I went from an F-rank to an E-rank student. (2)
I went from an F-rank to an E-rank student. (2)
A clear sky and groups of students heading to school together came into view.
They glanced at me in surprise for a moment before starting to chatter noisily among themselves.
According to A-young, there are fewer students stuck at F-rank than those who hit B-rank within three months of enrollment.
Me and A-young.
Just the two of us.
It wasn't all that strange for them to be staring at me.
But their gazes were ones of contempt and mockery.
Feeling superior by looking down on someone even lower than themselves.
Even if it was a pretty ugly method, the reward was sweet, so I had no intention of resenting them.
'Has A-young always lived under gazes like this?'
Honestly, every time I passed by and they whispered while sneaking peeks at me, it made me feel pretty shitty.
If even I felt that way to that extent, I wonder how A-young must have felt.
As my chest started to ache faintly, A-young's figure in her Garden uniform came into view from far away.
"Hi. You're early."
A-young spotted me from a distance and approached to greet me.
I checked the time briefly. It was just past 8 o'clock.
It was still quite a ways before the 8:20 we'd agreed to meet.
I'd been waiting since 20 minutes prior.
"Y-yeah. You're early too."
Truth be told, after actually going through with last night's deed and looking back on it, I got scared of the fallout and waited for her starting 30 minutes early to try winning her favor even a little.
"Hmm... Well, let's head in for now."
A-young shot me a sharp look for a moment before turning and starting toward the first-year building.
A-young and I were in Class 7 of the first years.
After heading up to the second floor, we opened the door and entered the classroom. The roughly 30 students who'd been chatting among themselves started glancing our way subtly and whispering a little once A-young and I returned to the classroom.
I looked at A-young with worry, but her expression showed no hint of being intimidated—she was utterly confident.
'Was I worrying over nothing...'
Maybe A-young was far tougher than I'd thought.
Her face even carried a touch of confidence.
Actually, the one feeling more cowed was probably me; with that realization, I did a quick bit of self-reflection inwardly before sitting down next to her.
The other students quickly lost interest, turned their gazes away, and started whispering among themselves again.
"Phew..."
Maybe relieved that the class atmosphere had returned to normal, A-young let out a sigh and took my hand.
"You okay?"
"Yeah, totally okay. I'm just happy to be back."
I looked at A-young.
She nodded with a genuinely bright, joyful expression.
After giving her one look, I glanced around the surroundings.
Even in the game, the player and A-young were in the same class, and naturally, the player's class had quite a few major characters gathered there.
Seeing in real life the faces I'd only viewed through the monitor gave me a strangely welcoming feeling, while also making it sink in that this place was now my reality.
'Hmm... That one's a thug character, so I gotta avoid clashing as much as possible, and uh... that one... was the studious type? My memory's kinda hazy.'
As I looked around to jog my memory, the classroom front door slid open—drrruk.
"Alright. I'll call roll. Take your seats."
It was Kang Beom-soo, the one I'd seen Friday afternoon.
As he called names one by one, some answered energetically, some quietly, some shyly, and the attendance check wrapped up.
"You all know there are two students who rose to E-rank this time, right? I won't tell you to unconditionally get chummy with them. Just don't stir up any unpleasant trouble."
The students answered in unison to his words.
He was coming off pretty cold, but it was a hundred—no, a thousand times better than needlessly breeding resentment among the other students or forcing fake applause.
"Today, move according to schedule. And there's dungeon practice prepped for this Friday. Prepare diligently, everyone. Oh, and Kim Si-woo, Seo A-young students—stick around a sec and come with me."
For reference, the academy does subject classes on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Wednesdays and Thursdays are major classes, and Fridays are Special Classes.
A-young and I, called out separately by the homeroom teacher, stood from our seats and followed him to the counseling room.
"Phew... You know why I called you?"
The homeroom teacher sighed the moment he sat in the counseling room chair and asked us.
"Um... Because of the dungeon practice?"
I answered after a brief moment of thought.
Nothing else really came to mind.
"Yeah. If you know how dungeon practice works, you'll get why I called you."
"Because of the five-person party requirement, right?"
Naturally stepping in for me since I had no clue how dungeon practice went, A-young answered.
Dungeon practice, huh...
I recalled always spamming skips and solo-clearing it.
"That's right. Can you form a party?"
At the homeroom teacher's question, I caught on to what he was getting at.
Even if we'd ranked up to E-rank, it hadn't been long at all, so nobody would wanna party up with us newbies for dungeon practice.
"Hmm... I see..."
A-young got it too and nodded with a gloomy look.
"No helping it. We'll sub this dungeon practice out for another one..."
"Can't we just do it as the two of us?"
I cut off the homeroom teacher as he moved to wrap up the conversation and asked.
At my question, A-young shot me a surprised look, while the homeroom teacher eyed me with faint displeasure.
"Hmm. What's with the confidence? Don't mix up real courage with foolhardy bravado. Not trying to downplay you, but this ain't a practice you two fresh off F-rank can handle easily. Even five E-ranks pushing D-grade wouldn't score without a fight, and you know they don't give bonus points for small elite parties."
The homeroom teacher continued matter-of-factly.
"How about swapping for another practice? You'd rack up more points that way."
"A-young, what do you think?"
Listening to the homeroom teacher, I turned to A-young.
After all, it'd be impossible without her buy-in.
"I... I'm fine with it."
A-young hesitated a bit before nodding and answering.
"We'd like to do the dungeon practice just the two of us."
"...Stubborn as hell, huh. Fine, show me that confidence-backed guts."
The homeroom teacher gave in reluctantly. Permission granted.
"Thank you."
"Then get going. First period's Hunter History, right?"
"Yes."
"Take care."
A-young and I let out sighs, gave a wave and greeting to the homeroom teacher, then slipped out of the counseling room.
For reference, stuff like Hunter History or Glass World theory were all lore and dialogue bits I knew from the game, so I just faked paying attention while zoning out to kill time.
∴
There was a safe way to rack up points by just doing a different practice.
But what A-young and I needed was a reversal.
We had to flip the prejudice about F-rank students' skills.
Dungeon practice would serve as the perfect stage for that reversal.
My confidence was brimming.
Ga-young intel: my BP was already way higher than some C-rank Blesser student's.
Other Blesser students' BP, scraped together by bus-riding and cramming points, was lower than mine boosted via special Vitality points—and since they had to pump mana stats for buffs too, their growth lagged way behind mine.
Factoring in that the top first-year rank was B-grade, that put me solidly in the first-year top tier for Blesser stuff. Plus, my kit wasn't buffs only.
With Search Skill and Magic Missile, I could cover Pathfinder and Magician roles too.
And A-young's Spirit Arts.
Her SSS-rank talent in Spirit Arts was bound to shine.
She hadn't contracted any spirits yet, leaving it dead weight for now, but she'd stockpiled a solid amount of natural mana.
Just needed the contracts, and boom—perfect.
She could easily contract lesser spirits before Friday.
Spirits were cautious but curious as hell, so they'd get hooked on A-young constantly calling for them.
And right now.
"S-Si-woo! I hear something...!"
A-young's emerald eyes lit up as she whipped around, blurting it out in shock.
Luckily, she'd nailed hearing the spirits' whispers.
Anyone watching would think she'd been possessed or something, the way she was acting nuts.
"Yeah, keep steady so you don't spook the spirits—let them come to you nice and gentle."
Quoted the game dialogue straight-up, naturally.
"Y-yeah!"
A-young nodded like she got it and started building natural mana inside her.
Stockpiling natural mana in your body was the trick to drawing spirits in.
"Huh...? W-wait a sec...! M-me...? I'm Seo A-young..."
'Here we go...!'
Finally, spirits closing in on A-young—she cupped her hands in front of her and stammered in a panic.
I couldn't see it, but yeah, probably a lesser spirit parked right there in her palms.
"You're Wendy, huh. What a pretty name. Oh, really...? You're pretty too..."
A-young blushed like the spirit had complimented her, grinning ear to ear.
"W-wait, not this many at once...!"
A-young yelped in full panic mode.
SSS talent for real, huh.
Normal talent would've netted just one spirit on first contact, but a bunch had swarmed her—she was swiveling her head every which way, looking frazzled.
"One at a time—slowly!"
I watched A-young holler that like she was at her limit, grinning my ass off inside.
∴
"Phew... That was total chaos..."
A-young sighed and plopped down on the bed.
We'd barely escaped the spirits and made it back to the F-dong Dormitory together.
"But it was pretty fun, right?"
"Yeah...! They were all so sweet and cute... Felt super bad when I learned I could only contract one per type..."
Thinking back on it, A-young looked thrilled one second, down the next.
"Don't get too mopey. Couldn't be helped, yeah?"
No clue how many showed up, but trying to contract them all would've drained her mana dry and flatlined her.
"Yeah... Still, glad I got to contract some good ones."
Her contracted spirits were probably buzzing around her even now.
I checked A-young's status window.
Name: Seo A-young
Race: Human
Contractors: Kim Si-woo, Pai, Mist, Grun, Wendy
Strength:8 Agility:7 Stamina:6 Endurance:4 Mana:7 (+21)
Skills: Spirit Arts(Lv1) Spirit Manifestation(Lv1)
Abilities: Swordsmanship(Lv2) Pain Resistance(Lv1) Unity of Self and Nature(Lv1)
Special Abilities: Incubus's Contractor(S) Lesser Spirit Eye(B) Lesser Fire Spirit Contractor(B) Lesser Water Spirit Contractor(B) Lesser Earth Spirit Contractor(B) Lesser Wind Spirit Contractor(B)
Her insane talent? Or the Lesser Spirit Eye I hooked her up with? Gotta be the synergy.
Peeking at A-young's status window—copied straight from mine—made my eyes ache.
'Light and dark still no-show, huh.'
Would've been nice if she'd contracted light and dark spirits while she was at it with all types, but those two aren't ubiquitous like the rest—pretty rare finds.
And her mana stat boosted by natural mana.
Now that she'd contracted a bunch of spirits, A-young's mana would pile up way faster.
Spirit and natural mana mechanics matching the game? Safe bet.
Plus, that Unity of Self and Nature from her first spirit contract would supercharge natural mana buildup.
"Tomorrow, let's sync up in the Glass World."
"Yeah. And today's my turn, so..."
A-young sprawled on the bed, arms spread wide like 'c'mere.'
[Favorability:100]
Nailed the spirit contracts, and her favorability hit 100—but no real changes popped.
As an incubus, nothing beat farming Vitality for growth efficiency.
A-young went at it half-forced till she passed out, gunning for max Vitality gains for me—and hell, she loved the sex right up to blackout, no complaints.
-Tuk.
The instant I undid her skirt button, exposing her pale skin.
[Target's favorability has reached 100. You can imprint the Yin Mark.]
[YES/NO]
An alert window popped up smack in the middle of my vision.