[Cthulhu Mythos] [School Life] [Passionate?] (Slow Build)
Also known as: "Old Gods' Game: The Cannon Fodder of St. Andrews Academy"
Also known as: "Deep Dive into a Strange Dream"
When Chen Wang received the school badge engraved with an eye, he thought the worst that could happen was failing to get into college. That was before he was shoved into a crimson fog at the orientation gathering and watched his classmates hunt one another beneath Gothic spires. Some summoned tentacles to tear their opponents apart; others turned to stone, their souls... And his "special talent" was having no talent at all. Or perhaps he should say, even he didn't know what it was.
At St. Andrews Academy, founded before the Common Era and dedicated to educating "special talents," Chen Wang is the only Level Zero freshman in twenty years. The principal's office hides a tentacled monster, an Old God embryo sleeps beneath the library, and even the white-haired senior who always mooches his instant noodles can turn around and slice open a rift in space with a hunting knife.
"Sorrow lies ahead, young man."
The chaotic girl who calls herself Solchita licks her bloodstained lollipop and presses a lunar phase compass into his palm.
When the blood-red pocket watch opens a thousand eyes inside a labyrinth of perception, when hunters from the inner world tear through dimensions, when the Old God's devotees who call themselves "alumni" crawl out of mirrors, Chen Wang finally understands:
Once you've seen the world as it truly is, you can never go on living with your eyes shut.
