The Hidden Path to Holy Water
The process of stepping outside for practical training wasn't particularly complicated. Since I already had permission from the dean and my advisor, no one tried to stop me.
Just before leaving the academy, Siren, who had handed me the overnight pass, grabbed my shoulder and said,
She squeezed her eyes shut and scratched her head, looking utterly exhausted by the mess I'd caused.
Siren listed several other rules I absolutely had to follow. The worry swimming in her eyes as she spoke made me listen quietly without interrupting.
Once she'd gone through all the rules, Siren stood in front of the main gate leading outside the academy and stared at me for a long moment before loading the luggage she'd been carrying into a car that had been waiting.
"Yes, understood."
I climbed into the car and peeked at Siren through the window.
She watched me leave for a moment before finally turning her head away. Seeing that, I was certain her gaze had completely disappeared.
"Hoo..."
I let out a long breath. While I was inside the academy, things had shifted little by little, but it hadn't felt all that different from when I'd played the game.
That meant I could check every variable with certainty, and it hadn't felt too burdensome.
But now it was different. In the game, it was impossible to leave campus at this point. Yet here I was, having used a loophole to step outside.
In other words, I'd just opened up a brand-new route. One that none of the players who'd experienced Final Academy had ever encountered.
So I needed to be far more tense than when I was inside the academy. It wasn't like strange events would suddenly explode just because I was outside, but there was no harm in being extra cautious.
As the car rattled along, I thought back to why I'd gone through the trouble of using the overnight pass in the first place.
It was to clear a certain dungeon. Originally, it was a place you could only reach after Tana went berserk from her demonic transformation and you stopped her. But since I'd come out like this, the situation had changed.
I checked the scholarship money given to the top student and then leaned back in my seat.
The game I'd played, Final Academy, revealed more of its true depth the longer you enjoyed it.
Someone you'd never expected would play a major role in the main episode, or a student you'd barely remembered as an extra would turn out to be the key to unlocking another ending for the main story.
On top of that, hidden episodes that appeared once you grew close to certain characters, or backstories of characters you couldn't know about in the early playthroughs, made it impossible to treat Final Academy as nothing more than a game about building relationships with heroines.
That was exactly why I'd fallen so deeply for Final Academy.
It went beyond simple gameplay fun. It assigned narratives to each and every character and made you want to uncover them, pulling you in completely.
Even though it was obvious how much effort had gone into the world-building, it always made me want to start the game over from the beginning.
And the main episode where Final Academy's greatest strength shone the brightest was the one coming up soon.
The corruption of the Sword Princess.
Tana Erhen, who fell for the devil's whispers, took in the forbidden power, and became a demonized being after absorbing demonic energy, was undeniably an incredibly powerful existence.
If she unleashed strikes strengthened by demonic energy alongside the dance I'd seen during the duel, that terrifying power was not something an ordinary student could handle.
But what shocked players the most was that she was the character who'd approached them from the very first moment they entered the academy, attended classes, showed them groundless kindness, and stayed closest to them.
To create a character no one could possibly hate, build up plenty of goodwill, then corrupt her and push her off the stage behind the scenes—it was nothing short of vicious.
Of course, since she was a heroine, there was definitely a way to save her.
The 'Saint' carefully hiding among the first-year students, who excelled at healing, Cheon Yu-ha who could somehow block the Sword Princess's strikes, and a player who'd grown strong enough to subdue Tana.
If those three elements came together perfectly, they could subdue the Sword Princess without killing her.
Since the devil lost interest in anyone who'd already been subdued, the moment Tana was overpowered, it would lose interest and withdraw its power.
However, because it was a devil, it would implant demonic energy into her body just in case something entertaining might happen.
The demonic energy planted precisely in her heart would constantly torment her body. As a result, Tana could no longer show the bright, cheerful smile she once had.
With that incomplete body, she would continue her life at the academy.
Of course, that didn't have to be the end of it.
'I could completely purge the demonic energy.'
The reason Tana's personality worsened and her body kept growing strange was, of course, because of the demonic energy the devil had forcibly embedded in her heart.
So if I could obtain an item capable of removing that demonic energy, wouldn't that solve everything?
Among the artifacts available on the market, there were quite a few that could drive out demonic energy. After all, many of the dungeons awakeners challenged contained demon monsters that attacked using demonic energy.
However, those couldn't be obtained in the early to mid game. While the artifacts cost at least hundreds of millions, if you wanted to expel demonic energy, the artifact needed to contain holy power.
And holy power artifacts that granted recovery and resistance to demonic energy easily exceeded several billion, making them completely out of reach for players just starting in the early to mid game.
That was why the only path a player could choose was to pick an artifact containing holy power, but even that wasn't an easy choice.
Most dungeons where holy power-related artifacts were stored tended to have demon races appear, and demons doubled the difficulty compared to other monsters.
Except for one single place—the exact location I was heading to now.
I got out of the car, gathered my luggage, and immediately headed toward the place I'd seen in the game.
It was a forest thick with undergrowth. There was a hiking trail, but I didn't bother following it.
I took out the machete I'd bought in advance from my bag and started cutting away the leaves blocking my view, one by one. Since cutting too many would leave traces, I kept the cuts as short as possible.
As I cut through, I recalled the first time I'd discovered that dungeon.
To be honest, the inside of the dungeon wasn't anything particularly special.
It was a low-difficulty dungeon created so that players who hadn't grown properly yet could clear it. Appropriately, it rewarded gear of equally low grade.
Because it was that kind of place, no one knew about it. No one knew that at the end of a hidden passage inside that dungeon lay Holy Water.
Even though it was only a small amount inside a potion bottle, plenty of people would pay a fortune to buy even that much.
Unlike other artifacts, Holy Water had maximized abilities to drive out demonic energy and assist with healing.
It couldn't compare to an elixir, but its effects were certainly worth looking forward to.
In other words, I hadn't come here just for Tana. Of course, I did plan to use the Holy Water on her.
But if I could kill two birds with one stone and cure my erectile dysfunction as well, wouldn't that be even better?
Unlike the half-baked spiritual medicine the dean had given me, Holy Water was clearly a top-tier potion. The holy power contained within it should be enough to erase at least one trait like this, right?
With that hope in mind, I stood in front of the dungeon.
The dungeon didn't look much different from what I'd seen in the game.
A cracked tunnel that clearly hadn't been maintained, long grass blocking the entrance, and beneath it, a faint blue portal glowing softly.
Because it was hidden like this, even though it was so close, no one had noticed it.
From what I could sense, even the mana flowing from the portal was faint, so it probably wouldn't have been detected even if someone tried.
Well, that was exactly why I'd found it now.
I picked up the bag I'd packed with food and daily necessities and raised the machete in my hand.
This dungeon run didn't come with proper weapons. Since I'd come out claiming I was just going to the hospital, it was only natural I couldn't get my hands on any decent equipment.
So the machete was purely for self-defense in case of emergencies.
The true value of this dungeon revealed itself only after discovering the hidden secret passage.
That meant until then, only moderately manageable monsters would appear.
And moderately manageable monsters meant...
Fwoosh.
I could practice pure magic that I hadn't been able to train easily until now.
"Shall we go?"
I dispersed the fireball in my palm and stared at the portal.
This was my first dungeon run. It would be a lie to say I wasn't nervous. However, thanks to the trait I possessed, I wasn't trembling all that much.
No, I was strangely calm instead.
I took a light breath.
Shwoooo.
I stepped into the portal.
The blue portal greedily swallowed me up as if it had been waiting for me all along.