Chapter 1 – The Traitor Is Nearby (01)

“Hmm…”

Slowly check your appearance in the mirror.

Perhaps because the main artist’s taste was for sickly handsome boys, a handsome and short face was reflected in the mirror.

“It’s not a dream…”

I had no choice but to accept reality as I saw myself in the mirror following me in the mirror every time I moved my hands and changed my facial expressions.

It was a strange reality, more like a dream than any other reality, but what could you do?

“Really… You’ve entered the game world?”

The basic settings of Celestial Academy are as follows.

The main character is Celestial Academy’s 3rd year class F.

As you can guess from the name F, it was a class filled with only the defects in life that could not fit in at the academy for one reason or another.

Of course, like this kind of work, it was actually a powerful setting hiding an enormous background or talent, and the main character was weak in terms of force, but had excellent situational awareness and knew how to draw the big picture, so he led Class F and after graduation. It was a game where you played an active part in the numerous wars that would take place and your choices influenced the fate of the entire continent.

‘Of course I’m good at drawing the big picture. ‘I see the battlefield from above’

It’s just a world view setting, and in fact, in order to immerse the player in the romance element in an RPG game, he is given a commanding position even though he is a classmate.

Originally, students had to attend this academy for three years as an advanced course, but the main character and his childhood friend transferred to the school midway due to their own circumstances, built relationships with their friends for a year, and looked for people who could help them later.

The problem with this game is that it has a high degree of freedom and there is no mercy that allows you to break it somehow, so if you don’t make many friends during the one year you are tied to the academy, you will be beaten around as the main character with low stats and no useful skills, and you will be caught and executed in the ending. It flies.

There is a reason why convenience mode and difficulty relief patches are essential.

In the first place, the main character was sick, so his character’s abilities were low, and he had no magical talent, so he was a character who had to be protected by other characters in battle.

However, the more crazy it becomes, the more crazy people called gamers raise weak characters and clear them, but I didn’t want to play with such pervert grinding and bugs, so I left it as the developer intended and used it as a buff and item shuttle.

Of course, since I became the main character, I was hoping to have some fighting power in case of an emergency…

‘But I didn’t want it to become this strong.’

In the suitcase that had not yet been unpacked, there was an old wooden sword, an item exclusive to the protagonist.

Only the main character can use it, and it has 1 attack power, so it was a penalty weapon that prevented the main character from using it for attacks in the beginning.

When I looked at this, the reinforcement was 99999.

“Chinese kids… Don’t they know to be in moderation?”

First of all, if you swing that thing around carelessly, it will not only turn a person into mush, but will tear the ground apart, so I kept it sealed.

‘Make sure the wooden sword is sealed…’

Due to the system, bare-handed attacks are possible, but unlike wooden swords that only have 1 attack power, the damage correction is 0, so the power is even lower.

The only thing that could be used in place of a wooden sword was not an object that was clearly visible as a weapon, but there were two things that were like a martial arts grade exclusive to the protagonist that added skills to the protagonist.

“What kind of martial arts level is there in a fantasy game…”

Still, I decided to learn it.

In the beginning, only the main character and his childhood friend have to play together, so it is better to strengthen them in order to increase their power significantly.

Moreover, since it adds skills when used as a consumable, you won’t notice the change unless you have a unique constitution where the status window from the game appears next to you when you’re staring at your face like I am right now.

– The main character can learn the skill ‘Five Elements of Indifference’. Would you use it? –

– The protagonist cannot acquire the skill because the conditions are not yet sufficient –

‘What is this again?’

Among the two martial arts levels, one can be cooked and the other is not.

‘Is this something to be used in the second half?’

Since I couldn’t learn it right now, I put it in my bag and learned the remaining method, the Five Elements and No-Heartless Method.

Parabhabam~

In fact, when listening to the game’s sound effect that seemed to be draining of strength, I acquired the mind method and looked at the explanation, and it was written that simply learning the Five Elements and No-Heart Method will improve your health and strengthen your strength.

“Please write this down in numbers.”

When I checked my stats in the mirror, the main character’s abilities were originally set to the lowest level of 5, but now they were up to about 7.

I don’t know if it’s a 40% increase or a 2 degree correction, but it’s still better than nothing.

The current situation was in the prologue stage of the game, right before the first class started.

After being ignored as a member of Class F for 2 years, I am in a situation where I have to participate as a transfer student among the students who are tight-knit among themselves, listen to their stories one by one, open their minds, and create future allies.

At first, I had a hard time adjusting to being suddenly thrown into the game world, but fortunately, I had a week to spare before the official start, so I was able to calm down to some extent and think about what I had to do in advance.

“Let’s be cool. This is a game where you shouldn’t waste even a single day of your time.”

Even now, I spend every day denying reality and trying to figure out the situation, but in the original situation, I would have been in a situation where I would have been running around for a week, trying hard to seduce women and seduce men to build affection and friendship.

If you go the standard academy route, you can adjust your likability, but from the middle of the war, likability decreases, and you don’t have time, so you have to take care of only the few people you need, so by the end of the battle, there are many cases where there are only two people left to marry the main character.

I also did the hard work haphazardly, so only the main character and one character remained, and as a result of repeating items and undoing, I barely got to the ending, and I couldn’t get married because I wasn’t satisfied with the favorability rating.

‘I don’t know anything else during the one week preparation period, but I have to go out today’

Today was the class president’s birthday, so I had to go out at all costs.

If you get information in advance and participate in the birthday party, your likeability will quickly rise to likeability, and other options have more points of contact, such as guiding you to the school from the beginning, compared to regular characters, and your likeability will increase quickly, so if you plan your strategy well, you can join and use them from the beginning. She was a representative filial daughter character.

She is a sharp and well-balanced swordsman, and I tried to make her my wife in the first round, but her likability was a little low, so the marriage failed, so I guess I should say she is a prospective wife.

It had good performance, was popular, and had a pretty design, so it was bound to be popular.

In the first playthrough, it took time to recruit him because he didn’t know the information about the birthday party, but in the current situation where you already know the strategy, if you take the shortest recruitment route, you can take him in from the next battle right after the tutorial, so feed him stat-boosting items from the beginning. If you raise it, you can use it as a reliable bodyguard.

Dalkak.

When I opened the door and went outside, a beautiful red-haired girl who happened to be passing by outside was greeting me.

A character who is my childhood friend and the only one who accommodates me in the beginning.

And in the middle of the game, he betrays the academy, kills the principal who declared neutrality, and starts a large-scale rebellion.

On the day of her coming-of-age ceremony, while receiving congratulations, she returns to the duchy by order of Duke Renellian, declares rebellion, and a civil war breaks out that splits the kingdom in half.

The main character of another, or rather, actual story that divides the Academy route and the Childhood Friend and Rebellion route was smiling in front of me.

“Are you finished packing your bags now?”

To be exact, he was supposed to come out and meet me yesterday, but I wasted a day locking myself in my room trying to figure out the situation, so it looks like he only showed up now.

As I still focused on her eyes and looked at her face, a translucent window similar to the one from the game appeared next to her face.

‘Among the stats of my childhood friend who accompanies me in the beginning, the lowest strength is 15, but I learned martial arts and got 7… He’s a really weak character.’

Of course, for the sake of initial progress and due to the hidden setting, the childhood friend starts off quite strong.

‘Rather than that… What is this?’

The faint letters that I couldn’t see in the original character status window in the game were blurred and hidden. I tried to keep squinting and looking, but the more I tried, the more blurred the letters became, making it impossible for me to see them.

‘Is it a hidden trait?’

However, it later changes with the [Power of Completed Bloodline] That is revealed along with the rebellion, but for now, [Versatility], The initial characteristic of the childhood friend, is clearly visible, and each character can only have one characteristic.

Thanks to this, the strong characters and the bad characters are divided.

‘Since various complex modes have been installed, additional characteristics may be added to balance the game…’

As I frowned and glared at his face, my childhood friend stretched out his hand and waved it in front of my eyes.

I guess it’s really strange to see myself staring at myself like I’m trying to catch a rat.

“Ah… Okay. It’s a little late.”

“Because I had so much baggage. Right?”

The main character is still called the protagonist, and my childhood friend does not have a name, and I had to give it to him right before I called him.

Usually, a default name is selected, but this game did not even create a default name in the hopes of creating a sense of immersion, and only called the main character and childhood friend.

But that’s under the game system, how am I supposed to name it when I’m playing it myself?

“Aren.”

“…What…?”

“Huh? “I just called your name?”

While I was thinking about what to name, my childhood friend was already calling my name.

That’s also the name I entered during the first round.

“…Ophelia?”

“Yes. Why?”

And my childhood friend’s name was set to the name I entered in the first round.

‘Is it going to go like this… ?’

I repeated the save and load several times during the first round, but failed due to the insane difficulty level.

In the end, they sacrificed several of their friends and colleagues to carry out a bait operation to capture Ophelia, and in the end, as I watched the scene with only the two of them in silence, I couldn’t help but feel strange.

So, in the second round, I tried to go the childhood friend treason route, where everyone refuses to participate in the war unless they are fairly close to them, as their likeability has gone downhill from the start, but…

‘In reality, it will be difficult’

In a game, even if Aren dies and the game is over, you can just load the save, but if I entered the game world like I am now, I couldn’t take that risk.

I couldn’t risk my life and go down a dangerous and difficult path.

That’s why I’m still trying to go the academy route safely.

“Do you have any questions about the academy? I’ve studied a lot, so I’ll explain it to Aren one by one, especially now.”

“No need.”

“I studied hard…”

Since I already knew everything about the tutorial, I skipped it and saw Ophelia drooping with a sullen expression.

During the first session, I was very happy to listen to the tutorial and they explained it to me step by step, but if you skip it, it’s like this.

The emotions and feelings felt were completely different when talking directly with a character in the game like this, compared to seeing it through dialogue that is omitted in the game.

‘Somehow… I feel familiar’

I don’t know if this is probably the feeling of the main character, Aren, or my impression of her as a gamer who was hostile to her after seeing her face her her hundreds or thousands of times in the first game and felt slightly sad in the last scene.

Huh. Still, it’s the academy route. Never take the treason route.