Awakening: Starting With The Villain System-Chapter 64 - 63: Training (1)

My eyes widened. The implication of her threat hit me like a physical blow.

"You—"

The moment I realized what she meant, that she was about to delete both contacts from my phone in a fit of pique, I lunged my hand forward and grabbed the phone from her.

My fingers closed around the cool metal casing, snatching it back before she could follow through.

I couldn't afford to go back to Chloe and ask for her number, just not long after she'd given it to me.

The very thought made me cringe. That would be the most weirdest thing to do.

To have to explain that my… ally… had thrown a digital tantrum and erased her digits.

At least for me, with my already strained social skills, that was a bridge too far.

Yara scoffed, a short, derisive sound. She looked at my phone, now safely in my grasp, with pure contempt.

"Pathetic," she spat.

The word, coming from her, after that whole bizarre performance, was the final straw.

"At least this pathetic person sure would do better than you when asking for someone's number," I retorted.

My voice was sharper than I intended, the barb aimed right at her clear inability to handle a simple, friendly interaction.

Suddenly, a sharp, pinpoint pain flared on my arm.

More like my skin almost got pinched off. I yelped and shifted my arm away, glaring at Yara.

She had reached out and given me a vicious, twisting pinch right on the bicep.

"What?!" I asked, rubbing the sore spot. It was going to leave a bruise.

She looked utterly unrepentant.

"If I can't kill you," she stated, her voice matter-of-fact, "I might as well just harm you in any way I can faster. It's more efficient."

I stared at her, truly lost for words.

"That's just childish." 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

It was the only assessment that fit.

"But it makes me satisfied," she replied, a flicker of something dark in her eyes, "and as far as I am satisfied, every other thing is irrelevant."

It was a villain's logic, simple and self-centered.

I almost respected the purity of it.

"Lunatic," I muttered under my breath, turning away from her to stash my phone securely in my pocket.

Yara glared at me, her eyes promising future retribution for the insult, but luckily, she didn't do anything.

The pinching seemed to have sated her need for immediate violence, for now.

I soon got up, the movement jarring me out of the strange standoff. I suddenly remembered I had to train.

The thought was like a switch being flipped in my brain, shifting my focus from petty classroom drama to the grim reality of my situation.

Training had actually become part of my usual routine, as ingrained as eating or sleeping.

It's not like I liked it, no. In fact, my lazy, corner-cutting self hated every second of the grueling physical and mental exertion.

The sweat, the ache, the constant failure as I tried to grasp the edges of my Simple Domain.

But I had no choice. This was the core of my new existence.

If I continued staying and waiting for the daily system quest to develop myself, it wasn't going to teach me how to actually use my power.

The system gave me tools, but not the manual.

I would be literally neglecting them, like a kid given a lightsaber who only uses it to butter toast.

So knowing about my powers, mastering them, was on me.

The responsibility was a heavy weight, but it was mine alone to carry.

And I wasn't planning on getting my ass beat up again like when that man at Aegis punched me through a wall.

The memory of that impact, the feeling of my bones turning to dust, was a powerful motivator.

Never again.

"Where are you going to?" Yara suddenly asked.

Her voice had lost its razor edge, replaced by something closer to casual inquiry.

"To train," I simply answered without even slowing down or looking back.

I didn't owe her more of an explanation than that.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Yara open her mouth as if to say something else, but then she closed it, the words left unspoken.

She just watched me go, her expression unreadable once more.

Didn't know what she wanted to say, neither did I bother asking. She probably won't say it anyways.

I walked out of the class, the lingering tension with Yara a faint buzz at the back of my mind.

I didn't let it settle. I walked out of the school, the bright afternoon sun a stark contrast to the artificial lights of the classrooms, going straight to my destination.

There was only one place where the noise in my head truly quieted.

The training ground.

I soon got there after a brief walk, the familiar, monolithic building rising before me like a temple of self-improvement.

I entered through the heavy reinforced doors and went straight to the dummy robot simulation section, bypassing the weight rooms and the sparring rings.

This was where I did my real work.

The chamber was vast and echoey, the walls lined with padded mats and the air smelling of ozone and effort.

I stepped onto the central platform, the floor marked with a glowing grid.

I activated the control panel, and the room hummed to life.

For a few days now, I had been training with the difficulty increased to a reasonable extent, more like my level, but slightly higher.

Comfort was the enemy of progress.

Now that I had an ability and a technique, things I'd always dreamed of, I was certain I would be able to fight the dummies set slightly higher than my level.

It was time to test that certainty.

The timer flashed to life on the large screen above the platform.

[3 Minutes.]

The moment it began counting down, the air in the center of the room shimmered.

Multiple dummies appeared, not the clunky, slow models from the beginner levels, but sleek, humanoid figures with a faint, menacing glow in their optical sensors.

They stood in a loose semi-circle, their forms constructed of a dense, impact-absorbing polymer.

I brought out my wooden katana from the inventory, and unsheathed it with a soft 'shhhk'.

The dummies didn't charge at me at once. They just observed me for a moment, their heads tilting in a disturbingly lifelike way, processing my stance, my grip.

They sure are smarter than the lower-leveled ones. This wasn't going to be a simple brawl.