How to Come Out on Top (2)
You already know that Luka treats students like gacha tickets—I've complained about it enough times to bore you senseless.
But there's something I haven't told you yet: how Professor Luka was regarded by the players themselves.
Astonishingly enough, the players treated him almost exactly the way he treated his students.
As a gacha.
The moment you got tangled up with him, your risk shot through the roof with zero warning—but so did your returns. An NPC like that.
Anyone chasing a peak-performance run would eventually find themselves knocking on his door.
If a quarter of the flaming on the forums went to any single character, that character was Luka.
That was his identity, as far as the player base was concerned.
Luka dispensed crisis after crisis to the players without pause. He'd hurl you into a lethal dungeon, arrange for a bounty hunter to threaten your life, or drop a freak accident in your lap—sudden encounters, one after another.
In a game where your time to grow was strictly limited, more encounters meant a higher growth ceiling. By that logic, players ought to have been thanking him.
The problem was that some of the crises he cooked up simply could not be solved by force.
For example—
Yes. The dungeon where the Alchemist showed up.
I had every scrap of information about that dungeon memorized, and I still couldn't clear it. It simply wasn't a dungeon the me of that time was capable of clearing.
All I could do was scrape by, stubbornly refusing to die, scheming up ways to survive a little longer.
And even that failed. I nearly died, and only survived because that useless Chief God snapped a leash around my neck.
From the moment you connected with Luka, this kind of suffering became your daily bread.
You'd saved the game minutes earlier, then ran face-first into one of his engineered unfair catastrophes—and your previous save file was from ages ago.
Do you know what that feels like?
I do.
I set myself the grand ambition of building a max-potential character for every single class, and I stared at Professor Luka's smug face until I was sick of it.
I even posted strategy guides for the events you get when you meet him. That's how much quality time that bastard and I spent together.
His every behavioral pattern is engraved in my memory.
That's why I was grateful Luka was identical to his game counterpart.
If he behaves exactly as he did in-game, then I can steer his actions.
Through countless attempts, I'd managed to manipulate his behavior even inside a game with fixed, limited choices. So in reality—where I could pick whichever option I pleased?
Easy.
The blue light around me fades, and the surrounding landscape reveals itself.
Withered trees so dry they can't even hold onto their leaves. Ground cracked and split from drought.
The few scattered leaves on the ground looked as though they'd crumble to dust the instant they were stepped on, and the aura hanging over this forest of death was heavy and gloomy.
The kind of place where if you dropped a knife, it would probably shriek and blush.
The Dead Forest.
Not a dungeon the petty Evil God could interfere with, but a field crawling with every manner of danger.
I'd assumed he would choose somewhere I couldn't leverage my dungeon-related blessing—and of all places, here.
Lucky me.
"You arrived right on schedule. I'd expected to wait a while longer."
I turned my head at the voice behind me, and Professor Luka stepped into view.
"Are you feigning composure? Or did you genuinely predict this situation, and that's why you're calm?"
Should I fake a scream for him or something?
"Why, you perverted pedo. Dying to hear me scream? Puhaha. Then why don't you just confess already—I'd have given you a scream straight from the heart."
"...Either answer is fine, really. Both would make you quite the exceptional specimen."
Luka pretended not to hear me and pressed on.
"I think of myself as a jeweler. Finding a rough gem with potential and polishing it into something beautiful—that has long been my life's purpose, my calling. I have practiced this craft for so many years that I carry no small pride in the trade."
A line I'd heard before.
A line I'd fully expected ever since he told me to quietly offer him my submission.
Hearing it now, I couldn't help but laugh as the pieces of the situation clicked neatly into place.
Alright, Luka. Now you're going to say the gem must quietly follow the jeweler's hands.
"A gem must never speak. It must quietly submit to the jeweler's hands."
Puhaha!
Yes. This is how it should be.
I'm the rotten-water veteran of Soul Academy transmigrated into the flesh. If I plan something, it's supposed to slot together this perfectly. So why does everything keep careening off in directions I never saw coming, huh?
"A gem that whines and fusses in the jeweler's hands is worthless. And yet—I cannot simply discard you, Lady Aln. The light of the gem that is you burns far too bright. So I have decided to test you. To see whether you possess the ability to polish yourself."
With that, Luka finished and took a slow step backward.
"I promise you this. If you produce results here, I will permit you to polish yourself."
As he continued to retreat, his figure grew blurry, and before long he had vanished without a trace.
And so I was left alone in this forest.
⟨So this is what you planned?⟩
'Yep.'
⟨A divine revelation?⟩
'Something like that?'
Normally I'd fling out the useless Chief God excuse without a shred of proof, but this time it was no excuse.
After all, it was the useless Chief God who ordered me to undergo Luka's trial. I merely carried out the Chief God's instructions with exemplary diligence.
⟨Judging by your face, I see no willingness to actually explain.⟩
'That's not exactly—'
⟨Spare me the nonsense and simply answer what I ask. Is it dangerous?⟩
'Nope. Not at all.'
I can say that with total certainty.
No matter what variables pop up this time, I will not die.
How can I be so sure? Because nobody hurls precious equipment into enhancement without preparation.
Luka baring his inner intentions so openly means he wants me that badly.
Whether I pass this trial or not, he won't leave me to die in some squalid hole like this.
Someday he'll labor over an elaborate stage befitting an enhancement, and throw me onto it.
The catch: the moment I fail this trial, Luka will do something to my mind—both to handle me exactly to his taste, and to seal my lips.
That's how it went in the game.
Once he revealed his true colors, didn't he use some kind of magic to shut people up?
And after he used it, you could no longer refuse anything Luka said.
Countering it required a mental-type skill, or an NPC skilled in dealing with such things—and I happen to have the Face-obsessed Fox.
Even if Luka pulls something, I can handle it.
⟨And what do you stand to gain from this?⟩
'Plenty.'
I can clear the quest that useless Chief God handed down with ease, and it'll put my growth into overdrive on top of that.
A dungeon too difficult to enter as a mere student. A region I shouldn't have access to at this stage of the story. Combat experience that only comes from clashing with the strong.
If I succeed in seizing the initiative over Luka, I can pick and choose all of it exactly as I please.
Everything I once had to settle for through endless retries in the game, I can now select freely.
Granted, Luka will butt in mid-way and pull his usual dog-brained stunts, but since the useless Chief God issued the quest, that much is beyond my control.
⟨Do you know what you must do?⟩
'That too.'
The answer is simple.
Survive.
Endure on this field until tomorrow morning.
That's the demand the in-game Luka makes when he throws a player into this place, so I'd wager it's the same this time around.
⟨Last question. Are you confident?⟩
'Is that even a question?'
Everything is already unfolding exactly as I planned.
Interference from the petty Evil God: impossible.
Variables from adventurers: none—people avoid this place like the plague.
And even the field itself matches my affinity perfectly.
The main monsters that spawn in the Dead Forest are evil spirits, monsters possessed by evil spirits, and the undead.
Every last one of them is vulnerable to divinity.
And I am the Apostle of the Chief God, a holy knight, bearing mighty divinity.
'I can do anything out here.'
I'd already finished confirming where I was standing.
If I wanted, I could escape this forest on my own strength and walk all the way back to Soul Academy.
So what is there to worry about?
⟨Then that settles it.⟩
Halbae gave his answer, heaved a long sigh, and then grumbled that I should give him a heads-up before planning things like this.
⟨How many times have you stumbled into sudden peril now? My heart was pounding, I tell you.⟩
'Grandpa, you don't have a heart.'
⟨It's a figure of speech! Grasp the gist of it!⟩
I was in the middle of our little comedy routine when I sensed an ominous presence approaching from far away.
Perhaps because I'd spent the entire break practicing the manipulation of divinity with Halbae—my body had grown keenly sensitive to the energy of death, the antithesis of divinity.
⟨Haa. Enough. Consider it a chance to practice in live combat. Girl. Prepare yourself.⟩
'Sir, yes, sir.'
I took a deep breath and spread divinity outward from my heart through every corner of my body.
The foundation of Ruel-style Divine Combat Arts: circulating divine power along the bloodstream to reinforce the body.
I can't yet channel divinity into my fingertips and toes and control it with Halbae's mastery, but I can manage a decent imitation.
Vitality floods through the divinity-reinforced body. Just like I practiced at the House of Aln.
The ominous aura flinches and recoils from the divinity breathed out along my exhale, and I smile as I ready myself for a fight.
I pull my shield from the Inventory, then detach the mace I'd shrunk down and hung around my neck, expanding it to fit my hand.
I'd love to put on my armor too, but.
I don't think I have that luxury right now.
- Kiiieeeek.
The things that covet the life-force of the living emerge from the shadows.
These were the ones who once frolicked among the flowers when this forest was still beautiful—fairies who twisted themselves into grotesque shapes in a desperate bid to survive as the forest filled with death.
Banshees.
Grinning, I counted the number of eyes gleaming with hideous greed.
Three, is it? Perfect for a warm-up.
"Ugh♡ You're disgustingly ugly♡ You reek of corpse♡ This is a fairy?♡ The Fairy Queen would hunt you down without even recognizing you as one of her own♡"
With exhilarating power coursing through me, one of the banshees lunged at me.
These creatures are closer to death than to life—beings with no true form, little more than ghosts.
Conventional attacks can't so much as scratch them, but that poses zero problem for me.
A mace steeped in divinity does not pass over those who embrace death.
CRACK! With a gloriously satisfying sound, the mace slammed into the banshee's head—and unable to withstand the impact, its body scattered into nothing.
Well, this is a bit of a problem.
They're way too trash-tier. You've at least got to earn your keep as a warm-up partner, you know?
Perhaps terrified by their comrade's gruesome shattering, the banshees tried to retreat—but I didn't allow it.
"Aww, where do you think you're going, you hags?♡ Scared to show off those wrinkly folds, so you're running away?♡ Pffht♡ Sorry~?♡ It's just that I'm prettier than you ugly old crones♡"
You're EXP piñatas—where do you get off running?!
Sit still and be my warm-up dummies, THEN die!