Noah collapsed onto his bed, face first, groaning into his pillow.
His entire body ached from sitting through hours of grueling exams, and his brain felt like it had been beaten with a bat.
He rolled over, staring up at the ceiling of his dorm room.
The dark wood beams above feeling like they were closing in on him.
"Fuck this. Fuck all of this," he muttered, rubbing his temples.
"I don't remember the placement exams being this difficult in the damn game. What the hell?"
He sat up, rubbing the back of his neck and glaring at the pile of papers on his desk.
In the game, you could just skip through scenes with a button.
Press, skip, done. Easy. But here? He scoffed.
"Nah, now I'm living it.
Now I'm actually here, and it's impossible.
It's like they made the exams ten times harder just to mess with me. Fucking ridiculous."
Noah stood up and started pacing the room, running his hands through his messy hair.
"I've screwed up bad. Real bad.
There's no way I passed those written exams.
Not after missing two months of classes because I was in a coma.
But does the academy care? Nope.
They couldn't care less.
They're probably hoping I'll fail so they can dump me in Class D and forget about me."
He kicked at the corner of his bed, stubbing his toe in the process.
"Shit!" He hopped on one foot for a moment, cursing under his breath before flopping back onto the bed.
"The combat exams tomorrow... they're my only chance now. My last hope.
If I fuck that up, I'm done.
And let's face it, I'm not exactly athletic. I'm not even remotely close to being athletic."
Noah groaned, covering his face with his hands.
Sure, he had immense mana reserves, probably enough to match one of the main characters.
But physical combat?
That wasn't exactly his thing.
He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and downed the potion in one gulp.
Immediately, the system flashed another message on the screen:
[■Congratulations on purchasing 'Strength Booster'! Hope you enjoy your 24-hour... hair growth.]
Noah froze, the vial slipping from his fingers and rolling onto the floor.
"Wait. What?"
Before he could process it, he felt an odd tingling sensation at the top of his head.
Then, like some sort of bad joke, he watched in horror as his hair began to grow—rapidly.
Within seconds, his hair cascaded down past his shoulders, down his back, and eventually pooled around him on the bed.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!"
Noah yelled, grabbing fistfuls of his now ridiculously long hair.
"Hair growth? This isn't a strength booster! What the hell is this shit?!"
As if to mock him further, the system screen displayed a laughing emoji:
[:D]
"Oh, fuck you!" Noah shouted at the system, his face turning red with frustration.
"You scammed me! I'm supposed to be prepping for combat exams, not starring in some shampoo commercial!"
The system's response was immediate.
A pixelated middle finger appeared on the screen, followed by a snarky message:
[Good luck with that. ;)]
And then the system screen went dark, leaving Noah sitting there with what felt like five pounds of extra hair.
He glared at the now blank screen, his face a mixture of disbelief and rage.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he muttered, tugging at his new mane of hair.
"This has to be some kind of joke.
I'm going to fail these exams because I've been scammed by a system with a sick sense of humor."
He slumped back onto the bed, his hair fanning out like some sort of absurd blanket.
Noah lay there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling, his anger slowly draining into a deep sense of defeat.
"I'm done for," he muttered, closing his eyes.
With a sigh, he pulled his pillow over his face, hoping that maybe—just maybe—things would go better tomorrow.
But deep down, he wasn't feeling too optimistic.