Asteria Academy
The evaluation duels had progressed quite a ways, starting with Chloe and Ian.
I casually turned my head to the side and saw the scene off to one side of the training grounds was quite the spectacle.
Ian, who'd gotten thoroughly beaten, was being comforted by Serena, and Chloe next to them seemed to think she'd gone a bit hard herself, placing a hand on Ian's shoulder and speaking to him with an apologetic look.
Lucky bastard.
Just as I was watching that original protagonist prick surrounded by heroines filming a pseudo-harem scene, the professor's voice rang out.
"Final duel participants, step forward. Lee Seo-jun, Serena. Prepare yourselves."
At last, the moment I'd been waiting for had arrived.
Time to start turning that pink bitch Serena into a masochist.
The fact that I could legally trample her body under the pretext of an official duel she couldn't refuse made my lower half grow heavy.
Standing in the center of the training grounds, I saw Serena glaring at me from the front. But her gaze was trembling badly.
Affinity Superiority's working properly, huh.
It wasn't just ordinary fear. She gripped her staff with a hand that shook violently, flinching wherever my eyes landed.
Like a mouse before a snake, her instincts were gnawing away at her reason, injecting the terror that she could never win.
"Begin!"
The shout signaling the start had barely fallen when I kicked off the ground and shot forward.
Serena looked startled by the speed, but she immediately began chanting. Not that it mattered—she was still a complete novice.
"First things first, let's exchange a light greeting, yeah?"
A vicious grin twisted my lips as I slipped into her guard in an instant. Her eyes went wide with panic in that split second, and I clenched my fist tight, tensing every muscle in my arm.
Then my fist slammed dead-center into Serena's lower abdomen—right where her womb sat.
Thud!
"Kyaaugh…!"
A dull impact rang out and Serena's body lifted slightly. Normally she would've curled up in pain, but I triggered Sensation Amplification at the same time, so the agony flipped into pleasure in a heartbeat.
"How's that? Way more thrilling than those boring spells Ian taught you, right?"
"You…!"
She gritted her teeth and forced herself to swing her staff, flinging a Magic Missile at me.
I put some distance between us and tilted my head lightly, dodging the Magic Missile with ease. Then I waggled my fingers at Serena, who looked ready to collapse as her legs gave out any second.
"That all?"
The students around us held their breath, thinking my strike had just been a brutal gut punch—but Serena alone would know the truth.
That the firestorm of pleasure starting from where my fist had connected was racing up every nerve and scrambling her brain.
"L-Lee Seo-jun! Stop this right now!"
Ian shouted from outside the training grounds, his face flushed red. To me, though, it was less than a dog barking.
I slowly closed in on Serena again. Every time she heard my footsteps she hunched her shoulders and prepared another spell.
"Alright then—shall we keep going?"
At my wicked smile, Serena's face went deathly pale in an instant.
I focused mana into my legs and launched myself off the ground. My accelerated form left afterimages as it slipped into her blind spot, and before she could even swing her staff I dropped low and drove in.
Thud!
This time both hands smashed up into her breasts from below. Sensation Amplification at ten times power was just the bonus, of course.
"Oook♡"
An obscenely blatant moan tore out of Serena's mouth.
Her eyes had already rolled back so far only the whites showed, and the sweat-soaked bottoms of her gym clothes were growing damp, unable to fight the instinctive reaction.
"Damn, that moan's vulgar as hell."
I snatched the nape of her neck as she started to fall and drove another fist deep into her lower abdomen. I fully intended to grind her reason into powder.
"That's enough."
The bald professor closed the distance in a flash and seized my wrist. Open disgust and wariness filled the eyes that locked onto me.
He'd clearly decided this had gone past a simple duel into outright sadism.
"Aww, what a buzzkill."
I wasn't skilled enough to win against the professor yet, so I shrugged and backed off without a fight.
The moment I let go, Serena crumpled to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Her unfocused eyes wandered empty air, and between her trembling thighs a shameful stain was spreading through her gym clothes.
"Serena! Snap out of it, Serena!"
Ian and Chloe came running right away to support her and check her condition.
Ian glared at me like he wanted me dead, tears welling in his eyes, while Chloe stared at me in disbelief before hurriedly stripping off her own jacket to cover Serena's lower half.
"Lee Seo-jun…! Are you even human? How could you do this to a girl?!"
Ian's cry echoed across the training field, but I just dug in my nose and answered.
"Never heard of gender equality? Going easy in a duel is the real insult."
Chloe fixed me with a look full of pure contempt.
"Failing to control your strength even after recognizing the difference in ability isn't the mark of a knight—it's the mark of a thug. Lee Seo-jun, I don't sense even a scrap of chivalry from you."
"I'm not a knight, so why the hell are you lecturing me about chivalry?"
"Piece of trash…"
Chloe ground her teeth under her breath.
And right beside her, Ian glared daggers at me.
"Lee Seo-jun… I will never forgive you…"
"Forgive? Ha, what a joke. What're you gonna do if you don't forgive me?"
I snickered like he was hilarious and flicked the booger I'd rolled between my fingers straight at Ian's face.
It landed perfectly on the bridge of his nose, and a chorus of stifled gasps—"Huk!"—burst from the surrounding students.
The bald professor sighed and stepped between us.
"Lee Seo-jun, you stay. Everyone else, dismiss."
He waved the students away. The training grounds emptied in a hurry until only the two of us remained.
The bald professor crossed his arms and looked me up and down.
"You… I'll give you credit for skill. But your methods are filthy."
"Winning's all that matters, isn't it?"
He let out a long breath, then spoke coldly.
"From the next duel onward… tone it down. Push too hard and I won't just stand by and watch."
"Yes sir, understood."
I gave a light nod, then turned on my heel.
My cells are practically dancing for joy.
This academy life was looking like a hell of a lot more fun than I'd expected.
A few days after the rumors of me being trash had spread, late into the small hours of the morning.
I headed for the Wisdom Hall that towered in the center of the academy.
It was less a normal library than a massive tower packed with hundreds of thousands of books of every kind.
Bookshelves stretching to the ceiling and the soft glow of magic lamps created a quiet yet overwhelming sense of pressure.
I made for the out-of-the-way shelves in Zone 8, a dusty corner stacked with history texts.
Nobody around.
This section held nothing but worthless chronicles and miscellaneous customs, so people rarely came here.
But with knowledge of the original work, I knew full well a hidden opportunity was stashed in this very spot.
How many days have I been looking already?
I groped behind a red hardcover still thick with layers of dust. My fingertips brushed something cold and metallic that didn't belong.
Found it.
I carefully pushed the book inward. With a scrape of friction, part of the wall rotated and revealed a palm-sized gap.
Inside the space sat a glass vial filled with deep crimson liquid.
Dragon Blood.
In the original, this thing was later found and swallowed by some mid-story mid-boss who opposed the protagonist Ian, granting him a dramatic power spike—only for him to get casually crushed by protagonist plot armor and reduced to disposable fodder.
Can I take this back to reality too?
I opened Storage and tried to put it in.
This object is a world-exclusive item.
Removal to reality is impossible.
Regret welled up, but there was nothing for it. I tilted my head back and downed the Dragon Blood in one gulp.
"……!"
The liquid that slid down my throat was like molten lava. The scorching energy raced down my esophagus and slammed into my heart, making every blood vessel in my body swell as if about to burst.
Manageable.
Compared to the time I'd reinforced my cock, this was nothing.
I was still savoring the sensation of my body growing stronger when familiar voices drifted from farther away.
"Ian, is there really something back here? It's so dark and gloomy…"
Serena's voice. A few days had passed, so the gut punch had apparently healed.
"Yeah. I found it by chance in a book in the library. It said there's a hidden place here."
Ian's confident answer followed right after. Their footsteps grew steadily closer to my zone.
Lucky for them they found the clue.
Just like the original flow.
Today Ian would discover the Illusion Labyrinth here. Passing its trials would teach him the foundational mana techniques of a great mage.
After that he was supposed to use the labyrinth as a base, train steadily with the heroines, build bonds between comrades, and even start some secret will-they-won't-they tension.
Alright then—time to move according to plan.
Ian and Serena changed direction and headed for the opposite section.
I masked my presence and quietly tailed them. Thanks to my newly strengthened body, my senses had sharpened; even their faint breathing rang crystal-clear in my ears.
For over an hour Ian and Serena felt along the walls, searching every crack between the cold, hard stones.
"Ian, are you sure it's really here?"
Exhaustion was plain in Serena's voice. An hour of wild goose chases would do that to anyone.
"If I cross-reference the notes I've been collecting for days, this has to be the spot…"
Ian chewed his lip in agitation and scanned the wall again.
I stayed hidden in the dark, enjoying the view of the idiot's back.
It's not the wall, dumbass. It's the floor.
In the end I couldn't stand the frustration any longer and stepped out of the shadows.
"What are you two doing over there, scurrying around like rats?"
"……?!"
Ian and Serena whirled around in shock. The moment Ian recognized my voice, his face hardened.
"Why are you here?"
"That's what I want to ask. What are two people doing in a library corner this late at night? You know academy rules ban nighttime curfew, right?"
"Mind your own business! We just came to investigate something."
Ian stepped in front of Serena and eyed me warily. I snorted a laugh and walked past the wall he'd been fumbling at, heading for the floor behind it.
"Investigate? Looking for something like this?"
I stopped, pulled out a thick black book on the left, and tapped a specific tile with my foot. A heavy grinding sound rose from below as the floor sank, revealing a staircase glowing with blue light.
Ian's eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
"Th-that's…?!"
"You're welcome. I found the entrance you spent an hour fumbling around for."
The two of them just watched me warily without answering.
I brushed past them and set foot on the stairs downward. Then I glanced back over my shoulder.
"Well? You coming or not?"
Ian and Serena exchanged looks.
"…Let's go, Serena. If that bastard gets the treasure here, who knows what he'll do with it."
Ian tightly clasped Serena's hand and followed me down the stairs, eyes full of suspicion.
Naive little shit.
True to form for a brain-dead protagonist, he was moving exactly as I wanted without a single millimeter of error.
