My fingers began to take on different colors, one after another. Index—red, middle—blue, ring—gold. The colors pulsed and flowed into each other, as if it weren't blood under the skin, but a liquid rainbow.

  The dog-teacher turned pale. He silently turned around and trudged back to his podium. "Very well..." reached our ears. "You don't need to worry about grades. You are exempt from the midterm tests."

  Alastia moved her hand away from her temple, returning her eye to its original color, and gave me a victorious look. "Lunch is mine!" she whispered. "And why is that?" I said.

  On the way to the cafeteria, I witnessed a scene that made the gears in my head grind with bewilderment.

  My dragonkin roommate—the very same guy who sleeps on a red-hot rock and anchors himself to the floor with his claws—was gallantly escorting Alexia to a table. They sat together, eating and chatting animatedly about something.

  "Alright, hold on," I thought, sitting down at an adjacent table. "Author, are you serious? What's with this romance arc out of nowhere? We have shifting floors and highly explosive cheese balls here, and you decided to play the 'Beauty and the Beast' card? Boring."

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I lazily picked at my plate with a fork until Alastia nudged me with her elbow. "Greg, look," she whispered, gesturing with her eyes toward the far corner of the hall.

  Sitting there was a guy. Completely ordinary. So ordinary that his face was forgotten a second after you looked away. He was eating his porridge without drawing any attention, diligently blending into the shadow of a pillar.

  "O-o-oh..." I drawled, narrowing my eyes. "I see him."

  "It's him, isn't it?" Alastia smirked slyly. "The classic 'main character' of this story."

  "Exactly," I nodded. "The quintessential background character who is actually the protagonist. A shadow concealing an abyss. Look at how he masks his mana density. Masterfully done. If I weren't... well, me, I wouldn't have even noticed him."

  Alastia leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with excitement. She saw the exact same "wrongness" in his aura that I did.

  "Hiding his powers, sitting in the corner, waiting for his moment..." I muttered. "I bet he has a 'tragic past' and an 'ancient artifact' in his pocket."

  We both smirked in sync. There was way too much melodrama in this Academy, and finding someone playing the exact same games was a pleasant surprise.

  "Well then, Greg?" Alastia slowly pulled her glove back onto her hand. "The hunt begins?"

  "It begins," I confirmed, finishing my last bite. "Let's see how deep this rabbit hole goes."