Stop Fighting Already
“The cleaning staff? It was weird, nya. At first, I thought they had wet the sheets or something. As you can see, us beastfolk go into heat pretty often, nya.”
Jenya, the feline beastperson occupying Room 110—the room on the opposite side of Room 111 from Hestia—smoothly unsheathed the sharp claws from her furry paws before letting them slide back in.
“I took a sniff, but it wasn't heat, nya. It smelled fishy, so I eavesdropped, and I heard strange noises in a totally different sense, nya.”
“Strange noises?”
“They were having conversations that didn't connect at all, nya.”
“Conversations that didn't connect? Between Orknodi and Hestia, the berserker next door?”
“Both of them were talking like there was someone else in the room with them, nya. Pitiful outcasts without any friends, nya.”
Talking to themselves.
Hearing that tore Isabelle's heart right in two.
Orknodi is still so small.
No matter how hard Isabelle tried to look after the child like a guardian, she could never truly feel like a friend her own age. Surrounded only by older adults and devoid of any real peers, it was entirely plausible that an emotionally starved child like Orknodi had begun talking to an imaginary companion inside her four walls.
Yet knowing the reason did nothing to soothe the ache in Isabelle's chest.
“By the way, what’s a stat stone, nya? She kept mumbling that she’d hand over stat stones if the other person raised their affection points, nya.”
“Haaah... ‘Stat stone’ is just the name she gives to the pebbles she cherishes.”
“She collects rocks, nya? Unyanya! Just like the toddlers back home, nya. What an adorable hobby, nya.”
If only Orknodi would talk to this cat beastgirl, Jenya, and give her those pebbles instead, perhaps they could become fast friends. But the brief surge of hope vanished almost as swiftly as it had come.
“How old are you, Miss Jenya?”
“This fabulous self is fifteen years old, nya!”
“Ah... Then becoming a peer for Orknodi is out of the question.”
Fifteen was certainly young, yet it was far too old to match Orknodi’s extraordinary genius. To be so exceptional that she had no one to stand beside her, left only with crushing solitude... Isabelle was overwhelmed with sympathy.
Raising the Answering Door’s affection points was proving to be a painfully sluggish chore.
“Is there anything you want?”
“Come visit my house.”
When I asked what affection item it preferred, the thing casually tossed out an extraordinarily lethal suggestion. Room 111.1, the spatial gap where the Answering Door resided—it was outright coaxing me to step inside the wall.
Obviously, I wasn’t stupid enough to fall for that. Veteran players had already documented that the only way to escape once you entered was if another living soul stepped in to take your place. Under no circumstances, no matter what happened, should anyone ever cross that threshold.
“Orknodi. You’ve been spending an awful lot of time alone lately. Are you working on something?”
“Just this and that.”
“If you ever have any worries, you can tell me anytime. Remember, I’m always on your side.”
Isabelle was being remarkably tender today. Arcadia had acted the exact same way during tea time earlier. What was going on? Children's Day was still months away.
“I don’t have worries, but I do have something to brag about!”
Bragging about my achievements was infinitely better than trying to interview a wall about affection gifts. I untied my pebble pouch, which had grown delightfully heavy.
“You collected stones?”
“Look! Didn’t I gather a ton?”
Isabelle fell completely silent, seemingly struck dumb by the majesty of my prized collection.
“If I eat these right now, my tummy gets too full and I won't have room for real food, so I'm just hoarding them for the moment.”
“How many did you find?”
“Eight!”
From the freshman dormitory and its immediate grounds alone, I had thoroughly scraped together five pristine stat stones.
[You have pilfered a Stat Stone from the guards' sentry post.]
⊳ Concealment EXP +10
⊳ Infiltration EXP +3
⊳ Magic Detection EXP +3
⊳ Scouting EXP +2
[You have pilfered a Stat Stone from a bird's nest high in the trees.]
⊳ Climbing EXP +5
⊳ Concealment EXP +3
⊳ Scouting EXP +1
[You have discovered a Stat Stone in a suspicious dirt mound where stray hounds play.]
⊳ Digging EXP +9
⊳ Evade EXP +4
⊳ Deception EXP +3
⊳ Concealment EXP +3
[You have extracted a Stat Stone embedded in the exterior wall ornament of the dormitory building.]
⊳ Climbing EXP +13
⊳ Concealment EXP +7
⊳ Sense of Balance EXP +7
⊳ Scaling EXP +3
⊳ Night Walking EXP +3
[You have pilfered a Stat Stone from the dorm supervisor's private bedroom.]
⊳ Concealment EXP +8
⊳ Lockpicking EXP +3
⊳ Infiltration EXP +3
Armed with Concealment, I had snatched one from the guardhouse, one from a treetop nest, one from a muddy dog pit, one from the dorm wall facade, and one straight out of the dorm proctor's inner sanctum. I had successfully hoovered up nearly every single early-game stat stone an incoming student could gather across the island before the matriculation ceremony.
As expected of all-purpose Concealment. Investing points into that was the best decision I ever made!
“So that’s why the dorm supervisor was staring out the window with such a miserable expression this morning, sighing her lungs out.”
Without warning, Isabelle reached out and firmly clamped down on my ear.
“Ow! Ow, ow! That hurts!”
“It’s supposed to hurt! No matter how much you adore pretty pebbles, how could you sneak in and steal someone else’s prized treasure?”
“That's not it at all! Her depression has absolutely nothing to do with a rock!”
“Really?”
The instant her grip loosened in surprise, I slapped her hand away and skipped backward to safety.
“Ow, ow, ow. Isabelle-unnie, I believed in you! How could you be so cruel?”
“Anyone would jump to that conclusion after hearing you broke into someone's room and robbed their rock! If it wasn't that, why was the supervisor so gloomy?”
“She’s depressed because she doesn't have a boyfriend!”
It was the absolute, unvarnished truth.
<The Dorm Supervisor’s Woes>
The dorm supervisor suffers from a deep emotional sorrow.
Namely, that she has squandered the finest years of her youth working at the academy, watching every opportunity to find romance slip through her fingers!
Introduce a dashing gentleman to the teacher who is steadily losing her confidence as a woman.
The player may proudly step forward and introduce themselves.
In fact, that was the intended purpose of this event from the very beginning!
Players who favored the ‘unmarried older woman who turns out to be a stunning beauty when she dolls up’ archetype relentlessly optimized her affection route, freely sharing dating guides across the forums. It was a legendary, time-honored route cherished by those who played the game like an erotic dating simulator. It wasn't my personal preference, of course, so I had never run her route myself.
“Haaah. Worrying about you really is a waste of breath.”
“Can we go to the training grounds now? And what I told you just now...”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep it our little secret.”
The pathway leading toward the training grounds was bustling with students. With time to kill before the official matriculation ceremony, everyone had their own peculiar way of burning hours.
A freshman from the Thieves' Guild wandered aimlessly, casing the architecture of the academy buildings. A druid examinee sat on a bench, dozing peacefully beneath the gentle afternoon sun. A sadistic noble girl had procured a new human ‘pet dog,’ barking commands like ‘sit’ and ‘fetch’ while throwing a wooden disc. And off to the side, Giselle was busy adapting to campus life, interrogating an instructor on how to earn and maximize Points.
“That disc girl just now... wasn't she forcing that poor guy to do something utterly humiliating?”
“Don’t worry about him. He's a hardcore masochist.”
“...Orknodi. Where on earth did you learn words like that?”
“Masochist? That’s basic general knowledge. Even kids know that much.”
“...The next time you arrange a visitation with your butler and maid, make sure you invite me. There are a few choice words I need to share with them.”
“I’ll think about it.”
For the next ten minutes, I focused entirely on hopping strictly across paving stones that differed in color from the rest of the walkway. Isabelle lightly tapped my shoulder to rein me in.
“We’re here. Stop drifting off—that path doesn't lead to the arena.”
[You have played the Paving Stone Skipping Game for 10 minutes.]
⊳ Sense of Balance EXP +3
⊳ Sense of Rhythm EXP +2
⊳ Long Jump EXP +1
⊳ Solo Play EXP +1
Hehe, this is great.
Beaming brightly, I prepared to step inside, only for both of us to pause at the sight of a dense crowd gathered outside the entrance. Raised voices echoed sharply from the center of the mob. An argument had clearly broken out.
“Looks like a brawl started. Should we just walk around?”
“I wanna watch!”
“...Of course you wouldn’t miss a spectacle.”
Sprinting over in excitement was easy enough, but an immediate problem presented itself. I was far too tiny to see over anyone’s shoulders!
Watching me hop up and down like a frantic rabbit behind the tall examinees, Isabelle let out a wry chuckle, stepped behind me, and hooked her hands beneath my armpits.
“Ahaha! That tickles!”
“Stop wiggling! You're impossible to hoist when you squirm.”
“Hehe... ah... stop...”
“No weird noises.”
“Hmph. But it really tickles!”
In the end, rather than holding me up like an awkward toddler, she hoisted me onto her shoulders just like Son Ocheon had done before.
“My neck’s going to ache, so stay still.”
“Okaay.”
Resting my hands lightly on Isabelle’s head, I stretched my neck upward to peer over the crowd, getting a clear view of the disturbance. And frankly, the situation looked ugly.
“Is this the mercenary everyone was talking about? The lone Upper Class admittee from the Western Mercenary Alliance.”
“That’s her. Only a common mercenary would possess such disgustingly thick, vulgar muscles on a woman's body. A filthy peasant who doesn't even know the Mana Body Refining Method to compress her bulk. Giggle.”
“How grotesque. She looks like a gorilla.”
“And she's a Berserker, to boot.”
“Ew, gross... Didn't her entire party get disqualified during the exam because she went wild and slaughtered her own allies?”
“Or maybe she never even went berserk, but just faked losing her mind so she could murder all her competitors?”
“Kyaah! That’s so sinister!”
<Group Competition (2) Event>
Berserker Hestia.
As an Upper Class admittee hailing from Group A, she is being targeted and systematically harassed by the Upper Class students of Group B.
Tormented by Group B's tyrannical attempt to monopolize the training facilities, Hestia is rapidly reaching her boiling point.
If her fury erupts, she might just tear a few people limb from limb!
Then again, once bodies start getting ripped apart, won't Group B learn to tread a little more carefully around Group A?
Whether to step in and aid Hestia or simply stand by and watch the carnage is entirely up to you, the player!
<Hestia the Rampant>.
The early-awakening trigger event for a notorious chapter boss had just activated.
What on earth are these idiots doing? Is this some brand-new method of suicide?
If they kept poking the bear until Hestia's eyes rolled into the back of her head, people were quite literally going to be ripped in half.