Keira stirred, the distant murmurs and shifting sounds around her pulling her back to consciousness.
Her head felt heavy, her limbs slow. She blinked a few times, trying to adjust to the dim, crystal-lit room. A faint glow lined the walls, giving the place an eerie calm. But as her eyes focused, panic quickly set in.
She was tied down—soft ropes around her wrists and ankles. Not tight enough to hurt, but firm enough to hold.
"What...?" she breathed, struggling against them. Her voice came out dry and shaky.
Then she realized—she wasn’t alone.
Several others were there, lying on the floor beside her in varying states of consciousness. Some still out cold. A few were starting to stir. One boy, already awake, was pulling against his restraints with growing frustration.
"What the hell is this...?!" he snapped, gritting his teeth as he strained against the ropes. "This is some bullshit!"
He seemed to be using a physical-enhancement ability—his veins stood out on his arms, and the faint shimmer of mana clung to his skin—but nothing worked. The bindings held fast, unyielding.
The sound of his struggling and cursing roused the others. One by one, groggy voices filled the air.
"Why are we tied up?!"
A girl across the room tried to wiggle her fingers to cast something, only to gasp when no magic came. "I can’t feel my mana...!"
"Me neither," another muttered, wide-eyed. "Is this some kind of anti-magic field...?"
They all looked at each other, confusion and fear spreading like a slow fever.
Keira’s heartbeat quickened. Her throat tightened. Her last memory was the warm scent of mint tea, Professor Ethan’s calm voice... and the soft glow of the Dream Moths.
Suddenly, footsteps echoed down the hall behind the hidden door.
The students fell silent.
A figure stepped into view.
"Ah, good. You’re all awake," said Professor Ethan, brushing dust from his sleeve with practiced ease. He stood there in his usual neatly pressed uniform, expression as calm and pleasant as ever.
"P-Professor?" one student gasped. "You’re here! Did you come to—"
"—Save you?" Ethan finished, raising a brow. Then he chuckled. "No, no. Sorry to disappoint."
"I mean, I am here. That part’s true," he said, voice light. "But the ’rescue’ part? That’s a misunderstanding."
He gave a short laugh, as if he’d just made a clever pun.
"You’re joking..." a boy near Keira said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Ethan tilted his head. "Yes. About being captured like you. That was a joke. A good one, I thought." He smiled wider. "But no, I didn’t come here tied up. I brought you here."
A tense silence filled the room like thick fog.
"You... did this?" Keira whispered, disbelief strangling her words.
Ethan turned toward her, eyes lighting up in recognition.
"Ah, Keira. Good to see you’re up. I was hoping you’d wake soon."
She flinched at the sound of her name from his mouth. So casual. So familiar.
A boy tried again to break free, grunting as his mana flared uselessly against the restraints. "You bastard... what the hell do you want from us?!"
"Now, now." Ethan raised a hand, voice soft but firm. "Let’s not throw around insults. I did put effort into keeping you all comfortable, didn’t I? The silk restraints, the aura-dampening crystals—not exactly cheap."
"That’s the second time I’ve heard that this week," he mused aloud. "Still not sure how I feel about it."
The students began to panic. One girl sobbed quietly, another kept whispering a spell under her breath in vain. A boy bit down on his lip until it bled.
Keira stared at Ethan, trying to understand.
"You were... always ?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"Hmm. Define ’,’" he said. "Efficient? Curious? Forward-thinking?"
"Ah. You meant the sinister part. Well, that’s rude," he added with a light shrug. "But I suppose context matters. And you’re missing a lot of it."
"What do you want from us?!" someone shouted from the back, their voice shaky but loud enough to cut through the growing panic.
Ethan turned his head slightly, his expression still calm—too calm.
"Ah, now that is a good question," he said, his tone light, almost amused. "What do I want? Hmm... it’s actually quite simple."
He stepped forward slowly, his hands casually clasped behind his back. The way he moved was too relaxed, as if he were walking into a lecture hall, not a room full of restrained, terrified students.
"I want to have a class," he said, with a small, deliberate smile. "Right here. Right now."
"A... class?" someone echoed, confused.
"Yes," Ethan said, nodding cheerfully. "A little late-night lecture. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it engaging. I’ve been looking forward to this for quite a while."
The room fell silent for a heartbeat.
No one knew how to respond. His tone was pleasant, almost jovial, but his eyes—those eyes—glinted with something cold and cruel. Something that didn’t belong to the same man who used to grade their assignments with neat red ink and smile gently in the courtyard.
"This... this isn’t funny, Professor!" one of the students snapped. "Let us go already!"
"Yeah! We have curfew! This isn’t allowed—"
Ethan raised a hand, silencing them with ease.
"Curfew?" he repeated with a chuckle. "Still clinging to those academy rules, are we? I admire the optimism."
The air shifted. That pleasant smile remained, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop.
"I’m a little hurt," he continued, voice lower now, silkier. "You think this is a joke? After all the work I put into preparing this class for you?"
He sighed and looked around the room as if disappointed by their lack of gratitude.
"Fine. If you truly want to leave that badly..."
Everyone held their breath, sensing a shift—something darker coming.
"...Do you want to die instead?"
The words dropped like a stone in still water.
Silence gripped the room.
And then, slowly, Ethan pointed toward the upper corners of the room.
One by one, the students spotted them—massive insect-like creatures clinging to the walls. Not moving. Not breathing. As if carved from the very stone itself.
No one had noticed them before.
But now, under the dim crystal light, the details stood out—razor-sharp legs, glossy exoskeletons, mandibles twitching in slow, predatory rhythm.
A girl let out a choked sob. Another student gasped, trying and failing to hold back a scream.
"They’re... alive," someone whispered, trembling.
"Oh, very," Ethan said, almost proudly. "They’ve been watching you this whole time."
"What the hell are those things?!" the same boy who had cursed earlier shouted, his voice cracking.
"They don’t have a name," Ethan replied, eyes glinting. "They’re... recent additions to the curriculum."
Keira felt bile rise in her throat.
"This isn’t a class," she muttered. "This is a nightmare."
"Oh, Keira," he said, smiling kindly, "A nightmare is just a dream that forgot its purpose. But this? This is an education."
The creatures on the walls began to stir—slowly, deliberately—mandibles clicking in sync as their bodies shifted.
The students froze in terror.
Ethan turned his back to them and walked toward the center of the room.
"Now," he said brightly, clapping his hands. "Let’s begin the lesson, shall we?"
[Butterfly Effect. The main quest has started early due to your influence.]
The message blinked in front of my eyes, glowing faintly in that familiar blue hue.
I froze for a second. Just one. But that was more than enough.
"What’s wrong?" Leona asked, noticing the sudden shift in my expression.
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
My eyes darted around. The forest, which had been quiet a moment ago, was suddenly alive with tension—like it was holding its breath.
Another message flickered.
[Warning. Irregular event triggered.]
"What the...!" I muttered, backing up instinctively.
Something was wrong—very wrong.
The air felt heavier. The silence wasn’t natural anymore. It was the kind that came right before something exploded.
There was no time to think, let alone explain.
No hesitation. No questions.
Just get the hell out of here.
Branches cracked behind me as the others followed, the sound of panicked footsteps quickly replacing the stillness.
Whatever just started... I had no idea what it was, but if the system said it wasn’t supposed to happen yet?
Then we were already in deep trouble.
The walls felt like they were closing in.
The insect-like creatures—no, monsters—moved with a grotesque, unnatural grace. Every twitch of their limbs sounded like bone snapping. One of them tilted its head, or whatever passed for one, and locked eyes with Keira. It didn’t have pupils. Just empty black voids that reflected nothing.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Professor Ethan—no, she refused to call him that anymore—Ethan stood at the center of the room, casual and relaxed as if he were about to teach arithmetic. His hands gestured smoothly in the air, forming intricate runes that glowed blood red instead of the usual mana-blue.
He was casting something.
A girl near the wall screamed.
One of the creatures had descended, its limbs unfolding like blades as it crawled along the stone like water flowing downhill. It didn’t attack. Not yet. But it watched. Waited.
"Please keep quiet, If you do. I will not harm anyone."
At those words of Ethan everyone kept their mouth shut.
Those insects-humonied monster also began to back off and attached themselves to the walls like nothing happened.
"Just keep quiet and pay attention to lacture, if you do that I will not kill anyone here."
A lie, of course but Keira doesn’t have any choice.
So she kept her mouth shut and waited for Ethan’s lecture to begin.
"Welcome to the Ethan’s study