was completely drenched, soaked through by the sheer volume of arousal triggered by nothing more than a lewd stare. It felt like I had just experienced a full blown climax, all because of a few seconds of eye contact.
I've seriously overestimated Expression Suppression, I thought bitterly, my jaw clenching as I ducked into the hallway leading to the dorms. I thought I could control the outside, but I forgot that the inside is where the real damage happens. I underestimated the onahole capabilities of this body. Completely and utterly.
By the time I reached my room and slammed the door shut, I was shaking. I needed to change. I needed to wash. And most of all, I needed to figure out how to survive a world where my own body was more interested in being fucked than in saving humanity.
***
(Cassius Desde's PoV)
It had been two weeks since the Academy opened, and for Cassius Desde, the novelty had already worn off, replaced by the familiar, dull ache of routine.
From his position by the window in the student lounge, he watched them. Jin and Rose. They were sitting under the shade of a tree in the courtyard, lunch spread between them. Rose was leaning forward slightly, her pink eyes fixed on Jin's profile with a softness that made Cassius's chest tighten. She looked at Jin as if he were the sun, the moon, and every star in between.
How long has it been? Cassius wondered bitterly. Years? Decades?
Since they were children, Rose had been the constant. The girl he protected, the girl he watched from the sidelines, the girl whose smile he cherished from a distance. And now, she was the girl who belonged to his best friend.
His gaze drifted to Jin. He couldn't hate the man. That was the worst part. Jin was honest, heroic, and genuinely good the kind of person who would give you the shirt off his back without thinking twice. Jin had even offered Cassius a place by his side, sensing the unspoken loneliness in his friend, but Cassius couldn't accept it. To stand beside Jin was to stand in his shadow, and to stand beside Rose was to witness her love for someone else.
You are not needed, Cassius repeated his silent vow, a familiar mantra that tasted like ash. Just make sure they are happy. That is enough.
He turned away from the window, ready to retreat into the safety of his own thoughts, when something stopped him.
It wasn't a sound. It was a scent.
A fragrance so delicate, so impossibly sweet and floral, it seemed to cut through the stale air of the lounge like a blade of pure sunlight. It was tantalizing, something that didn't belong in a school hallway, something that spoke of something rare and precious.
Cassius turned toward the source, his heart suddenly hammering against his ribs.
There, standing in the hallway just outside the glass, was a girl.
She was looking toward the window, her golden eyes half lidded with what appeared to be profound boredom. Her jet black hair fell like silk over her shoulders, framing a face that was terrifyingly perfect. But it wasn't just her face.
Cassius felt his breath catch in his throat. His eyes traced the impossible curves of her body the way her uniform strained against the generous swell of her breasts, the narrowness of her waist that gave way to hips so wide and inviting they seemed carved from alabaster. Her skin was pale, almost luminous, as if she carried her own light.
She wasn't just beautiful. She was divine. She was a walking violation of every law of nature Cassius understood. Looking at her felt like staring directly into the sun painful, overwhelming, and utterly impossible to look away from.
A primal, possessive hunger flared in his gut, something far darker than the gentle ache he felt for Rose. Looking at this girl, Cassius felt a desperate, irrational need to break that icy composure. He wanted to see those golden eyes cloud with something other than boredom. He wanted to see that pale skin flush crimson under his touch. He wanted to hear what kind of sounds a goddess like this would make when she was finally, utterly undone beneath him.
Who is she? he thought, his throat suddenly dry.
He had spent his life watching Rose from afar, content to be the guardian in the shadows. But looking at this black haired stranger, Cassius felt a new, dangerous desire stirring a desire not to protect, but to claim.
The girl, the goddess in the hallway looked at him for a single heartbeat with those bored, icy golden eyes, and then she spoke. Her voice was flat, unhurried, and absurdly direct.
"It's a bit pathetic, Cassius Desde. You want that girl. It's obvious. So why haven't you made a move?"
She pointed. Her finger pale, elegant, with a neatly trimmed nail indicated the courtyard window. Indicated Rose.
Cassius froze.
She knows my name.
Cassius felt his composure crack for the first time in years.
"I you how do you know my name?" he managed, his voice coming out rougher than intended.
"Ranking boards. Class rosters. You're the fourth seat of Class A," she said, as if that explained everything. To her, maybe it did. "That's not the question. The question is the one I asked."
She stepped closer, and the floral sweetness of her scent intensified, wrapping around him like a net. Up close, she was even worse for his heart rate. The faint shadow of her collarbone disappeared into the strained white fabric of her uniform. Her lips red without any visible effort were set in a neutral line, and her eyes held the flat patience of someone evaluating a mildly disappointing investment.
"You've been watching them for," she glanced at the window, then back at him, "longer than two weeks. That's not a new habit. That's an old one. You love her."
It wasn't a question either.
Cassius's jaw tightened. Two weeks of carefully maintained distance, of the vow he'd just reaffirmed seconds ago you are not needed, let them be happy and this complete stranger had dismantled it in ten words.
"And if I do?" he said, straightening. "What's it to you?"
"Nothing," she said, with a small shrug that did catastrophic things to the fabric across her chest. "I'm simply confused by the strategy. You want her. She doesn't know. Jin doesn't know. You've decided your role is to watch them be happy together and call it nobility."
She understood the vow. She saw the whole thing, just from my face at a window. Who IS this girl?
"It's not " Cassius stopped. Started again. "She loves him. She's loved him since we were children. What would be the point of making a move?"
"The point," the girl said, tilting her head with maddening calm, "is that things change. People change. Feelings get... redistributed. You're standing at a window mourning a battle you haven't even fought yet. That's not nobility. That's cowardice with good branding."
Cassius stared at her.
Cowardice with good branding.
The words landed somewhere deep, in a place he'd been carefully avoiding for years.
"Who are you?" he asked quietly.
"Ellen Frost," she said, already turning away, her black hair swaying with the motion. "Class B. Second seat of the first years."
She paused at the edge of the hallway, glancing back at him with those gold eyes.
"Think about it, Cassius Desde. Windows are for watching. Doors are for walking through."
And then she was gone, leaving only the scent of flowers and a hole in the middle of a vow he'd held for half his life.