Knuckleduster Joe weaved through the traffic as if it were second nature. The magic horse, which had appeared from nothingness, was keeping up with the hellish traffic of Arthur’s city. It was something that would impress him beyond a doubt if they weren’t heading towards Middling High right now. Having to deal with Celia thinking Arthur was associating with psychopaths was bad enough, but the idea that he was leading a man like this into a school full of kids was even worse.

  Where had everything gone wrong?

  Dee had vanished from the sky. After a short turn and a blink, the dragon had completely disappeared.

  “Where is he? Where’s the dragon?” Arthur looked up at the sky, shifting his weight on the horse as it jumped on top of a sedan and hopped over to a passing truck. Car to car, it crossed one of the busiest roads at this time of day.

  “He must have used his abilities to make a quick escape! I assume the assassins have arrived.”

  “And you’re actively heading to a school!?”

  “Ha! One could look at it that way, but the truth is more than that. The truth…is that I am on a journey to be reunited with the love of my life!”

  “The love of your life? What about the love of my life? Your Celia is dead!”

  Vil gritted his teeth and kicked the horse. At once, it came to a stop on the sidewalk. With a sour expression, the knight looked back at Arthur and shook his head with disapproval. A single short kick, and Knuckleduster Joe reared, raising the front half of its body up to stand on its hind legs.

  Arthur scrambled, using all of his strength to try to grab onto Vil’s armor. But it was all for naught. All he ended up doing was desperately trying to cling to something and failing. Instead, he fell to the ground, right on his back. Vil snickered, and the horse went back to its original position.

  “Friend, you should not have said that. I am in a delicate condition at this moment.”

  “So, you’re gonna throw me off your horse?”

  “Y-yes. That is precisely what I have just done. Find your own way, friend. I shall head to my Celia!”

  Then, with another laugh, he kicked the horse once more, and it sped off.

  Arthur looked all around him. He did recognize the place, and it wasn’t that far from the school. He had crossed this street multiple times to get to a favorite lunch place of his. The only issue was that it was ‘not far’ in a city as big as this, but it still meant that even if he ran at top speed, it would take him 5 whole minutes to get to the school. Vil, meanwhile, was probably going to get there in the next minute or so.

  Regardless, he took a deep breath and started to run.

  He wasn’t sure why he had said what he did. It felt horrible, now that he looked back on it. If Celia were to die in this universe, and that was a possibility that felt dangerously close right now, it would probably be the worst day of his life. It would take years before he would be able to forget about it all. How long must Vil have lived with all that pain? Even though his actions were way out of hand, Arthur should not have invoked his pain and anger.

  Pushing past a group of window-shopping tourists, he reached the sidewalk of one of the widest intersections of the city. As soon as he did, the lights changed, and the cars started moving to block his path. A three-minute-long signal change. Vil was probably already at the school. Arthur took a few seconds to calm himself down and looked around. There was nothing to do.

  Nothing, except…

  He looked at his hand and the translucent ‘Skill’ text on the HUD in front of his eyes. Three seconds, Vil had said. Close your eyes and hold your hand out.

  But where? There were hundreds of cars, all moving at insane speeds. Which one could he possibly change with Object Reversal? There was only one use, and then it would go back to its cooldown. He also needed to figure out how long that cooldown was, after that.

  He looked around until he finally found his target and smiled. That made sense. It wasn’t even that difficult an answer.

  Arthur closed his eyes and pointed his hand at the traffic signal itself. One, two, three, four, five. He kept himself still just in case he had been counting too quickly, and there was still time. But then, as a cacophony of horns filled the entire road, he knew it had worked. He opened his eyes to look at the scene before him. Cars all stopped at the signal in a hurry after a small number managed to slip through. In front of his eyes, text flashed –

  Skill Activation

  Object Reversal

  Perfect! He took a long breath and started running again, straight through the now-open road and onto the other sidewalk. There weren’t going to be any other major crossings after this, so it was just a matter of getting to Middling High. He took a quick look at the greyed-out ‘Skill: Object Reversal’ text and started mentally noting how long it would take to come back to green.

  His stamina was dropping, too. It had been at 78 when he was on the horse, and was at 52 now. It actually surprised him that he even had that much left. Two minutes away from the school, and he already felt like he wanted to give up. The stress on his legs was far too much. But that meant the stamina meter was not performative. It was physical in the most factual way possible.

  If he hit zero, he would probably collapse and fall unconscious.

  His health, which had already gone down at a very slow, constant rate, was now dropping faster. It was at 96 now. Once more, reaching zero probably meant death. By that logic, anything below 50 or so would mean that you were either heavily injured or at a massive physical disadvantage somehow.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The parasite had connected with his body quite minutely. The text in front of his eyes was a visual representation of his body’s data. It was just a user-friendly GUI that had been plastered for him to see and take advantage of. Which meant that the ‘Mission’ text that he had been seeing for the longest time was just what his brain was prioritizing at this exact moment. It made sense. After all, right now, it was saying in full caps –

  FUCKING RUN!

  And that’s what he did.

  _____________

  Middling High was not a particularly standout school. It hadn’t even been a massive conversation piece in the city, and stood as one of those places that weren’t considered particularly great, but it made no mistakes either. A safe, average place to send your kid if you want to ensure a positive education and acceptable future-proofing. But today, Middling High had a magic horse in its parking lot.

  The Object Reversal skill had come back to color about two minutes after it went grey. Arthur was going to assume that this was the cooldown – 120 seconds.

  He ran up to the school gate and noticed that the security guard was not present. It confirmed his worst fears. The inside of the school had probably already turned into a social nightmare. Arthur wasn’t exactly scared for the safety of the students or teachers, since Vil was not a bad person. But he was certainly afraid of losing his reputation if Vil associated with him in any manner.

  And of course, he didn’t want to stay here too long and attract the assassins either. They would find out eventually.

  Rushing through the door, he ran through the familiar halls until he could hear the sound of hurried talking and occasional grunting. The clang of armor, too, was way too recognizable in the quiet of the school. Running through the halls like a very bad example, he took a turn and found the culprit committing the crime red-handed.

  In the middle of one of the halls, Vil was sitting on one knee. His hand held Celia’s as tears flowed down his cheeks. Then, he spoke gibberish once in a while between his loud sobs. Pretty much the entire school was watching from slightly ajar doors, trying to figure out what was going on.

  In other news, though, Celia looked just as good as ever. Her brown bob-cut was slightly shining in the light. Her colored contacts were green today, which was one of Arthur’s favorite colors to see in her eyes. For clothes, she had decided to go with something simplistic. Pale blue jeans and a peace sweater over a white shirt. She looked perfect. Quite perfect.

  “A-and…please!”

  “Look, I really don’t know what to say. I’ve got a class going on. Can you please leave, whoever you are?”

  “Who…ever!?” Vil coughed, spreading his spit and tears everywhere, and his head collapsed on the ground, “Whoever? I am…Sir Arthur Cross! I am the man whose destiny is tied with yours, Celia Ingram!”

  “Ar-thur!?”

  She had turned her attention from the armor-clad knight to the man in the purple shirt. With a confused look on her face, she gestured at the one on the ground.

  “Sir Arthur Cross?” She asked, switching looks between both of them, “Is this supposed to be a prank?”

  “No, no!” Arthur raised his hands, “I just…got here. Who is he?”

  “Y-you too!?” Vil started bawling once more, dejected at the double rejection of identity.

  Arthur would have almost felt bad about himself if the man had not been annoying Celia right now. He walked up to the two and bent down. With one hand on Vil’s wrist and one hand on Celia’s, he pulled.

  “Let…go!”

  “No! No! Celia Ingram, please! Be with me! Be mine!”

  Celia scoffed, trying to break free, too. But the knight’s grip was too strong. He held her tight as tears fell inside the armor and stained the t-shirt. His sobs filled the hallways as a few kids began to giggle at the scene.

  “Just leave me alone!” Celia finally burst and lost it, “I have a class to take! There are kids waiting. There’s no time for games. I don’t even know who you are!”

  “No! Please, Celia!”

  “You…bastard. Let go. Vil, come on!”

  “Vil? So, you do know him, Arthur?”

  “N…no! I meant, uh, you villain! Leave her hand. This is not the place to be playing your pranks. Where is the camera? Where have you hidden the camera!?”

  “Cam…what? Cameron? That was…” Vil stopped, his grip slightly loosened. Right as Celia was about to break free, however, the man held on tighter and started bawling again, “That was…the name of Celia’s retainer! No! Celia, my love!”

  “Oh god…”

  Arthur almost wanted to laugh. How could a full-grown man who was apparently the Commander of the Armies of Helonia do this? How did he not feel shame sitting down on one leg and crying as a bunch of kids watched and made fun of him?

  “Ce…”

  “What? Whoever you are, we have already called the cops. Just…”

  Then, without a single bit of effort, Celia’s hand slipped loose. She stumbled backwards, but Arthur quickly stood up and helped her gain balance.

  On the floor, Vil’s crying had stopped. Now, with his hand stuck where it had held Celia’s a second ago, he did not move at all. Instead, his ears grew red and his face, the same. Quick, short breaths escaped him. Arthur gulped and kept his eyes on the knight. What had happened?

  “Vil…lain? What happened?”

  The knight whispered back, slowly looking up at Arthur, “Lana…”

  “Lana? Who’s that?”

  Vil stood up and looked at the far end of the hallway. All the students looked too, confused about why the funny knight had suddenly gotten so serious. But even though nobody was standing where the man looked, a sense of unease filled Arthur’s heart. Lana? Who was that?

  Hand on the sword, the knight slowly started pulling it out. The steel glistened and sent waves of the sound of metal shrieking as he unsheathed it. Then, with his breathing still calculated, he immediately looked up at the ceiling.

  “Up!”

  A single slash.

  One simple burst through the air.

  The entire roof of the school burst into a hundred pieces as if an explosion had rocked it from the inside. As the sky now peered straight into the inside of what was supposed to be a safe place, Arthur noticed the woman in the jetpack floating between the flying rubble. Her sword was out, and her eyes were locked on him. Not Vil, but him. Arthur reminded himself that he was the target here.

  But before that, there was no time.

  Before the kids could start screaming…the idea entered his brain all at once.

  He pushed his hand forward and closed his eyes. One, two, three. The entire roof. It was one object. There might have been different pieces now, but a few seconds ago, it had been an entire object. Please…

  Skill Activation

  Object Reversal

  A bunch of screams turned into sighs of wonder. Arthur went down on his knees and took long breaths as he opened his eyes and noticed the repaired roof. It was as if nothing had happened. He had actually done it. He had reversed the entire roof back to its original state.

  Vil gave him a quick nod of approval and completely unsheathed his sword.

  “Arthur…what…”

  He looked at Celia and pushed himself up.

  Health at 91. Stamina at 39.

  And he was supposed to fight that woman again? The assassin, Lana?

  “Her abilities are currently on their cooldown, friend. She will use the door. But she will come. Be prepared.”

  Prepared? How?

  Arthur saw all the eyes of the kids and teachers, which were now trained on both of them. If the destruction had caused panic, the reversal had brought about a sense of hope and relief in their heads. As if they were trying to convince themselves that nothing had even happened. But it had…and something worse was about to happen.

  What was he even going to do?