The smell of alcohol arrived before she did.
In Room 7-B of the East Wing at Arcana University of Brasília, thirty-two Awakened students waited for the eight o'clock class. The instructor's desk sat at the center of the platform, and on top of it — face-down, cheek buried in her crossed arms, pink hair fanned out like a curtain of cheap silk — was Carol Rosa.
The Sword rested on the floor, leaning against the door like a makeshift doorstop. Nobody knew the blade's name. Carol called it "Sword." That was it.
"She's asleep again," muttered a dwarven girl in the second row, not even trying to hide it.
"Not asleep. Passed out," corrected the guy beside her, a draconic hybrid with gray scales along his neck. "Look at the bottle under her chair."
There it was. A green glass bottle, empty, rolling slowly with the vibration of footsteps in the hallway. The label had been torn off. Carol didn't drink brands — she drank volume.
An uncomfortable silence spread through the room. Not the silence of respect. The silence of people watching an accident, unsure whether to laugh or look away.
"This is embarrassing," said a voice from the back.
Renato Voss. Twenty-one years old, Awakened human, second year. Broad shoulders, locked jaw, the kind of student who walked into university already acting like he'd graduated. He stood up slowly, the chair scraping across the floor with a deliberate screech.
"Thirty minutes late. Drunk. Face-down on the desk. And we're paying tuition for this?"
A few students nodded along. Others looked away. The dwarven girl bit her lip.
Renato walked up to the platform. Stopped at the edge. Looked at Carol the way you look at a dog sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk.
"Professor."
Nothing.
"Professor Rosa."
The pink hair didn't even stir.
Renato clicked his tongue. He stepped up onto the platform. Two steps to the desk. He planted both hands on the wooden surface and leaned forward, his face half a meter from hers.
"Wake up, you —"
Carol's hand moved.
Not fast. Instantaneous. The difference is that "fast" you can see, even if you can't react. "Instantaneous" you don't see at all. The hand simply appeared — slender, firm fingers closing around Renato's wrist like a shackle made of bone.
Renato froze. Not because it hurt. Because his body understood before his brain did that he couldn't move. Every muscle in his arm, his shoulder, his back — all of it locked. As if gravity had decided he no longer had permission.
Carol lifted her face slowly. Her pink eyes were half-open, puffy, ringed with deep shadows. The alcohol on her breath hit Renato's face like an invisible slap. She blinked once. Twice.
"What time is it?" she asked, her voice hoarse and dragging.
Renato didn't answer. He couldn't. His wrist was caught in that hand — a hand that felt like iron wrapped in soft skin — and the only thing his brain could process was a single, primitive, honest thought: *I can't get free.*
"Hm." Carol released his wrist. Pushed herself back in the chair. Scratched the back of her neck with the same hand that had just locked down a combat student. "Eight-thirty?"
"Eight thirty-two," said the dwarven girl, helpfully.
"Close enough."
Carol stretched. Her arms went up, the open jacket revealing a black top and the defined line of her abdomen. She yawned without covering her mouth. Then she looked at Renato, who was still standing on the platform, wrist pressed to his chest, eyes wide.
"Did you need something?"
Renato swallowed. Opened his mouth. Closed it. He stepped down from the platform without a word and went back to his seat at the rear of the room. Nobody commented. Nobody laughed. The silence was different now — not discomfort. Doubt.
Carol stood up. She shuffled to the edge of the platform, hands in her shorts pockets, and looked at the class the way you look at a line at the grocery store.
"Chapter seven of the manual. Class-C monsters in urban environments. Read it. If you have questions, don't ask me. Read it again."
"This is a class?" Renato couldn't help himself.
Carol looked at him. Not with anger. Not with authority. With something worse: total indifference.
"It's what we've got today."
She went back to the desk. Sat down. Crossed her arms. Laid her face in them. In under thirty seconds, the pink hair was fanned out again and her breathing had gone slow and heavy.
The bottle under the chair kept rolling.
Renato looked at his own wrist. No mark. No pain. Nothing. And that was exactly what scared him — she had gripped hard enough to lock every muscle in his arm, and hadn't left so much as a bruise.
He looked at the Sword leaning against the door. Old. No shine. No inscription. Tossed there like junk.
*Who is this woman?*
The question stuck in his throat. He didn't ask it. Nobody did. The class went on in silence, thirty-two students reading chapter seven and a pink-haired elf sleeping on the desk, smelling of alcohol, in a world she had watched burn and be reborn twice over.