A Garbage Plan for a Noble Cause
Admission to the Academy. Originally, that was my goal—nothing more, nothing less. As long as I managed to get in, my entrance ranking or grades didn't matter in the slightest.
After all, I was in a position where I had to thoroughly conceal my left and right hands: Black Magic and Assassination Arts. Just getting into the Academy was a struggle in itself; I was in no position to care about rankings or grades.
But the situation had changed. I had a new goal. Specifically, to collect Kasha Hanahan.
Wait, did I say collect? I mean save. Yes, save.
I couldn't just let Kasha suffer from mental illness and meet a tragic end as she did in the original story. Letting a character who was so delightfully easy to tease break down and die would be a cosmic loss.
If she was destined to live a miserable life and die a miserable death anyway, wouldn't it be better for her to join my "Tease List"? She could receive periodic help from me, and in return, I'd get to play with her a little—a mutually beneficial, positive give-and-take relationship.
Indeed. Absolutely.
And so, I resolved to collect—no, save—Kasha. Which ultimately led to the conclusion that I had to claim the top spot at the Academy.
If a hardcore veteran of this game, Another World, found out about my plan, they would probably say something like this:
"What the hell does saving Kasha have to do with becoming the top student? Are you an idiot?"
If I were a hardcore veteran, a fully prepared transmigrator who knew the game inside out, I probably could have come up with about five hundred ways to save Kasha. Then, I would have chosen the absolute best method and executed it. Something elegant and simple—like going to some specific location, picking up a hidden piece or whatever, and *poof*, problem solved.
But while I might not be an idiot, I was definitely a gaming noob. The only "way to save Kasha" my brain could muster was a horribly inefficient and convoluted one: "surpass Drin and claim the top spot at the Academy."
An unfulfilled desire for validation. As far as I knew, that was the root cause of Kasha Hanahan's descent into madness, which eventually led her to sell her soul to a demon for dirt cheap.
To prevent Kasha's bad ending, I had to satisfy that desire for validation. But it wasn't as simple as walking up to her and saying, "You're so cool, I'm your fan, let me give you a hug." The only ones who could satisfy Kasha's need for validation were her family, or someone she acknowledged as the absolute best.
To Kasha, the absolute best was Drin. But what if I snatched the top spot at the Academy away from Drin? Kasha would acknowledge me, not Drin, as the best. And then, I would be the one to satisfy her desire for validation.
Even though I came up with this plan myself, it's truly mind-blowing.
It was a complete piece-of-garbage plan built on leaps of logic, confirmation bias, and wild speculation. If I had submitted a proposal like this at my old job, my boss would have awakened the magical power to turn trash into wood. Then, just as he was about to beat me with a bat made from my garbage proposal, he would realize he didn't even need to exert that much effort—he could just turn me into wood instead. After all, only a piece of trash could write a proposal like this.
This is driving me crazy, seriously.
But most unfortunately, this was the absolute best plan my brain could produce right now. Consequently, there were only two things I could do.
Ah, I should have played the game more seriously. My life is ruined.
First, curse the people who didn't know jack shit but still lectured me to prioritize studying over gaming. Second, follow this garbage plan.
So, how the hell do I become the top student at the Academy?
True to its nature as a garbage plan, it was daunting right from the start. Claiming the top spot at the Academy? This was on the level of "How to Woo a Girl, Chapter One: Get into Oxford."
Is there even a way...?
I tried to think of a way to take the top spot while keeping my left and right hands—Black Magic and Assassination Arts—hidden. Since it was such a difficult problem, I let my cognitive faculties and imagination run wild, giving them wings to soar. In response, they exerted their maximum potential and proposed two strategies:
1. Use Assassination Arts to assassinate all the participants who are better than me.
2. Use Black Magic to black-magic all the participants who are better than me.
Is this seriously the best you can do, my dear intellect?
My physical body despaired. Honestly, though, I couldn't blame my innocent intellect. My abilities, completely stripped of Assassination Arts and Black Magic, versus the power required to claim the top spot at the Academy—the gap between the two wasn't something that could be bridged just by thinking a little harder.
In other words, it was realistically impossible to become the top student while strictly excluding Black Magic and Assassination Arts. On the other hand, if I did use them to take the top spot, my funeral would be held before the entrance ceremony even began.
My head hurts.
As I continued my fruitless agonizing, the face of our angel, Lord Drin, suddenly flashed through my mind. Just as I was wondering if my exhausted subconscious was conjuring his face for some mental comfort, the imaginary angel spoke:
"You seem to possess the innate talent to achieve greatness if you were to become an assassin... assassin... assassin..."
That was the evaluation Drin had given after witnessing my movements.
"Wait."
Flash. The moment I replayed Drin's words, a lightbulb went off over my head. Obsessed with the idea that I must not expose my identity, I had been strictly excluding Black Magic and Assassination Arts from my actions. Not just the actual power and techniques, but even my raw talent for them.
But thinking about it now...
Did I really need to go that far?
The reason Black Magic and Assassination Arts were considered taboos was partly because the powers themselves possessed an evil nature, but the biggest reason lay elsewhere. It was because the methods to acquire those powers were highly insidious.
To learn Assassination Arts, one had to plunge into the underworld and catch the eye of the Harashin, a secret society that had existed since ancient times. To learn Black Magic, one had to catch the eye of demons and their cultists in the netherworld, who were constantly looking for opportunities to expand their influence. The methods to catch their attention all involved committing sins so heinous that only absolute bastards who had abandoned their humanity would perpetrate them. In other words, having learned Assassination Arts or Black Magic was, in itself, proof of being an evil person.
Now, let's flip the script.
What if, instead of being an evil person who had learned Assassination Arts and Black Magic, I acted like someone who had never learned them but was simply born with a terrifying natural talent for both?
Would that actually work?
Humans are not machines. It is impossible to selectively toggle specific functions on and off at will. Yet, through the power of my traits, I could make that impossible feat a reality. No one would be able to see through the fake persona I crafted by pulling off such an absurd stunt.
It'll work. I believed it would work. But that didn't mean I could guarantee the outcome.
Is it really right for me to take on all these risks just to save Kasha, who has absolutely nothing to do with me?
It was a difficult dilemma.
"Five, four, three, two, one—"
I didn't even have the luxury of time to sit around and ponder.
"Best of luck!"
The moment Sinia finished speaking, I was summoned inside the barrier. Standing before me was the target of the second exam—the Mana Golem.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
What was the opponent for the second exam in the game again? I was certain of one thing: it definitely wasn't a Mana Golem. This was an opponent I was facing for the first time. Naturally, I had no idea how to deal with it. As we stood facing each other, I couldn't even begin to fathom how to fight this thing, which had limbs that looked like pillars—no, limbs that literally were pillars slapped together.
With not a single path forward in sight, I decided to try what I had planned. While completely excluding everything about Assassination Arts, I would awaken only the raw talent for it.
• Sword of the Deceiver Lv.1 (Legendary)
• Ash Magic Lv.1 (Heroic)
My level remained the same. However, the skill that had once been Rootless Sword Lv.1 (Heroic) had transformed into Sword of the Deceiver.
The moment I focused on it, I felt a sensation as if the world—my very vision—was expanding. At the same time, I felt countless threads of attraction pulling me toward the Mana Golem. It was the path I had yearned for so desperately. My innate assassin's talent was revealing numerous paths to me, and pointing out which of those paths was the most correct.
Choosing the most optimal path, I lunged at the golem. In that instant, the mana resonating with my body surged. This mana did not remain entirely contained within my body as it did when I practiced swordsmanship. Instead, it seeped out, poised to interfere with the opponent's mana at any given second.
Every time I utilized Assassination Arts, I was reminded of why it was deemed a taboo power. To think that mana could operate in a way that directly interfered with another person.
This is basically Black Magic.
A perspective entirely different from when I was merely mimicking swordsmanship dominated my thought process. Instead of thinking of ways to rise above my opponent, I thought of ways to drag them down beneath me. Checking the golem's field of vision and adjusting my posture, I concealed my movements while simultaneously deceiving it. At the same time, I used my mana to disrupt its senses.
I could feel it instinctively. This was fundamentally on the same track as False Step, the technique I had used when employing Assassination Arts. However, because it was a mere imitation that barely copied the form, its execution was incredibly crude. Yet, its effect was undeniable.
Whoosh!
Thud!
The golem's arm sliced through the empty air and slammed into the ground. It wasn't that I had dodged at a speed the golem couldn't react to. Rather, the golem had been deceived by my movements and swung blindly. How could a golem, devoid of both emotion and senses, be deceived? It was likely the result of my mana interfering with the mana core that formed its ego.
With those thoughts in mind, I finished my fluid sequence of movements. In a flash, I slipped behind the creature and drove my sword directly into the mana core embedded in the back of its head. The weakened mana core instantly began to crack.
Shatter!
The mana core and the barrier ruptured simultaneously, collapsing with a sharp, echoing crash.
"No matter how many times I look at this, it's..."
Having replayed the recording multiple times to observe his movements, Sinia came to a conclusion.
"This is Assassination Arts."