Shoosh.

A cold flash of light swallowed my vision, and when it cleared, I was standing on ancient castle wall.

The castle wall stretched in both directions, weathered and cracked, as if it had endured centuries of war. Below us, a vast forest swayed like a dark, breathing sea—endless, silent, watching.

Alex stepped beside me, awe softening his usual sharp voice. "Wow… this place is so magical."

His words echoed faintly, swallowed by the wind that whispered between the battlements. The others shifted uncertainly behind us—hands on weapons, eyes scanning the horizon.

"What now? Do we go to the next floor?" someone asked, their voice tight.

I inhaled, ready to explain the mission the tower always issued upon entry—but the stone beneath our feet vibrated, and glowing words blazed into the air before us.

[ Defend the Castle wall from the Monster Wave]

[Eleminate all the monster wave to clear this floor ]

[ First Wave : 0/100]

[Second Wave: 0/150]

A low, distant rumble rolled out from the forest—the sound of something massive awakening.

I stepped forward, drawing my blade as the others stiffened.

"Hold," I commanded, my voice steady as steel. "Form up. They're coming."

[First wave will be used in 10 second]

The word was a splash of ice water on the nervous energy of my team.

On her perch, Seraphina's bowstring was already drawn taut, the mana in her arrow humming, ready to fly. Beside me, Alex had his tower shield planted, his knuckles white, his entire body braced for an impact that would send a normal E-Rank flying.

The first wave of F-Rank Goblins was a chaotic, green-skinned tide.

They poured from the main spawn point at the end of the virtual city square, waving their crude, rusty knives and howling, their beady red eyes fixed on Alex, the most obvious, armored threat. There were at least thirty of them.

"Let them come," I said, my gaze not even on the charging horde. I was counting. ...twenty-eight, twenty-nine...

Now.

My eyes snapped to the dark, unremarkable alleyway to our left—the "glitched" spawn point my game knowledge had identified.

"Twins. Now."

As if summoned from the very fabric of the simulation, two small, dark figures detached themselves from the shadows inside that alley just as the second wave of Goblin Ambushers began to materialize.

Flick. Shnk.

Before the first Ambusher could even finish its spawn animation, before it could even register its existence in the virtual world, Freya's stiletto was in its throat. Simultaneously, Finn's blade severed its spine. It dissolved into data particles without making a sound.

The spawn point was clogged.

The Ambushers were designed to pour out and flank us, but they were materializing one by one, directly into the waiting, lethal embrace of the Shadow Twins. It wasn't a fight; it was a silent, systematic disassembly line.

While Seraphina and Kaelen stared, momentarily baffled—what are they fighting? There's nothing there!—the main wave was almost on top of us.

"Alex, brace!" I ordered.

"GRAAAH!"

The first Goblins slammed into Alex's shield. CLANG! THUD! The sound of crude metal on C-Rank steel was pathetic.

Alex grunted, his feet sliding back an inch on the pavement from the combined weight, but his shield—and Kaelen's preemptive, shimmering [Heal] spell that was already enveloping him—held firm.

The front line of Goblins was now a compressed, snarling mass, pushing uselessly against an immovable object.

"Seraphina!" I yelled, finally unleashing her. "Don't aim for kills. Aim for knees! Cripple their mobility!"

"Understood!" she replied, her voice sharp with the thrill of the fight. The skepticism she'd had was gone, replaced by a hunter's focus.

TWANG! THWIP! THWIP!

Her arrows flew, not into the mass, but at the edges, at the Goblins in the second and third ranks trying to push through.

Each arrow was a precise, low-impact shot that shattered a kneecap or pierced an ankle. Goblins shrieked and fell, their charge dissolving into a tangled, chaotic logjam of their own bodies.

They were now trapped between Alex's shield at the front and their own crippled kin at the back.

_______________________

In the viewing hall in Rolune, where instructors and other squads watched the real-time feeds, a ripple of confusion went through the observers.

"What is Team Anomaly doing?" an instructor muttered, frowning at the screen.

"They've split their forces. Their main damage dealers aren't even engaged."

"And look at Leon's squad," another said, pointing to a different screen.

"Flawless. Leon and his DPS are carving through the main wave, his healer is protected, his tank is holding. It's a textbook execution."

Indeed, Leon's team was a picture of heroic combat.

Eric's squad was the same, a whirlwind of flashy, mana-heavy spells that was obliterating the Goblins in spectacular explosions.

Both teams were taking damage, their healers working hard, their mana bars already visibly dropping, but they were winning, and it looked impressive.

___________

My team, by contrast, looked... boring.

"The Goblins are contained, Michael," Gideon observed, his voice calm, his hands still tucked into his sleeves.

"I see that," I said. "It's your turn. Signal."

Gideon's pale lips curved into that unsettling smile. He raised one hand and snapped his fingers. A faint, almost invisible pulse of green-black mana emanated from him.

It was the signal for the twins. In the alley, the last of the Ambushers dissolved. Finn and Freya emerged from the shadows like ghosts, their blades clean, their breathing steady.

They had neutralized the entire flanking wave without making a sound, without a single Goblin taking a step into the square.

They now stood at the rear of the main Goblin horde, which was still fruitlessly pushing against Alex's shield, completely unaware of the new threat behind them.

"Gideon," I said. "Phase two."

"With pleasure, Chief." Gideon stepped forward. He knelt, placing one hand on the pavement. He wasn't targeting the Goblins.

He was targeting their corpses. The first few that Seraphina had crippled and who had been trampled to death by their own pack.

"[Corpse-bloom: Miasma]," he whispered.

A sickening, pale green mist began to seep from the fallen Goblins. It wasn't a fast-acting poison; it was a debuff. The Goblins, packed tightly together, inhaled the virtual spores.

[Status Effect: Lethargy. -20% Speed.]

[Status Effect: Weakness. -15% Attack.]

The furious snarling of the pack weakened, their pushes against Alex's shield becoming sluggish, clumsy.

"Now, Seraphina," I commanded. "Switch to kill shots. Aim for the eyes. Gideon, [Corpse-bloom: Taint]. Alex, hold."

Seraphina, now firing from a stable, unthreatened perch, became an executioner. Her arrows, no longer needing to be low-power, found their marks. Eyes, throats, chests.

Goblins began to drop, one after another.

As they fell, Gideon's power took full effect.

The [Taint] skill caused the dead Goblins' virtual bodies to erupt in small, noxious bursts, spreading the debuff to their allies, creating a chain reaction of weakness and poison.

The twins moved in from the rear, no longer needing stealth, their daggers a blur as they cut down the weakened, slowed, and poisoned stragglers.

It wasn't a battle. It was a harvest. A slow, grinding, and deeply anti-climactic extermination.

In the viewing hall, the instructors were silent, their expressions unreadable.

"Look at Team Anomaly's mana bars," one finally said, his voice hushed.

Leon's team was at 60% mana.

Eric's was at 50%.

My team?

Alex: 90%. Kaelen: 85% (only from healing Alex's stamina). Seraphina: 80%. The twins: 95%. Gideon: 70%. Me: 100%.

We had cleared the first floor, a task that took other teams a frantic, 15-minute brawl, in under 10 minutes, and we had barely spent any resources.

We had taken zero damage.

The last Goblin dissolved into data particles. The virtual square was silent, save for the faint, echoing wind.

[Floor 1: Cleared. Time: 9 minutes, 42 seconds. Bonus: Flawless (No Team Damage).]

[Teleporting to Floor 2 in 60 seconds.]

I sheathed Draken.

Alex let out a shaky breath, finally lowering his shield. "We... we did it. I didn't even... I barely felt anything."

Kaelen was pale, but his eyes were shining. "I... I just had to heal one person..."

From the rooftop, Seraphina stared at her hands, then at me.

Her expression was one of profound, utter confusion. This wasn't combat.

This was... pest control. She had been prepared for a heroic last stand, and instead, she had participated in a systematic, boring execution.

"That," she said, her voice echoing in the quiet square, "was... deeply unsatisfying."

I looked up at her, a cold smile touching my lips.

"We're not here to look impressive, Seraphina. We're here to win also save your mana. Floor 2 won't be as simple."

The twins and Gideon regrouped around me, their expressions unreadable.

But I could feel it—a new, cold respect. My "hunch" about the second spawn point, my "strategy" of using debuffs and bottlenecks... it wasn't just theory. It worked.

I had just taught them the difference between fighting like a hero and fighting like a gamer. And this was only the beginning.

(To be Continue)

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