I Stopped Simping and the Heroines Lost Their Minds

The staging hall beneath the academy was deafeningly loud. Hundreds of first-year students stood in full combat gear, their nervous chatter echoing off the high stone walls.

At the front of the massive cavern stood the heavy steel gate of Composite Block C.

Instructor Morwenna stepped up to the raised platform, her voice projecting effortlessly over the crowd without yelling.

"Listen up," Morwenna said, the hall instantly falling silent. "This is a live dungeon evaluation. The pain is real. The blood is real. The only thing preventing your permanent death is the emergency teleport tag stitched into your collars. Try not to test the academy’s insurance policy today."

In the middle of the crowd, Squad 7 stood ready.

Emily was bouncing on her heels, grinning, her heavy steel gauntlets clanking together. Felix was frantically checking the leather straps on his tower shield for the fourth time.

Chloe stood just behind Arthur. She was nervous, but she wasn’t trembling. The memory of the dark theater last night—the absolute, dominating control Arthur had over her, and the way he had rewarded her obedience—anchored her completely. She took a slow, steady breath, her eyes locked on Arthur’s back.

Leon’s squad pushed through the crowd, stopping next to them.

Leon was fully armored, his polished silver breastplate catching the mana-lights of the hall. He looked like a poster child for the Knights Academy.

"Good luck in there," Leon said sincerely, offering a hand.

Arthur shook it. "Try not to rescue too many random people, Leon. It ruins your time score."

Leon laughed, shaking his head.

"You are completely shameless, Vance," Alicia said, standing next to Leon with her hand resting on the pommel of her sword.

"I’m efficient, Valentine," Arthur corrected smoothly. "Try not to trip."

A loud, mechanical siren blared through the hall. The heavy steel gates of Composite Block C violently cranked open, revealing a swirling, blue dimensional portal.

"Deploy!" Morwenna shouted.

Arthur’s squad stepped through the gate.

The transition was instant. The cold stone of the academy vanished, replaced by the suffocating, humid air of the Rotwood Forest.

It smelled like wet earth, rust, and rotting fungus. The massive canopy overhead was so thick it blocked out the sky, plunging the forest into a permanent, sickly green twilight. Massive, twisted roots covered the ground like giant snakes.

A blue prompt flickered in their vision.

[Zone 1: Rotwood Forest]

[Environmental Modifier: Ambient Healing Magic Dampened by 40%]

Chloe frowned, looking at her hands. "The mana is thick here. My spells are going to cost more to cast."

"Conserve your mana," Arthur ordered, his eyes sweeping the environment. "We don’t heal scratches. Only structural damage."

Elara’s irritating voice echoed in his memory: Humans always forget the sky exists in a forest. But Elara’s lesson immediately kicked in. Arthur ignored the dirt path entirely. He watched the canopy, tracking the subtle tension in the hanging vines and looking for patches of disturbed moss on the massive tree trunks.

"Shield up, Felix," Arthur said quietly, drawing his daggers. "Ten o’clock. Above us."

Felix immediately raised his heavy tower shield, angling it upward just as a massive shape dropped from the branches.

A Rotwood Stalker slammed into the shield. It was a terrifying, wolf-like beast the size of a bear, covered in thick fungal plates instead of fur. Acidic saliva dripped from its jaws.

The impact hit Felix like a battering ram. He grunted, his boots sliding backward in the mud, but he held the line perfectly.

"Stupid bug-dog!" Emily yelled.

"It is not a bug." Felix corrected.

"It has too many ugly parts. It counts."

She stepped out from behind Felix and threw a brutal right hook directly into the beast’s face. The heavy steel gauntlet shattered the Stalker’s fungal armor. Emily tried to pull her fist back, but the beast clamped its jaws down, her gauntlet briefly getting stuck against its teeth.

"Hold it!" Arthur yelled.

He didn’t go for a flashy, heroic decapitation. He slid low through the wet mud, bypassing the Stalker’s heavy armor entirely, and drove his daggers straight into the beast’s exposed hamstrings.

The Stalker shrieked, its back legs collapsing instantly. Emily ripped her gauntlet free and brought both fists down on the back of its skull, caving it in with a sickening crunch.

Before the body even hit the ground, the brush rustled. Two more Stalkers dropped from the canopy.

One landed right on Felix, forcing him to his knees. The other bypassed the vanguard entirely, lunging straight for the backline.

It charged directly at Chloe.

Chloe froze. For a fraction of a second, the sheer, terrifying weight of the beast rushing her spiked her heart rate. She stumbled back, her eyes wide.

Arthur was close enough to intercept. He could have used Shadow Step to cut it down.

He didn’t. He stopped in his tracks and looked directly at her.

"Chloe," Arthur commanded, his voice slicing cleanly through the chaos. "Light pulse. Now."

The tone of his voice cut through the panic like a hook. Chloe latched onto it, not because the fear vanished, but because his command gave her something solid to obey.

Chloe stopped backpedaling, planted her boots in the mud, raised her staff, and channeled her mana.

A blinding, intense flash of holy light erupted from the crystal on her staff.

The Stalker shrieked, blinded, its momentum carrying it forward as it crashed blindly into a heavy tree trunk.

Emily didn’t hesitate. She stepped up and drove her boot into the beast’s ribs, followed by a heavy haymaker that ended the fight.

Chloe didn’t waste time celebrating. She immediately dropped to her knees in the mud next to Felix, grabbing his arm.

"Fractured wrist," Chloe said, her voice completely steady as a soft, white glow emanated from her hands, fighting through the dungeon’s dampening field to mend the bone.

Arthur walked past her, wiping black blood off his dagger.

"Good," Arthur said simply. "You held."

Chloe’s chest swelled. The praise hit her harder than adrenaline. She didn’t just survive; she executed her role perfectly for him.

High above the dungeon, in the faculty observation booth, a massive wall of scrying crystals displayed the live feeds of every squad.

Morwenna stood near the front glass, a massive grin on her face as she watched Squad 7.

"Ugly," Morwenna laughed. "Absolutely brutal, zero-waste attrition. I love it."

Sitting at the tactical desk a few feet away, Elena Moon kept her posture perfectly straight. Her eyes were locked onto Arthur’s feed. She watched as Arthur led his squad through the forest, deliberately avoiding a specific path that looked completely safe to the naked eye.

Elena knew exactly why. The mana-echo mapping notes she had given him under her desk identified that specific path as a highly pressurized spore trap. He was using her cheat code flawlessly.

Elena crossed her legs tightly under the desk, a sudden, heavy flush of heat pooling in her core at the memory of how he had extracted that information.

Back in the dungeon, Squad 7 broke through the heavy treeline and stepped into a large, circular stone clearing.

They had reached the exit of Zone One.

Felix was panting heavily, leaning on his shield. Emily was wiping Stalker brains off her gauntlets. Arthur and Chloe were completely covered in mud and black, foul-smelling blood.

In the center of the clearing, a massive blue crystal hovered over a stone pedestal, displaying the live rankings for the cohort.

[Current Standings]

[Squad 1 (Leon) - Ahead in Combat Efficacy Score]

[Squad 7 (Arthur) - Ahead in Resource and Survival Efficiency Score]

Emily grinned, looking at the glowing blue text. "Look at that. We’re tied for first."

Arthur looked at their mud-soaked, battered armor, then at the scoreboard.

"No," Arthur said dryly, wiping a streak of mud off his cheek. "We’re expensive. Let’s get to the caverns."