"Hiekk!"
The little snot-nosed girl fell on her rear, staring with shaky eyes, mouth opening and closing.
'Shit!'
Sensing a scream, the mana being suppressed within me momentarily released itself from its bondage. Instinctively, I thought of suppressing it again.
But, I went against it after a moment of clarity.
The risk of the girl being mentally impaired from the blessing would skyrocket if I were to try to suppress it now.
So. I did the opposite.
—!
For a split second, all of my mana converged on the girl, pressing in on her body from every direction. The end result being.
"...."
A cold, knocked out brat laid unconscious on the floor, the shock of the sudden apex predator being too great for her.
Taking account to my current mana capacity, to her, it must have seemed like a hundred lions suddenly leered at her.
My mana eased, the chair groaning as I left it behind me, walking over the girl and staring outside, looking right and left before dragging the corpse inside.
'Ares...He didn't sense that did he?'
I wish that he didn't, especially not after that embarrassing speech I had to give in order to get him off my tail.
Not much time was on the clock, soon, the other kids would come and the first thing that'd come to their minds when the scene of me dragging a kid with a face paler than a celebrity's plastic surgery...
'He killed her!'
A misunderstanding along the lines of that would certainly taint many images.
The only saving grace in this situation was the fact that I remembered Grace's seat from last class vividly. Allowing me to swiftly put her close to the window without any problems.
"Phew~"
I brush off a drop of sweat trickling from my forehead. Returning to the desk, attention stretched to the list of names.
All of them were unknown to me, none of the names struck me with much awe or in fact, much emotion for that matter.
Just a normal list of names to me. However, I knew better than to trust my eyes when a monstrous brat like that silver-haired kid appeared.
Chances were, my perception had already been altered.
In other words, the only way to dispel the illusion would be...Using my blessing. At the moment, my mana was good, especially this early on. I'm confident of breaking free of an illusion made from a child, but it wasn't my best option.
Superior mana untangled inferior mana, but inferior mana can still surpass superior mana in sheer quantity. That was the ultimate rule in Ethereal Journey. At least in the story anyways.
It did apply to the game of course. Though, since everyone kept using S-tier characters, the rule started leaning on the quantity part more and more.
That also meant one more thing. The power balance was shit. By getting Hera in the game, you were effectively guaranteed in the top 500 in the whole ass world simply because of mana quantity. Regardless of skill.
Making Ethereal Journey, a highly respected game in the franchise turn the entire fanbase upside down with the cruelty of the world.
Review bombs, unemployed sending death threats, you name it.
I, along with others in the fanbase however took a bag of chips to the uproar and drama.
'Not gonna lie, Ethereal Journey had the greatest drama videos being made around it at that time.'
It was truly....Enjoyable to see.
'Anyways, the hate surrounding the game made the devs rework the gacha version more and actually make it balanced.'
Only because of an incident that made the company behind the rework take drastic measures. Which I won't elaborate much on.
The tables turned after a new update after what many thought was the end of Ethereal Journey, the rework, hated by everyone, had been reworked anew.
Competitive rankings were stripped away, aside from public events, there was no competition brewing, no ranked matches between players who basically had the same characters, build and overall same playstyle. They introduced minigames, which had competitive rankings. And rewards, a shit ton of rewards for the free-to-plays.
The game became more friendly to the casuals, the story became more fleshed out and crisp, animation being the most anticipated part of it.
The gacha game had a revival, everybody started playing it, feeling the effort put behind it from the 'New Studio' that somehow, legally took the IP from NGC Entertainment, the ones previously in charge of the game's production.
Looking back on it after hundreds of resets. Lotus Games, the developers behind the new Ethereal Journey were suspicious. Which didn't mean anything since I'd never get to meet them.
My experience as a regressor vouched for that.
With a game more polished than marble floors, the game actually was enjoyable.
The key reason behind that being the fighting.
Or more specifically.
The breaking of the ultimate rule. 'Superior Mana. Always beats Inferior Mana. Unless It's An Enormous Amount Of It.'
Weaker characters that needed a sadistic amount of dedication to work before had the shine of the sun casted on them.
Solely through one thing. Skills.
Skills closed the gaps of 'fancy' mana, forging a massive bridge to the other side that wove webs.
And now.
"Humph!"
Allow me to illuminate and highlight the reason as to why Stealth, one my favorite skills was a classic A-tier meta skill.
A sharp breath entered me, leaving me with a slow exhale.
A cloak of moonlight draped over my shoulders, slowly consuming me in the process, erasing my very presence to the ordinary. As if I had never even been there in the first place, now although the level of the skill left much to be desired, it would be more than enough to do what I suspected.
That very suspicion, coming true in the flesh.
The paper, sitting squarely on the smooth wood had its ink smudge for a moment, its true contents revealing itself to me.
"Voila."
From my front pocket, I stuff a lollipop in Grace's backpack as a form of apology out of finding her frightened state hilarious.
After that, the small office chair scraped across the floor as my body's weight pressed firmly on it. With the thin piece of white in my hands, the moonlight flickering across my large veil intensified. The amount of mana being used more than likeable.
'I really hope Ares doesn't notice....'
I was using a crap ton of mana for this and for the stealth, meaning that, the chances of my head getting chopped off, would be very high.
'Honestly, I think I should change schools.'
Very down for that idea in fact. Ares Pearl was not someone I could place my life on with no consequences.
'I still want to be a teacher, the job truly interests me, but dying to a retired assassin is not in the description.'
I would do one day or two teaching these kids, while I'm at it, I would also try to find out more about that white haired kid. That one was a truly interesting existence.
Staring at the list of names, the office chair rocked back and forth. The Stealth skill, erasing my presence also erased my debuffs.
Since mental debuffs like perception altering required conscious will to activate and maintain, using a highly reinforced stealth would allow me to be become immune to cheap mental debuffs.
'A very strong and reinforced stealth makes someone even forget that you exist, and humans, or intelligent creatures in general can't think of someone who hasn't even existed in their mind.'
So the debuff would naturally dispel, not by brute forcing my way through, not by boasting about my mana in a tug of war with a child, but by creating a reason for why the debuff shouldn't even be inflicted on me.
Of course, this is no full proof plan, only amateurs would truly get fooled by this, someone, like for example let's say a B-rank awakener, someone like that would see through this charade easily.
'Let's hope that white-haired kid isn't some prodigy from god knows where.'
Flicking with my finger on the crisp paper, I blitz through the names, noting every single one that came across my overly analyzing eyes.
'Medea Mend.'
'Leon Viveon and last but not—'
"...."
My gaze aimlessly drifts away, the last name being too much for me to say it.
'Seriously?'
He's here? And so young at that?
Who was here you may ask?
Oh, well don't worry! I'll tell you since obviously who would tell you other than me.
The white haired kid you see....Was a fucking otherworlder, an anomaly to this world, just like me, an outsider, but unlike me.
This one was severely sick in the head, committing atrocities that required the attention of someone as great as Ender to intervene.
I won't go on squabbling about said atrocities, but the important thing about this otherworlder to keep in mind was that he was at large not because of strength. But because of a fortress like ability that allowed him to indefinitely survive at least a week with no supplies or reinforcement.
Reinhardt Aegis. The one destined to be the greatest cockroach no matter the era he's in.
That person was here, on a names list, as a damn child.