Rei Asher blinked as sunlight filtered through the shattered remains of his dorm window. A rune-charged love letter had detonated there around 3 a.m., and the pillow named "Spy-chan" was still whimpering softly in its shredded cotton husk beside him.
[System Notification: Good morning, Husband! You are 8 hours and 42 minutes away from your next emotional trauma.]
"...Chipper today, aren't you?" Rei mumbled, brushing ash off his academy robes. "Can I uninstall you yet?"
[System Response: Uninstall attempt detected. Launching Emotional Guilt Trip Subroutine.]
"...Never mind."
With a deep sigh of someone who had lived far too many lives in the span of three weeks, Rei made his way to Advanced Thaumaturgy Class—a class he'd chosen because it sounded boring and no wife would care to join.
That, of course, was the first mistake.
The second was sitting down before checking for surveillance enchantments.
The third—well. The third mistake had just walked through the door.
"Hi there! Mind if I sit next to you?"
Rei looked up.
She was... normal.
No crimson gleam of obsession in her eyes. No dagger disguised as a lunchbox. No aura of "I'll kill you if you look at another girl."
She was... smiling.
Cheerfully.
Like a person.
"Uh..." Rei said intelligently, glancing sideways in search of incoming hexes. "Sure?"
"Yay!" she chirped, sitting beside him with a bounce. "I'm Emilia!"
Rei eyed her cautiously. "Just Emilia?"
"Yup! I don't have a tragic noble backstory, a vengeful bloodline, or a secret cult dedicated to you!"
"…That's oddly specific."
[System Alert: Unknown Entity Detected – "Emilia (??? Affection Level: 0)"]
[Warning: She is not a yandere. Immediate threat level: Critical.]
[System Diagnostic: Statistically, all women in your vicinity should be clinically insane for you. Error. Error. ERROR.]
In five separate buildings, at five separate angles of the Royal Magic Academy, five women all jolted upright simultaneously.
Seraphina, the imperial princess and Student Council President, cracked her golden quill mid-signature.
Drakana, sipping molten stew in the Dragon Faction's lounge, flared her nostrils and growled low. "Another female just breached proximity radius."
Lilia, still draped in ceremonial robes in her self-founded religion of Husbandology, tilted her head and murmured, "I feel a disturbance in the harem."
Fiora, cloaked in shadows under the Library's Forbidden Wing, raised a blackened mirror. "Surveillance alert. Emotional anomaly detected near Rei."
Rosette, deep in her rune-covered bunker labeled "Operation Stalk-Forever," paused mid-bug placement on Rei's toothbrush. "Target interacting with unknown subject. Unacceptable."
The five factions triggered alarms. Flags were raised. Declarations of war were inked in perfume, blood, and overkill.
Back in class, Rei tried to casually edge his chair half an inch away from Emilia. She smiled again.
"I brought cookies! I made them myself!"
Rei flinched.
"I swear they're not poisoned!" Emilia laughed. "I even tested one!"
She handed him a heart-shaped cookie. A real, actual cookie.
No hidden dagger. No glowing runes. No hidden scream-activated enchantments.
Rei held it up like it was a foreign object. "You're... giving me something. Without screaming 'eternal devotion'?"
"I just thought you looked like you could use a friend!"
A friend?
What even was that?
[System Analysis: Suspected anomaly attempting platonic contact. This behavior is not within the known laws of this world.]
[Initiating Passive Observation Protocol: "Suspiciously Wholesome"]
Rei took a bite. It was... buttery. Balanced. No aggressive sweetness, no love spells hidden in the icing. Just... a cookie.
It was the most terrifying thing he'd tasted in months.
Across campus, Rosette had already reconstructed the entire classroom out of spatial memory runes. She narrowed her eyes as she watched Rei smile back at Emilia.
"Oh, she dies," she whispered sweetly.
Seraphina's fan snapped shut. "Someone fetch me my etiquette guillotine."
Lilia's congregation burst into prayer. "Goddess of Love, guide our blades."
Drakana dropped her spoon into magma stew. "Activate Code: Cling-Till-Death."
Fiora's curse library began vibrating ominously.
Back in the classroom, Rei made the fatal error of laughing.
Not an "I fear for my life" laugh. A real, light chuckle at one of Emilia's puns about fireball misfires.
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
At that moment, the ceiling exploded.
"Nope," Rei whispered, not even turning around. "Nope. I'm not here. I've become a chair."
Smoke swirled. A halo of swords hovered in midair. Seraphina floated down, her expression composed but her eyes glowing crimson.
"Oh?" she said lightly. "Making new friends, darling?"
"Just classmates," Rei croaked. "Platonic! Emotionally distant! I swear on my system!"
[System Notification: Hey! Leave me out of this.]
Emilia blinked. "Hi! Are you another classmate?"
A deathly silence followed.
Seraphina did not respond with words.
She responded by vaporizing the entire back row of the classroom with a golden laser beam.
From the wreckage, Drakana stomped in next, wielding her lava axe.
"I smelled cookies," she growled, cracking her knuckles.
Rosette teleported directly onto the teacher's desk, adjusting her glasses with one hand and flicking surveillance drones with the other. "Analyzing romantic threats. Scanning—subject: Emilia. Smile Level: Dangerous."
Lilia slid in on a magic carpet woven from marriage vows and bloody silk. "Who dares seduce my husband during prayer hour?"
Fiora floated down last, holding a cursed tome wide open. "I've read your fate, little girl. It ends… poorly."
Emilia blinked.
"Are... you all his friends too?"
The yanderes turned toward Rei in perfect, mechanical sync.
Rei raised both hands. "I don't know her. I met her five minutes ago. I was hypnotized by the cookies. They were sentient, I swear."
[System Notification: Cowardice Level: MAXIMUM. Achievement Unlocked – "Spineless but Alive."]
A full classroom brawl broke out in the background. Teachers fled. Students screamed. One of them proposed to a chalkboard out of panic.
Rei ducked under a desk, dragging Emilia with him. "Look, you need to run. You're the only normal girl in this entire empire. They'll see you as a threat."
Emilia blinked, still strangely calm. "But I'm not a threat. I just wanted to share cookies and make friends."
"That's exactly the problem! You're too nice! That's not allowed here!"
[System Suggestion: Initiate Emergency Protocol – "Fake Fiancé From Another School."]
Emilia tilted her head. "Wait… what if I became yandere?"
Rei froze. "…Huh?"
A shadow flickered over Emilia's expression.
"I mean, it's kind of flattering, isn't it? The passion. The commitment. The way their eyes twitch when someone breathes near you."
"…No?"
She smiled again, sweeter this time. "Wouldn't it be nice if I joined in?"
She reached out and gently brushed cookie crumbs from his collar.
"All I'd need is a little guidance. Maybe some cursed artifacts. I've been studying runes too, you know."
The lights flickered.
"…System," Rei whispered.
[System Processing: NOPE.]
The classroom erupted again as all five wives simultaneously threw spells in Emilia's direction. She giggled, drew a circle on the floor, and vanished in a puff of lemon-scented smoke.
Rei was left behind, covered in soot, cookie crumbs, and emotional whiplash.
[System Alert: New Entity Tagged – "Emilia the Formerly Normal"]
[Affection Level: ? / Obsession Level: CALCULATING…]
Rei sat up and stared at the destruction around him. His desk was now part of the ceiling. The chalkboard had become sentient and was drawing wedding rings.
The teacher was missing. Possibly married to a filing cabinet now.
"I just wanted to pass this class," Rei groaned.
[System Mission Updated!]
[New Objective: Prevent Emilia from Becoming Worse Than the Rest.]
[Side Objective: Also Survive.]
Rei collapsed face-first onto the remains of his desk.
The cookie was still in his hand.
It had a tiny heart drawn in icing now that wasn't there before.
To be continued…