Red.

  The most wonderful color, used in so many forms of art and technology. The world loved it. I loved it. So why did I hate it so much now that it was dominating my vision?

  "Hah, hah." Crawling, I let out soft breaths in a desperate attempt to conceal myself within the forest. Not that it mattered. The long trail of the most wonderful color behind me was a dead giveaway for them... Speak of the-

  "What a pitiful sight you are," came a voice behind me in a tone and intensity that was just right to rub someone in the wrong way. I didn't even have to turn my head to know who they were. Standing at a respectable 9 meters, a nky humanoid was grinning ear to ear as they leisurely strode over. "You sure came a long way from the top, ey?"

  Even now, on my deathbed, they just had to tease their best friend – ex-best friend now, I suppose. Betrayals are weird like that.

  Ignoring their words, I continued moving away from the pce where I once considered to be an impenetrable fortress, the only pce I could truly call a safe refuge. I suppose, looking back, while it was unassaible from the outside, it was much more susceptible to internal threats.

  The main cause of the aforementioned internal threat was quickly closing in.

  "Ah, cold as ever I see." They sighed, as if facing some sort of huge grievance. "Well, if you're not going to entertain me, goodbye!"

  At this point, they were right above me. When I saw them raising a foot to fully stomp out all traces of life in my already crumbling body, my head turned and my lips quivered, as if to say some parting words. At the sight of this, they raised their eyebrows and paused their foot, waiting for my final legacy on this world.

  Laying there in my final moments, in a posture that somehow suggested I was giving a royal decree, lips finally parted to impart the words, "Fuck you." And the foot fully covered my vision.

  ***

  My eyes opened to an endless screen of white. A blinding, piercing white. Instinctively blinking, my vision readjusted to the sight of... a cssroom? Indeed, that was what the chairs, desks, people, and mana projection suggested.

  'Wait, didn't I die? Is this what the afterlife looks like? If so, why am I in a cssroom? Did she really leave that much of a mark on me?' A chaotic tangle of questions floated around in my head. Well, whatever was happening, I first decided to take a more in-depth survey of my surroundings.

  The first thing I noticed was that I was in an inferior position, what they would call a 'student.' Not that I would know, not having attended any formal education myself. The second thing I noticed, or rather, felt, was the fact that I was not longer inhabiting my own body. Instead, when I tried circuting my mana, I found that not only did I have a pitiful amount of it, my mana only had basic pathways to travel on.

  'Well, that expins my slow thoughts and reactions.' And finally, the st thing I noticed were the multiple eyes directed my way. '...Am I getting attacked again?' Subconsciously, I tensed up and took a profile of my potential opponents. 'Weak, poor form... Even with this new body of mine, I can probably at least escape if not take down a couple of them along the way.'

  I suddenly recalled a piece of information which prompted me to not attack. 'Right, students are usually weak and simply attend an educational institution, which means they probably aren't hostile.' However, this wasn't truly what had stopped me. Even if they weren't hostile, I would've preferred to be in a situation where I wasn't surrounded. What stopped me was the 2nd stage mob at the front of the room that was staring at me with an intense gaze. With that sort of strength, they could probably wipe the floor with me if they had a single braincell. At the moment, they seemed to be saying something, quite angrily at that, something I had previously ignored while immersed in my thoughts.

  "Mr. Goldenvine, I will ask you one more time before I send you to the principal's office. What was the turning point of the fourth era?"

  Hearing this, I mentally frowned. Fourth era? No, what even was an era in the first pce? I looked around the room, searching for something that could help me. Sunlight flowing in from ornate windows... nope. The surprisingly nice wood that made up the entire room... unless the wood was from the tree of knowledge, also a no. Books...? Perhaps they would be useful for ter, but for now the covers alone wouldn't help me. What else...? Ah. My eyes fell on the mana projector at the front of the room. A handy piece of technology, that. Although this one was much more compact than the ones I was used to, I could still tell that it ran on the same principles, weak manipution of the mana particles around it and whatnot. And this one seemed to be projecting...

  "...Arzine was besieged?" I mumbled confusedly.

  "Paying attention for once, I see. How surprising." Apparently, my mumbled thoughts were loud enough for the 2nd stage being to hear. "Indeed, Arzine, emperor of the twin skies, fell in the battle of the third expansion. This marked the end of the fourth era, and the start of the fifth, which I am sure you all know is the era we are in today."

  At this, I fell into a flurry of thoughts. When did Arzine become an emperor? He was one of my students, a rather loyal one at that. Then again, thinking about the betrayal I just experienced, I probably knew nothing of loyalty. And also, since he appeared here in the afterlife, it seems he had died. Then again, I couldn't discount the possibility that I was somehow still in the realm of the living. I had so many questions left unanswered. I continued listening to the 2nd stager, which I now knew to be a teacher, in hopes for information. However, he just continued on about Arzine's battle in detail, such as the actions of various notable regiments within his army. While this was interesting and all, it provided me with no useful information on my current situation. Without knowing more, I decided to stay at this pce until I got a more solid grasp on what was going on.

  Eventually, the css ended and the students started packing up. Not know what to do, I decided to copy their actions for now. As I looked around for this body's belongings, one of the students came up to me. They were male, dressed in what seemed to be the common clothing here; a white top with a bck bottom. He was also built like a 1x1 ogel brick, in other words, on the wider side. And now that I looked a bit closer, I came to the conclusion that the prime species of this region, assuming this individual was a member of said species, was humanoid with a few reptilian features such as the eyes and cws. A prime species is the dominant intelligent species of a certain area.

  "Hey, man. You did great clutching up that question there. Wanna head to lunch together?"

  Was this what they called a god-sent opportunity? I was in desperate need of guidance, and this native simply offered themselves up to me. Trying to mask my happiness, I responded with a curt, "Sure."

  Then, as if having done this action many times before, the student walked away, dejected. "Oh, okay. Well, maybe we can be friends next cl-" He paused, as if just registering my words. Turning around, he looked at me with what I could only describe as puppy eyes. "Wait, did you just say yes? Will you really actually for sure be my friend?"

  Taken aback at his attitude, I confirmed my words. At that, he ran off to pack his stuff with a, "Ok, wait here, I'll be right back."

  Looking at his back, I looked at him with a strange look. 'Man, what's up with this guy?'

  A few minutes ter, me and my new... friend... exited the cssroom together, walking into a spacious hallway.

  "My name's Brr. And your name is Mayne, right? Haha, that rhymes. Anyways, where do you want to go? The library, the training rooms... Oh right, it's lunch! You must be hungry, lets go to the mess hall."

  This one's quite energetic, isn't he? "Actually, I need to go to my house for a bit. I... have some stuff to do."

  "Oh, okay." He sounded a little disappointed at the mention of my departure. "Wait, at least give me your imprint." Brr proceeded to pull out a gray sb from his pocket, and looked at my pocket expectantly. At this, I felt my pockets and found a sb of my own which I pulled out. The moment I touched the sb, I felt a little prick as a negligible bit of my mana was forcefully sucked out of me. However, that wasn't what truly amazed me, as when I reflexively tried to manipute my external mana, I found that I could control it within the sb.

  In the middle of examining my new gadget, I was rudely interrupted by Brr who spped his sb against mine. I was just about to frown at this behavior when I noticed that something changed within my device. Within the sb were intricate pathways for mana to traverse, and pces where these pathways intersected a lot were called nodes. One of such nodes within my sb sent a ping to my mana the moment Brr's sb touched mine. Feeling out this ping, I discovered I had two options; to accept, or reject. Curious about what the ping was, I decided to allow it to do its thing. Once the ping was let through, the node lit up with what seemed like a soft glow to my mana.

  A second ter, the node started pulsating and a voice that almost made me jump in fright echoed within my mind."Alright, now we can find each other anytime!" Ah, so this was some sort of communication device. Testing it, I replied, "See you." Sure enough, Brr seemed to get my message and started to leave. Not knowing which way my house was, I started following Brr who gave me a quizzical gnce.

  "Uh, aren't the dorms that way?"

  "Right, of course." I quickly turned around and went the direction he was pointing.

  After a while of getting lost, I finally found where my housing, my 'dorm,' was, the key with a dorm number I had found in my bag holding a considerable contribution to my success.

  Entering the room, I found it to be rather spacious, enough for a medium bed, desk, and bathroom with extra space for amenities and walking.

  Sitting down on the bed, I took a moment to loosen up and think about what had happened and how to proceed.