The Eve of the Entrance Ceremony (6)
The instant I caught the mental resonance brimming with boredom and sheer irritation, I knew without a shadow of a doubt who was on the other side of that door.
There was no way I couldn't know. Her personality was a rare breed for this kind of game, and she happened to be one of my absolute favorites.
Normally, students attending an elite institution like the Academy were driven by an overwhelming ambition to grow. Desperate to become stronger, faster and more thoroughly than their peers, nearly all of them possessed proactive, fiery dispositions. Individual variations existed, of course, but the vast majority leaned that way. Yet, as with all things in life, even among those enrolled in an academy everyone envied, there were bound to be outliers—people dragged there against their will who didn't want to be there in the slightest.
The owner of that mental echo was the absolute poster child of that sentiment.
A default heroine blessed with mind-boggling magical talent that could easily be hailed as the greatest in history, yet saddled with the trait of being an utterly unmotivated, lazy genius: Stella Starnamis.
Why is she here of all places…? Wait, no, it's not impossible, I guess…
It wasn't as though some universal law forbade default characters from becoming roommates. Something like this happening wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibility. Sure, it wasn't impossible, but when you factored in the sheer mathematical probability, it was still utterly absurd. Out of the countless students enrolled, what were the odds of being roomed with a default heroine?
Still, maybe it's a blessing in disguise that it's Stella…
Being a harem game of sorts, most of the other classes were represented by female characters as well. If I had drawn the archer or the rogue, I probably would have thrown in the towel right then and there. When it came to being unapproachable, those two were on another level entirely. The archer in particular, as one might expect from the archetype, was an elf who harbored an explicit distaste for humans, making befriending her a monumental uphill battle. Being stuck in the same room with someone like that would have made every waking second agonizing, so comparatively, this really was the better alternative.
Haa…
True to their status as the Hero's future party members, every last one of them was overflowing with eccentric quirks. And this girl, Stella, was arguably the most extreme case of the lot.
I can't just stand out here forever, though…
Difficult personality or not, I had the memories of playing the game on my side. Over dozens, hundreds, no, thousands of playthroughs, I had romanced her as a default character, cleared her route, conquered every event, slept with her, and done every imaginable thing with her. Granted, unlike back then, this was a flesh-and-blood reality—she was a real girl named Stella—so relying purely on my gameplay memories didn't guarantee success. I knew that better than anyone.
Even so…
Let's do this.
It was bound to be of some help. Considering I had already wrapped the Hero around my finger purely by playing to his personality, handling Stella shouldn't be entirely impossible.
Steeling my resolve, I slotted the key into the lock.
Rattle, rattle.
“…”
Oh, right.
I had completely forgotten that she made her grand debut by immediately pulling a stunt designed to screw over the player.
Open the damn door!
The crazy girl had slapped a magical barrier over the entrance, treating the entire suite like her private territory.
After I pleaded and begged through thought waves for her to please open up, she finally dispelled the ward and unlocked the door. Not that she bothered to get out of bed and open it in person, of course—she merely deactivated the barrier and left the rest to me.
Honestly, I wanted to smack the living daylights out of her.
It had been ridiculous enough when I saw it happen in the game, but experiencing it firsthand brought a fresh wave of disbelief. How on earth did her thought process arrive at casting a ward over a two-person dormitory just because she claimed the space for herself? She truly was a piece of work.
“…”
The moment I stepped inside, my senses mapped out a scene that made cold sweat break out across my neck: an chaotic array of magical artifacts, discarded underwear, and Academy uniforms strewn recklessly across the floor.
So it really was this bad.
The game had mentioned that her room was untidy, but since the protagonist's sprite had always cleaned it up automatically, I had never given it a second thought. For the first time, my feelings blew right past simple annoyance and bordered on existential despair. Even if her character lore stated that she was too lethargic to bother with chores, this was absurd.
Did my character really have to clean all this by hand…?
Back then, I had merely clicked a command and let the system handle it, so I had no idea how grueling it actually was. But what choice did I have? If I wanted to win her over, build a rapport, and recruit her into the party, it had to be done.
Just in case, I turned my attention toward the bed. Naturally, she was sound asleep, completely unbothered by whether I came in or not, as if to say she had lifted the barrier and the rest was my problem.
Fine. It had to be done anyway.
With a heavy sigh, I pushed myself to work. Since it had come to this, I resolved to tidy the room in the most comfortable, efficient manner possible so she wouldn't throw a fit when she woke up.
Cooking… I've never done it myself, but…
I remembered a fair few in-game recipes. If I followed the rough principles, even if it didn't turn out like a five-star feast, it shouldn't be impossible to whip up something resembling home-cooked comfort food.
First things first…
Let's get this place cleaned up.
Making a poor, blind, and deaf girl do all the heavy lifting… Seriously, what a cold-blooded, heartless girl.
Stella was what people called a “prodigy.”
And that was a fact she knew better than anyone else. Every time she recalled the elders of the Magic Tower spattering saliva as they boasted about her—calling her the rising star who would elevate the magical realm to new heights, the once-in-a-century talent destined to become the youngest Archmage in history—a visceral shudder ran down her spine.
They never once looked at how hard she worked or the effort she poured into her craft. Yet, the moment her results fell short of their sky-high expectations, they would scold her relentlessly, demanding to know what she was doing wasting such god-given talent. They never cared to see what kind of struggle she went through. Even the most extraordinary prodigies suffered slumps.
It hadn't taken long for her to realize that they never viewed her as a girl named Stella Starnamis. To them, she was nothing more than an instrument to drag the Red Magic Tower a few inches higher up the pedestal of prestige. In the end, she was merely a cog meant to keep their tower turning.
Perhaps that was why it started.
She grew lethargic toward the world, neglecting her magical studies entirely. Eventually, after failing to meet the tower's research quotas, she was semi-exiled under the pretense of being sent to study at the Academy. But Stella was more than satisfied with the outcome. Given the choice between sitting on that vile bed of thorns or walking a slightly troublesome path, she had gladly chosen the latter.
Stella fluttered her eyes open.
What an unpleasant dream…
Of all things, she had to dream about her days back at the tower. As she rubbed her heavy eyelids and attempted to prop herself up, a savory, mouthwatering aroma drifted past her nose.
Ah… right, someone came earlier, didn't they…?
She vaguely remembered throwing up a barrier without thinking, only to belatedly recall that she had been assigned a roommate. Half-asleep, she had dropped the ward before drifting right back into slumber.
Still…
Didn't that voice echo directly inside my head…?
It hadn't registered through her ears; it had resonated straight into her mind. It was a method of communication she had never encountered before. Who was it? And more importantly, where was this incredible smell coming from?
Stirred by an uncontrollable surge of curiosity, Stella cautiously opened her eyes and surveyed the room.
“[Ah, you're awake.]”
The room that had once been an absolute disaster zone was now spotless. Instinctively turning her head to check where her essential magical tools and grimoires had gone, she found them neatly gathered in a single corner, arranged in a way that made them far easier to locate than when they were scattered everywhere. Perhaps because the organizer was unfamiliar with magic, texts covering entirely different disciplines were stacked together, but the overall arrangement clearly showed deep consideration for a mage's workflow.
And then…
“That's…”
A meal…? No, why was someone preparing food in the middle of a dormitory room?
Bewildered, Stella stared up at the girl bustling over the meal. For reasons she couldn't fathom, the girl kept her eyes gently closed, a soft, serene smile gracing her lips.
“[It's almost ready, so please wait just a moment~♪]”
The mystery that had puzzled Stella—the voice echoing directly into her thoughts—finally clicked. That was the girl's method of communication.
What is this…?
Just who on earth was this woman?
Stella's expression froze in utter dumbfoundment. Short of the very first time she had witnessed magic with her own eyes, this was the most baffling, shocking moment of her entire life.