Preparing for Admission - Building the Foundations
Many players of Planetarium offer this piece of advice: "If you're planning to tackle the academy storyline, start it as early as possible." The reason is simple. The academy storyline is packed with events that help the protagonist grow, and those growth events become far more efficient the younger you are. Take The Greedy Prodigal, for example. The earliest you can start the game is at age fifteen. Since the academy entrance exam event happens at the end of that same year, you can clear the exam almost immediately after starting and begin the academy storyline at sixteen the following year for maximum efficiency. At least, that's how it works in theory.
"Efficiency, my ass. You still have to pass the exam first before any of that matters." In my previous life, I'd cleared the game with three different templates: Nameless War Demon, Successor of Red and Blue Blood, and Proud Barbarian. Two of those runs included the academy storyline. But not once did I ever succeed in passing the entrance exam during the first year I started. And it wasn't just me. From what I'd seen in other players' posts, success on the first try was extremely rare, all because of the exam's brutal difficulty.
Players often complained that it felt less like selecting academy freshmen and more like recruiting elite special operatives for the state. Even though the protagonist templates available were among the most talented individuals in the setting, there was a hard limit to their starting stats. Plenty of players tried rushing the exam right at the start for maximum efficiency, only to waste time and either hit the restart button—Planetarium had an autosave system that made save scumming impossible—or give up and aim for the next year instead.
Most of the posts claiming a first-year pass belonged to Successor of Red and Blue Blood, which had the highest overall specs among all templates at the start. For the other templates, there were only scattered posts about succeeding after multiple attempts when luck finally aligned. "And I never once saw a post about clearing it on the first try with The Greedy Prodigal." Even a combat-focused template like Nameless War Demon only barely scraped by with good luck. There was no way The Greedy Prodigal, with its pathetic starting abilities, could manage it. The standard playstyle for that template was to skip the first exam entirely, spend the year powering up the protagonist, and try again the next year. Plenty of players didn't even bother with the academy storyline when using The Greedy Prodigal at all.
But I'm different. "With two years of prep time, if I make full use of it, this should be doable." If the problem was insufficient starting stats, then the solution was to raise them beforehand. I'd already secured the funds needed for various preparations. All that remained was raising my specs. And naturally, this wasn't something I had to handle alone.
"Starting today, I will be in charge of Lady Ligret's education. My name is Pnos. I look forward to working with you."
"………………"
At the polite greeting from the silver-haired man in a tailored suit, Ligret's expression soured without a word. She turned her head toward me.
—What the hell is this?
Meeting the look in her eyes, I answered. "He's a tutor who's going to help with your studies."
"Wait, hold on. Just wait a second. Hold up." Ligret pressed a hand to her forehead like she had a headache. "I'm a bodyguard, right? You hired me as a bodyguard. So why do I have to study?"
"What are you talking about? This is part of your bodyguard duties too."
"What does protecting you have to do with me studying!?"
Her voice rose in genuine confusion. I explained. "Listen carefully. You're strong. But you're not invincible. You admit that, right?"
"…Yeah."
"That's why you need to get even stronger. You don't plan on staying where you are now, do you?"
"…I guess not?"
"But without knowledge, there's a clear limit to how strong you can become. If you can't even read, you won't be able to study martial arts manuals. The more you know, the faster you'll make decisions when it counts. Don't worry, it won't be that hard. Even if you're a bit slow, if you just drill it through repetition—hey, put that hand down. Civilized people solve their problems through conversation!"
"I don't know about fancy young masters, but us ignorant, thick-headed mercenaries prefer this method over those old-fashioned ones."
Ligret cracked her knuckles without a word. I shouted, "If you master reading and writing, I'll give you the best weapon that comes out of the Cube!"
"…………"
Ligret looked deeply conflicted, but eventually sighed. "……Two weapons. And do something about that 'Lady' nonsense. It gives me the creeps."
"Fine, fine. You heard her, Pnos?"
"Understood, Young Master Chrome."
I thought to myself that I'd been planning to offer three, so this was a bargain. The moment had come to give the other tutor candidates a reason to call Ligret "Lady" as well.
[○ Month ○ Day. I've been told to keep a journal to practice the letters I've learned. According to Pnos, I've picked it up remarkably fast for someone who started late, but honestly, I don't trust that. Clark used to say the same thing whenever he taught something new to the other mercenaries: "You sluggish brat! You can't do a damn thing right except for this one thing, and you learn it quick!"]
[○ Month ○ Day. Living at the Midas estate feels so different from my mercenary days that I get hit with culture shock all the time. The rooms are unnecessarily huge and luxurious, and meals show up like clockwork without me having to do anything. Especially the food—every meal is prepared in massive quantities that fill the entire table, and they sprinkle some strange powder on it before eating. Chrome says it's some kind of medicine that improves physical abilities if taken long-term, but when I asked about the price out of curiosity, he told me I was better off not knowing. Watching him grumble about "terrible cost-performance" and "it takes talent to eat and absorb that much" while forcing meat into his mouth is something else. I wonder if he really feels full after eating so little.]
[○ Month ○ Day. The martial arts instructor showed up. Apparently, he used to work for the royal family but retired after getting caught taking bribes. Chrome said, "Someone like that is the only kind who'd come to our house." Still, his skills seem solid—at least stronger than I am right now. That said, can we please stop with that creepy "Lady Ligret" title?]
[○ Month ○ Day. Physical training has been added to Chrome's daily routine. Following the former knight's instructions, I joined in, but somehow it turned into a running competition with Chrome halfway through. In the end, Chrome collapsed from exhaustion, his face pale, and asked if I'd ever trained like this before. When I told him I never had the luxury, his complexion somehow got even worse.]
[○ Month ○ Day. Moving my body feels refreshing, but having to match Chrome's pace makes it feel a bit lacking. After several civilized discussions, we changed the routine: we run together, and when Chrome gets too tired to move, I carry him on my back and keep going. He yells at me to put him down, which is noisy, so I deliberately chose the roughest routes. He quieted down pretty quickly after that. The contrast at the end between Chrome's completely drained expression and the former knight's face, twitching as he desperately tried to hold something back, was pretty memorable. So who told him to mess around with someone else's title?]
[○ Month ○ Day. I've started learning martial arts properly from the former knight. Chrome seems to be putting in effort, but the results aren't great. Not that I'm in any position to talk. I've landed a few hits with the wooden sword, but actually taking him down was impossible. He's strong, all right. The former knight, looking a bit more serious than usual, said Chrome has the talent of a prodigy. When it came to me, he just trailed off, saying it wasn't his place to comment. I didn't press him on it either.]
[○ Month ○ Day. Chrome had to go out on Midas Company business, so I went along as his escort. When the other party struggled to pay their overdue debt, Chrome started working his silver tongue like usual and ended up squeezing a huge stack of books out of them. I was given books on how to handle various weapons, while the extortionist employer flipped through a bunch himself and snatched up everything related to crossbows and throwing weapons. When he asked what I wanted, I said all of them, and he gave me a weird look. "Damn, a full-equip build is tough." "Still, the final specs are…" He kept muttering, but I have no idea what he's trying to say.]
Thud. Ligret closed the journal and thought to herself that, all things considered, her current life wasn't so bad.