001. Three Reasons Not to Be Optimistic
001. Three Reasons Not to Be Optimistic
Good morning— ba-ba-ba bam-bam—♬
Seven in the morning.
The obnoxiously cheery alarm sound grated on my ears.
I scowled, opened my eyes, and an unfamiliar ceiling entered my field of view.
"An unfamiliar ceiling....... I thought this place wasn't supposed to have a ceiling......."
And this stupid ass monologue was already on its third day.
Which meant today marked the third day since I'd been transmigrated into the game.
By now, three days was more than enough to roughly figure out the situation.
"Tch. So it wasn't a dream. I really had been transmigrated."
Yeah, I'd spent two days in denial. Time to start accepting it.
The fact that I'd been dropped into the world of Velvet School Life!, or Velvetsra for short.
"Ha, even thinking about it still pisses me off. Who the hell gets transmigrated like that?"
Even now, it was so ridiculous I let out a hollow laugh.
To explain exactly how I ended up in this world,
I had to go back to the day before I'd been transmigrated into the game.
*
The day before the transmigration.
The Velvetsra community was on fire back then.
Because the release of the 'Limited New Character' the devs had been hyping for the past three months was finally one day away!
That alone was enough fuel for the fire, but the devs had to pour gasoline on it by pre-releasing the illustration and battle motions for the new character 【Sword Flower (劍花) Alice】.
Alice on the screen had silver hair and blue eyes.
She was a cold-faced beauty who used a sword.
[ Holy shit, she's fucking gorgeous. This is insane. ]
[ Is she any good? (genuinely asking) ]
[ Alice coming? Alice coming? Alice coming? Alice coming? Alice coming? Alice coming? Alice coming? Alice coming? Alice coming? ]
[ Come on! Got plenty of ammo. Here we go! ]
[ But have some decency and add a damn pity timer, Velvetsra, you bastards T_T ]
[ Ex! treme! Bliss! Ex! treme! Bliss! Ex! treme! Bliss! Ex! treme! Bliss! ]
[ Hmm. Is that it? ]
The majority of people expressed anticipation for the revealed character.
A small number expressed disappointment, like she wasn't their type.
I was among those expressing anticipation.
'Whoa, shit. The devs really committed this time.'
The illustration looked like the artist had poured their soul into it, with delicate brushstrokes on every single strand of hair.
The battle motion showed her fluttering her short skirt and charging all over the screen.
On top of that, her character trait of breaking her cold expression and blushing shyly.
Alice was a character who aimed straight for the dead center of my taste.
Before I even knew it, I was opening my wallet.
Why open my wallet before she's even released?
I mean, shouldn't I prepare in advance?
My girl's coming in as a freshman. Shouldn't I make sure she's well-equipped so she doesn't feel small in front of the upperclassmen?
I scoured the site and posted questions to community veterans.
All the various items Alice would use—equipment, weapons, stats, skills, etc.
I identified and stockpiled the growth materials I expected she'd need.
And then came the long-awaited release day.
The new character gacha began.
And as I always did, as a matter of gacha etiquette, my first pull wasn't a 10-pull but a 1-pull.
In other words, I offered a Single Draw as a sacrifice.
Praying that Alice would come home with my dinner money still intact.
But, maybe that desperation had worked a little too well.
"Whoooa—!?"
My eyes went wide as I stared at my phone screen.
The single draw I had offered as a sacrifice.
And on that very first pull, brilliant rainbow light burst forth!
【 Sword Flower....... Don't call me by that name as you please. I am merely doing what must be done. 】
Then a cold, indifferent voice came through my phone's speaker.
I rubbed my eyes several times and checked my phone.
【 Sword Flower (劍花) Alice ☆☆☆☆☆ 】
A cold-looking beauty with silver hair and blue eyes filled the screen.
"I got...... her."
Yes.
In a gacha with no pity limit, with just a single pull,
I had succeeded in pulling a 'Base 5-Star', 'Limited', 'New Character'—Sword Flower Alice.
"I got heeeer!!! Fuck, what is this......! On a first pull, I'd have been grateful just for a 3-Star, but a 5-Star? A Limited New Character?"
At this point, it felt more surreal than real.
The feeling I had then was pretty damn impressive.
Years of humiliation and getting unfairly screwed over.
It felt like all those days of getting tormented by shameless gacha flexers were melting away, repaid in full all at once.
"Hmm. This. Any good?"
Yeah. I should have ended it with that lucky bastard flex line.
But, in that moment.
I got carried away by the mood and said something I really, really shouldn't have.
"Ha. Velvetsra is fucking GOTY material. I'll offer my soul. Fuck it. Take it. Take it all!"
.
.
.
Ridiculously, after those final words, I ended up getting transmigrated into the game.
"Fuck."
Even thinking about it now, it's absurd.
Usually, don't you qualify for transmigration by leaving rants filled with curses in game reviews, or by dedicating ten years to become a complete fossil, or at least leaving your three-character name somewhere on the rankings?
Or if not that, then shouldn't you at least have to engage the developer in a life-or-death debate about how shit this game is?
But me? I'd done nothing wrong except enjoy the game as a casual light spender and praise it after getting lucky on a single pull.
"Transmigrating someone into a game for a reason like that is really crossing the line......."
I buried my face in my hands.
* * *
"Haa, whatever. It's already water under the bridge. First....... Yeah, let's sort out what I've figured out over the past two days."
I got out of bed and headed for the desk in the corner.
There sat a laptop, paper, pens, and stuff—none of it originally mine.
I flipped open the notebook and started scratching away with a pen.
"Honestly, the world of Velvetsra isn't all that bleak......"
I mean, it's scheduled for annihilation, sure. But since the main content is watching adorable pretty girls, the overall atmosphere is pretty bright.
And the game itself isn't that hard either.
Not just a light spender like me—even completely free-to-play Players who didn't buy so much as a monthly pass could make it to the final chapter if they saved their attendance rewards.
However,
there were three reasons I couldn't be optimistic about my current situation.
Scratch scratch—
【 Three Reasons I Can't Be Optimistic About This World 】
1. Jin Yu-ha
2. Gender Role Reversal (a bit iffy)
3. No Gacha
First reason.
This fucker I'd transmigrated into.
I looked at the table mirror on the desk.
A stranger's face—a man's face—stared back from the mirror.
Pale, almost white skin.
Black hair and black eyes.
The beauty mark under the eye added a touch of decadence.
Honestly, the bastard was drop-dead handsome.
"Jin Yu-ha, why did it have to be this guy of all people......?"
I glared straight at the man reflected in the mirror.
Jin Yu-ha.
Among One-Star Trash characters, this guy was the unrivaled king of absolute garbage.
He was bad enough that if even one copy of Jin Yu-ha showed up in your first pull when you started the game, people would advise you to reset your account to prevent bad luck.
That alone told you exactly how notorious he was.
"......Status Window."
The moment I spoke, a semi-transparent blue window appeared before my eyes.
━━━━━━━━━
Name ─ Jin Yu-ha
Gender ─ Male (20)
Stats
Strength ─ 3 Spirit ─ 3
Mana ─ 6 Endurance ─ 6
Speed ─ 9 Charm ─ 19
Specialization ─ Swordsmanship [ Rank: E ]
Title ─ Flower on the Cliff [ Cliff Flower ]
Skills ─ [ None ]
Traits ─ [ None ]
Exclusive Weapon ─ Old Arming Sword
──────────
Flower on the Cliff my ass.
The average stat for students entering Velvet Academy was around 30. Meanwhile, Jin Yu-ha's average stat was 7.
"3, 6, 9, 3, 6....... What is this, a goddamn 369 game? Fuck. And of all things, Charm is 19. That really pisses me off."
Even kids who took swordsmanship lectures as a hobby had a swordsmanship rank of C.
And this bastard whose specialization was Swordsmanship had an E rank.
Not only did he have no skills, he didn't even have a single trait.
Looking at it all, you wondered how the hell this prick even got into a Hunter Academy.
To be honest, until recently, I'd just assumed he was a trap character the devs created to siphon money from Players in the gacha.
But yesterday, while rummaging through the phone, I found the reason.
[ Congratulations! You have been selected as a cadet under the Velvet Hunter Academy 'Male Quota System'. ]
"......."
Fuck.
The reason this pathetic bastard got to be an academy cadet was truly, profoundly idiotic.
*
The second reason I can't be optimistic about this world.
A wishy-washy Gender Role Reversal.
"It's a good thing I got suspicious and looked into how Jin Yu-ha that bastard got accepted under some unheard-of Male Quota System. If I hadn't known, I would've been totally blindsided."
Still, this one I could at least wrap my head around.
I'd been a little curious about it even before.
In Velvetsra, pretty girls protect the world, but what's the deal with all the male bastards being so pathetically weak?
Why is it that when war breaks out as a special event, the men are all sitting around doing nothing while only the women get called up?
But what if it's a Gender Role Reversal?
Even in the original world, it's standard practice for men to go to war, so if I just think of the genders as swapped, it's not that hard to understand.
The reason I called it 'a bit iffy' is because not all the pretty girls in the game have masculine personalities.
'They blush when they're embarrassed, and talk in cute, girly ways.'
So even when I was playing the game, I never really consciously thought about Velvetsra having a Gender Role Reversal world setting.
Seriously, think about it. Would a game pitching itself on pretty girls even sell if every single character acted like a man and was just screaming about sex?
Well, it's not like there aren't any walking porn mag characters either.......
Women are more proactive, while men are better at managing everyday life.
Women go to the military, and men don't go to the military.
Women confess first, and men receive confessions.
Women support their partners out in the world, while men support them from home.
Women are physically strong, and men are physically weak.
Just those kinds of general common sense and conventions, I guess?
Things like speech or behavior aren't any different from a normal woman,
but it was an absurdly convenient world where only those things had been reversed.
"Right, I just need to keep the gender reversal in mind. It's not like it came out of nowhere; it's basically hidden backstory that makes the pretty girls protecting the world plausible. And for me, as a guy, it wasn't exactly a bad thing."
But the reason I can't be optimistic about this world.
The third one.
This last reason is truly serious.
"Gacha."
If you asked what the flower of a Bonsai Game was,
obviously, it's the gacha system that empties Players' wallets and lets them acquire all kinds of characters, items, and currencies.
"The original Velvetsra was such a bastard of a game, it didn't even have a pity ceiling....... I used to rage, 'If you're gonna pull this shit, just remove the gacha altogether'......."
But it was gone.
Seriously, it was gone.
Once the game became reality, character draws, item draws, weapon draws—the whole damn gacha system was gone.
"I've got a Status Window, so why the hell is there no draw system? There's magic and monsters, so why can't items just pop out of thin air......!"
The reason I said Velvetsra was an easy game a little while ago is
precisely because upgrading characters' stats was so easy through the gacha.
But a Bonsai Game without a gacha system?
That meant I had to farm items with my own two feet, scrounge for resources, and even learn combat techniques myself.
"Ha, this is so goddamn fucked......."
I sighed heavily as I looked down at my notes.
【 Reasons I Can't Be Optimistic About This Reality 】
1. Jin Yu-ha
2. Gender Role Reversal. (a bit iffy)
3. Gacha: None
"Can I....... actually do this?"
My vision swam.
Even a world with a single obstacle was brutal enough, but I had three.
"Honestly, since I'd ended up as a handsome guy in a gender-reversed world, part of me did wonder if I should just drop everything, stay home, stream, and rake in money."
The Academy.
But I still had to go.
As long as I'd already been accepted into the Hunter Academy.
My status was equivalent to a conscripted soldier, so unless I went through the proper discharge process and got expelled, not going meant jail time.
I couldn't exactly go to prison just because I didn't wanna go to school.
Well, that was half a joke.
There was a real reason I had to go to Velvet Academy.
This game's atmosphere is bright.
It's a romantic world filled with the jokes and laughter of adorable pretty girls.
But in the end, it's also a world scheduled for annihilation.
Velvet School Life also showed an IF version: a dark, bleak future where the Player didn't take care of the students.
The kids the Player raised with love.
Every single one of those kids met their ruin.
Friends died, seniors died, juniors died, Instructors died, and the world was destroyed.
Scenes full of regret, exhaustion, and obsession played out in a short video,
and I remembered that alone caused a huge amount of psychological damage back then, with tons of people crying PTSD.
Did they really have to go that far just to keep Players from quitting by showing us, 'Without you, everything falls apart'?
In a world like that, I couldn't just sit on my hands, could I? Couldn't just blankly sit back and watch the world go completely to shit.
I steeled myself.
But, compared to my fighting spirit, the whole 'method' part was... well, I really had jack squat.
"First, I have to do something about this Jin Yu-ha bastard. I've got to fight monsters from now on, and fight bastards like Demonized Humans too. At this rate, I'm nothing but a meat shield."
This goddamn body was just too complete crap.
Should I go hit the gym and grind some iron?
"Hoo....... It's true, if only I had the gacha......."
It was right then, as I was heaving sighs.
Knock knock knock—
Someone knocked on the door from outside.
"Jin Yu-ha, delivery for you—! I'll leave it by the door!"
A woman's voice followed.
'Delivery?'
Creeeak—
When I opened the door, a moving box as big as my entire body was lodged against the frame.
"What the hell is this......?"
Jin Yu-ha that bastard was an orphan character, so he didn't even have parents. Who sent this?
The delivery driver called my name just now, so it wasn't a mistake.
I'd just drag it in first.
"Nnngh!"
The box was disgustingly huge and heavy.
I huffed and grunted for a good while hauling the box into my place.
"Huff, huff. Who the hell sent this?"
And so I checked the sender's name.
【 Velvet School Life! GM 】
"......This motherfucker?"
GM.
Abbreviation for Game Master.
In other words, the administrator.
In other words, the culprit who had transmigrated me here.
My eyes lit up like I was on a hunt, and I searched thoroughly for any other clues.
But only the sender's name was written. No address, no phone number, not a single separate message.
Which meant I had no choice but to rip the box open and check the contents.
"Ah, shit. This is shady as hell......."
But there was no way I wasn't opening it, so here we go.
I grabbed the Old Arming Sword that was lying neglected under my bed, came back, and sliced through the tape on the package.
"Huh......?"
And what caught my eye was
several dozen books.
A single sword.
Blue-ish stones.
And various bits and bobs.
They were all extremely familiar to me.
Enclosed inside was a list cataloging the goods.
With trembling hands, I picked it up and began to read.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Highest-Grade Swordsmanship Manuals x9
Weapon Enhancement Scrolls x 9
Trait Recommendation Letters x 3
Skill Recommendation Letters x 3
All Stats Auto-Increase Coupons x 50
Moonlight (One-Handed Arming Sword)
Verdant Guardian Armor (Light Armor)
Moonlight Earring (Accessory)
Magic Stones x 99
Forgotten Essence x8
Broken Fragment of the Lehniche Spear x12
.
.
.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━
"......Weren't these the items I farmed to give to Alice? And the leftover currency I couldn't even use and just stockpiled?"
Maybe, the school life of Velvetsra.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all...?