The forest crackled with silence. Even the insects seemed to know better than to make a sound here.
Luca walked alone, his orange eyes darting from shadow to shadow, sword clutched so tightly his knuckles went white. The faint hum of electricity sparked around his arm every few seconds—his body's nervous reaction to his own fear.
He muttered to himself for the fifteenth time in the last ten minutes.
"Okay, Luca, calm down. You got five fingers. That's… that's a solid pass, right? You just have to stay alive for two more days. Two days! That's forty-eight hours of not dying! You can do that, easy."
A branch snapped somewhere behind him.
He froze.
"Okay—maybe not that easy."
His breathing quickened. Every heartbeat felt like thunder in his chest. Sparks flickered across his sword's hilt as his anxiety surged, charging the air around him.
"Please," he whispered to himself, "please don't let me run into any strong Smiler. Just weak ones. The drooling kind. The stupid ones. Please not another Xu-level freak. I'll just stay here… quietly… alive…"
He forced a shaky grin. "Yup. Hiding counts as strategy. Totally counts."
As he continued muttering his little affirmations, a rustling sound cut through the stillness. Luca spun around, blade raised, lightning flaring—only to see a young aspirant stumbling out from the bushes, covered in scratches and blood.
"W-whoa! Hey! Human! Totally human!" Luca shouted, lowering his sword slightly.
The boy collapsed onto his knees, gasping. His uniform was torn, and tears streamed down his dirt-smeared face.
"P-please… y-you have to help them! The others! There's a Smiler—it's huge—it's… it's killing everyone!"
Luca blinked. "Huh? Wait, wait, hold on—what do you mean huge? Like… taller than me huge or eat-a-tree huge?"
"E-eat-a-tree!" the boy cried. "It's tearing through the forest—seven, eight of us already gone! You have to help us!"
Luca's jaw dropped. His eyes widened in sheer horror.
"You want me to go there?! Are you crazy?! You should be running in the opposite direction, not bringing me into it!"
The boy grabbed Luca's sleeve desperately. "You're one of the stronger ones, right? You have that electricity thing! I saw it earlier—please! I can't do it alone!"
"Stronger? Me? No-no-no, I think you've got the wrong guy, buddy," Luca said, forcing a shaky laugh. "I'm, uh, more of a… defensive type. You know, run fast, live long, die never."
The boy's expression twisted in despair. "They're dying! Do you even hear yourself right now?"
Luca winced. His hands trembled, sparks bursting from his gloves. "Of course I hear myself! That's the problem!"
For a long moment, the two just stood there—the desperate survivor clutching him, and the terrified hero trying to talk his way out of heroism.
Finally, Luca let out a long, heavy sigh. "I'm seriously gonna regret this, aren't I?"
The boy looked up, hope flickering in his eyes.
Luca pointed a shaky finger at him. "If I die out there, I'm haunting you. I mean it. Like, ghost roommate level haunting."
The boy nodded eagerly. "Y-yes! Anything! Please just come!"
"Ugh, fine!" Luca grumbled, scratching the back of his head as static flickered between his fingers. "Why can't I ever be the guy who says 'no' and walks away?!"
As he took his first step toward the direction of the chaos, the air around him began to vibrate faintly. His fear was rising again, and with it, the soft hum of power crawling through his veins.
"Alright, Luca," he whispered, more to himself than anyone else, "you're terrified… perfect. Let's go save some people before your heart explodes."
The forest trembled. The trees shuddered like frightened witnesses as a thunderous roar echoed through the air. Luca froze mid-step, his hands trembling around the hilt of his katana. Ahead of him, towering over the corpses of fallen students, stood a Smiler—fifteen feet tall, its skin stretched and pulsing with veins that glowed faintly blue. Its mouth twisted into a grotesque grin wide enough to split its face in half.
Luca's breath hitched. "I-I-I-Is t-t-this the o-one you w-were t-t-talking about?" he stammered, his eyes wide, his voice shaking as if the words themselves were afraid to leave his mouth.
The blood-soaked student beside him nodded desperately. "Yeah! That's the one! Please—you have to stop it! Before it kills everyone else!"
Luca blinked twice, his brain short-circuiting between logic and panic. "F-F-F you, kid!" he blurted out, taking a step back. "H-how the hell do you even expect me to kill that thing?! It's—it's big as a damn house! He looks like he eats dinosaurs for breakfast! I can't even scratch that monster, let alone kill it!"
The Smiler turned its grinning face toward Luca, its hollow eyes locking onto the trembling boy. A low, guttural sound rumbled from its throat—a twisted laugh that made the air itself feel sick. It sensed something—an overwhelming surge of emotion bubbling inside Luca. Fear. Anxiety. Desperation. To the Smiler, it was a feast.
It lunged.
The ground shattered beneath its charge, claws ripping through earth as it sprinted with terrifying speed for its size. Luca's body froze. His knees buckled. Every cell screamed run, but his legs refused to move. His heart slammed in his chest like a trapped animal.
"Move, move, MOVE!" he yelled at himself, but it was too late.
The Smiler's shadow fell over him—its claws gleaming in the dim light. And then—
CRACK.
A surge of electricity exploded out of Luca's body. The air split apart in a deafening thunderclap. His eyes snapped open—no longer filled with fear, but glowing with blinding blue light. His hair stood upright, streaked with orange and yellow sparks. Bolts of energy danced across his skin, twisting and weaving like living lightning.
The Smiler roared and swung its massive arm down—but Luca wasn't there.
He moved faster than sight.
The forest lit up in a flash of gold and blue. The Smiler's arm evaporated into charred fragments before it even realized it had been hit. Luca appeared mid-air, electricity spiraling around his katana like a storm. His voice, once trembling, now echoed with raw fury.
"Anxiety Emotion: Lightning Flash Burst!"
One swing.
The blade cut through the Smiler's body like light through smoke. In the next instant, the beast stood still—its grin still frozen on its face—before its body disintegrated into dust and ash.
The forest fell silent again.
The students stared at Luca with wide eyes. The kid who had begged for help ran up to him, voice filled with awe. "You… you did it! You killed it! You're incredible, sir! You saved us all!"
Luca blinked, panting hard, the electricity fading from his body. His knees trembled again—not from fear this time, but exhaustion. He pointed his sword shakily at the kid.
"Incredible?" he shouted, his voice cracking with disbelief. "I ALMOST DIED OUT THERE! You think that was fun for me?! You think I wasn't scared out of my damn mind?! My life just flashed before my eyes three times, kid! Three!"
The student flinched. "B-but you—"
"But nothing!" Luca yelled, waving his sword wildly. "Next time, call someone who isn't about to piss themselves before fighting a house-sized monster!"
He sighed deeply, sheathing his sword, electricity still crackling faintly around his fingers. "I swear, I need therapy after this…"
The student smiled nervously. "Still… thank you, sir."
Luca looked away, pretending not to hear, but a faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Tch… yeah, whatever. Just don't make me do it again."
As the two walked away from the battlefield, the scorched earth behind them sparked faintly—blue electricity whispering through the ashes.
[TO BE CONTINUED]