The Game's Protagonist Was a Clear-Eyed Madman (1)
The semester hadn't even started yet, but it already felt like too many things had happened. After getting thrown straight into fights from the very beginning, exhaustion crashed over me all at once. I'd rushed through course registration and somehow managed to handle it without any major problems. Since nothing big was likely to happen for a while, I decided to enjoy some proper rest.
Thankfully, there was no discrimination in dormitory assignments based on class placement. Honestly, if they differentiated even where you ate, slept, and took a shit, could you even call it an academy? It'd just be a goddamn pig farm. I threw myself onto the dormitory bed, grateful that some semblance of common sense still existed in this shitty medieval fantasy world.
They seemed to have considered student convenience—the desk and bed were placed close together, and behind them was a simple bathroom that doubled as a bath. Thanks to magical engineering, it looked remarkably similar to modern bathrooms, which felt strangely fascinating.
"I heard the headmaster developed magical engineering at an exponential rate..."
That headmaster. There was definitely something about him. In the end, whether it was science or magic, once technology advanced, it would naturally evolve in similar ways as long as we retained human form. That smartwatch-like device I'd received before was suspicious enough, and there were more than one or two questionable things. When I had the time, I had a mountain of questions to ask—whether he was a reincarnator, if he'd single-handedly advanced magical engineering, and so on.
"Sigh, fuck it. Let's just sleep for now."
-Sleep well, Cain.
-Us too! We wanna sleep together too!
As I lay down and pulled the blanket up to my chest, Sylph and Kasa jumped into my arms and made themselves comfortable. Sylph was one thing, but I wondered how Kasa—a literal ball of fire—could lie on the blanket. It seemed she could adjust her flames to emit only a comfortable warmth. If she couldn't, I'd have turned into Cain barbecue the moment she climbed on top of me.
I'd already picked out the most efficient courses since I knew the general content from playing the game countless times. For the next few days, I'd focus on training to increase my life force and improve my sustainability. With Dorothy's honorary firefighter arrangement, my growth shouldn't face any major obstacles. I needed to push myself to the absolute limit and become stronger.
Come to think of it, Eve Abraham's level and stats were absurd for a first-year. Fifty before she'd even started anything? What a fucking overpowered saintess spoon. I shed a single tear, cursing that God didn't exist because of the world's unfairness, then fell asleep.
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The classes were similar to university lectures I'd attended in my previous life. Professors came in, taught their material, and there were midterms and finals. The only difference was that this place determined scores through practical, combat-like tests based on students' post-graduation goals. They used a promotion system where the final exam at the end of each year decided your class rank for the following year.
Most students aimed for elite paths like the Magic Tower or knighthood after graduation, though some chose to become mercenaries, adventurers, or alchemists.
Me? I had no idea what I should do. In my previous life, I'd simply gone with the flow until I got a job. Even after coming here, contracting with spirits had been pure coincidence. If I had to define it, perhaps when I truly felt I'd become strong—not just a weakling—then I'd establish my position as a spirit master.
"Hey. Cain. Where are you eating dinner?"
Someone grabbed my shoulder without hesitation as I tried to head back to the dormitory after class. The only people who grabbed me like that were those without any malice toward me. I turned around with a completely unfriendly expression, only to find an unexpected person standing there.
"Alex?"
"You said you don't have any money, right? I'll buy you dinner tonight, so wanna earn some allowance?"
Earn some allowance? That was an incredibly dangerous phrase. In my previous life, that single magical sentence appearing in the news meant crime, involvement, and lives hanging in the balance. Our protagonist, wearing that innocent expression while casually spitting out such words.
"Uh... Don't say that anywhere else."
"Huh?"
"It sounds dangerous."
"???"
I grinned at Alex, who looked utterly confused, patted his shoulder, and walked ahead first.
"You lead. I don't have money."
While wolfing down the dinner Alex was treating me to, I heard that he'd met Dorothy Gale from the student council. It was an incredible heroic tale—Alex, unable to tolerate the nobles' tyranny, had beaten them in a brutal fight and received disciplinary punishment as his "reward."
Fortunately, it seemed the story progression hadn't been disrupted. I breathed a sigh of relief that the first quest had ended and checked the next phase.
"Hey. So what are you going to do now?"
"Huh?"
"I mean, you must have entered with some goal. Like becoming a knight or a mage or whatever."
Alex seemed to seriously consider my words. He set down his food and rolled his eyes around while thinking. I really wanted to punch him. Not realizing the gravity of his position yet. I wanted to smack some sense into that head of his right now. But the moment my fist touched his skull, wouldn't my hand be the one that got crushed?
Suddenly curious about his stats, I used Spirit's Eye to examine Alex's abilities.
...?
???????????????
I thought I must be seeing things wrong. When I stared at Alex with a dumbfounded expression, he smiled as if asking what I was looking at and waved his hand. I really wanted to grab that hand and snap it.
"Uh... Did you do any training while you were at the academy?"
"Hmm? Training? Is there any need for that?"
Wow. Holy shit. We were completely fucked. This crazy bastard was seriously talking about studying harder to become an outstanding mage right in front of me.
For a moment, rage possessed me—I wanted to grab his tongue with both hands and rip it out—but I sublimated all that fury into a deep sigh.
"So... you're saying you'll follow all the classes with that head of yours and pass every single test?"
"Of course. People have always said I have a good head since I was young. Studying should be easy enough, right?"
Completely unaware of my despair, he prattled on about how smart he'd been as a child, how everyone around him had shouted, 'Our Alex is a genius. Our Alex is so smart.' This fucking guy was still trapped in his childhood delusions.
Yeah... He was only high school age. In Korean terms, he was just past the age for middle school syndrome, or for the severe cases, still stuck in it. Sigh... Of course I understood. When I was that age, I didn't know how scary the world was and thought I was the greatest.
But in this world, the age of seventeen carried significant weight. Nineteen—the age of graduating this academy—was when you were recognized as an adult. In other words, seventeen was the age when you were supposed to start seeing the filth of the world.
"Then... why exactly did you fight those nobles this time?"
"Hmm?"
I'd assumed it was the usual development—Alex, unable to tolerate the nobles' tyranny, challenging them to a duel. But I could feel things flowing in the wrong direction.
"No, those bastards were passing in front of me, snickering the whole time. It looked like they were laughing at me, so I beat the shit out of them. They were pissing me off."
"...?"
I doubted my ears. Where had the Alex gone? The one overflowing with justice, unable to tolerate injustice, with an unyielding spirit that never backed down? The boy with short blond hair and clear blue eyes standing before me wasn't the justice-driven protagonist from the game.
He was a clear-eyed madman.
"They're way weaker than me, yet they dare laugh in front of me? That's insolent. Even if they're noble bastards, they can't flaunt their authority here. This is an academy, right?"
"..."
It was much more fucked than I'd thought. This guy was simply a psychopath. If I didn't agree with this crazy psycho's opinion right now, he might just stab my eye with the fork he was holding. And as if to prove those weren't empty words, my lowered gaze caught the fork in Alex's hand trembling slightly.
This game's high degree of freedom was both its greatest strength and its fatal flaw. There was a main storyline and canon routes, but depending on the player, one could also take the slaughterer route. The route where all the heroines fell, even God was destroyed, and the player ruled the world. Since very few people had played that path to its miserable end, such possibilities had been practically disregarded.
Yet somehow, this shitty world was laughing at my wishes and smashing them to pieces.
"Why aren't you saying anything~ Oh, don't worry. I won't hit you. I told you last time. I liked your will, your persistence, that desperate tenacity of yours."
"Ah..."
"No, really. So I know a good way to earn some allowance? It's nothing bad~"
It simply meant he'd seen the same madness in me.
-Cain. This guy. He's weird.
-Weird guy! Weird guy!
[Yeah, I think we're fucked too.]
All the neurons in my head were screaming the same thing in perfect unison. We were fucked. This was an emergency. This world was heading straight toward destruction.