SHAMAN PROTOCOL
Chapter 77: A Tray Full of Trouble

Chapter 77: A Tray Full of Trouble

Students stared toward the entrance, some of them unable to help but drop their jaws. Their eyes trailed up and down the student with the slightly crumpled uniform. A bit of dirt clung to the fabric, and a few leaves stuck to his shoulder.

Meanwhile, Mikel simply looked back at the shattered plate behind him.

"Huh." He nodded, then shrugged. "Close call."

With that, he turned and casually walked in to grab a tray. He didn’t ask what the flying plate was about or why it came flying toward the entrance. He couldn’t be bothered.

But as he got his food, the students in the cafeteria followed him with their eyes.

"Did he just dodge the plate like that?" a student whispered at one table, her eyes locked on him. "That’s kind of cool."

"Is he a first-year?"

"I think I saw him earlier during the morning assembly, way in the back."

"He looks older for a first-year student."

"He looks older because you’re still very young."

Some students continued watching Mikel, while others eventually returned to their meals and conversations.

"Should I apologize to him?" one girl asked her two companions. "He didn’t seem to mind, but I feel like I should."

The reason the plate had flown in the first place was because this short-haired girl, wearing pink hair clips, with round blue eyes and a slightly pink-tinted pointy nose, had been trying to show off her abilities to her new friends.

It had gone... poorly.

"I don’t think you need to," her friend said. "He seems a bit scary, so it’s safe he doesn’t know who did that. But maybe at least pick up the plate."

Little did they know, Mikel might not have heard their whispers, but Doom had already analyzed the situation.

[It was a bragging attempt gone wrong.]

Mikel glanced at the floating screen beside him, then discreetly looked toward the table Doom indicated. He spotted three girls with lowered heads, whispering to one another.

[Suggestion: Mark them as sacrificial lamb to the Book of the Dead.]

Can, but I’d rather not.

Mikel scanned the room until he found an empty seat. Most tables were already occupied, and he didn’t want any unnecessary attention. He sat down in silence, hoping the last few sets of eyes on him would move along.

But even after most of the stares faded, he could still feel two lingering.

So, this time, he raised his eyes—and locked onto one of them.

Across the cafeteria, several tables away, sat a sharp-eyed guy with striking features and a cold expression. He was staring directly at Mikel. And even when Mikel met his gaze, the guy didn’t look away—if anything, his stare sharpened, like he was making a point.

Mikel stared back. Silent. Unfazed.

Then, slowly, he shifted his attention to the second person watching him.

This one had a very different presence: a guy with spiky hair, chewing on a toothpick, and lazily resting his chin on one hand. He wore a headband and looked forward, but his eyes clearly slid to the side, fixed on Mikel.

Two very different people. Two very different auras.

One gave off the air of an elite, even nobler air. The other, an unruly troublemaker. But both of them stood out.

Mikel was used to being stared at. The difference now? These guys might be able to kill him.

Can they sense the Blood Chain, Doom?

Mikel slowly looked away and picked up his cutlery, pretending to eat while keeping watch from his peripheral vision. His mind spun with questions, wondering if he’d already been found out.

Just as he pretended to ignore the two stares while picking at his food, someone suddenly sat across from him.

It was his overly friendly neighbor, Tahu.

"My friend! I was waiting for you so we could eat lunch together, but when I checked, your room was empty!"

Mikel looked up, his face twitching slightly. "Heh. I got hungry."

"It’s alright!" Tahu beamed. "Friends will always be friends! I forgive you."

"Right..." Mikel muttered, raising a brow as he resumed eating.

He caught a glimpse of the sharp-eyed guy walking off when Tahu joined the table. As for the guy with the toothpick, he had shifted his attention to Tahu, now completely ignoring Mikel.

"Hey, Tahu," Mikel said quietly, looking at the guy across from him.

Tahu kept eating, but he hummed in acknowledgment.

"You said you’ve been staying in the dorm for a month before the school opened, right?" Mikel asked.

Another hum escaped Tahu.

"Were there other students already here too?"

Tahu chewed faster, then looked up thoughtfully. "I think a few. But I didn’t really talk to them."

"Why? You didn’t seem to have trouble talking to me."

Tahu grinned. "We don’t like each other."

I didn’t like or dislike you either, though.

"The ones who came early mostly focused on training and learning," Tahu continued. "Some of them didn’t mesh well with my abilities, so naturally, there was conflict."

That caught Mikel’s attention. He popped a piece of broccoli in his mouth, watching Tahu.

Before he could ask more, Tahu asked first.

"What kind of shaman are you, Mikey?" he asked. "I’m Earth-aligned. A natural at Gravepull, still mastering Funeral Rite—that one’s big in our tribe."

He tilted his head. "What about you?"

Mikel blinked. Did he just say ’Mikey’?

Earth-aligned? Gravepull? Funeral Rite?

What the hell are those?

He could guess what Funeral Rite might be... but it definitely wasn’t the burial mass he was thinking of.

"I don’t know," Mikel said honestly, shrugging. "Didn’t even know there were different types. Thought we all just kicked spirits back to hell."

This time, Tahu was the one blinking blankly. "You don’t know?"

"Nope."

"How did you get in here if you don’t know the basics?"

Mikel wanted to say "pure luck," but it wasn’t luck—it was bad luck. Pure cursed luck.

"My neighborhood got attacked. Zone Zero showed up, and they told me to come with them. Apparently, I was the only one who knew it wasn’t an earthquake that hit us—it was something worse."

That wasn’t the whole truth, of course. The real beginning was when he woke up from a fight with a Nightbound.

Still, Tahu’s face remained unreadable. "So you’re one of those, huh?"

"One of what?"

[Translation: You didn’t come through the front door. You were dragged in through the emergency exit.]

Just as Mikel asked, a loud clang echoed through the cafeteria.

Both he and Tahu turned to look.

Several tables away, four students had gathered around one table — three standing, one pinned. The pinned student’s tray lay overturned, food spilled across his chest like a ritual gone wrong.

The students who had been sitting there previously had already leapt out of the way.

"This guy just doesn’t learn his lesson, huh?" one sneered. "He just kept asking for trouble."

"Ugh..." The pinned student’s arms trembled as he tried to push up, only to slip again, knocking a bowl of rice off the table.

"I told you not to show your face around me again, low-life wannabe," said the one pressing the student down. "I warned you. If you want to keep breathing with that spirit lodged in your chest, then stay the fuck out of my way."

Tahu shook his head and looked away. "This is why I don’t like them."

Mikel just observed, analyzing the scene.

Three taller guys, all with two colored stripes on their sleeves—meaning they were second-years. The kid being pinned down was much smaller.

So... even in a school full of shamans, stuff like this still happens.

[Threat Level: Low — Bullying Behavior. Emotional maturity pending.]

[Shamans are also human, Master. And human nature doesn’t change—even in a shaman environment.]

Mikel watched in silence. He’d learned long ago that not every fight was worth entering—but he memorized all their faces anyway.

[Shall I file them under: future liabilities log?]