Hugo looked down at his feet, surprised that they had betrayed him. Why had he come over here and placed himself in the way? He didn’t know this drunk kid, and it wasn’t any of his business if some nobles wanted to mess with him.

An upperclassman tried to shoo him out of the way and said, “Hey tall boy, this is a private conversation, how about you head off?”

As if he had just seen them there, Hugo said, “Oh, sorry about that.” He moved away from the group of boys and right towards the window. It was only a few feet from their conversation, and he could see them frowning. His heart started beating faster as he pretended to ignore the nobles.

He turned around and pretended to look out the big bay window. There were several large windows spanning the circumference of the tower. It was the only spot on campus high enough where you could look outside of the academy and see the city beyond. It was a great view, and it wasn’t hard to pretend to be interested in the scenery.

Internally, Hugo was yelling at himself for not getting out of the way. He knew the nobles were about to play a prank, and he was in the way. Three steps to the left, and he would be out of the way. On some level though, he knew he had to help out this drunk kid. He knew that the harassment wasn’t ok, and he had to do something. He might have ignored the bullying his previous life, but he had resolved to be different this time, better. He tried to think of a solution that would help this boy, but not make things worse for himself.

A glance around the room revealed another upperclassman standing near an open window. He was sure that he was a barrier mage in training. This was their plan. They were going to shove the drunk boy up against the window sill and call him a coward. After he inevitably refuted their claims, they would ask him to prove he was brave. They would ask the boy to jump out the tower windows.

A fall from this height would break legs and possibly kill with a bad fall. Even a drunk off his ass student could see that. He would refuse. Then the upperclassmen would push anyway.

That is where the barrier student would come in. He would create a barrier at the last moment and catch the drunk kid so they could laugh at his panicked screams.

He was told that is what happened last time, and it was a big reason Hugo hadn’t had many friends at school. He needed to prevent it from happening to this innocent kid.

Hugo’s first instinct was to place a barrier behind the kid, to prevent them from pushing him out the window. But that would only anger the upperclassmen. More than one of them had a noble crest on their tunics. There would be serious consequences if he did that.

Time was running out. He had to make a decision now.

“Hey Markus, you seem like a nice guy. But I bet you are a coward,” a blond boy said.

“Nuh-uh. I am brave. I bet I can wrestle an ankheg. Just give me one,” the drunk boy said. He looked around, as if he actually expected someone to produce an ankheg.

With a dismissive wave of his hand, the ring leader said, “Nah. If you want us to believe you are brave, you gotta do something big. You gotta...” He put his hand to his chin as if he was thinking. He then held up a finger and said, “You gotta jump out the window!”

A chorus of “Yeah!” rang out, as all of the other upperclassmen agreed with the idea.

The drunk kid walked over to the window and stood a few feet from Hugo. The window was wide enough that five people could stand at the window, but the upperclassmen crowded around the drunk boy anyway.

“Uh... That’s a long way down,” the boy said, “Like, really far down. I mean, we are high up. I could die.”

“Don’t be a baby. You wouldn’t die. You are just a coward!” the ringleader shouted. The commotion was drawing a crowd. The upperclassmen crowded closer around him, pushing the drunk boy up against the low window sill. A quick shove would have him tumbling out.

Hugo started moving his mana. He couldn’t let them do this. He had a risky plan, but it was better than doing nothing.

“I, I,” the drunk kid looked like he was about to cry, only now realizing that these people weren’t his friends.

“I’ll do it!” Hugo shouted. The crowd turned to look at Hugo as he continued, “I’ll jump out the window!”

Matching action to words, Hugo got up on the brick windowsill. He turned towards the crowd and threw out his arms. Half of the party was staring at him with confusion or disbelief. He said, “Whee!” and fell backward out of the large window.

He wished he could see their faces as he fell out the window, but he was concentrating on creating a barrier to catch himself. He wasn’t going to let himself get hurt in the boy’s place after all.

With practiced ease, Hugo went through the mental motions to create a barrier beneath his falling body. He had enough experience from yesterday that a barrier sprung into being just five feet below the lip of the window sill.

His back hit his safety barrier, which instantly shattered.

Despite his natural talent with barrier magic, Hugo just didn’t have the ability to create a barrier strong enough to support his entire body weight hitting it all at once. The barrier he had created only slowed him down slightly and he kept falling.

He didn’t have time for the panic to fully set in before he slammed into another barrier. This one had been made by someone competent, and it held.

Hugo landed hard, and slid for a foot before coming to a stop. His heart started beating faster, his body only now catching up with the reality of the situation. He had miscalculated, and almost fell all the way to the ground. He was lucky that someone had saved him. A laugh of disbelief escaped his lips.

The blue barrier was seven feet below the lip of the window, and a crowd rushed to the window sill and looked down to see him sprawled on the blue shield. He sat up and gave the crowd a jaunty wave. He was still trying to pretend that he was just a goofy guy, not someone that wanted to spoil the noble’s fun.

He looked around and spotted the upperclassman that was maintaining the barrier. He shouted, “Thanks for catching me. You are my favorite person at the whole party!” He threw his arms out wide.

There was scattered laughter. Genuine surprise warred with disbelief. They seemed to be wondering how drunk Hugo was and how much of this stunt was intentional. Hugo couldn’t decide for himself. He had thought ahead for once, but he had done a shitty job of it.

Leveraging himself up, Hugo stood on the barrier. He slipped and fell again. The barrier was very slippery. The second attempt was much more careful. A short hop and strong arms soon had him back on the window sill. He rolled into the room with relief.

Knowing that he still had to control the crowd’s reaction, he popped up and threw his hands out wide as he said, “Ta-da!”

This was the moment. The crowd would pass judgment on his actions. They would either approve of his stunt and want to be his friend, or they would hate him for acting insane. He just bet his social life on a stunt to save someone he didn’t even know.

Silence.

A single person clapped their hands, which then turned into a roar of approval from the crowd. Everyone was laughing and cheering for him. Several people came up to him and smacked their hands on his back.

“I can’t believe you did that!”

“You are insane.”

“I missed it, do it again.”

“Do it again! Really jump out there this time!”

Hugo smiled and assured them that he wasn’t going to jump again. It took a bit of convincing, but eventually they believed him. It helped that someone else volunteered to take his place, falling out of the window backwards. The crowd cheered as the new kid was caught by the blue barrier.

The nobles didn’t seem pleased that their fun had been spoiled, but they stood and watched as people jumped out of the window. It was something to do. They had just been bored after all.

After he made sure the drunk kid was headed downstairs, Hugo walked back the drinks. He felt like he needed one after all of that.

“You are an idiot,” a voice said to him.

Hugo turned to see Elise. He nodded and said, “Not my finest moment.”

“Why did you do that?” she said.

With a shrug, he said, “Why does anyone do stuff at the party? Maybe I am too drunk.”

“No... You aren’t that drunk, I can tell. Seriously, what were you thinking? Does stupid run in your family?”

Hugo was starting to get offended, so he said, “Look, I am not an idiot. I was just trying to save this drunk guy. A bunch of these upperclassmen were planning on throwing him out the window as a prank. I just preempted their joke with a stunt of my own.”

She seemed to think this over for a bit before saying, “You are still an idiot, there are a million ways that could have gone wrong.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Hugo said. She was right, but at the same time, his plan had worked. He nodded to her and walked off.

She frowned at that. Hugo guessed that she wanted to berate him some more. He didn’t want to talk to someone that disliked him.

...

The next morning he learned something new about himself. He was a lightweight. Even after a full night’s sleep and his soulmarked physique healing him, Hugo was still hungover. He hadn’t even drunk that much, but he had a massive headache.

Health potions were crazy expensive, but if one were sitting on his nightstand, he would drink one without hesitation. Of course, he would regret the waste of money right afterwards, but still.

Thankfully the schedule for today was fairly light. Instead of the morning athletics class, he would have a shift helping others up on the wall. That shouldn’t be too bad. And if last time was anything to go by, he would even level up a few times from the survival effect.

The ride in the mana cart over to the eastern wall was much rougher than he remembered. This hangover was no joke.

Instead of being assigned a section of the wall like he expected, his class was brought to one of the eight command towers studded along the wall.

They were told to wait in the central section of the tower for further instruction. While they were waiting, they saw people running in and out of the room wearing blue vests. Hugo wondered if they were somehow connected to the mountain guides. The guides had to do something in their off time.

After a short wait, a man in a blue breastplate and shining grieves walked into the room. Hugo could see some chevrons on his arm, so he assumed he was in the sentinel command structure. He didn’t know enough to understand how high up he was.

The man addressed the class and said, “Barrier students. You all have the unenviable position of being runners. Your job is to pass messages between sections of the wall. Sometimes you will pass letters, sometimes you will pass along short verbal messages. Either way, you will spend most of your shift running,” he said.

There was a collective groan at that.

He shrugged, “Your fault for choosing a domain focusing on dexterity. You all are the fastest runners of the academy’s students.”

Blue vests were passed out among the students. Everyone was given a section of the wall and instructions on how to relay messages. It was like a big relay race. They would take a message from one section of the wall and run it to a different blue vested person on another section.

Running. Hugo was going to spend the whole morning running.