Chapter 1: The Entrance Ceremony?

"Hah."

I stretched, working the stiffness out of a body that had been hunched over the keyboard for far too long. Game reviews had been a hobby of mine for years. Do anything long enough, though, and a hobby turns into a job. Ads came in now and then. Money, too.

The passion I'd started with was long gone. I'd learned the hard way that even something you love curdles once it becomes work. Every so often, though, a game would come along that brought the old fire roaring back. Today's review subject had been one of those.

"This is so fucking infuriating."

For a fleeting moment I'd actually thought Korea had finally produced a stone-cold masterpiece — the kind that makes your balls give a standing ovation. Then I played it, and I wanted to throw up. The sex scenes were hot, no argument. But to see a single one, you had to slog through over three hours of a shitty RPG.

Before long, comments agreeing with me started rolling in. People saying the gameplay was complete trash. That it still got them going, though. That sort of thing.

Yeah. Even the Buddha himself would have to concede this one.

And then one comment snagged my eye.

Normally I wouldn't have given a cheap troll like that the time of day. But I was still pissed at the studio for what they'd done to those ridiculously hot heroines, and I fired back in the heat of the moment.

The way he snapped back the instant I engaged told me everything I needed to know. Attention-starved freak. I blocked him so he couldn't keep going, then crawled into bed with a body that already felt like lead.

Dwelling on a clown like that was a waste of time. I had more important things to think about — namely, which game to review tomorrow if I wanted the views to roll in.

Ding!

Who the hell is messaging me at this hour?

I didn't have any friends to trade messages with in the first place, and I'd blocked every advertisement that had ever tried to crawl into my inbox. If it wasn't family, my phone had no business making a sound.

The sender was god6974.

Who was that again...?

Then the nickname of the keyboard warrior who'd been baiting me on my review flashed through my head.

That's the exact same handle as that idiot from earlier.

I didn't have friends, so it couldn't be a prank. My family was in my contacts, sure — but none of them had the faintest idea I reviewed eroge for a living.

I was going to report him to cyber crimes either way, whether he kept going or not. I was still turning over how to handle it when the next message landed.

Honestly, I'd been a little spooked. Then I saw him throwing a tantrum like that, and the tension drained right out of me. How far gone did you have to be to hunt down some random game reviewer and pull this shit? Tsk.

I was looking at a preview of this country's bleak future. He wasn't worth another word. I blocked him cold.

Then again, the fact that freaks like this were latching onto me meant I'd gotten famous. Maybe that was a good thing, in its own twisted way.

First thing tomorrow, I'm filing that report.

I killed the screen, set the phone on the nightstand, and closed my eyes, turning over which game to cover next as I drifted off.

"...Excuse me? Hello?"

Poke. Poke.

Who the hell is that. I was sleeping, damn it. Why is someone touching me.

"Excuse me. I really don't think you should be sleeping right now..."

I said I was sleeping, so what do you— wait.

I had fallen asleep in my studio. I was sure of that. And yet a woman I had never seen before was waking me up. My eyes snapped open, sleep blasted clean out of my head.

Standing in front of me was a cute schoolgirl who looked strangely familiar, staring at me like I'd grown a second head.

"Who sleeps through the entrance ceremony? Couldn't sleep last night because you were nervous?"

Entrance ceremony?

I swept the room. I was sitting in a massive auditorium packed with students in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠formal uniforms. The second and third floors were overflowing with them too. The students nearby were glaring at me. And when I looked toward the front of the hall, a line of text hung enormous in the air:

It was real. The words weren't printed on a banner. They were floating in midair.

"What the fu—"

Was this some kind of hidden-camera prank? I'd gone to sleep in my studio and woken up kidnapped into an auditorium I'd never seen in my life. And yet the hall itself sent a violent jolt ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of déjà vu through me.

Last night. I'd gone back and forth with some keyboard-warrior shut-in who took enormous pride in an eroge called Sex Academy. He'd somehow gotten my personal messages and started going on about a bet, and then...

I dropped my gaze.

Clipped to the right side of my chest was a disposable name badge. Printed on it, in clear letters: Lee Ho-yeon.

Well, damn.

The entrance ceremony of Victoria Academy, straight out of Sex Academy. The protagonist's name, Lee Ho-yeon. The cadet uniform I'd seen a hundred times in-game. The brooch that marked your year. All of it.

Apparently, I had become the protagonist of Sex Academy.

You've got to be kidding me.

I looked around, and the faces were unmistakably familiar. The heroines — Rumi, Lucy, Elise, Nam Da-eun. Every last one of them a character from the game.

Whether I could believe it or not, the ceremony rolled on without me. A girl who had been waiting below the stage started up the steps.

Golden hair, worn loose down her back, shimmered with every movement. Her skin was as white as snow, and her eyes — brimming with confidence — betrayed a fierce, unbending pride. With every step she climbed, her chest swayed and her taut, rounded ass rose and fell. Even in profile, her figure was flawless.

"Wait, this year's top student is a foreigner?"

"I heard she's the daughter of some huge foreign guild. Got a perfect score on the written exam."

"Wow. So the pretty ones are smart too, huh."

The moment the student representative started moving, the hall broke into whispers. That representative was Elise — daughter of a French mega-guild's leader, and one of the heroines of Sex Academy.

On the podium, she picked up the speech that had been left waiting for her and began to read.

"To all incoming students and parents gathered here today, good morning..."

Nothing in it that mattered.

"I swear!"

I wanted to bolt from my seat that instant and figure out what the hell was going on. But I had no idea what would happen if I walked out now, so I sat there and watched the rest of the ceremony.

When it ended, the students scattered toward parents and friends. I took one last look around, then headed for the dormitory at a fast walk.

I tapped the dorm key synced to my smartwatch against the entrance reader and stepped inside. The room was more than big enough compared to the one-room studio I'd been living in. I shrugged off my outer layer, hung it on the chair, and sat down on the edge of a neatly made, pure-white bed.

"So what the hell do I do now."

I tugged at my cheek. Pinched my ear. It hurt, and I did not wake up. I looked at the full-length mirror in the corner of the room, and there was no denying it — the face staring back was Lee Ho-yeon, protagonist of Sex Academy.

I repeated the words status window in my head.

Whoa. A status window.

Combat Sense was Lee Ho-yeon's unique authority. Time to stop denying it. I had been transmigrated into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠an eroge protagonist.

"Hmmm..."

But wait. Wasn't this actually a win? I was the protagonist, so the face was a good one. On top of that, Combat Sense was one of the highest-grade authorities in the entire story. Compared to my old life, I wasn't coming out behind at all.

Bzzzt.

A vibration buzzed against my left wrist. I checked the smartwatch.

A class assignment notice. Class A — same as the original story. Almost every major character was packed in there. And of course, this being an eroge, most of them were women.

"I'll think after I take a shower."

I stripped off the cadet uniform, hung it up, and took a quick shower. Then I changed into the casual clothes that had been waiting on the standing rack — Lee Ho-yeon's, apparently — and stepped out of the bathroom, towel-drying my hair as I went.

"Huh?"

An envelope I had never seen before was sitting on the desk.

That definitely wasn't there before I got in the shower.

I picked it up. A pure white letter envelope, nothing written on it, sealed tight.

"Must've just missed it."

It was obviously some kind of notice with the dormitory rules printed on it. I'd been out of it when I first walked in. Easy enough to overlook.

I pinched the top of the sealed envelope and tore it open.

Light and letters came pouring out, spilling into the air and beginning to arrange themselves in front of my eyes.