The Calm Before the Storm
I couldn't believe it. The idea that eating Viagra would increase my magic power stat. And the effect was far more extreme than I expected. Even though this was still the early stage, it had raised the stat by a full five points. An increase of that scale was comparable to the spiritual elixirs one could consume in the late game.
Yet I was getting that kind of result right at the beginning, simply by swallowing one weird little pill?
Honestly, it doesn't make sense.
It was enough to make me wonder if it was a bug. There was no way that could be right, but maybe the status window had glitched and displayed the wrong number.
However, the amount of magic power flowing through my body had definitely risen.
I couldn't precisely sense a magic power stat of 5, but the gap between a simple error raising it by 1 or 2 and the surge I was feeling now was like night and day. In other words, the error I had suspected hadn't happened.
That meant consuming this drug really did increase magic power….
“Still, the fact that it's only temporary is strange.”
If it was going to rise, it should rise properly. What was the point of a temporary boost?
Was it because this was Viagra instead of a normal elixir? Then why did the stat increase so much?
Questions kept breeding more questions, yet none of them brought me any answers.
“Sigh.”
After turning the problem over in my head for a while, I flopped down onto the bed.
In truth, solving this doubt was simple. I just had to feed the pill to someone else, or consume a different type of Viagra. Either option would lead to a clear conclusion.
The only problem was that no one would blindly swallow some random pill I handed them.
Viagra itself, though, I could obtain. The academy was practically a self-sustaining city with fully developed infrastructure, so they were bound to have it. Of course, I hadn't confirmed its existence in the game, so it might not be available, but in that case I could simply procure it from outside.
It wasn't as if Viagra was some strange poison. They would definitely let this pass.
Separate from that—though I didn't really want to accept it—if every Viagra pill had the same effect….
That would be a whole different kind of disaster.
No matter what the sage said about erectile dysfunction not being an incurable disease, that didn't mean Viagra had disappeared from the world. It meant I could keep enjoying this effect until the day I finally took the elixir.
Of course, excessive consumption might bring side effects, but it would still be an enormous help. That much was undeniable.
But on the flip side, what if this particular drug was unusually special?
I carefully counted the number of pills I had received from the vendor. Each box contained one pill, and since I had just used one for testing, the number of boxes left was….
“Five.”
Only five remained. Five pills, not counting the one that had already vanished down my throat.
It felt ambiguous. Even setting aside the upcoming Tana episode, an elixir with this kind of efficacy would be useful in many situations ahead.
If I had known, I would have bought more when the vendor said he had extra. As I regretted that decision, a system message floated up above me.
The magic power increase effect has disappeared.
It appeared as suddenly as an alarm and vanished just as quickly. The moment the message disappeared, I compared the time I had taken the pill with the current time.
About twenty minutes.
Not particularly long, but considering the scale of the boost, it had lasted quite a while. A drug that raised magic power by 5 for twenty minutes was no joke.
Just in case, I carefully tucked the box of remaining pills away. If any Viagra worked the same way it wouldn't matter, but until I confirmed that, these five were extremely precious.
After hiding the box, I pulled another glass bottle from my pocket. Golden light leaked from the clear liquid inside—Holy Water, obtained during the recent dungeon raid.
The Holy Water still shone with brilliant luster. I had drunk about half of it, yet its sacred power showed no signs of diminishing.
To be honest, I wanted to take just one more sip right now, but….
“I can't do that.”
This was for Tana. I had to use it when the time came to drive out the demonic curse embedded in her heart.
Even though I had already consumed half, that was enough.
I suppressed my greed for the Holy Water and stared quietly at the sacred liquid. Its efficacy was real. I had confirmed that much by drinking half of it myself. If its secondary healing effect was this potent, then its primary purpose—exorcising demons and erasing their scars—would be even more effective.
The real issue was when and how I should give it to Tana.
If I went to her right now and shoved the bottle at her saying, “This is Holy Water, drink it,” she would probably think I was crazy. No matter how much we had opened up to each other and exchanged swords, that was simply too abrupt. Besides, in the game Tana was a character who formed a connection with me no matter what I did, so the relationship I had built didn't carry much meaning.
Even so, I couldn't just sit here doing nothing. Once she went berserk, I could restrain her and then make her drink it. But if I planned to do that, there would have been no point in going out to the dungeon and nearly dying.
Even if a character's growth curve wasn't that steep, there was still time left until midterms. That meant I had plenty of time to grow stronger myself.
In about a month I would have broken through 2nd Tier and reached 3rd Tier. Even if I still lacked the magic power and stats to reach 4th Tier, at 3rd Tier I would have been able to defeat Kirgas far more easily. Looking back, I had truly gone through unnecessary hardship.
“So I need to reap some benefits.”
I wasn't simply aiming to cure Tana. I was also trying to weaken the demon.
Of course it would be better if I could skip the event, but that was impossible.
The Fallen Sword Princess episode was definitely part of the main story. It was a crucial arc in the first semester of the first year—right around midterms—that showed players this academy story wasn't just a bright and friendly school life by having someone close to the protagonist fall to corruption.
If you asked whether such a main episode could be skipped, the answer was usually no. Sub-episodes could be skipped or bypassed easily enough, but the main pillars that formed the backbone of the story could not be touched.
No matter how strong I became in the game or how many exploits I used to recruit characters I shouldn't have been able to obtain, the main episodes would still proceed. The only difference was that their difficulty would drop significantly.
What I had done this time was also a kind of exploit—acquiring equipment I shouldn't have been able to obtain in order to weaken the boss. That was exactly what I was aiming for now.
In truth, not much was clearly known about Tana Erhen, especially in the early stages. It was safe to say almost no information about her had been revealed. At most, people knew she was the illegitimate child of the president of Erhen Pharmaceuticals.
Since Erhen Pharmaceuticals wasn't a company given much weight even inside Final Academy, I didn't know every detail about it either. Still, the fact that Tana—who hadn't even been properly known as an awakener—had suddenly entered the academy and taken the top seat made it obvious that the pharmaceutical company was up to something.
The Tana in the game never told me anything either.
Even after she had been healed by Holy Water and freed from the demon, she had absolutely refused to speak about her bloodline. Her favorability dropped sharply the moment the topic was even mentioned, so anyone could tell she had not grown up in a normal family environment.
Judging from her reaction, Erhen was likely far more than a simple pharmaceutical company. There was even a chance it was connected to her berserk episodes.
Still, it wasn't something I needed to think about yet. The three idiot brothers I had dealt with early on, or Ferdin whom I would eventually meet, were immediate problems. Erhen was still far away.
Even if my mind was already considering the endgame of the story and parts of Final Academy that hadn't appeared yet, physically I was nothing more than a freshman who had just reached 3rd Tier. The suspicious nature of Erhen Pharmaceuticals was something to keep in mind and investigate when the chance arose. That was enough for now. Once I started moving outside the academy, opportunities to look into it would come naturally.
That aside….
“I really almost died back there….”
Only after finishing all those thoughts did the memory of what happened in the dungeon resurface. I had returned safely in the end, but the fact that I had nearly died was still lodged firmly in my mind.
This wasn't something I could simply brush off with composure or calmness. Lying on the bed, I went over my plans again and again. I would make sure I didn't repeat the same mistakes. If variables appeared, I would deal with them immediately.
While I was lost in thought, the world outside grew dark. With a brief moment of contemplation, the night deepened.
“How is the approach?”
“It’s going smoothly. We’ve spoken, we’ve sparred, and I believe we’re at the point where we can call each other friends.”
“Friends?”
Tana’s mouth, which had been speaking with visible excitement, snapped shut. The gaunt-faced man standing beyond the crystal ball clicked his tongue and stared at her intently.
“Don’t misunderstand. The concept of friends does not exist. There is only above and below. Equality cannot exist between anyone.”
“…Yes, I understand.”
“I only said that because you were getting carried away and babbling. To think you could achieve the great cause while bound by such a petty concept.”
“…I won’t disappoint you.”
“You had better not! The number of magic stones implanted in your body already exceeds several hundred.”
Tana’s biological father and the president of Erhen Pharmaceuticals.
Melt Erhen warned her as he gazed at Tana.
“The main event begins two days before the academy’s midterms. All you have to do is complete the contract. You remember, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Once the contract is completed, that person will dispose of the adversary in a single stroke and accelerate our era even further!”
With a giggling laugh, the crystal ball went dark. Tana quietly stared down at the extinguished orb.
Just like the crystal ball, the world outside was pitch black.