Chapter 125: Come Home

Chapter 125: Chapter 125: Come Home

A ripple of stunned silence swept through the lecture hall. Several cadets exchanged bewildered glances, expecting a reprimand or a lecture on valor.

?"I’m dead serious," Felix continued, his tone turning grounded and firm. "Running away isn’t being a coward. It’s an active survival tactic. If you run, you live to fight another day."

Felix picked up a piece of white chalk from the tray and turned to the blackboard. With quick, sharp strokes, he wrote:

1. LIVE FIRST.

Right underneath it, he wrote:

2. WIN SECOND.

He turned back around. "That is Rule Number One."

A student in the middle row raised his hand, frowning. "Doesn’t that sound... kind of unheroic? Heroes are supposed to sacrifice themselves to win."

Felix stared at the boy for a second. His smile softened, turning quiet. He turned back to the board and wrote a third line in large, bold letters:

3. COME HOME.

He placed the chalk back in the tray with a soft click.

"That is the only definition of a hero that matters," Felix said, his voice dropping an octave, carrying genuine weight. "Coming home at the end of the day."

Near the large glass windows, a girl with pale skin and dark hair slowly raised her hand. "What if... what if you can’t?"

Felix looked over at her. Her fingers were trembling slightly against her notebook.

"Both of my parents were licensed heroes," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "My dad died inside a C-rank gate three years ago. He knew the odds were bad. But he went in anyway."

Felix didn’t answer right away. He walked over to her row and stopped right beside her desk.

"What was his name?" Felix asked gently.

She whispered the name.

Felix paused. A flicker of recognition crossed his eyes: not because he had met the man personally, but because he read the casualty logs every single week.

"I remember that raid report," Felix said.

The girl’s eyes widened, shining with sudden tears. "You do?"

"Your father held a collapsed tunnel shut with his bare hands so twelve trapped miners could crawl out before the gate caved in," Felix told her, his voice warm, steady, and clear. "Your father won that fight."

Tears spilled over her eyelashes. "He died. He never came back home to us."

"I know," Felix murmured softly. "And that hurts like hell. But twelve other fathers went home that night because he stood his ground."

The girl lowered her face, wiping her cheeks with her sleeve. Felix didn’t patronize her with empty pity; he just stood beside her desk for a quiet second, letting her breathe.

He turned and walked back to the center of the podium.

"That’s the job," Felix said to the quiet room.

"We don’t always get to walk out of the gate. But our job is to make sure someone else does. You are going to train your bodies and bleed in the practice yards. Never forget why you are putting yourselves through that pain."

A boy near the front spoke up quietly: "To protect people?"

"Bingo," Felix said.

A hand shot up from the right side. "Instructor Valerius?"

"Go ahead."

"How strong are you, really?"

Felix chuckled softly. "Strong enough to stay out of a pine box."

"Come on, that’s a cop-out answer!" the kid complained, emboldened by Felix’s easygoing attitude. "You’re an S-rank, right? How do you stack up against the other top heroes?"

"Depends entirely on the matchup," Felix deflected smoothly.

"Could you beat an SS-rank in a one-on-one fight?"

The entire classroom held its breath.

Felix scratched his temple, looking genuinely thoughtful. "That’s a tricky question."

"Why?"

"Because there is a massive difference between surviving an encounter with someone stronger than you, and actually beating them into the dirt," Felix said plainly. "I can survive an SS-rank."

Whispers broke out instantly across the rows.

"Sometimes," Felix added with a pointed look.

"Don’t go betting your lunch money on me."

Another hand popped up. "Sir! Is it true you took down an SS-rank monster recently?"

Felix’s playful expression tightened just a fraction. "You kids spend way too much time reading the news."

"It was all over the feeds!" the girl beamed. "Did you land the killing blow?"

"No," Felix answered honestly.

A ripple of disappointment swept through the desks. "You didn’t? But you fought it, right?"

"Yes, I fought it."

"Then who killed it?"

"My squad," Felix said firmly.

He picked up the chalk again and wrote a single sentence across the top of the slate:

A SQUAD IS NOT JUST A GROUP OF PEOPLE.

He tapped the chalk against the board. "A squad is a single living body. The people standing to your left and right are the only reason your back stays unbitten. You trust them. You protect them. And you let them protect you."

A student called out, "What if your teammate is way weaker than you?"

"Then you step in front and protect them."

"What if they’re way stronger?"

"Then you swallow your pride and let them take the heat."

"What if they’re super annoying?"

Felix smirked. "Then you survive the mission, drag them to a diner, and complain loudly about them over cheap burgers. That’s what I do."

A kid grinned. "Who annoys you the most on your team?"

"Literally every single one of them," Felix shot back instantly, prompting loud laughter.

"Does Captain Aria Frost get on your nerves?"

"Constantly."

"What about Seraphina Veyr?"

Felix opened his mouth, stopped, and closed it again.

A tiny hesitation. Half a second.

The kids caught it immediately.

Felix cleared his throat, suddenly finding his shoes very interesting. "Next question."

"OOOOH!" the entire class roared in unison.

"Sir, you hesitated!"

"You definitely paused!"

"You are all officially annoying me right now," Felix said, pointing the chalk at them with a mock glare.

For the rest of the period, the questions flew non-stop. They grilled him about mana circulation, elemental clashes, emergency triage, hospital food, and whether high-tier heroes actually made enough money to buy sports cars.

Then, a quiet boy in the third row raised his hand. "Instructor... have you ever been truly terrified?"

Felix paused, looking directly at him. "Yes. Many times."

"Even though you’re an S-rank?"

"Having high numbers doesn’t erase your fear," Felix said, resting his hands in his pockets. "And honestly, fear is useful."

"How can being scared be useful?"

"It reminds you that something matters," Felix said, looking out toward the sunlight streaming through the windows. "I get scared before every bad fight. But being brave doesn’t mean you don’t feel fear. It just means you decided that saving the person behind you matters more than the fear inside your chest."

A few students nodded, writing the words down in their notebooks.

RINGGGGG.

The academy bell echoed through the corridors.

Felix looked up. "Time flies."

Before he could step away from the desk, a boy in the second row raised his hand one last time.

"Sir! Just one last question, please?"

Felix paused. "Make it quick."

"Your elemental affinity is pure healing," the boy said, leaning forward. "Why did you choose to become a front-line combatant instead of staying in the hospital ward?"

The classroom went dead quiet again.

Felix stood completely still. He looked down at his own palms, hands that could mend shattered bone, but also hands that had cut the heads off monsters.

"Because the concept of a ’safe backline’ is a lie," Felix said quietly.

A murmur of surprise went through the students.

"A lie, sir?"

"The Association manuals tell you that healers belong thirty paces behind the shields, safely out of reach," Felix said, looking up, his azure eyes boring into every face in the room. "They tell you to sit there and wait for the wounded to be carried back to your feet. But do you know what actually happens in a high-rank rift when the frontline collapses?"

Nobody answered. The quiet intensity in his voice was suffocating.

"The monsters don’t respect your battle formations," Felix said, picking up his communicator from the desk. "And an arterial bleed doesn’t stop just because your squad needs time to fall back. If you can’t defend yourself, you aren’t a healer, you’re a liability waiting to be butchered. And every second you spend running away or crying for help is a second your teammate bleeds to death."

He pointed his thumb back at the blackboard, right at the words chalked in white.

"My healing chose me," Felix said softly, walking toward the exit. "But I chose to carry a blade so that no monster could ever stand between me and the people who need me. Don’t just learn how to cast spells. Learn how to survive so you can actually use them."

He gave them a small, lopsided smirk. "Class dismissed."

The students sat frozen in total silence for several seconds before slowly gathering their books, looking at him with genuine, quiet awe.

A few paused at the doorway on their way out, offering respectful bows.

"Thank you, Instructor Valerius."

"That was amazing, sir."

Felix walked out into the corridor, sliding the classroom door shut behind him.

Professor Helena Ward was leaning against the lockers, arms crossed, an amused grin on her face.

"How was your first class?"

"I survived," Felix sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"Always a plus."

"Your students ask way too many invasive questions."

"They’re teenagers, Felix. Curiosity is their job."

"They’re tiny terrors," he grumbled.

Helena raised an eyebrow. "Is that fear I hear from the great Mad Healer?"

Felix immediately regretted opening his mouth. "Never mind."

Helena laughed, falling into step beside him as they walked toward the faculty lounge. Behind them, through the classroom’s open window, the students were still chatting excitedly about raid tactics, while the girl by the glass sat quietly at her desk, staring at the three simple lines written on the board.

COME HOME.

Felix had spent an hour teaching kids why surviving was the greatest victory in the world.

To him, that felt just as important as killing a monster.

He glanced over his shoulder toward the classroom door and chuckled softly. "Maybe I’m not such a terrible teacher after all."

A loud, collective shout echoed through the door: "WE CAN STILL HEAR YOU, INSTRUCTOR!"

Felix’s smile vanished instantly.

He picked up his pace down the hall.

"Yep. Never doing this again."

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