From Trash to Their King

The Trash Out of the Academy

Dean Martins stood rooted to the marble dais, his knuckles white against his wooden staff. For three terrifying seconds, the entire academy remained completely frozen, staring at the bruised, tear-streaked cleaner kneeling amidst the dust and shattered glass left behind by the fled beasts. No one could comprehend what had just transpired. Two B-rank apex predators, famous for tearing high-tier mages to shreds, had dropped their prey and fled in absolute terror but as the initial shock evaporated, the mages' fragile ego and embarrassment quickly warped into an ugly, collective rage. They could not accept that a non-magical worm had survived through anything other than sheer, disgusting unnaturalness.

“W-what kind of unnatural foulness is that?!” Noah bellowed first, breaking the silence as he pointed a trembling, accusing finger at Kelvin. 

“He didn't fight them off. He couldn't even if he tried He's so utterly rancid, filthy, and worthless that even mindless void beasts are disgusted by his flesh!” Noah rage was getting higher 

A wave of cruel, hysterical laughter erupted through the crowd of students, growing louder and more vicious with every second.

“Look at him, he isn't just powerless but also a walking jinx and a biolohial curse” Seraphina shrieked, clutching her stomach as she laughed until tears came to her eyes

“He's so foul the Shadow-Stalkers couldn't even stomach his meat!” Chloe mocked, using a minor telekinetic spell to pick up a chunk of sharp glass and hurl it at Kelvin's shoulder, cutting through his shirt. "He's a bad omen! A walking blight on our sacred grounds!"

Dean Martins’ face contorted into a mask of pure, veins-throbbing embarrassment and anger. To have his grand, calculated sacrifice end not in a heroic stall of time, but in the embarrassing retreat of monsters fleeing a non-magical pest, was an unbearable insult to his prestige as an Arch-Mage. His amber eyes burned with absolute malice as he looked down at the trembling boy.

“Enough” Martins roared, his voice amplified by air magic so hard it rattled the surrounding stone spires. He pointed his heavy staff directly at Kelvin's shivering form. “This creature is a blight upon the grand halls of this Academy. His very presence brings misfortune, disrupts our wards, and taints the sacred ether of this academy! Guard! Drag this cursed trash off the academy grounds immediately”

“No please, Dean Martins” Kelvin cried out, his voice cracking into raw, desperate shrieks as true panic gripped his chest.

He dragged his bruised, battered body across the cold obsidian stone, blood smearing beneath his knees as he clawed desperately at the hem of the nearest guard's enchanted cloak.

“I have nowhere to go! I don't know this world! I don't even know where I am. I will die out there in the void-forest, please I will sweep the entire academy twice a day and I will sleep in the cold slop-pits. I won't ask for food, I swear, Please, don't throw me out!” Kelvin sobbed, his chest heaving violently against his cracked ribs.

“Get your filthy, cursed hands off me, trash” the guard snarled, repulsed. He drew back his iron-shod boot and delivered a brutal kick directly to Kelvin’s jaw.

Kelvin reeled back with a sickening crack, tasting copper and ash as fresh blood spilled down his chin and stained his neck. Tears of agony, helplessness, and searing humiliation blurred his vision, but the instinct to survive forced him onto his hands and knees once more. Weeping openly, he scraped his raw fingers against the floor, begging the surrounding noble students who had watched him suffer for three whole months.

“Please., Noah, Alaric, help me. I promise not to do anything that might annoy you henceforth. Just help me talk to Dean Martin” he begged, his raw knuckles bleeding onto the jagged glass scattered around him

“Get lost, bad luck” Alaric spat, stepping forward to land a heavy dragon-leather boot straight into Kelvin’s broken ribs, forcing a wet gasp of agony from the boy's throat.

“Out! Out!! Out!!!” the students began to chant, egged on by Noah, Seraphina, and Chloe.

The crowd closed in like a mob of wild animals. They rained a barrage of small, stinging fire sparks, icy shards, and rotten food onto his shivering, helpless back. They spat on him, threw stones, and cheered as if driving out a demon.

“Cast out the jinx and drive the trash away”

Two massive guards grabbed Kelvin by his bloody shirt collar and arms, dragging his limp, broken body through the dirt like a bag of refuse. His feet trailed behind him, leaving a thin trail of blood across the polished courtyard tiles while the entire student body gathered along the pathway, cheering, laughing, and pelting him with debris. 

Kelvin wept bitterly, his broken, raspy pleas drowning completely beneath the deafening tide of mockery.With a final, brutal shove, the guards hurled Kelvin forward.

He tumbled down the steep marble stairs, crashing violently onto the jagged, icy rocks of the outer wasteland beyond the grand perimeter. Behind him, the massive, spell-bound iron gates of the Academy groaned as they swung shut, sealing with a final, echoing crash of anti-trespass sigils.

Kelvin lay face down in the frozen dirt, naked to the howling, freezing winds of the barren territory. Beaten within an inch of his life, covered in trash, blood, and dirt, he was left completely alone in a monster-ridden world utterly discarded by the mages who thought him lower than dirt.

He was dying. He knew it. Without shelter, without magic to ward off the biting cold, and without food, the harsh elements of this foreign world would claim him before nightfall.

Suddenly, as he shifted his arm, his fingers brushed against a small tear in the frayed lining of his dirty trousers. A faint, metallic clink echoed softly against the howling wind.

Kelvin’s hand instinctively darted into the rip, his trembling, numb fingers closing around three tiny, tarnished copper coins.

He stared at the worthless metal in his hand, a sudden, searing realization cutting through the foggy haze of his pain. These three coins were the sum total of everything he possessed. They wouldn't buy a single crust of stale bread in the lower slums, let alone save his life in the void-forest.

A sudden, white-hot spark of defiance flared in the depths of his chest. Today was the 27th of the month. His monthly wages were officially due. If these arrogant mages were going to cast him out like garbage to be devoured by monsters, he was not going to leave a single copper of his hard-earned money in their filthy, aristocratic hands.

With a raspy, painful roar, Kelvin forced his trembling, battered body to move. He threw his weight forward, scrambling on all fours across the frozen gravel like a desperate animal before surging onto his feet.

“Wait!” Kelvin screamed, his voice raw, hoarse, and flecked with red foam as he sprinted back toward the closing entrance.