I ran my thumb against the skull that was given to me by my junior, a necromancer and apparent master sorcerer, Yomi. I studied the runes that was jotted across the skull, and tried to seep my influence into the magical tool in order to study it from within.

“Hey, hey, Boss. What is that? I, Vakasa of the Darkness, want a skull to carry around, too!” the fat boy sitting next to me begged.

“This? It’s some kind of communication device created by Yomi. It uses necromancy,” I answered.

“W-Wait, Senior! Should you really be telling that to people?” Yomi, sitting on my other side, interjected.

“Don’t worry. This tub of butter knows I’m an Archlich. Anyway, I’m trying to study this so that I could use this for long-distance communication,” I explained.

“Oooh. Back in my, Vakasa of the Darkness’, home, we have a lot of those!” Lard said.

“Your people… carry skulls around like some kind of freaks?” I asked with disgust.

“What? No! I mean, we have tools that we could use for long-distance communication. It’s about this small and everyone has it!” Lard clarified as he made a small square with his hands.

“That is rather small. I thought your world has no magic?” I asked as I drew an eyebrow on my mask.

“No magic?! That’s horrifying! How do you live your everyday life?” Yomi butted in.

“Please. My, Vakasa of the Darkness’, world cannot be comprehended unless you head there yourself!” Lard boasted.

Sometimes I couldn’t tell if this guy was just pulling my leg or what, but it could be interesting to attempt a jump to his world. After all, my research on ‘No-Clear’ magic had grinded to a halt a long time ago, so sooner a later, I would have to pay a visit.

“So, what can you tell from the magic tool? How does it work? I, Vakasa of the Darkness, lusts and thirsts for eternal knowledge on magic!” Lard asked as he salivated.

I pushed his face away from me with telekinesis since I didn’t want to touch him, then replied, “Well, I am still unfamiliar with how runes and the like work. There weren’t any runes a thousand years ago, you know? Weapon enhancement, runes, and all that are new.”

“What?! I thought you have infinite knowledge because you’re a thousand years old!” Lard was so shocked he had forgotten to echo his name.

I drew the other raised brow on my mask, shrugged, then said, “I only know what I know.”

“By the way, what are the students in the back doing?” Lard whispered and pointed behind with his thumb.

“Ah. Those are mostly the civilian-focused students. Since travelling to the city which the games are being held at would take some time, I forced the students to train in the meantime. For example, the magi-architects are forced to improve the floating platform we are on non-stop. If I see any of them not moving their hammer, they get kicked off the platform,” I explained.

“Getting kicked off the platform doesn’t sound so bad…” Lard muttered.

“If they touch the ground, they explode.”

“I thought my school was bad…” Lard sighed. “Wait, is that why majority of the students are flying along us?”

Instead of sitting on the floating platform, most of the students were using various types of magic to catch up with me. Some were using a ball of air to balance themselves on, some were using a wave of water to carry them up, and so on.

Inez, my lovely kind priestess, was sitting at the edge of the platform, waiting for any student that fails to meet my expectation. It was unfortunate that she doesn’t know anesthetic magic, else she would be able to treat the students without disturbing my quiet ride with the students’ horrifying, ear-shattering screams.

“By the way, Yomi, here’s a new tome for you. Concentrate with full focus or else you might gloss over some important details. Dealing with death is almost the same as dealing with life, you know?” I said as I produced a large book from my robes. Once again, Yomi had sparkles in her eyes, and she took the book with trembling hands.

As Yomi thanked me profusely, Lard complained, “Why don’t I, Vakasa of the Darkness, get spell books?!”

“You can’t use spells.”

“As I had declared before, I, Vakasa of the Darkness, am the ultimate procuror of knowledge!”

“I have a list of good dating spots in Angolia filled with juicy information,” I offered while holding up a large brochure.

“Gimme gimme!”

With these two out of my way, I stood up and walked towards the back of the platform. The civilian-focused students got out of my way, trying to look as busy as possible in order to not get kicked.

“Attention students, the punishment cooldown is about to reset. Once more, we’ll have another round of selection,” I announced.

*

*

*

Despite the fact that I, Kendra, had been Master’s apprentice for a long time now, the other students in my class were close to catching up to me already. While they didn’t have a taste of the true meaning to magic yet, they could still match me with raw magical power.

I would have to take advantage of my knowledge, the damned faceless clowns that torment me every second, and my wits to survive the next round of punishment selection…

“Attention students, the punishment cooldown is about to reset. Once more, we’ll have another round of selection,” Master called out from the platform.

My stomach churned as unease washed over my body, but I calmed myself down soon after. ‘This wasn’t the first time I’ve done this’ - I always told myself that. But still, I couldn’t help but feel a slight tinge of fear. The class was no longer thinking of this as mere training, but as survival, and it was the same for me, too.

“Once again, I’m going to flip a coin to determine how many punishments will be handed out,” Master said.

For whatever reason, his coin would somehow give him a new number every round, but right now, I didn’t care about that. What I cared was the number! The number that blasted coin would give would determine how many people die, and how many people live this round.

Master tossed the coin onto the air, caught it, then laughed with glee.

“Seven.”

Seven, huh. Close to less than half of the students currently undergoing the selection round.

While the civilian-focused students like the agriculture or magi-architect students could be punished at any time, only a limited number of non-civilian-focused students would be punished per hour. As I recalled, Master would sometimes arbitrarily kick out some civilian-focused students out of the platform without warning, so perhaps we had the better end of the deal?

Anyway, seven was the current number. If seven students fell onto the ground, any further drops wouldn’t result in punishment.

Obviously it would be better if nobody fell, but accidents could happen. One could suddenly lose focus, or one could get tired. Others could also bear grudges against fellow students, or hold some sort of rivalry. Instead of waiting for the inevitable fall, why shouldn’t the others fall for us?

“Selection round will begin in five seconds.”

I scanned my surroundings like a hawk. Close to me was a student using floating rocks to move. No, it was more like, he was launching rocks from the ground and he was constantly hopping through them, since students weren’t allowed to make direct contact with the ground.

There was another student to my side who was ‘skiing’ in the air by using a combination of arcane-weight magic, air magic, and ice magic. Truly formidable to be able to use three kinds of spells at the same time, but that would mean that she would be vulnerable to attacks.

Behind me was Iova, a healing magic expert, but she also had tricks up her sleeves. She was just using basic air propulsion to push herself up from the ground.

“Four…” Master called out.

I breathed heavily. I was using the levitation magic that I had been experimenting on, but my foundations were still shaky at best. A slight lapse in my concentration could mean my literal downfall.

“Three…”

The clowns smile at me. They call for me.

“Two…”

They come for me.

“One…”

Let them come.

“Go!”

I dodged an arcane arrow from above, then teleported a few steps ahead by jumping realities. Two rock shards fell behind me half a second later, barely missing me.

It seemed that my opponents would be tougher than I thought.

As I began sliding through the air, multiple humanoid rock golems hopped from the ground and simultaneously rotated their bodies into a wave of roundhouse kicks. Magic was no use at this distance, so I would have to brute force this the old fashioned way!

I twisted and dodged in every turn while trying to maintain my levitation spell. Golems flickered in and out of reality as I attempted to reduce the number of golems targeting me in short bursts. With a quick chant in my mind, I used a pushing spell to toss a golem towards the earth-magic user.

He shattered the golem mid-air, but he didn’t notice that I dodged three arcane arrows at the same time. The arrows turned and slammed onto the earth-magic user, tossing him to the ground.

“NO!” the boy screamed.

A fiery explosion erupted behind me while magical chains were launched from the back of the floating platform. The chains shot past me and grabbed the boy by the legs. As his body flew by me and towards the sadistic priestess eagerly waiting at the back of the floating platform, he loudly raged towards the heavens.

Yes.

Hate the world that had allowed us to be born in such malice.

Alas, there was nothing I could do to correct this world.

What I can do, however, was teleport next to my next opponent and launch a flying kick at her face!

She bent her body like a cat and skied forward to dodge me, but I resumed my attack by using air spells to knock her off her balance. The girl was doing a good job of maintaining her distance and defending against ranged attacks, but that would mean that she was weak at close combat.

I tried to fly towards her, but she launched multiple homing arrows at me. I placed a barrier in front, then noticed an opening. With a snap from my fingers, I launched a flash of light to her. She expected a blinding attack, but what she didn’t expect was that a student fell in the far front of her.

Just ahead of us, another group of students was duking it out and a student fell onto the ground. The explosion rocked the skier which gave me the opportunity to shove her off-balance with a short-ranged air blast.

“Damn you, you little shi-”

I casually dodged the chains flying towards me as the ensuing explosion cut my former opponent’s curse short.

I breathed a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t over. I noticed three new opponents moving close to me. One of them was none other than ‘Target Practice’ Ibram.

“Hey, you! You knocked me out of the air a long time ago! This is payback!” Ibram shouted. “We’ll have to get rid of this girl or we’re dead for sure!”

It was no surprise that people thought of me as a threat, but to gang up on me? Fools!

“Gravity is a privilege given to you; I will annul it!” I chanted. Though I was able to use weaker spells without chanting, I wasn’t proficient enough with magics which were edging closer to near-divine.

“Hold your ground!” one of the trio attackers chanted to counter my spell, but my spell was still strong enough to pull the students around me closer to the ground.

“That was close, but not close en- AAAAH!” Ibram shouted as he lost balance and fell onto the ground.

Behind me, Iova had cast a spell while defending against a student. Everyone was suddenly pulled towards her, some students even crashed with one another. Though Ibram fell and exploded, there were still two other students chasing after me. They flew by my flanks and surrounded me.

They were both using a wave of water to travel around, so they might try to drown me by placing me in a bubble of water. Damn it, they didn’t even have to be close to me, so I would have to focus on one and-…

Suddenly, a flash of red light knocked one of the two students out of the air. He spun around then landed neatly onto the ground face-first, followed by, of course, an explosion.

I took the surprise to my advantage and froze the wave of the other remaining student. He slipped but managed to balance himself. Once again, a flash of red light struck the student, and he, too, lost balance.

The flash of red light was in fact Shtern Boye, a body enhancement expert. He managed to boost his body up so high that he was essentially running fast enough to start floating.

“Hey, Boye! Thanks!” I shouted.

“Yes. Now, it’s time to get rid of you,” Boye nonchalantly declared.

“Eh?”

I managed to barely dodge his punch by dropping dangerously close to the ground, and I teleported behind him to kick him. With one elegant flow, he used the same arm that he used to punch to block my kick. With quick physical attack useless against him, I teleported in front of him and launched multiple fireballs towards the stiff-faced boy, but he simply took all of the fireballs with his body.

If I didn’t know any better, this guy would be no different than a musclemancer!

Boye charged at me like a raging bull, then threw a flurry of punches at me. While close combat wasn’t my weakness, it wasn’t my forte either. The best I could do against Boye was keep my distance and-...

Huh?!

One of the faceless clowns following me grabbed Boye’s legs! Was this a chance?

Of course not. It was just an illusion, and I was fooled by it.

Sigh.

Goodbye cruel world!

…

I said “Goodbye cruel world!”

…

“Why did you stop?” I asked Boye as his fist was just a breathe away from my face.

Boye retracted his fist and raised his finger to the air. I thought he was pointing at something, then I realized I heard Master’s announcement.

“Seven! That’s all of the punishments handed out! There is a five minute grace period in which you could step on the platform! After that, get out or you’re automatically disqualified for next selection round!”

The Goddess is real, and I could see her gently smiling.

The air beneath me slowly thinned, letting me drift onto the floor until green chains hooked me around my arms. As soon as I was towed onto the floating platform my legs began to cramp, my breathing got heavier, and I could feel myself losing consciousness.

Iova landed next to me and joked, “As expected of my little sister! You… ah… survive so many attacks… again… Haaa….”

I expected to hear more, but she ended up snoring away. I wanted to sleep, too, but the adrenaline in my system was still pumping.

“Oh? What a dilemma!” the sadist priest exclaimed. She dragged a student, probably one of the punished ones, towards Boss, and said, “My apologies, Boss, but it appears that this student has died!”

How lucky.

“Nuisance! Nobody escapes me while they’re contractually bound to me! Attention to my companions in the Spirit World, whisk this fool back to the living!” Master shouted towards the skies.

How unlucky.

*

*

*

Soft. Feathery. Is this… what death feels like?

There was an endless field of cotton as far as my eyes could see. Images flew past me, and smoky figures danced as if there was a massive festival happening, and I could hear the faint cheers somewhere in the distance.

Where are the voices coming from? Was it in the distance? I felt as if no matter how far I walked, the cheers still sounded so… far away.

Ah well. I felt free! My body felt like water; fluid and limitless. It seemed that it was true that only in death would people get out of their cages...

I joined the figures on the cotton field and danced, and before I realized it, memories started to fade into view.

Is that my childhood home? Oh, the warm sunlight against the porch! Such joy!

Ah! Uncle! You’re alive? No, no… he is dead… just like me!

Toochie! You old rascal! So it’s true that pet dogs wait for their masters!

And that carriage!

… wait. I don’t know that carriage…

The carriage stopped next to me and opened, revealing a group of masked figures.

“It’s this fool! Grab him!”

Before I realized what was happening, darkness had blanketed my face. Something was placed over my head! Was I being kidnapped in the afterlife?! Seriously?!

“Help! I’m being kidnapped!” I yelled.

“Shut up!” a man ordered then punched me in my gut.

Why does it hurt so much?! I thought I’m dead!

“Go! Go! Before the Spirit Police catches us!” a man ordered.

My face was repeatedly slapped by the carriage floor before I lost consciousness.

…

…

…

I opened my eyes.

Light. Endless light.

Was this the heavens?

“Alright, students! The grace period is up! Get up, and get out of my platform or you’re disqualified!” a familiar Demon Lord-like voice announced. “You there! I forgot your name! Wake up and get out or prepare to die a second time!”

There is no heaven. No hell. Only Boss.