Hunter Academy: Revenge of the Weakest

The soft click of the door echoed as Irina pushed it open, stepping into the cool stillness of her dorm. The lights overhead were set to a low, warm hue—calming, but bright enough to work by. Outside the windows, the faint glow of the academy’s tower lanterns shimmered through the glass, casting long shadows across the polished floors.

It was quiet.

Not just in her room—but throughout the hall.

The Top 10 dorms were always more subdued than the rest of the student housing, but this week, with mid-terms fast approaching, it felt like the entire building was holding its breath. Even the usual ambient noise—footsteps in the hallway, muted conversation, the occasional laughter—had vanished, replaced by silence and focus.

Irina didn’t mind it.

She stepped aside to let Astron in, and he entered without a word, immediately removing his coat and setting it neatly over the back of a chair. He moved through the space with a quiet familiarity, as though this weren’t the first time—and it wasn’t.

Irina kicked her boots off, stretching slightly as she turned toward the kitchenette at the side of the room. "Make yourself comfortable," she said over her shoulder, already moving toward the small counter. "I got things ready this time."

Astron raised an eyebrow as he watched her rummage through the kitchenette, the faintest shift in his usually neutral expression betraying something that looked suspiciously like a challenge.

Irina caught it immediately.

She narrowed her eyes and turned her head, already shooting him a pointed look. "What?"

"Nothing," he replied smoothly, his tone just a little too casual.

Irina’s eyes narrowed further. "You just thought of something rude."

"That depends," Astron said, glancing away as he unfastened his gloves with deliberate calm, "on what you consider rude."

She didn’t answer that. She just stared—long and flat—until he finally gave in with a sigh and started walking toward the table.

"Go and sit," she muttered.

"Yes, yes," he replied mildly, as if indulging her.

Irina rolled her eyes, but her lips twitched into a grin as she turned back to the counter. A minute later, she carried over a tray loaded with everything she’d prepped: a pair of ceramic mugs, neatly stacked books and study sheets, and a plate of carefully arranged snacks—small pastries, spiced nuts, and a couple of finger sandwiches.

Astron looked down at it all with his usual unreadable expression, though she caught the slight raise of his brow again.

Irina dropped onto the cushion opposite him and set the tray between them. "Before you ask," she said, grabbing her mug, "yes. I made them."

Astron didn’t immediately touch the food. Instead, he glanced over the arrangement once more—his eyes flicking from the perfectly-aligned pastries to the slightly uneven cut on one of the sandwiches, the way a few crumbs had been carefully brushed aside but not entirely hidden.

"I already knew you made them," he said, his tone even.

Irina raised an eyebrow, leaning forward slightly. "Oh?"

"You’re not usually this deliberate with presentation," Astron continued. "The plating is tidy, but not natural. It’s trying to follow a predetermined structure—one that doesn’t come from repetition, but reference."

He picked up one of the sandwiches, rotating it slightly between his fingers. "You followed a video. Probably watched it twice. Tried to mimic what you saw—down to the angle of the tea cups."

Irina stared at him for a second, lips parted, then scoffed and looked away, brushing a hand through her bangs to hide the faint blush creeping into her cheeks.

"…So what?" she muttered, pretending to focus on her tea.

Astron didn’t press, just sipped from his mug.

Irina threw him a sidelong glance. "I just didn’t expect you to notice that much detail."

"Why?" he asked.

"Why, you ask?" She leaned back, arms crossed. "Because you’re supposed to be the kind of guy who just eats food without thinking about where it came from."

Astron blinked. "That doesn’t sound like me."

Irina snorted. "No, it doesn’t." She looked at him again, this time with a smirk. "Heh… You know, I’m not some sort of sheltered princess who can’t cook."

Astron paused, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly—not with judgment, just quiet skepticism.

"I’m not," she insisted, her expression tightening with playful offense.

"Yes, yes…" Astron said calmly, sipping again.

Irina gave him a flat look. "Don’t patronize me."

"I wouldn’t dare."

"Liar."

He said nothing, but the faint twitch of his lips gave him away.

And Irina, flustered and smug all at once, just kept drinking her tea.

The conversation tapered off into a comfortable quiet, both of them nursing their tea as the warm lamplight cast soft shadows over the textbooks and papers neatly arranged between them. The tray of snacks sat untouched for now, a small testament to the rare calm before the inevitable descent into focused silence.

Irina exhaled, setting her cup aside with a gentle clink and scooting closer to the table. "Alright, let’s get to work," she said, flicking open one of the thinner review booklets. "We didn’t come here just to debate my culinary skills."

Astron adjusted his posture and reached for the nearest binder without protest. He never really did. When Irina initiated something with intention, he followed. That was part of the strange rhythm they had developed over the past month—subtle, fluid, unspoken.

But this time, Irina had her own reasons.

She was the one who had proposed it.

The mid-terms were closing in, and while Astron never seemed the type to worry about his grades, Irina did. Not just her own, but his too—at least when it came to how things looked from the outside.

Because, if people were to learn that Astron—quiet, aloof, unapproachable Astron—had spent the week studying with Irina Emberheart, it would give them all a neat, clean reason to explain away the inevitable rise in his academic performance.

Especially now that rankings were becoming more than just numbers. Especially now that families and factions were beginning to pay real attention to what went on in the academy walls.

She had even considered dragging him to the main library for visibility’s sake. After all, a study session under the public eye would’ve stirred the right whispers.

But when she went to check earlier, after her mentorship, she found the main floor already packed. Students were crammed into every available chair and bench, the air heavy with mana notes and whispered strategy theories.

So she pivoted.

Private session it was.

Still effective, still intimate—and maybe, just maybe, a little more convenient for her own reasons.

After all, it was a win-win.

Astron’s reputation got the perfect academic cover, her image as a top ten strategist remained polished, and—

Well, she also got to spend a few quiet hours alone with him.

And if that wasn’t productive in multiple ways, she didn’t know what was.

Irina leaned forward, pen in hand, golden eyes flicking over the problem set in front of her.

[Mana Theory II]

The bane of most second-year cadets.

In the previous semester, they had slogged through Mana Theory I, which covered the fundamentals—basic mana flow, channeling stability, elemental interaction charts, and introductory circuit structuring. Most of it had been dense but manageable, and Astron, of course, had cruised through it with an almost unfair sense of clarity.

But Mana Theory II was different.

Now they were diving into the more volatile terrain: internal resonance harmonics, caster-loop feedback structures, mana rejection thresholds, and the ever-feared Phase Shift Phenomena, which required a maddening combination of theoretical knowledge and raw imagination to even conceptualize.

"Now, let’s start."

Irina tapped her pen against the desk lightly, reading over the current problem.

"A third-tier caster activates a dual-element resonance cycle within a limited-containment zone….."