Ten Days Before the Semester (2)

I never should have opened that email.

Song of Sword and Magic.

A game set at Olympia Academy, split between the Knight Department and the Mage Department. An AAA title that had earned critical acclaim and even taken Game of the Year.

I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was a veteran myself — over ten thousand hours sunk into Song of Sword and Magic.

How was someone like me supposed to sit out a DLC trial recruitment?

I applied on the spot. And I got in.

I fired off a reply without a second thought.

"…And thanks to that, I'm stuck like this. Right?"

"Y-yes, sir!"

"Oh? Your back's dropping. Not going to hold it up?"

I had been isekai'd into the game with zero ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠explanation.

In front of me, the gang that had picked a fight with me earlier was lined up in a full push-up hold, faces to the dirt. The moment one of them let his clasped hands slip, I gave him a light kick.

"Hyung's in a really bad mood right now. Seriously rattled, you know?"

"W-what do you want me to— urk!"

"Quiet."

Thud!

I drove my foot hard into the one who'd dared talk back, then dropped into a rough sit on the ground and addressed the one who looked like their leader. Jackson, if I remembered right.

"Hey."

"…Yes, sir!"

"Let's pick up where we left off. What's my name?"

"Why are you even ask— Heracle! You're Heracle-nim!"

Heracle.

An extra from Song of Sword and Magic. A Mage Department student with Magic Insensitivity — completely useless. Naturally, the other mage cadets gave him no respect, and the Knight Department cadets made a hobby of bullying him. He never did anything meaningful in the story, and players had always wondered why the writers even put him in.

Besides… doesn't this guy die?

As far as I remembered, the moment he left the academy, he was guaranteed dead. Of all the characters to get dropped into, I had to land on this miserable one.

Still, there was no reason to despair outright. True to the line about granting a "cheat" for smooth progression, I had been given a transmigrator's perk.

Not bad at all.

Getting a physical cheat while belonging to the Mage Department was a little ironic, sure. But for a talentless character who'd originally had nothing but Magic Insensitivity, this much of a cheat was more than enough to flip the script.

The only reason I beat these bastards just now was thanks to Indestructible Body.

There was no such thing as a Mage Department cadet who won a brawl against Knight Department students. I was already cashing in on the cheat.

"What's the academic schedule looking like right now?"

"Ghk… t-ten days before the semester starts."

"I'm a second-year, right? So the entrance exams for the new students are coming up?"

"Y-yeess…!"

They were grinding their teeth so hard I half expected sparks. Even stuck in a push-up hold, their bodies trembled with pure resentment. Petty thugs who picked on the weak, putting on airs like they had any right to be angry.

"This won't do. You lot need some attitude adjustment. One more hour."

"What the fuck is that supposed to—!"

"What? Fuck? You looking to die?"

"…N-no, I mean — don't you have somewhere to be? The vice chairman summoned you, didn't he?"

"What?"

Why would the vice chairman want me? I ran through the possibilities, but nothing came up. Heracle was such a minor character that even a hardcore player like me barely knew anything about him.

…No. Before that.

"You son of a bitch. You knew that and still dragged me out here? Just to mess with me?"

"Th-that's…"

"This bastard's brain is completely rotten, huh?"

I could go when I went — but not before working him over a little with my fists. Rivalry between departments was one thing. Pulling a stunt like this was something else entirely.

Thud! Thud-thud!

"Gyaaaah!"

I listened to Jackson scream a few more times, then left.

The vice chairman of Olympia Academy occupied a rather unusual position.

Olympia was a battlefield where the pride of the Knight Department and the Mage Department clashed three hundred sixty-five days a year. That held true not only for the cadets but for the instructors as well. Rookie or elder, the sniping never stopped — which meant that anyone in overall charge needed something essential.

Justification.

The standing to mediate conflicts between the departments. The vice chairman substituted fairness for that standing: the objectivity of being neither knight nor mage, but an ordinary person appointed directly by the chairman.

The first thing that vice chairman said upon seeing me was this:

"…Did something happen? Why do you look like that?"

"Took a little tumble. With some dust, more or less."

Dust shaped like people, so it wasn't exactly a lie. The vice chairman furrowed his brow slightly at my answer, then let it go and got to the point.

"The reason I called you is simple."

"Yes. I'm listening."

"I would like you to withdraw from the academy at the end of this semester."

…Come again?

"Ordinarily the chairman herself would deliver this in person, but unfortunately she is away on business, so I am standing in."

The chairman of Olympia. I already knew she was absent from the academy at this point in the timeline. I just hadn't expected that absence to detonate like this.

"I did try to keep you enrolled somehow, but the opposition was simply too strong. Difficult to suppress."

"…Hah."

Opposition, was it. Time to think.

A talentless cadet with Magic Insensitivity. Who would go so far as to push for the expulsion of Heracle, the Mage Department's dead weight?

"The instructors?"

"…"

"The Mage Department instructors find me inconvenient. Because they believe I diminish the department's standing, I assume."

"…Precisely."

The vice chairman's eyes went wide.

"The other cadets already disliked me, so no one would have spoken up on my behalf. And the Knight Department had no particular reason to object either."

"Just so. In the end, there was no way to stop the momentum toward your expulsion. I trust you understand why."

Heracle had Magic Insensitivity. A Mage Department student who couldn't use magic. Of course his evaluation scores had been dragged through the mud. The instructors' hostility was understandable enough.

"Your practical scores were left ungraded out of consideration for the chairman's wishes. But your written work is middling at best, and you have produced no other achievements of note. There simply aren't grounds to dismiss the calls for your expulsion. It is not my place as vice chairman to say so, but there is nothing to be done."

"…"

The chairman's wishes. Had she personally nominated Heracle as an incoming student? I filed that away for later.

"…Is that all?"

"Hm?"

"Is that the full extent of the justification for why I should voluntarily withdraw?"

"…More or less. That is what remained after I struck down every argument as fairly as I could."

"Then we're done here."

I drew a breath. From the moment I'd heard the vice chairman out, only one resolve had taken hold.

Under no circumstances could I withdraw.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

In every scenario where Heracle leaves the academy, he dies.

Whether the academy itself fell, or he simply went outside for a field exercise — the instant a log appeared saying Heracle had left the grounds, the ending credits rolled with "Deceased" next to his name. I didn't know why. That was simply his fate.

Which means I have to smash every push for expulsion.

If Heracle couldn't leave the academy, then he simply had to stay enrolled. To stay enrolled, I had to reverse the Mage Department instructors' contempt. And the method for that was extremely simple.

"I'll prove it. That I have what it takes to keep studying in the Mage Department."

"…Are you serious? How exactly do you intend to manage that?"

"The Inter-Year Exchange Tournament is coming up soon, isn't it?"

The Inter-Year Exchange Tournament. A combat exercise framed as a goodwill event between the Knight Department and the Mage Department. Of course that was just the polite packaging — in reality, it was about settling the pecking order between departments.

If I make a name for myself in a match where that much pride is on the line, they won't be able to ignore me.

I just had to force those prideful Mage Department instructors to acknowledge me.

"I'll win it. Then you'll have more than enough grounds to dismiss the calls for my expulsion, Vice Chairman."

"That much is true, but… how do you plan to—?"

How? That didn't even require thinking about.

I'd just enter as a mage (physical).