A loud bell sound rang throughout the training room he was in as he raised his head towards the walls, wondering just what was causing the sound.
"Did I go too far with wrecking up the robots..."
He was about to summon the room’s holographic panel to check if he had messed something up somehow when an announcement quickly came through.
"Classes for tomorrow have been cancelled.
All geniuses are to gather at Venue Number 3 of the Assembling Arisen Hall tomorrow at exactly 8:00 in the morning!
Ignore this message at your own peril!"
"Classes for tomorrow have been cancelled!
All geniuses are to gather at Venue Number 3 of the Assembling Arisen Hall tomorrow at exactly 8:00 in the morning!
Ignore this message at your own peril!"
"Classes for tomorrow have been cancelled!
All geniuses are to gather at Venue Number 3 of the Assembling Arisen Hall tomorrow at exactly 8:00 in the morning!
Ignore this message at your own peril!"
The announcement repeated three times before coming to a stop, and Ryuk’s eyes narrowed.
"Don’t tell me it’s about to begin already. But there are still ten days left..." he mused doubtfully.
Not feeling a need to remain here, he wore back his shirt and exited the training room.
The place was silent, with everybody having left already.
Ryuk was usually the last person to leave due to his intense training. He would train first to avoid his skills lagging behind, then train once more with Isha, making him spend more time than usual.
Finally, he exited the building and made his way toward the dorm room.
"Do you think the test is finally beginning?"
"Hmmm, I thought it would only begin at the end of the month…"
"Does the 20th of the month count as the end of the month?"
"Who cares? We already know who will be getting accepted anyway…"
As Ryuk walked through the dormitory halls, there were a lot of geniuses outside their dorm rooms, conversing and chatting, even though it was already nighttime.
Somehow, the dorms felt livelier than ever, and soon Ryuk arrived at his own dorm room.
Before he could deliver the third knock, the door opened, and he stepped inside, finding the familiar golden-haired boy with spectacles.
"Seems like someone memorized my entrance timing..." Ryuk mused as Quinn grinned and stepped to the side, allowing Ryuk’s entrance before shutting the door tightly.
"Your time of leaving the room and arriving has been easy to guess these past few days. As much as that’s good for me to know, you do have to be very careful. Others can take hold of this information, you know..." Quinn said, as Ryuk shook his head helplessly before nodding with a smirk.
"Of course, Mr. Paranoia."
"Stop calling me that! And for the billionth time, I’m not paranoid."
I’m just a man who believes in safety and values the dignity of life... You won’t become one of the Ultimate Ten if you end up dead, will you?" Quinn said as he went back to his seat, rubbed his glasses with a tiny cloth, and put them back on before diving into an open book he seemed to have been reading previously.
If there was one thing Ryuk had noticed about Quinn in the past few days, it was that the boy was a nerd.
If he wasn’t sleeping, he would be reading.
Ryuk had once been curious about what he was so engrossed in and had tried to see for himself, but he’d been disappointed and stood up less than three minutes later.
One could say the books just weren’t his type.
"Speaking of the Ultimate Ten Geniuses, have you seen them before?" Ryuk asked as he took off his shirt and placed it into the dirty clothes basket before heading into the bathroom.
"Hmmm… Is this about the announcement earlier?" Quinn asked, staring at the bathroom door.
"Partly. And it wouldn’t kill to be a nerdy paranoid for a few minutes, would it?" Ryuk asked, making Quinn roll his eyes, but they soon regained their clarity.
"The Ultimate Ten Geniuses, huh? The only person I can imagine not knowing anything about them is a training maniac like you!" Quinn said, not forgetting to rub it in, as Ryuk’s eyes dropped under the shower.
’Dumb nerd,’ he thought as he kept washing his hair with shampoo.
"The Top Ten Geniuses are not just special because of their power, but actually because of their family background."
"Family background?" Ryuk asked.
"Yes. We Fallens are not equal. Some backgrounds have purer bloodlines than others. We usually call them the 12 Lost."
"These Twelve Lost are the strongest of the entire Fallen race. To you humans, they’re more like surnames—or better yet, like the ten strongest races in Grade B."
"There are also 12 Losts who are the strongest among the entire Fallen race."
"They are not just superior in strength but also in their abilities being higher-ranked, and the purity of their mana being at an otherworldly level.
"Meeting a Fallen from the Twelve Lost is already something incredibly rare, so much so that some Fallens shed tears even at the sight of one in their lifetime and consider it a blessing."
"All of the Top Ten Geniuses are from the 12 Lost, in one way or another," Quinn said as the shower from the bathroom quieted down and footsteps approached.
Soon, Ryuk came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his head and hair.
"The Ultimate Ten Geniuses. The Twelve Lost. Now I feel more interested in knowing more about you Fallens," he said, his eyes shining with a wanting light that made Quinn raise an eyebrow.
He had never seen Ryuk this excited to know something at all, and he couldn’t help but close his book as he prepared to satisfy all of his curiosities.
"You know, nobody knows, but I’ve been secretly tracking their movements for a month now and keeping tabs on all I can learn about them."
"Want to know what I’ve found out?" Quinn said in a whisper as Ryuk’s eyes shone even more, and he bent down, his ear tingling.
"Well then, if you really want to know, get on your knees and call me Daddy!"