“You’re looking pretty down. What happened?” a person completed wrapped head to toe in bandages and had an arm cast said to me as I walked into the cafeteria.   
  
“I’m sorry, do I know you?”  
  
“It’s me, Ronald.”   
  
“Ronald?”   
  
“The one and only.”  
  
“What the fuck happened to you?”   
  
“I fell down the stairs.”   
  
“Bullshit.”  
  
“I got the beating of a lifetime.”   
  
“I can already see that.”   
  
“Valde threw me out of the fifth-story window.”  
  
“Damn.”  
  
“I know right.”  
  
“How are you still alive?”  
  
“I guess I have my genetics to thank.”   
  
“How long do you have to be wrapped up like that?”  
  
“The doctor said a week at most. However, it might take around a month for my broken arm to heal.”   
  
“Can’t they just use healing magic to whip it back into shape?”  
  
“They could but healing magic is not omnipotent and always comes at a cost. So, unless it is critical, doctors will only use magic to help facilitate healing and not heal.”  
  
“I see. Is Valde in trouble?”  
  
“Nah.”  
  
“Why is that?”  
  
“I told the school officials that when I was playing with Valde, I tripped and accidentally fell out the window.”   
  
“Wow, they actually bought that?”  
  
“Yeah.”   
  
“Where is Valde by the way?”  
  
“He’s hiding somewhere.”  
  
“He doesn’t want to see you?”  
  
“Nah, not that. He’s hiding from the current circulating rumors.”   
  
“Uh oh.”   
  
“The current ones about him now are pretty spicy.”  
  
“How bad is it?”  
  
“Bad, really bad.”  
  
“Welp, it seems like his image of being student-perfect is completely trashed now.”  
  
“That’s true.”   
  
“Knowing him, I’m confident he’ll be able to bounce back.”  
  
“Getting back to what I was asking earlier, why are you looking so depressed this morning.”   
  
“Uhhh, I don’t want to get into it.”  
  
“Come on, look at me, it can’t be worse than what I experienced, right? Be a bro and tell me.”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“That’s my man.”  
  
“There was a misunderstanding, and I had to have that talk with my dorm master?”  
  
“That talk?”  
  
“You know what I’m talking about.”  
  
“I actually don’t. Tell me.”   
  
“You really don’t know? It’s that talk.”  
  
“I really don’t know.”  
  
“That talk about growing up, developing interest in the opposite sex, and rubbing your willy, that talk.”   
  
“Ohhhhh, that talk. What kind of misunderstanding led to that?”  
  
“I, um, was grunting a lot last night,” I said with a flushed face.  
  
“Were you masturbating?”   
  
“No!”  
  
“Then what were you doing?”  
  
“Don’t ask me why, but, um, I was voluntarily consuming poison.”   
  
“Huh?”   
  
“I was grunting from the pain I felt from eating poison.”  
  
“You were what?”  
  
“I was eating poison.”  
  
“...Why?”   
  
“Didn’t I just tell you not to ask me why?”   
  
“You don’t get off from eating poison, do you?” Ronald asked in a concerned voice. 
  
“Does everything have to be sexual with you? No! Of course not! I was eating poison to toughen up my body.”  
  
“Oh, why couldn’t you say that from the very start. I did that way back when I was a child.”  
  
“Huh? Why were you eating poison as a child?” It was my turn to be confused.  
  
“It’s common in many beast tribes actually, especially ones that live in jungles. Because beast tribes live more primitively compared to other intelligent species, it’s common practice to feed children minuscule amounts of common poisons so that they can develop immunity towards them early on.”  
  
“Oh, I didn’t know that.”  
  
“Now you do.”   
  
“Class is going to start soon. How about we head to class now.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
  
  
  
  
—History of the Magical World classroom—  
  
Ronald had to do something, so I arrived at the classroom before him. By the time I arrived at the classroom, almost all the other students were already in class, waiting to begin. However, the distinct sounds of soft murmuring dominated the classroom. The target of the murmuring was none other than Valde, who looked soulless, a husk of his former self. Valde sat in the middle seat at the back of the classroom. Although there were no other students in the surrounding radius of Valde, he was the undisputed object of obsession in the classroom. Especially so among the female students, they were constantly stealing glances at Valde while blushing occasionally.  
  
“Hey Valde. You seem to be a little under the weather this morning,” I said to Valde as I sat next to him. I noticed that the volume of the murmuring immediately upped a notch when I sat down next to Valde.   
  
“I want to die.”  
  
“Tell me about it.”  
  
“My student life is ruined.”  
  
“Sure looks like it.”  
  
“Do you know what the current rumors circulating in the school about me are like?”  
  
“No, I do not know.”  
  
“If I ever discover who was the one who developed such a shameful, twisted story about me, I will mince them into mincemeat and feed it to the pigs.”   
  
“Does sound like something you’ll do.”  
  
“I’m interested in women Azrail. Women. I do not manipulate multiple gullible cute male students to my bedroom chambers and ravish them every night.”  
  
“Where did that come from?”  
  
Valde didn’t respond, but I could faintly see a ghost-like entity slowly escaping from Valde’s still body.”   
  
“No, stay with us Valde! It’s not your time yet! You have so much to live for!” I said as I yanked Valde’s body back and forth. My actions seem to have reanimated Valde’s body as the ghost-like figure phased back into Valde’s body.   
  
Suddenly, Ronald, who had something he needed to do earlier, entered the classroom. The lifelessness in Valde’s eyes disappeared and was replaced with cold sharpness.   
  
“Calm down Valde. I think you’ve already punished Ronald enough. Just look at him.”   
  
My words must’ve made sense in Valde’s mind as he saw the condition Ronald was currently in.  
  
“When he recovers, I will beat him up again.”   
  
“That’s better, I guess.”