The scion unsheathed a broad dagger and stabbed it through the laptop like it was made of paper. I battled the urge to leap out and slap the insolent nobleman. How could he do this to a computer? Any computer! My computer… My livelihood! My property! All the years leading to acquisition of it! All the hard work that was saved in it!

His lustrous, empty toy paled in comparison.

Lordling dropped the damaged instrument into the dirt like the garbage it truly was now. This absolute little shit! I was beyond enraged. I was an insult away from flinging a stone at his smug face.

I couldn’t.

The scion might have been provoking me on purpose, but he already knew I wouldn’t be launching an assault. After all, had I been a hired, I would have gone straight into the bedroom and choked out this god’s gift to humanity with a frilly pink pillow.

“I look forward to dismembering you,” the vicious twit left me these parting thoughts before hopping off and disappearing.

He didn’t need his phone. Didn’t need my computer. He showed up simply to flaunt his superiority. That was well within his right as Raktkalis, and I would have accepted it. To a certain point. A line was crossed. Nobody rips my life apart and gets to laugh about it.

Yet, a logical part of the brain remained painfully aware. It wasn’t this git’s own prowess that stopped me from murder, but much larger consequences. The General of Kalanta would not take loss of family member lightly. None of them would. Such an act was a treason against the survival of humanity itself.

However, I could take a bite at this asshole’s reputation. Nobody would care about the children’s spat at school. They might even get on his case, too, if the highborn doesn’t handle it properly.

Now, what would be sufficiently humiliating for an adolescent egomaniac?

I was leaning towards preying on the despot’s self-image. Veivirzis Raktkalis always stalked around in a battle armour. It was unnecessary within a city, outrageously so. After all, that was not only uncomfortable, but also cumbersome. The metallic safeguards were meant to protect against the teeth – not bullets. He had to be wearing those plates to hide something he didn’t want others to see. Scrawny physique, maybe?

It was truly a pity the phone had no embarrassing pictures. Surprising, too. A young man away from his family’s estate for the first time should be up to some unsavoury misadventures. However, a lack of personal photos on that device only reinforced my impression that the Kalantan’s appearance was really a sore point.

It didn’t matter. Truth paled in face of malicious rumours anyway.

I waited for the darkness to fall – just in case a sniper was posted. Wasn’t going to make their job easier for them. In the meantime, I laboured with a basic image editing on the phone. It wasn’t meant for fine finagling, so two minute job took quite a bit longer.

In the end, brat’s face from the ID card ended up on a naked torso posed in an unflattering manner. As the twit supposedly already knew where I was, I connected to the network again and posted my creation on the school’s social forum from his own account. I hadn’t even paused to reconsider.

Insufferable ruffian firmly deserved it. And how much worse can it get at this point, really? He’ll dismember me harder?

No assault squad had stormed in to bust me. The surroundings were quiet.

I thread the pitch black debris. It helped that I knew the area. Darted towards my maimed computer and immediately ran off, hugging it close to my chest.

The streetlights revealed I also held a pen in my grip rather than debris. Pedantic servants had not overlooked the bug. No matter, there was another one – even if I had no way to retrieve it. Just a matter of principle. I simply loved sowing the paranoia. There was no reason I had to be the only one afflicted by it.

I needed to use the computer lab and see what could be salvaged. The security at the door was high, and windows had bars on them. Not the upper floors, though!

Twined my trembling, bleeding fingers around the security barrier and hoisted myself up. I’ve wrapped my hands in a cloth repeatedly, but the rips kept reopening. I couldn’t afford the time to let injuries close, nor dared to visit the infirmary. At least it didn’t hurt. I kept slipping, though.

Heart pounding, finally forced the window open and succumbed on the floor.

“But… You know…”

Voices nearby had me frozen in place. Campus had been eerily quiet on my run over, which was inconvenient. It was hard to stay inconspicuous when I was the only one strolling around. And now there were people where I needed them least!

Fortunately, the speech came from outside of this classroom.

I began pulling out my precious junk, and gently pulling it apart. The talkers were here to stay, too. I had no choice but eavesdrop.

“But can you just imagine how she felt?”

“I was there, Eli.”

“Yet you don’t seem to care! I can’t put that crying out of my mind. The wailing. Pleading.”

“Caring won’t change a thing now.”

“A girl died! Slit her own throat! In. Front. Of. Us! Begging for help.”

“It happens. Perhaps not where you come from, but when they say jump – we jump.”

The familiar scenario caught my attention, as my unwieldy fingers attempted to do fine work.

“It happens?! Are you fucking insane? This shouldn’t be happening! We are civilised people and you’re acting like what that barbaric psycho did is the norm. He’s killed five people in single day! And nobody seems to fucking care!”

“Do you want to become the sixth?”

“Are you fucking…”

“Eli, there’s nothing anybody can do. Just forget it happened.”

Righteous woman kept descending into hysteria and her boyfriend did his best to contain the problem. If I understood the exchange correctly, even more bodies littered the holy neutral grounds. Losing a multitude of personal staff would be hard to explain away. For anybody except that guy, apparently. He either didn’t care, or he’s found the loophole in suicides.

As spontaneous as this recourse appeared to be, it had to be meticulously calculated. The lordling was brazen and daring, but not without intelligence.

After cooling off, I started having misgivings about that unfortunate picture.