My First Pet Is a Nightmare God

Chapter 3: Laughter of the Weak

The laughter from the arena still clung to me as I moved through the academy corridors, but I refused to let it show on my face. I kept my pace steady and my expression blank, weaving between clusters of celebrating students who displayed their newly bonded beasts with open pride. A girl laughed as her water elemental danced around her shoulders in shimmering arcs. A boy boasted loudly about his iron-horned rhino that could shatter concrete with a single charge. Their voices carried the easy confidence of those whose futures had just been handed to them.

I slipped past them like a ghost until a familiar voice cut through the noise near the central atrium.

“Look who decided to crawl out of whatever hole they threw him in,” Marcus Vale called out, loud enough for the growing crowd to hear. His newly bonded flame lynx lounged at his feet, tail flicking lazily while its eyes glowed with inner heat. “The F-rank wondered himself. Tell me, Drax, did your egg even bother to pretend before it died?”

Snickers rippled outward and phones came out to record the moment. Marcus stepped closer, emboldened by the audience. “What crawled out? A dying rat? A limp worm? Or did they just give you the shell out of pity?”

The laughter grew sharper, the kind that fed on itself. In this world, kicking the weak served as a public reminder to everyone else that they remained safe for now.

I stopped walking but did not turn immediately. My hands stayed loose at my sides while that new cold presence inside my chest stirred with quiet curiosity.

Marcus moved right into my space, close enough that I could smell the smoke clinging to his lynx. “Come on, show us what pathetic thing answered your call. Let’s all have a good laugh at the failure who thought he could rise.”

The crowd leaned in, hungry for more entertainment.

Something dark and amused brushed against my thoughts. Let them laugh for now. Their fear will taste far sweeter later.

I met Marcus’s eyes without flinching. “It hatched.”

The simple statement landed in the sudden quiet.

Marcus blinked, then threw his head back and howled with laughter. “Hatched? That broken thing? Bullshit. I saw the readout myself. F-rank, cracked, vitality zero. You are finished, Drax. You might as well pack your bags and go scrub floors with the rest of the rejects.”

His flame lynx suddenly stiffened, ears flattening against its skull. A low, uneasy growl rumbled from its throat as it backed up a step, eyes fixed on me with unmistakable terror.

The laughter faltered.

Marcus frowned and glanced down at his beast. “Hey, calm down”

The lynx whined softly and pressed itself against his leg like a frightened kitten.

The atrium fell into an uneasy silence.

I lowered my hand slowly. The shadows at my feet had flickered for the briefest moment, too subtle for anyone but me to notice, yet the effect lingered in the air like a chill that refused to dissipate.

Marcus stared at his own beast in embarrassed confusion before his gaze snapped back to me, ugly now. “What did you do to it?”

“Nothing,” I replied calmly. “Perhaps your mighty beast simply knows when it stands in the presence of something better.”

I walked past him before he could find a response. The crowd parted faster this time, their earlier amusement replaced by uneasy glances and whispered questions. No one laughed openly anymore.

Behind me, Marcus’s voice rose again, shaky with forced bravado. “You are still nothing, Drax! Nothing at all!”

But the laughter did not return. Only a heavy, watchful silence followed me down the corridor, already beginning to curdle into something closer to fear.

They had mocked the weak today without realizing that the weak had stopped being weak the moment that egg cracked open.

And the nightmare inside it had just taken its first breath.