She buried her face in the plush, silk-cased pillow and let out a muffled scream of pure, unadulterated grief.
"FUCK!"
By any objective standard, this was the most luxurious bedroom she had ever occupied. It made her previous life’s shabby, cramped apartment look like a storage closet.
But the thread count meant nothing if she couldn’t enjoy it without the threat of a scripted tragedy looming over her head.
She would have traded this four-poster bed for a squeaky office chair in a heartbeat.
Anything was better than navigating the hormone-fueled landmines of adolescent romance, especially when the world was populated by NPCs whose only personality trait was being "mean" just to make her look like a saintly heroine.
"Just... why..." she sighed, rolling onto her back to stare at the ornate ceiling. "I miss my desk. I miss my laptop. I even miss playing Taylor’s album on repeat to drown out my coworkers..."
There was a sharp longing around her heart.
Her aunt had likely taken her little sister in, but the thought of them mourning her, assuming she was a cold corpse back in that world, made her chest tighten.
She hoped they weren’t too sad.
She hoped her sister was still "gooning" over fictional men, unaware that her older brother was currently living a nightmare dressed as a daydream.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
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Name: Callista von Astride
Age: 18
Rank: Beginner (F-Tier)
Magic: Suture Magic
Mana Type: Undiscovered
Level: 2
═══ CORE ATTRIBUTES ═══
Intelligence: 140
Sensitivity: 85
Efficiency: 210
Resilience: 115
Mental Discipline: 180
Mana Capacity: 12
╚════════════════════╝
"Wow... my stats are actually this pathetic?"
She recalled her sister’s endless yapping about the "Classic Weak Start," where the heroine begins as little more than a sentient paperweight.
Everyone looked down on Callista because everybody thought she had no magic.
No one could see her power, so they assumed it didn’t exist.
"What on earth is... Suture Magic?"
A fresh window bloomed in her vision, hurting her eyes for a milisecond.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: ARCANE ARCHIVE]
[MAGIC INFORMATION: A rare discipline focusing on the precise manipulation of mana at a microstructural level. It is a silent art, almost imperceptible to the untrained eye. Unlike the raw force of traditional mages, Suture Magic relies entirely on the practitioner’s Intellect and Efficiency.
Capabilities: Practitioners can unravel, weaken, or destabilize complex spells and corrupted mana with surgical accuracy.]
"Yeah, no wonder the world thinks Callista is magicless," she muttered. "She was too busy being professionally an idiot. This is powerful!"
Suture Magic, a discipline of microstructural manipulation.
In the shows she’d watched in her previous life, magic was usually about ’feeling the flow’ or screaming loudly enough to make things explode. But this was surgical.
"Wait, why am I roasting myself?" she groaned, burying her face back into the silk. "I am Callista now. My bad, girl. We’re in this together."
She huffed, rolling onto her side and pulling the duvet tight to sleep.
After all, the soul of a twenty-something corporate survivor knew one universal truth: no matter what world you’re in, 7:00 AM comes for us all.
***
The carriage rolled forward, a lonely island of silk and wood.
Apparently, her sisters had staged a strategic retreat, refusing to share a bench with the "Family Scandal."
"Well, good for me," Callista shrugged, stretching her legs across the vacant seat.
Mentally, she was pushing thirty and recovering from a lifetime of passive-aggressive office emails.
She simply lacked the emotional bandwidth for the shrill, high-school theatrics of three girls whose biggest life problem was a mismatched ribbon.
If they wanted to play Mean Girls: Medieval Edition, they could do it without her.
As the carriage rumbled toward West Trinity Academy, Callista pulled back the silk curtain to observe her new reality.
The architecture was all soaring Gothic arches and weathered stone, but the streetlamps glowed with a steady, neon-blue, and she could swear she saw a maglev-style carriage going along a dedicated lane of enchanted cobblestones.
She watched as a group of elves, all looking like they’d just stepped off a high-fashion runway, casually sipped glowing tea at a sidewalk café.
Overhead, a massive, winged creature that looked like a cross between a dragon and a golden retriever lazily paddled through the clouds, its rider checking what looked suspiciously like a magic-infused tablet.
"Actual monsters on the morning commute," she whispered, watching a small, grumpy goblin in a waistcoat struggle to pull a cart of enchanted crystals. "And I thought the subway at rush hour was a circus."
The carriage finally crested a hill, and the Academy came into view, a sprawling fortress of learning that looked like Oxford if it had been built by a god.
╔════════════════════╗
[MAIN QUEST: Trial of the Iron Gateway]
Scenario: The West Trinity Academy Espionage Branch does not accept the weakest of the weak. To officially enroll, you must survive the Entrance Examination.
Objective: Secure a passing score by followig objectives.
Victory Conditions:
- Accumulate 50 Combat Points before the final whistle.
- Reach the Extraction Gate within the allotted time.
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