Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 161: With Pleasure

Haa...

Was he here to defend Ruby’s honor? To reclaim some perceived slight? To enact a scene from a particularly bad teen drama?

The mighty Tiger Prince of the real world, reduced to a scowling, hallway-blocking plot device in a high school AU. The sheer, devastating cringe of it was almost impressive.

She stopped a few paces away, Oathran halting beside her. The hallway, sensing a confrontation of epic, gossip-worthy proportions, fell into a hush so deep you could hear the rustle of Oathran adjusting his satchel strap.

Three points of a very stupid, very public triangle, frozen in the morning light. Again. With one different leading man now.

Cecilia took a slow breath. Decently uneventful? A woman could only hope. She should have known better.

But before she could even muster a sigh of exasperation or formulate a strategy to bypass the human roadblock, Oathran acted.

Subtle, dismissive, elegant. He didn’t look at Arzhen. He didn’t acknowledge anything. He simply turned to Cecilia, his expression one of polite attentiveness.

He gestured forward with a gentle, guiding motion, his hand hovering a respectful inch from the small of her back, never making contact.

His voice, when he spoke, was a deep, mellifluous baritone that he somehow managed to infuse with the faintest, most deliberate flourish.

"The do~or, my lady."

The word ’door’ lilted, sung more than spoken, as if he were presenting her with the gates to a palace.

It was so absurdly, perfectly over-the-top. It wasn’t confrontational. It was a dismissal so complete it rendered Arzhen’s glaring presence as insignificant as a piece of... misplaced furniture.

Cecilia, catching his drift instantly, played along. She looked at the door Oathran was presenting. "Thank you, Mr. Alicei. The door was indeed hard to spot."

"With pleasure."

And just like that, he escorted her past the frozen, fuming Arzhen as if he were nothing more than an... inconveniently placed potted plant.

Normal!Oathran was the fucking best.

Entering the classroom, something in the air behind them snapped. But it wasn’t a loud sound. Everything. Everyone. The handful of students who had been lingering to watch the drama unfold seemed to collectively decide that witnessing whatever came next was a survival risk.

They melted away, scattering into adjacent corridors with complete silence.

Cecilia didn’t have to turn around to witness it. She could feel it. It must have been because of Arzhen. Or, more accurately, the state of his face.

You could imagine.

***

SNAP!

Rest in pieces. A rice crispy treat being murdered.

"RARH!"

Angela ripped the snack in half with her teeth.

"That bitch wenchcore-founder little ballerina!" she snarled. A... creative insult that somehow managed to encapsulate Ruby’s entire being.

Cecilia, sitting cross-legged on Angela’s dorm room floor, ate her own rice crispy slowly.

"She spread an overnight gossip slandering you!" Angela yelled, waving the other half of her treat like a prosecutor’s exhibit. "Why are you fucking calm, you little slut? Like the attention? Cheater! You’re supposed to be my person in Eastiel’s camp!"

The accusation was so layered with political and personal betrayal that Cecilia almost choked.

"I didn’t do anything!" she protested.

"Didn’t do anything? Then what’s this?" Angela’s eyes gleamed. She snatched a spherical, palm-sized crystal from her bedside table, similar to a communication orb in the real world. "BAM!"

She swiped her hand across its smooth surface. It lit up with an internal, azure glow.

Then, a three-dimensional, moving picture flickered to life inside it. The image was slightly grainy, captured from a distance and an awkward angle.

It was last night in the near-empty cafeteria. There was Cecilia, flustered and red-faced. There was Oathran, holding a glass of water. And there she was, drinking from it.

"Woah, so cool—I mean, what?!" Cecilia gasped, her genuine fascination with the recording technology had to be forcefully suppressed so she didn’t look suspiciously unaware of such common looking technology.

"Aaaaaah, you little cunt, you enjoy this, aren’t you?" Angela pointed a trembling, snack-crumb-dusted finger at her. "You’re trying to build a three men harem, huh? Arzhen, Eastiel, and Oathran?"

She leaned in. "Look at what that bitch mass-sent to the entire school body overnight! At least if you want some kind of a harem, DO IT IN PRIVATE!"

The sheer scale of the gossip attack was impressive. Ruby had gone nuclear. But the suggestion of the trio made Cecilia’s stomach revolt. "But not with Arzhen—BLEUGH!" She mimed retching.

Angela stared, her furious tirade halting. She’d expected denials! Excuses! She hadn’t expected a full-body gag at the mention of one of the supposed harem members. "WHAT?!" she barked, momentarily thrown. "WHAT THE FUC—"

Seizing the advantage, Cecilia leaned forward, her own eyes narrowing. This was no longer about defense. She must do a counter-offensive. "CALM DOWN. BEFORE I CAN BUILD ONE, I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THEM."

Angela’s brain short-circuited. Her mouth opened, then closed. "WHA? WHUH? HUH?"

Cecilia pressed on, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous purr. "Tell me what I asked you about Oathran yesterday, you slut. Spit it out, or I’ll tell everyone you just had it with Stevan right before I came in this fucking dorm!"

Angela froze. Not just stopped talking. She seemed to solidify. The emotional whiplash, from righteous anger, to confusion, to being blackmailed with a scandalous truth lie about her and Stevan, was too much.

For a long, suspended second, there was only the sound of their breathing.

Then the dam broke.

"BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH—"

The scream was long, loud, and contained a universe of betrayal, outrage, and a strange, grudging respect. It rattled the windowpanes of the dorm room, sending the birds outside flying off the distant horizon.

Cecilia merely took another slow bite of her rice crispy.

"How did you fucking know?"

"You think I can’t smell it? Me? Hmph!"

The condescending ’hmph’ escaped Cecilia.

Angela’s jaw went slack for a second. "Wow—wait." Her mind raced, connecting dots. "Experience? Did you—" She couldn’t even finish the sentence, her eyes widening further.

Cecilia didn’t deny it. "Yeah."

"WITH EASTI—"

"Ssssshhhhh—" Cecilia hissed, lunging forward to clap a hand over Angela’s mouth, her eyes darting to the dorm room door.

Angela wrenched her head back, Cecilia’s hand falling away. The look on her face was priceless. "Fucking slut, when?"

"Info first."

"Fine—"