Awakening: Starting With The Villain System

The attention was like a physical weight.

One of the bullies, the one who seemed to be the ringleader with a smug, entitled tilt to his chin, grinned.

It wasn't a friendly expression.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" he drawled, his voice dripping with false curiosity.

This was horrible. Exactly the scenario I'd wanted to avoid.

My plan of being an invisible, uninteresting passerby had spectacularly failed.

I paused, my forward momentum halting.

I looked at them, keeping my face a carefully constructed mask of neutrality.

It's not like I was scared or anything. Maybe I would have been if it was at my first day in the academy. But now?

After what I'd been through? All the training, fighting, claiming, killing, and almost dying.

These were just children playing at being tough.

No, the emotion curdling in my gut was pure, unadulterated annoyance.

I just hated being involved in something that doesn't consign me, that would waste my precious time without offering any profit or advantage.

It was a pointless diversion.

But well, it consigned me now. The spotlight was on, whether I wanted it or not.

So I might as well deal with it and get it over with. The fastest way out was through.

"Oh, hey," I said, my voice as normal and casual as possible, as if we'd just run into each other at a coffee shop. I gave a slight, non-committal nod.

The bully looked at me, then at his gang, well, I could call them minions because he definitely looked like the leader.

The way they all looked to him for a cue confirmed it.

If he wasn't in charge, he wouldn't have been the one to step forward and address me first, right?

That logic made quite some sense.

For a moment, there was silence. Then, as if on cue, they all burst out laughing.

It was a harsh, mocking sound that echoed in the hallway.

They laughed like I had said the most funniest joke of all time, doubling over and slapping their knees.

Spare me the flattering.

My one-word greeting apparently qualified as peak comedy.

The leader soon stopped, almost instant.

His laughter cut off like a switched had been flipped.

His eyes, which had been crinkled with mirth, became sharp and calculating.

His face settled into something almost like a frown, a look of predatory assessment.

"Quite a friendly kid, aren't you?" he said, his voice now low and devoid of its earlier mockery.

Kid?

The word replayed in my head.

Who did this idiot think he was? Some ancient cultivation protagonist that was aged thousands of years old, condescending to a mortal?

We were probably the same age. The sheer, unearned arrogance of it was almost impressive.

He was posturing, trying to establish dominance by pretending to be older.

It was a pathetic power play, and it was starting to seriously get on my nerves.

The boy walked towards me, slowly.

Each step was a deliberate, measured click of his shoe on the polished floor, a performance meant to intimidate.

He was enjoying this, savoring the moment of having a new audience for his little show of power.

I just watched him come, my own expression carefully blank.

Inside, I was already calculating the angles, the distance, the potential outcomes.

This was such a waste of energy.

He soon reached me, and when he did, he didn't shove me or get in my face.

Instead, he did something infinitely more annoying.

He swung his arm around my neck in a faux-friendly gesture.

It was heavy and possessive, his grip just a little too tight to be comfortable.

I could smell cheap cologne and arrogance.

"Look at you, aren't you a brave one," he said, his voice a low, right next to my ear.

The words were meant to be mocking, to make me squirm.

I didn't squirm. I just turned my head slightly to look at him, our faces uncomfortably close.

"Yes, I am," I answered, my voice flat. "I don't see the reason to not be."

It was the simple, unvarnished truth. Being brave, or at least appearing fearless, was often the most efficient path.

Showing fear to a predator like this was just asking for a longer, more drawn-out confrontation.

A part of my brain, the part that wasn't annoyed, was genuinely puzzled.

Did all these guys seriously not know me?

I wasn't exactly seeking fame, but I thought I'd gained a little reputation after the ranking assessments.

I'd performed some few cool combos against the combat dummy robots, moves that were more about precision and timing than raw power.

I was rank 387, which practically made me one of the strongest normal humans in the academy without a designated ability or technique. At the time, anyway.

Well, I had both now, and my rank would be undoubtedly higher than when I was assessed.

But all of those facts, the rank, the reputation, clearly didn't matter to this boy right beside me.

His ignorance was either a shield or a weapon.

Maybe he is totally ignorant, just a blowhard who doesn't pay attention to anyone but himself.

Or probably didn't do his assessment the day I did...

Or, a more concerning thought surfaced, maybe he is a high rank.

Someone so confident in his own power that he doesn't bother to learn the faces of those beneath him.

The thought of him being a high rank made me straighten almost imperceptibly.

I couldn't afford to underestimate anyone if I wanted to win.

Underestimation was a luxury that got people killed, or at the very least, embarrassingly beaten in a academy hallway.

I had to be prepared for anything.

The leader's face became even more serious.

He seemed to also sense the shift in my posture, the lack of fear in my response.

He was trying to read me, to figure out if my calmness was stupidity or confidence born of strength.

Looking at the faint confusion in his eyes, I realized the guy is more stupid than he actually was arrogant.

He couldn't figure me out, and it was irritating him.

He broke the silence with another laugh, but this one was shorter, harsher.

It was a sound meant to cover his own uncertainty.

"Are you that ignorant?" he asked, his voice gaining a bit of its previous bluster. "Do you know who I am?"

It was such a cliché line. The kind of thing a cartoon villain says right before the hero knocks him out.

I felt a surge of pure, unadulterated annoyance.

This wasn't even a worthy obstacle; it was a tedious trope.

Without missing a beat, I looked him dead in the eye, my face utterly serious.

"Your mom didn't tell you?" I answered.