By the time he made it back to Nevermore Academy, the sun was already beginning to sink behind the surrounding forest, bathing the old stone buildings in a warm orange glow.
After dragging himself all the way to Caliban Hall, he finally stopped outside his dorm room and reached for the doorknob.
Just before his hand touched it, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.
“…Wait.”
A puzzled expression spread across his face.
“Why did I even want to go to Jericho in the first place?”
He stood there quietly, replaying the day’s events in his head.
From getting lost in the forest to nearly becoming a bear’s lunch, everything came back clearly — yet the original reason for leaving Nevermore refused to surface no matter how hard he thought about it.
After nearly half a minute, he gave up and let out a quiet sigh.
“…Well, if I forgot about it this easily, it probably wasn’t important.”
Completely convinced by his own reasoning, Oliver turned the doorknob and stepped into his room.
Inside, two boys were already there, each occupying one of the remaining beds.
They looked up the moment he entered, their conversation coming to an abrupt stop as they sized up the newcomer.
One of them, with short brown hair, tilted his head.
“Hmm… are you the new guy?”
“Yeah,” Oliver replied, looking between the two of them.
They seemed…
surprisingly normal.
The boy got to his feet and extended a hand.
“Kent. Werewolf.”
Oliver shook his hand.
The other boy stood up as well.
“Jake. Same.”
“Oliver.”
An awkward silence settled over the room.
Kent was the first to speak again.
“So… what are you?”
Jake nodded curiously.
“Yeah. What’s your outcast ability?”
Oliver considered the question for a moment.
“Honestly… I’m not completely sure.” New chapters come out on g.com first.
He reached down, grabbed the metal frame of his bed with one hand, and lifted the entire thing off the floor as though it weighed almost nothing.
“I’ve got ridiculous strength, but I’m an orphan, so I have no idea what kind of outcast I actually am.”
Kent and Jake stared at the bed hanging in the air before slowly shifting their eyes back to him.
Neither of them spoke for several seconds.
“…Yeah,” Kent finally said.
“That’s definitely ridiculous.”
Jake nodded.
“Whatever you are, you’re definitely not a normie. But anyway, welcome to Caliban Hall.”
Kent was about to say something else before both he and Jake found themselves staring at Oliver’s hair.
After two days of the exact same reaction, Oliver already knew what was coming.
“It’s natural,” he said before either of them could ask.
Kent blinked.
“Oh…”
Jake nodded awkwardly.
“…Right.”
At this point, Oliver was seriously considering wearing a shirt with MY HAIR IS NATURAL printed across the front.
The conversation fell silent before Jake spoke again.
“So… are you any good at studying?”
Oliver gave them a completely deadpan look.
“Do I seriously look like someone who’s good at studying? If anything, I’m interested in slacking off, so if you two ever decide to skip something, feel free to take me with you.”
Kent and Jake exchanged a glance before grinning at the same time.
“Haha, it looks like we got ourselves a fun roommate,” Kent said, throwing an arm around Oliver’s shoulder.
“Yeah, we’ll definitely slack off together.”
Oliver let out a quiet sigh.
…Here I am, a grown man, discussing plans to slack off with a couple of teenagers.
What the hell happened to my life?
***
The next morning, Oliver attended his first class at Nevermore Academy.
Unfortunately, it was History.
The lesson focused on the history of outcasts — a subject that sounded interesting until the teacher somehow managed to turn it into the most monotonous lecture Oliver had ever heard.
Within twenty minutes, his attention had completely drifted away.
Sitting near the back of the classroom with Enid beside him, he rested his chin on one hand and stared at the blackboard, trying his best to stay awake.
The teacher’s voice continued in the background, growing more and more distant.
His eyelids gradually became heavier.
His head started to dip.
Enid noticed immediately.
She glanced sideways, a small amused smile appearing on her face as she watched him slowly lose the battle against sleep.
A second later, his forehead dropped.
Instead of gently landing on the desk, it slammed into it with enough force to split the wooden tabletop clean in half.
Crack!
The sharp sound echoed through the classroom.
The teacher stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Every student turned toward the back of the room.
Oliver’s eyes flew open.
He looked around in complete confusion before noticing the broken desk beneath him.
“…I’m not sleeping,” he said automatically.
The classroom fell completely silent.
Enid stared at the shattered desk with her mouth slightly open.
…What is his head made of?
She had expected him to bump the desk and wake himself up.
She had not expected the desk to lose the fight.
The teacher adjusted his glasses before looking at Oliver with a tired expression that suggested he had long since stopped being surprised by strange things at Nevermore.
“I didn’t ask whether you were sleeping. But the next time you decide to do it in my class, please try not to destroy the furniture.”
“Okay,” Oliver replied without arguing.
He glanced down at the broken desk.
“Can I get another desk?”
The entire class looked at him.
Everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing.
So you can break that one too?
Oliver noticed the looks and quietly cleared his throat.
“…On second thought, I’ll manage with this one.”
He pulled the two broken halves together as neatly as he could before sitting back down, pretending the desk hadn’t just split in half beneath his forehead.