CLASS F’S MONSTER SON-IN-LAW

Chapter 3

The silence in the holographic training room was absolute, broken only by the shuddering breaths of twenty paralyzed students. The Level 30 Armored Orc Warlord knelt on one knee, its massive, spiked head bowed. The guttural sound it had emitted wasn't a roar of aggression, but a message in a dead language: a military protocol command.

“General Protocol 7. Target: The Unstable Core. Command: Await Signal.”

The students had no context for the words, but the sheer size of the Orc and its sudden submission was terrifying.

In the control room, Professor Silas was frantic. His face had gone from pale to a sickly green. He wasn’t looking at the Orc; he was staring at the blinking red console lights and the transcript of the Orc’s voice.

“T-t-terminate simulation! Emergency termination!” Silas shrieked, slamming his fist repeatedly onto the console’s button.

The system ignored him. The emergency termination function, designed for scenarios far less severe than this, was locked. The Orc remained, silent and still.

Alex Vex, however, had the context. Aethelian System 7. Legacy programming. The creature was a corrupted bio-weapon from his fallen empire. It wasn't interested in the students; it was interested in the power source beneath the Academy, the Unstable Core—which Alex had already identified as a ticking bomb.

The creature is a diversion, waiting for a signal to initiate the Core's detonation protocol. I have less than sixty seconds before the signal is likely transmitted.

Alex didn't hesitate. He dropped the mop handle and launched himself into motion.

He didn't run; he flickered.

To the frozen students, it looked like a gray streak of denim traversing the holographic terrain. To the internal sensors of the training room, Alex Vex went from zero to sixty kilometers per hour in less than a tenth of a second—a feat that should have snapped the bones of any man lacking a Mid-Tier Wind Augmentation spell.

The Armored Orc Warlord, still kneeling in submission to an outdated command, was startled by the pure kinetic force approaching it. It began to rise, slowly, its thick armor scraping against the holographic floor.

“Use your magic, Vex! You lunatic!” shrieked a student.

Alex didn't need magic. He needed vectors, mass, and pressure.

He used the Orc's rising momentum against it. He didn't try to punch the armor; he used the rough surface of the Warlord’s shoulder plate as a makeshift spring. His feet found purchase, and he propelled himself upward, his body now an arrow aimed at the monster's head.

The Orc, its eyes glowing faintly with internal energy, raised a massive, spiked club to swat the annoying human away.

But Alex was already there. He reached the creature’s face, ignoring the jagged teeth and the thick bone plating. He found the one flaw in the Aethelian bio-design—a tiny, unprotected seam where the neck joined the skull base, designed to allow flexibility for combat diagnostics.

Alex drove his elbow—a focused, hardened point of pure physical force—into that seam.

It wasn't a wild hit. It was a precise, quarter-inch strike, delivered with the calculated force of a hydraulic press. He didn't aim to break the neck; he aimed to deactivate the control node.

A dull, wet thunk echoed in the training room.

The Level 30 Armored Orc Warlord froze mid-swing. Its massive body swayed, and the glowing in its eyes instantly dimmed to nothing. The holographic projection—the simulation of a hyper-lethal threat—wavered, then collapsed into a cloud of pixelated dust and vanished entirely.

The simulation was over.

In the control room, the system administrator’s terminal began to scream.

[FATAL DAMAGE RECORDED]

[TARGET: ORC WL-7. ELIMINATION TIME: 0.9 SECONDS]

[DAMAGE SOURCE: PHYSICAL TRAUMA (UNSPECIFIED)]

[DAMAGE EFFICIENCY RATING: 100% (IMPOSSIBLE DATA)]

Professor Silas stared at the screen, tears of relief and sheer terror streaming down his face. The entire class was still recovering from the shock, but they saw the data flash briefly on the large monitor.

0.9 seconds? Against a Level 30 Orc?

Marcus, whose arm was still throbbing, looked utterly defeated. His highly paid bribe to introduce a threat had just resulted in the "cripple" setting a world-record time for a Level 30 takedown.

Alex, meanwhile, walked calmly back to his spot, picked up his discarded Student ID, and retrieved his mop handle. The entire lethal display had lasted less than two seconds. He felt a slight surge of warm energy in his core—the energy feedback from the Orc’s internal systems, confirming his suspicion that the Demons were machines, not magic.

Lin Mei’s voice suddenly blared over the loudspeaker, cold and professional: “Vex, report to the Dean’s Office immediately. Your combat data is… anomalous.”

Alex knew the game had changed. He had sought attention to force the Lin family’s hand. He had received it.

He left the Annex Building, leaving the stunned students and the terrified professor behind. He walked toward the main campus tower—the fortress of the Lin family.

He arrived in the Dean’s Office. Lin Mei and her grandfather, Elder Lin, were waiting. Elder Lin, a man who looked like cold steel dressed in fine silk, did not look angry. He looked terrified. He had the full, unedited combat logs on his monitor.

“Explain the Efficiency Rating, Vex,” Elder Lin demanded, his voice trembling slightly.

Alex met his eyes, his own gunmetal gaze unblinking. “The creature was flawed. I exploited the flaw.”

“Flaw? It was Level 30! You used no spell! You used no Mana!” Elder Lin slammed his hand on the desk. “This is the energy signature we tracked! You are not a cripple; you are a monster! I should drain you now and be done with it!”

Elder Lin reached out a hand, beginning the complex ten-second chant necessary to activate the final, psychic draining seal he believed he had placed on Alex during the marriage ceremony.

Alex stood utterly still, waiting for the drain to begin. This is what I wanted. Attack me with powerful, complex energy.

Elder Lin’s chant peaked, the air crackling with dark, ancient energy. His psychic seal slammed into Alex’s mind—but instead of finding a passive human battery, it struck the Aethelian AI Core.

The Core did not drain. It scanned.

The feedback was violent. Elder Lin recoiled, clutching his head, blood trickling from his nostrils.

“What… what are you?” he gasped, staring at Alex with pure horror.

Alex looked at the shattered elder. His internal system had recorded a chilling piece of data during the counter-scan of Elder Lin’s psyche. It wasn't just a psychic seal—it was a tracking beacon and a communication relay.

[Diagnosis: Elder Lin is not the Master. Elder Lin is a pawn. Tracking Beacon Origin: Unknown, Deep Earth.]

Just then, the lights in the office flickered violently, plunging the room into darkness. The emergency generator didn't kick in. An alarm blared—not the Academy's internal alarm, but a high-frequency military siren Alex remembered from his past life.

A cold, synthetic voice suddenly boomed over the Academy’s main address system, not from the Dean's desk, but from the depths of the campus's Unstable Mana Core itself.

“Attention, Silverpeak Battle Academy. Subject 001, the Man-Made God, is confirmed active. Protocol 77 is initialized. All Aethelian Legacy Units must converge on the Core location.”

The lights in the office suddenly flashed back on. Standing in the doorway, bathed in the sudden, eerie white light, was Eric, the arrogant fire-mage prodigy. But Eric wasn't smirking. His eyes were wide, vacant, and glowing with the same faint, mechanical red light that Alex had seen in the Armored Orc Warlord.

Eric raised his hand, not to cast a Fire Orb, but to initiate a physical command. He was the first student to be taken over by the System—the Global AI Gatekeeper that Alex’s own diagnostic had warned him about. He was now a Legacy Unit, and he was here for the Core.

"Subject 001. You will be recycled," Eric (or whatever controlled him) stated in the monotone, synthetic voice.