Technically, they weren’t supposed to be drinking.

  Practically … practically, who the hell cared? Oh, sure, there were plenty who did, but very few of them were actually in a position to complain about that.

  Besides, according to Dr. Han, a magical field had been set up on campus that would prevent any of the long-term damage that could be caused by underage drinking, which would make this “safe,” despite the fact that a bunch of sixteen-year-olds were going to be hitting the bottle hard.

  But at the same time, there was a pretty big difference between them randomly getting smashed, which they’d been explicitly barred from, for a whole host of reasons, the fact that superpowers and intoxication were a truly abysmal mix, and a big end-of-year party that was closely supervised by teachers who were perfectly capable of intervening in whatever stupidity they came up with.

  Though Derek had a distinct feeling that if any teacher were to actually voice that out loud, it would be taken as a challenge. He certainly might do so sober, nevermind in whatever state alcohol would put him in.

  The drinking age in Korea was actually nineteen, but that sort of thing was rarely enforced anymore, with “has [System] access” largely having replaced age as the requirement for access to certain things.

  Though there were forces at work who were campaigning for alcohol to be gated by Fortitude requirement instead … which usually resulted in a rather specacular reactions from the German government, ones that had all the grace and dignity of a chihuahua at the veterinarian’s office, irrespective of which party was in power at the time. Someone trying to restrict alcohol would result in an entertaining meltdown, guaranteed.

  And based on what Derek had seen, the Korean government had a similar “don’t fuck with our booze” stance; they just expressed it in a way that didn’t embarrass them.

  He quickly got dressed and gave himself a final once-over in the mirror.

  Black pants, white shirt, dark blue cloth jacket with an emergency healing potion on the inside, just in case the hangover got too bad.

  A simple, conservative outfit, but one that was also near-guaranteed to not be the wrong one either.

  Oh, this wasn’t the first big event the academy had hosted, but it was the first actual party, and he felt like he should be at least a little careful and conservative.

  He also decided to switch out his comfortable combat boots for some regular black leather shoes he’d barely worn. The former were still perfectly intact despite their outside having been scratched to hell, but this was one of those times when appearance mattered a lot more than it usually did.

  And that done, he hurriedly made his way towards the academy, realizing the number of food trucks had seemingly tripled since he’d left earlier that day, in clear preparation for feeding the people attending the party, and making a mint on the process.

  Once on academy grounds, Derek immediately zeroed in on the climbing area, which had been rather thoroughly roped off; someone on the staff clearly not trusting drunk students have the common sense to avoid that area while, you know, drunk.

  “Hey!” Ye-in waved, approaching from the side. “Nice outfit.”

  “Thanks, you too,” Derek replied with a grin.

  She was wearing a slightly ripped pair of jeans, a crop top, and a loose-fitting denim jacket, basically the exact opposite of his outfit, and very nice-looking.

  “Come on, let’s go,” she announced, hurrying into the already quite chaotic crowd at a pace that was only barely slow enough to avoid the label of “running,” so he sped up to match.

  Whereas normally, either of them would have drawn at least some eyes, some people either trying to pitch something or studiously avoiding even faintly implying they were pitching something, this time around, there was more of a chaotic medley of warmth and alcohol-induced euphoria that felt almost infectious …

  Not even five minutes after entering, Derek and Ye-in found themselves roped into a drinking game called “Titanic,” which involved a glass floating in a larger glass of beer, a glass into which they’d take turns pouring soju, with the person who wound up sinking the glass having to drink the entire mixture.

  It turned out to be fun, the over-the-top reactions of the ones who’d clearly been at this for a while making it all the more enjoyable, but Derek somehow wound up losing despite being one of the only two people there who was still sober.

  Then again, communal drinking was supposed to be a great bonding experience, and with alcohol currently taking center stage, with precedence over most other things, perhaps this was an opportunity to just be himself, to dance through this sea of humanity and have some fun, barely even needing to be careful beyond the usual, though bumping into someone and spilling their drink would lead to an utterly inevitable fight, if movies were to be believed. Though with his preference for old Sci-fi shows, his knowledge of that sort of thing was likely heavily outdated.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  ***

  Two hours later, Derek decided he probably should watch his drinking at least a little. After all, as safe as the academy was, one of the safest places in the world, in fact, it wasn’t absolutely safe.

  So, he should probably limit how much he consumed …

  ***

  Two questions: where the hell was he? And had he somehow managed to burn both of his weekly teleports via the fast travel system getting here, or could he just zap his way home the moment he was done making sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind?

  Then, an entirely new and utterly horrifying thought flashed through his mind: had he managed to get himself kidnapped?

  Although … his surroundings were definitely too nice for that. Granted, the whole “dingy warehouse” aestetic common to old movies was outdated, and the “modern” trope of a chair sitting in the center of a truly absurd number of runic circles, overflowing with enough enchantments to visibly distort the light depicted things that wouldn’t be needed to contain him, but the “endless beige, technically fashionable” aestetic was still at odds with the idea.

  The room around him was still spinning, or spinning again, the memories of yesterday hazy and indistinct, as though it had been a mere dream, fading away now that he’d left the refuge of sleep … or maybe that had been today? How long had he stayed up? And was it possible to drink so much you forgot how much you’d had to drink?

  He’d only had … three shots of soju, two glasses of beer, one each of a soju- and Irish car bomb, that thing from the “Titanic” drinking game, some weird cinnamon whisky-thing and several flaming shots called, oh, B-fifty-something that had to be sucked in through a straw before said straw melted … which had happened to several people who’d been far too slow and it had seemed like oh so great idea to down them himself, taking full advantage to his fire resistance. An “exploit” of sorts … or so it had appeared to him at the time.

  Even with his supernatural metabolism and regeneration, that was a lot. And he wasn’t even sure he was remembering everything he’d poured into himself …

  “I’m never drinking again ...” Derek groaned.

  “Good. Then the party went as intended.”

  Suddenly, Derek stood bolt upright and instantly regretted it, staggering, insides beginning to roil.

  “If you throw up in here, believe me, there will be consequences,” the same voice added, causing Derek’s head to snap around to face … an older version of Ye-in.

  He was about to ask how long he’d been in a coma, the part of his mind that would have told him otherwise temporarily inactive and utterly ignoring all the things that would have told him how stupid that idea was, but another bout of nausea shut him up long enough for his subconscious to put two and two together.

  “Ms. Nan,” he began, dipping his head in greeting and keeping it there, afraid that further movement would make him throw up and thereby make the person he’d now identified as Ye-in’s mother, the S-Ranker, make good on her threat. “I’m very sorry for …”

  Uh, what the hell had he done?

  “… for coming in without greeting the lady of the house.”

  That sounded good, right?

  Her eyes narrowed slightly. Had he said hello, forgotten, and therefore just admitted to having gotten blackout drunk? Or was it something else …

  “You know that as first impressions go, this is about as bad as it gets, right?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Derek replied, finally feeling that his stomach was sufficiently settled to raise his head back into a normal position without immediately spewing. “Where is Ye-in?”

  Normally, this would have been the part where he’d have asked if she’d made it home okay, but since he was in her home and didn’t have a key, she’d obviously let him in … or some extremely convoluted alcohol-fuelled shenanigans might have happened.

  Granted, with the supervision they’d had at the academy, it was likely that things had mostly stayed calm; he couldn’t possibly have, say, killed someone, but there were a lot of things that were less bad than that but still terrible.

  “Upstairs, in her room,” Nan said. “You took the couch.”

  She paused, cocking her head to the side, greyish energy flickering in her eyes as she looked him up and down.

  “I won’t give you the shovel speech. If Ye-in were to give her heart to a man before knowing it was safe to do so, and the relationship were to end … that would be her lesson to learn.

  “If, on the other hand, you were to do something to deliberately hurt her, there wouldn’t be enough left of you to bury.

  “Oh, and I do hope you won’t be as much of a schemer as your brother is.”

  “You know my brother?” Derek blurted out.

  “Most of us do,” she said. “He was over here all the time, making plans and dragging S-Rankers into trouble all across the globe. But he never actually shared any kind of information, never let anyone know what his precious plans were.”

  “I see,” Derek muttered, deciding that asking for more information now, of all times, would probably end badly. Or at least not well, at the very least.

  Then, something she’d said much earlier suddenly registered properly.

  “Were they trying to scare us off alcohol by giving us horrible hangovers?”

  “Fireball whisky. Stroh rum. Cheapest soju they thought they could get away with. Did you really not see the pattern?” she asked, her tone unsympathetic.

  “I have no idea what the first two are, but I think you’re saying I’m right?” Derek squinted at her, a level of light that should absolutely in no way have been too bright suddenly blinding.

  “You probably don’t remember drinking them, then,” she suggested. “Go home, change clothing, shower.”

  Derek couldn’t smell anything of the sort, but he also didn’t feel like arguing, so he slunk out after a quick goodbye, sending a quick text to Ye-in about how he’d headed home to freshen up, deciding not to mention that her mother had all but thrown him out.

  And, on the way home, he reaffirmed his oath to never, ever, drink again.

  Had last night been fun? Sure … at least the parts he remembered.

  But the sheer sense of relief he’d felt upon unlocking his phone and not being greeted by responses to texts he couldn’t remember sending, or accusations about actions he couldn’t even remember taking … realizing how many horror scenarios his mind had conjured up had been almost as painful as the hangover that was still making his head throb.

  Wait … he’d packed something for that … had being the operative word, because when he checked the pocket that had been supposed to carry the healing potion, he found it empty.

  And upon trying, he lacked the ability to control his mana to a sufficient degree to open his spatial ring, the training version he’d continued to wear, even trying made his head feel as though it were being pounded on an anvil.

  Yep, never drinking again …