Long-Awaited Progress -2-
Clara.
S-rank limited character in Abyss City. At launch, she topped the store sales charts.
The character PV had surpassed 2.7 million views the last time I'd checked.
Compared to Ichinose Yui and Noah Frozenheart, she'd been in my party for a relatively short time.
But she was the third S-rank character I'd fully maxed out while raising, and I'd poured just as much affection into her as the first two.
That's why I remembered every bit of her revealed lore crystal clear.
Clara's origin is Zeno.
Zeno is a small, impoverished nation to the west, closed off from the outside world with a deeply isolationist bent.
And unlike the South—listed as my homeland in the game—it's a country walking the path to ruin due to internal strife.
From what I'd recently learned, a string of top leaders' deaths had plunged it into near-anarchy, prompting neighboring nations to start reaching in under various pretexts.
Clara probably knows about that too.
Anyway, unlike Zeno's xenophobic stance toward foreigners,
internally, they poured everything into training spies for assassinations, intelligence gathering on other nations, and extracting tech.
Clara was one of the orphans raised in that system.
Back then, she wasn't called Clara. She was Number 11.
As you might guess, her innate personality was passive, so like the other orphans who came running at the promise of food, she could've been kicked out at any moment without it being weird.
But her talent for combat overwhelmed everyone else in training, so even Zeno's insiders had huge expectations.
What a rough life.
But they say fate's twists and turns come without warning.
One day, Clara was assigned a mission to track down a gang smuggling foreign goods into Zeno to amass wealth... and confiscate their assets while she was at it.
No need to drag it out.
The girl, who'd lived under the crushing weight of "kill or be killed" without knowing why, encountered foreign culture that day—and caught a glimpse of the outside world.
Smartphones and laptops gathering dust without owners, books in every color, external hard drives packed with anime and movies.
At first, she dismissed it as vile propaganda meant to corrupt Zeno's people.
But Clara wasn't stupid, even if she was timid around people, so she skimmed off some items and turned the rest over to Zeno.
Her handler's big mistakes here were two-fold.
First, assuming from her passive behavior that she lacked the guts to run.
Second, dispatching her on that mission before proper indoctrination.
And so began her long ordeal.
Perhaps the heavens took pity on the girl hoarding knowledge and biding her time for an escape.
A national crisis cracked open an opportunity, as if beckoning her out.
Farmers, mocked as citizens of a "poor backwater" called Zeno by outsiders, rose up and formed militias or bandit gangs.
With no overwhelmingly powerful ruler among the leadership, infighting fractured the tiny nation further.
The day one leader sent his spies—not to their original purpose, but to crush the uprising—
Clara bolted without looking back.
…
I looked at the girl facing me.
It's a whole different feeling knowing her story from the game versus having the person who lived it right in front of me.
I even knew why Clara stuck to her unique fashion sense.
After years in tight black outfits every day, she'd fallen head over heels for something in a smuggled fashion magazine.
And she got hooked on games while discovering the outside world.
But there was one thing even I, with all this lore on Clara, didn't know.
The present.
I knew up to her escape from Zeno, but there was a blank from then until she met the protagonist in his second year.
So I wanted to know Clara's current situation.
And since she'd volunteered her personal story, I was glad too.
"Y-you're not asking anything, even though... why I dress like this every day...?"
She'd started the topic, but I answered carefully.
"Honestly, I was curious, but I didn't want to pressure you with prying questions."
"You were curious...!"
Her eyes sparkled and widened.
Her twin tails seemed to swish like a tail.
That's what makes her happy, huh.
I wondered what personal story she'd share, so I gently probed.
First, something tied to the main topic should be safe enough distance.
"You'll tell me, right?"
"B-but... it might be boring."
I watched Clara idly stirring her drink with the straw, then reached out
and tapped her pale hand with my finger.
"!!!"
The startled girl flinched, her eyes meeting mine as she pulled back.
Only then did I smile and say,
"Does fun matter between us? Just knowing each other more—that's what counts."
…!
We met almost every day, shared hobbies, were in the same guild, hung out after work.
Where else would you find friends this close?
"Might as well drop the formal speech while we're at it. What do you think?"
"Ah! U-um? Wha—g-guh...?"
Clara made a weird noise, her gaze darting everywhere.
She looked beyond flustered—way past it—but she wasn't bolting, so I savored the fresh reaction.
Clink!
Melted ice shifted in her cup, clinking.
"Between us... between us..."
Repeating my words for a long while, she seemed to steel herself.
She straightened up, hands on her knees in a proper pose, and nodded solemnly.
"O-okay! Let's do casual...!"
"Then, cool if I just call you Clara?"
She gave a small nod of agreement,
then awkwardly mixed in informal speech to ask what she'd call me. She still remembered our age gap, at least.
"I... n-no, I'll enter the academy next year, so..."
"One year's nothing. Call me by name however you want."
Even if it was just a year, I felt so much older to her.
So her choice of address went one inevitable way.
"Th-then... Rohan oppa...?"
"Works for me. Just hearing it feels like a treat for my ears."
Clara, still awkward with casual speech, twitched her upturned lips.
I liked the ticklish banter, but I wanted the main story now, so I shifted topics.
"Now you'll tell me about Clara?"
…Yeah.
Not everything, she premised, then continued her tale.
"I came from pretty far away... y-yeah."
"Got it."
Meaning her homeland wasn't one of the three great powers running Academy City.
No need to name Zeno specifically.
"F-first, the bookstore... no place to work till I get ID, and... I like bookstores anyway..."
"ID?"
"Went to Public Safety, and they said my case is like a refugee's, so immigration first, then recognition... went to the office... y-yeah?"
"Ah."
"Got consulted there, met the shopkeeper who came for something else..."
A clear picture formed in my head already.
That's why the shopkeeper was surprised when she showed up at the store.
Nodding in understanding,
I focused on Clara's voice, listening intently.
"Hard to explain in detail, but... for someone like me, getting ID seems super complicated and takes forever..."
"Gotta have that to even look for work, right?"
Nod, nod.
Confirming with nods, she spilled the office details at my request for more.
I absorbed every word without missing a beat.
The requirements for ID seemed simple at core:
First, enroll in the academy—Academy City's symbol.
Second, be a citizen (or honored citizen) of one of the three powers: Samhwa Nation, Tigrova, or Sepia Archipelago.
Third, pass screening to join Academy City directly.
Those were the big ones; Clara said she was going for the third.
There were others, like for businesses or merchants, but irrelevant to her.
The third one's so vague and broad... Bet the details are a nightmare.
Even playing Abyss City, you couldn't learn this institutional stuff in depth.
New info for me.
In short,
Getting usable ID in Academy City was a breeze for some, impossible for others.
"So how're you getting by now?"
"Th-they provide food and lodging till paperwork's done... phone bill's covered by subsidy like the shopkeeper said..."
"Hmm."
My expression turned serious.
Not a fun tale for a character I cherished.
Academy City was a powerhouse hub, sure, but how great could the food and shelter be for someone like Clara?
Did she end up enrolling in Orion Academy because the ID never came through despite all that time?}
Hard to confirm.
But recalling her Abyss City self, it was plausible.
Her skills alone qualified her easily.
"The room they give you—is it warm? Hot water?"
"N-no need for hot water to bathe. Uh, no...? And I don't get cold much..."
She answered in still-clumsy casual speech.
Meaning she showered in cold water even midwinter, slept in a frigid room without heat.
"Hm."
My worries deepened.