The atmosphere at the Garuda Mandiri High School gate that morning was crowded, and the weather was bright.
Hundreds of 10th-grade students who were about to become permanent students looked tense, still shy to talk to one another; they were too busy looking for their respective MPLS (orientation) groups. Amidst the crowd, Lucanno—alias Luca—stood looking the most anxious, constantly looking around.
"Geez, Kid... where are you? How could they let a little kid like you loose in Jakarta all alone? If you get kidnapped by some creep, it won't be funny," Luca muttered in a panic, still thinking Cruel had been transmigrated in the form of an elementary school kid.
"Especially if the creep is a pedo, yuck, the kid could get smashed,"
Luca paced back and forth in front of the gate, but suddenly, the atmosphere around the gate, which was initially noisy with the voices of students, fell silent. The kids who were noisy just a moment ago started moving out of the way, leaving a clear path in the middle of the gate.
From a luxury car that cost enough to buy Kara's entire shack, a teenage boy stepped out. His white-and-gray uniform fit his sturdy frame perfectly, his hair was jet-black, and his gaze was sharp as hell. His killing aura instantly made the MPLS committee members who were about to greet him shrink in fear. Yes, he was Prince Raffayel Leonzio or, as we used to call him, CRUEL.
The tall teenager walked into the school area with a menacing aura... Luca, who happened to be standing near the bulletin board pole, just gaped as the "manhwa prince" walked past him.
'Damn... what do 10th graders these days eat? He's so tall, his face looks like a manhwa prince, but his aura is as suspicious as a corrupt official,' Luca thought cynically, completely unaware that the handsome young man he just insulted in his head was his own younger brother.
Noticing Luca's lethal gaze, Raffayel glanced at the young man. His eyes stared at Luca's face for three seconds.
'This guy... his smile is so narcissistic, suspicious. Typical 'load' human that must be avoided,'
Raffa thought coldly, then just turned away and kept walking. He truly didn't recognize his own brother because Luca now had a different form than his previous Baskara self.
The two of them officially crossed paths without realizing it.
Raffayel walked to the middle of the field, leaving Luca still looking around for his brother and his system.
Just as he was busy searching, suddenly a noisy sound came from behind the gate.
"Watch out! Brake failure! Eh, I mean, right-foot motor coordination failure!"
BRUKKK!
A bespectacled young man with a huge nametag reading 'Xavier Theodore Adipta' successfully rammed into Luca's back, sending them both almost rolling on the asphalt.
"Ouch! Damn it, who bumped into my ass so early in the morning?!" Luca ranted while rubbing his aching waist.
Xavier hurriedly straightened his glasses that had slipped down his nose. He stared at Luca from head to toe with sparkling eyes. According to his system radar, the coordinates of his main 'Load' soul were in this young man's body!
"Notification! Visual synchronization successful at last! Hello, Load! Your new form is decent enough; you don't look too much like a malnourished Dracula," Xavier said bluntly with a flat, sarcastic face.
Luca's eyes widened. He immediately clamped his hand over Xavier's mouth tightly before the other kids thought they were a weird couple.
"Wait... that insolent way of talking... TEM?! ARE YOU TEM?!"
Xavier pulled Luca's hand off and snorted.
"Yes, it's me, Xavier Theodore, the top-ranking parallel student who now has a handsome human form with an IQ of 200. Please don't touch me so carelessly, Luca. Our status now is classmates, no longer servant and system."
"Wow, you're so cocky now that you have legs!" Luca flicked Xavier's head affectionately. But a second later, his face turned panicked again.
"Tem, for God's sake, you're a former system! Track Cruel fast! He got a vessel named 'Prince', but I've been looking and there's no elementary kid entering the gate!"
Xavier looked at Luca with a look as if Luca were the most stupid creature on earth. He pointed his human index finger toward the school field, where the figure of Prince Raffayel was being swarmed by the MPLS committee because his aura was too terrifying.
"Load... does your vision need a reformat?" Xavier mocked.
"That one tall like an electric pole, with a face like he's about to massacre the entire school foundation—that's your precious little brother! He's not a 'death-bringer brat' anymore, now he's the monster prince of class 10-A!"
Luca looked in the direction Xavier pointed. He saw the young man, who happened to be looking back at him with an ultra-cold gaze because he was annoyed at being pointed at.
"Huh... THAT COCKY HANDSOME GUY WHO WALKED PAST ME EARLIER... IS CRUEL?!" Luca's jaw dropped to the floor, truly shocked to see the drastic change in his brother who now looked more dominant than him. Oh come on, was his brother's new body really that good? Honestly, Luca was a bit jealous, but whatever, that's just fate.
After being silent for a moment, Luca took a deep breath, steeling his nerves before walking with long strides toward the MPLS committee swarming Raffa in the middle of the field. Xavier followed behind, busy fixing his glasses which seemed to slip every three seconds.
"Move, move! I have important business with your new prince," Luca said casually, making several OSIS committee members look at him confusedly.
The target, feeling his path blocked, stopped immediately. His eagle eyes stared at Luca from top to bottom with an incredibly cold look. An aura of murder typical of a dark wizard suddenly flared up, making the hot school field atmosphere feel like the North Pole.
"You... who are you? Move before I break your legs," the young man hissed, his voice deep and not friendly at all.
While other students were slowly backing away in fear, Luca instead smiled narcissistically and patted Raffa's shoulder as if they were best friends.
"Kid, it's me! Your handsome Abang! How could you forget my fake shaman robe from the shack just because you got a prince vessel?"
Raffayel frowned sharply. His hand immediately brushed Luca's hand off roughly.
'This guy... how dare he claim to be my Abang? My Abang isn't this tall, and his face doesn't look like this cyber-jamet,' the teenager thought in a rage.
"Don't be insolent. My Abang doesn't exist in this world. If you claim to be him one more time, I'll make your face even uglier," the tall figure threatened while clenching the fist he used to punch the system admin yesterday.
Seeing his foster brother really didn't believe him, Luca panicked. He immediately looked at Xavier, who instead put on a flat face.
"Tem! Do something! Use your notifications or whatever so he believes me!"
Xavier let out a long sigh and then stepped forward, clearing his throat formally like a robot.
"Notification to Antagonist Unit Cruel alias Raffayel. Data analysis shows the soul in front of you is your main 'Load', which is Baskara. Truth level: one hundred percent."
The cold-faced young man stared at Xavier as if Xavier were an alien.
"You... that weird nerd guy who was talking to himself at the gate earlier, right? You're ugly and a know-it-all. Go away before I throw you into the trash bin."
Xavier snorted, offended. "Wow, Luca, your brother is truly unfilial. We should just leave him so he gets kidnapped by some rich cougars."
"Don't do that, you monkey!" Luca held his head, feeling a headache.
Finally, with the last remnants of his desperation, Luca pulled Raffa to the corner of the field, away from the crowd of other kids.
"Okay, Cruel or whatever, Raffayel—yes Raffa, my precious death-bringer brat! You listen to me well!" Luca cupped the young man's cheeks forcefully, ignoring Raffa's eyes that were ready to mutilate his body.
"Do you remember? At the shack, who helped me make mosquito crackers? Or sold obese geckos, you still remember, right?!"
The tall young man was slightly stunned. His eyes widened a bit.
'How... does he know about Bang Kara's crazy jobs?'
Before the young man could process Luca's words, Xavier added from behind while folding his arms across his chest with a sarcastic face.
"And don't forget, who witnessed you returning the dark magic to Ki Mangkurondo, the fake shaman who cursed Kara just because his wife was attracted to a monkey like your Abang? Especially when you offered to make green fly crackers—I heard you recommend that to the 'Load' myself. Oh yeah, don't forget who summoned a demon until an entire frog kingdom vanished in a night—that was you."
After hearing Xavier's question, Prince Raffayel Leonzio's cool aura defense crumbled instantly.
His handsome face, which was cold as ice a moment ago, suddenly flushed with incredible embarrassment. The most bizarre secret in his life was only known by two beings: his narcissistic Abang, and a ball-of-light system whose mouth begged to be stuffed with firecrackers.
Raffa looked at Luca closely, noticing the playful twinkle in his eyes that was exactly like Baskara in the old world.
"A... Abang?" the prince whispered hesitantly, his voice suddenly squeaking exactly like a kid caught doing something wrong.
"YES, IT'S ME, YOU DEVIL! Finally, you recognize me!" Luca exclaimed joyfully, immediately hugging the neck of his brother, who was now even taller than him.
"Crazy, you're so tall now! It wasn't in vain that I begged at the electric pole to buy you expired formula milk yesterday!"
Xavier stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head at the absurd brotherhood drama in front of him.
"Notification. Please release your hug immediately before the OSIS seniors in front of the bulletin board think you are a 'deviant' couple on the first day of MPLS."
Raffayel immediately released Luca's hug awkwardly, putting his flat, cold face back on, but his eyes couldn't lie that he was very happy because his Abang hadn't vanished from this world after all.
"So... are we really stuck in this school, Abang?" Raffa asked, slightly glancing at Xavier, who was now a handsome young man with glasses.
Luca smirked mysteriously, wrapping his arms around his brother and Xavier at the same time.
"Not stuck, Kid. We're going to cause new chaos here. Let's go, let's find class 10-A. I can't wait to see the faces of my high school friends whose names I borrowed to be the protagonists!"
The Garuda Mandiri High School ceremony field looked like a battlefield. Raffayel stood there, emitting a cold aura that instantly made the birds around the school afraid to fly in that territory.
Luca stood beside him with a wary look, while Xavier was busy protesting the school field's gravitational standards.
"Raff, don't stare at the committee like that. They'll get traumatized," Luca whispered.
"Let them," Raffayel answered shortly.
Suddenly, a young teacher with a somewhat messy uniform—shirt untucked, hair tied up sloppily, and carrying a thick notebook—came running toward them. She was Hasna, the new BK (counseling) teacher who was immediately known because... well, she looked quite unconvincing.
BRUK!
The figure with the messy bun had just been running, but because she was clumsy, she tripped over her own shoelace and fell flat right in front of Raffayel's feet.
"Ouch! Damn it, who put a floor here?!" shouted the weird teacher spontaneously, yapping non-stop. She stood up immediately, patting the dust off her skirt, then stared at the trio with a fierce look that... honestly, just looked cute because there was dust on her forehead.
"You! Yes, you three who look like you have no sins!"
The figure who had just caused a scene pointed at Luca, Raffayel, and Xavier.
"You're the new students, right? Why are you standing here? You should be in the back row!"
Luca gaped. "Eh, Ma'am... this is a field, not a place to fall and curse the floor."
"SHUT UP!" The noisy figure immediately started yapping again.
"I am the BK teacher! My job is to educate people whose brains are short-circuited! You, with messy hair like you haven't shampooed—" Hasna pointed at Luca,
"—you, whose face is like a two-door fridge—" she pointed at Raffayel, "—and you, whose glasses have been crooked the whole time!" the teacher pointed at Xavier.
Xavier adjusted his glasses, his eyes blinking in surprise.
[System analysis: This teacher has a normal heart rate, but her speech pattern is illogical. Clumsiness level 99%.]
"What are you looking at?! Do you want me to give you a punishment of running around the field wearing flip-flops?!" shouted the figure who caused a headache, even though she herself had forgotten where she put the BK room key.
Raffayel stared at Hasna, narrowing his eyes. He felt... strange. The BK teacher's aura wasn't like a normal teacher, but she looked like a huge "Load" because she kept yapping about a lost key.
"Ma'am..." Raffayel stepped one step closer, his devilish aura leaking out a little.
"What?! You want to challenge the BK teacher?! Come here, I have a black belt in Taekwondo!" Hasna immediately took a stance, even though her hand position was completely wrong.
Suddenly, from behind, a senior student came over angrily because the line was chaotic. He pushed Luca's shoulder.
"Hey! You were told to join the line but instead you're chatting with a crazy BK teacher!"
BUGH!
Before Luca could react, the teacher—whose uniform was messy and whose emotions were stable but clumsy—reflexively punched the senior student's stomach until he slumped to the asphalt. The move was very clean, very technical, and... did not show she was a woman at all.
Everyone on the field went silent. Luca, Raffayel, and Xavier gaped.
Hasna, who just realized what she had done, immediately panicked.
"Eh... that... he tripped earlier! Yes, he tripped on my foot! It's not my fault, he approached me!" The figure with the messy bun immediately ran away as fast as she could, but when she ran, her teacher ID card fell. Of course, the owner who accidentally dropped the ID card didn't know.
Luca picked up the ID card.
"Her name... Hasna. BK Teacher."
Xavier stared at the BK teacher running away while repeatedly bumping into trash cans.
[Conclusion: This teacher has elite combat skills, but her common sense is equivalent to an amoeba. We must be wary, Luca.]
Raffayel stared at Hasna's back with a sharp gaze.
"She... is weird. But she knows how to punch."
Luca smirked, starting to feel like this school was going to be very exciting.
"I like this type of teacher. Noisy, clumsy, but can be a partner if we need help to cause chaos in this school!"