Iliya grinned to himself. He was so glad he didn’t need to use his backup plan: throwing cleaning chemicals together and hoping for the worst. He decided to take the chemicals too, just in case. Iliya got out of the closet, leaving the door the way he had found it, and went to the office at the end of the hall. This office was the closest to the entrance of the building. It was occupied by someone named Professor Horner, who Iliya had never taken a class with. To be completely honest, he didn’t even know who they were. In a way, that made Iliya feel worse about what he was about to do.

Again, Iliya was able to open the door without a key of some kind. The office was fairly typical for a professor in the humanities. It was small and cramped, with off-white wall paper and peeling carpet on the floors. There were no windows, but Iliya could identify some of the posters hanging on the walls. Seems like Professor Horner really liked Frankenstein. Or maybe the professor liked reading in general. Two whole walls of the room were dominated by overstuffed bookcases, with the books ranging from tattered paperback novels to hardcover expensive anthologies. The wooden desk in the corner of the room had a practically neolithic laptop, and more books stacked higher. If Iliya had sat down in the desk’s chair, he was fairly sure the desk’s stack of books would stand higher than his head. Kind of intimidating, to be honest. Seeing this huge collection of books, Iliya prayed that the game world really was some kind of copy of the real world, and that nothing done in the game would carry over. Not only was the collection here expensive, but it was curated with a lot of love, based on the amount of wear on a good number of the books. They were also perfectly, wonderfully flammable.

Iliya got to work, grabbing armfuls of books and made a huge pile in the center of the room. He made a trail of paperbacks leading to the door. For good measure, he emptied out his backpack too, dumping the papers on top. Biting his lip, Iliya crumpled them up into paper balls, hoping they would work as kindling. Would that be enough? Unsure, he opened up the cleaning solutions. The stink of bleach filled the air, and Iliya coughed. Breathing all this in probably wasn’t good for him. Oh well. Iliya upended the chemicals onto the pile of books and paper, absolutely dousing them in fluid.

Iliya reached into his pockets and pulled out the gum wrappers. He folded the metallic-looking wrappers back together, then ripped out the midsection until the wrappers looked more like bowties. He grabbed the batteries and prayed this would work like he saw online. He pressed one end of the wrapper to the top of the battery, and the other to the bottom, making sure the wrapper touched both ends. It worked. A small flame erupted much faster than Iliya had expected. In shock, Iliya threw it on the pile of paper and cleaning fluid. The small fire engulfed a few crumpled up paper balls, but Iliya needed more if his plan was going to work. He repeated the action a few more times, and the fire steadily grew larger. A burnt smell started to fill the air, and Iliya decided it was time to back out before the fire really got dangerous. Besides, inhaling the chemicals was bad enough when they were still in bottles. Who knew how dangerous this fire and its smoke could be? Not Iliya and his humanities degrees, that’s for sure.

He peeked his head out of the doorway, and he was able to see into the entrance hall. Through there, he could even see a corner of the lounge. He couldn’t see anyone, but they also couldn’t see him. Iliya discarded his bright red hoodie and backpack and he threw them into the steadily growing fire. A person could not confidently grill a small marshmallow on the flame. Iliya poured the rest of the cleaning fluid on a spot that he was pretty sure the fire would reach soon. Then he picked up his phone from where he left it on the desk, and stuck it in his jean pocket. If the fire really grew, everything would be going according to plan. As he went towards the entrance hall, the fire started eating away at his hoodie, turning the ends black.

Iliya tiptoed into the entrance hall, and planted himself behind the empty check in desk to wait. It was just a few feet away from the office, but he could barely hear the crackle of fire from his position. What if it didn’t work? Iliya ran his tongue over his lower lip, nervous. He was pretty sure that even if he failed this bonus task, he wouldn’t receive punishment because he fed Peaches.

Iliya wanted that bonus prize. Besides, winning was not enough. He wanted the professor to lose too.

Iliya checked his phone. There was about forty five minutes left in the game and thankfully he could still hear crackles coming from the office. Five minutes later, the smell of a campfire wafted to his spot behind the desk. That was a good sign. Iliya decided to wait out this plan. He curled himself into a tight ball. Thankfully, the desk was solid all the way down so if he kept himself under the top of it, he wouldn’t be seen.

In another five minutes, the fire was starting to loudly roar, and the area behind the entrance desk was starting to get warm. Iliya turned to look back. Tendrils of flame were beginning to crawl out of the office he set ablaze.

Iliya started to hear nervous pacing coming from the lounge. The footfalls were heavy, thoughtless things. Definitely human, not cat. Aside from the loud sound of shoes on the wood floor, there was no clacking of claws. Whoever was pacing was either too confident, or nervous. Considering the professor, it was possibly a combination of both. Then, he could hear muttering. It was too quiet, and Iliya couldn’t make out any exact words. It definitely confirmed the professor was getting nervous. Iliya couldn’t discern whether it was about the fire or the game counting down but the professor being nervous was a boon to Iliya. If nothing else, Professor Antoni had to be wondering why he never saw Iliya in the two and a half hours they had been playing the game. Iliya wasn’t sure how much the professor knew about his own task, since he hadn’t known about the professor’s own task of guarding the food until he saw the Moderator’s monitor.

Did he even know that Iliya was the one meant to steal the food? Hm. Iliya grinned like a shark. This wasn’t part of his original plan, and it was kind of a stupid idea, but Iliya decided to mess around with the professor.

“Meow,” Iliya loudly attempted to copy. The pacing from the lounge stopped. Iliya tapped his fingernails on the tile floor, aiming to sound like a clawed animal walking across the floor. “Meow!”

“Fuck,” Iliya heard a curse more clearly than he heard the mutterings. Iliya’s grin widened. The professor had probably moved closer to the area where the lounge met the entranceway. Maybe he had even stuck his head out to look over the room. Iliya waited until he heard footsteps start again. By then, there was a definite heat to the air, and the frightening smell of burning things began to grow pungent and noticeable. Even the professor, a whole room away would have been able to sense it. Iliya released one last, pitiful meow.

Finally, there were frantic footsteps heading in Iliya’s direction. They completely bypassed the desk Iliya was crouching behind. “Fuck!” The professor echoed himself as he stood at the place where the entrance met the hallway that held the offices. The hallway was still passable, but it wouldn’t be safe to walk through any more in just a few minutes. Bursts of flame were licking the walls and spreading into other rooms. Iliya dared to slide half his face out, to watch the professor. He could see the man’s side profile as he nervously wiped a hand through his greying hair. In his other hand, he held a long knife, something closer to a machete. That wasn’t the sort of thing you could just find in a university building. Either the professor had it on him as he began the game, or he had it as some kind of weapon given as a prize by the system. As he turned back and forth, looking from the lounge with the stash to the burning hall. The professor seemed to have made a decision. He put his hand over his mouth and ran through the hallway, ascending the stairs.

Iliya blinked, a little confused. That… was easier than he thought it would be? Maybe the professor thought that either a dangerous cat had set the fire and was coming for him, and decided to cut his losses. Or maybe he thought if Iliya was the one looking for the stash, he wouldn’t be able to go through the hallway in time? He shrugged and crawled across the floor into the lounge. If a flaming hallway was standing between Iliya and his goal, he wouldn’t hesitate to soak his shirt in water and then run through.

Maybe that was why there were tutorial challenges like this one.