Lu Mingfei froze, then quickly shook his head. “No, I don’t. I’ve never minded being a plump little rice worm.”
“Not just memory erasure,” Professor Guderian patted Lu Mingfei’s shoulder. “Think about it—your parents are dragon bloodline descendants, and your uncle and aunt don’t like you. You have no particular skills. If you lost your memory and were sent back to China, you’d have to retake a year of high school to prepare for the college entrance exams. Can you imagine how miserable your life would be?”
The old man accurately hit Lu Mingfei’s weak point. Compared to some grand real world, the pressure of retaking the college entrance exams was the real thing—real enough to make his heart tremble with fear.
Lu Mingfei wore a miserable expression, “Alright, fine, I’ll try it out for a couple of days…”
“Great!” Professor Guderian’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “I’ve already prepared a plan for your education! For the first semester, I recommend you take Introduction to Dragon Genealogy, Magic Machine Design Level 1, and Alchemical Chemistry Level 1 as your major courses. For languages, you could take Old Norse, and for physical education, Tai Chi. This would give you thirteen credits—unmatched among freshmen. I want to make you Cassell College’s second well-deserved S-Rank student in over forty years!”
“Raising expectations? My parents don’t know their son at all, do they? Do they think they gave birth to a genius?” Lu Mingfei felt utterly powerless. “Alright, let’s not beat around the bush. What happens if I fail a course?”
“You’ll just have to retake it. As long as you don’t severely violate college rules, Cassell College won’t expel students. Some students have been failing courses for years, and they’re still retaking them,” Professor Guderian said in a comforting tone. “Remember Finger? He’s repeated the fourth year for four years now… and nobody’s expelled him.”
How was that comforting? It was practically a blatant threat. Finger had once been an ambitious A-Rank student, and now he’d been reduced to a wretched drifter, while the S-Rank senior had shot himself. It seemed that the higher one’s rank, the more likely they were to die! Lu Mingfei thought.
“Fine, I agree, I’ll sign. But there’s one last question—why is Chinese mandatory? Why does everyone here speak Chinese?” Lu Mingfei asked.
“Good question,” Professor Guderian nodded. “According to the research department, several prince-level dragons, major figures in the dragon race, are sleeping in China and will soon awaken. Cassell College made Chinese a mandatory subject ten years ago. Each of you carries the mission to venture into China and slay the Dragon Kings!”
“No wonder the jobs are assigned after graduation… With work like this, you couldn’t find anyone through normal recruitment!” Lu Mingfei said.
“But we offer great benefits! We even pay for your health insurance!” Professor Guderian replied.
“Come on! You’re dragon slayers—how could you survive without health insurance? This job is life-threatening, right? What’s the maximum coverage? Fifty million dollars?”
“It’s free air transport for your remains back to China…”
“What?” Lu Mingfei’s eyes widened as he imagined a corpse covered in a white sheet being carried off a plane, a tag on its head reading his familiar name, “Lu Mingfei.”
Lu Mingfei was escorted out of the office by Professor Guderian and Toyama Masashi, with each of them firmly patting his shoulders. He hung his head like a defeated rooster. A group of maintenance workers carrying toolboxes brushed past them, seemingly heading to repair the window that had been blown out by the artillery-grade PPK.
Leaving the medieval-style building, they were greeted by green lawns, crimson cobblestone paths, and castle-like structures. In the distance, pigeons fluttered above the church roof. Standing in the sunlight, Lu Mingfei regained a bit of vitality—at least he still felt like he was in the human world.
“My mom…” Lu Mingfei said.
He felt like he had to figure out what role his parents played in this ridiculous admission mess. What kind of parents would be so devious as to send their only child into a death trap? Was he adopted? He hadn’t thought so when he was younger.
A piercing alarm suddenly tore through the sky, echoing across the campus like a howling ghost. Lu Mingfei froze, and the expressions on Professor Guderian and Toyama Masashi’s faces instantly grew serious, clearly indicating that the situation was dire.
“Huh? Is this an air raid?” Lu Mingfei looked around. “Are the dragons attacking? Would they use an air raid? Oh right, they can fly!”
Only then did he realize that he’d already accepted Cassell College’s idea that dragons existed. He also noticed something strange—such a vast campus was completely empty, with only him, Professor Guderian, and Toyama standing by the lawn. Even if it was still summer break, this was way too strange.
“Damn… I forgot what day it is… Find cover! Damn it, they’re about to start!” Toyama Masashi was sweating heavily.
“We should head back to the office for shelter!” Professor Guderian said with a serious expression.
But it was already too late. A group of people dressed in black combat uniforms, holding M4 rifles, appeared on the staircase of the building behind them. The maintenance workers rushed out of the office, seemingly trying to stop them, but their opponents raised their guns and fired. The burly carpenters, as strong as commandos, fell one after another as they emerged.
Lu Mingfei thought his health insurance, with the provision to send his remains back to China, could be put to use immediately.
Before the invaders in black uniforms could point their guns at him, Toyama pulled him and Professor Guderian into a narrow alley. The invaders in black completely ignored the three of them, sprinting past at high speed, while another group in crimson uniforms rushed out of the church. The campus, which had been eerily quiet, suddenly became a battlefield. People emerged from every building, each group distinguished by their uniforms, all armed. The moment they saw each other, they opened fire mercilessly. Many people were shot down the instant they appeared. The gunfire was deafening, and Lu Mingfei felt like he was on a World War II North African battlefield.
He was utterly speechless, his eyes wide as he stared at Professor Guderian.
“What is the Student Union President trying to do? What’s his name again? Does he not care about losing credits?” Professor Guderian shouted at Toyama, covering his ears.
“Has he ever cared? His GPA has never been high anyway!” Toyama said, crouching swiftly. A bullet whizzed just over his head, and Lu Mingfei thought it was undoubtedly a real bullet—Toyama would have ended up like the maintenance workers if he’d been just a fraction of a second slower. The Student Union President was rebelling? Was the Student Union here dedicated to fighting with weapons?
“His name is Caesar Gattuso!” Toyama said angrily as he straightened up. “That spoiled brat driving a Bugatti Veyron!”
He pulled out the artillery-grade PPK from his pocket, loaded a new magazine, his face full of the determination of a commando ready to go into battle.
“I’ll remember him! If he takes my class, I’ll make him regret it!” Professor Guderian shouted.
As he finished his sentence, his life ended—a bullet with immense force pierced his body, leaving a smoking hole in his ragged suit. Blood splattered out. Professor Guderian looked down with difficulty at the bullet wound, grabbed Lu Mingfei, and said just one thing, “Remember to fill out your course selection form!”
Professor Guderian collapsed to the ground. Toyama Masashi, who tried to rush over to help, was shot in the back, as if someone had shoved him. He staggered forward a few steps and never got up again.
“This… can’t be just a joke, right?” Lu Mingfei thought to himself. Someone had just died right in front of him, for real.
He leaned against the wall, feeling the countless bullets crisscrossing outside. The deadly rounds whizzed past him, and the campus had now become a slaughterhouse. Poor him, just a freshman, not even assigned a dorm yet, let alone knowing who were dragons and who were humans. Lu Mingfei shivered, feeling as if his brain had turned to mush—if he got shot, what would spill out probably wouldn’t be brain matter.
“Target their positions! We have forty-three enemies left!”
“Enemies down to twenty-seven! One sniper hasn’t been located! He’s already taken out thirteen of us! Take him down!”
Both sides were shouting into their walkie-talkies while continuing to shoot. Strangely, no one tried to charge into the narrow alley where Lu Mingfei was hiding. There were just stray bullets occasionally coming through. He stood stiffly beside the bodies of Professor Guderian and Toyama Masashi, imagining himself as an inconspicuous wooden stake.