Misaligned Bonds (6)
The day after I'd caught a nap in an empty classroom.
In the end, that day had come.
The finale of the first scheduled episode: the cartel purge.
"Whew… Maybe this is for the best."
Every episode in Four Crowns boasted such absurd difficulty that I could never afford to let my guard down. But I couldn't keep obsessing over Novena and Hino forever, either — living only for thoughts of those two.
Maybe that was why the tension got to me. Unlike usual, even while washing my face like a cat in the bathroom, I found myself staring blankly into the mirror, lost in thought for longer and longer stretches.
And then—
"Aaaah—"
I'd thought it a dozen times already, but damn. What a perfect face.
Heh.
Whether it was the transmigration effect or simply the thorough scrubbing I'd gotten at Hino's mansion the day before yesterday, the reflection staring back at me didn't look dirty or shabby at all. If anything, my skin was so smooth it practically gleamed — the kind of face anyone would envy.
Is this… the privilege of being a fantasy-world beauty?
"Uhuuhu, I'm not exactly hard on the eyes myself, you know?"
My mood lifted for no good reason, and as I grinned, the woman in the mirror smiled back just as beautifully.
Right!
With looks like these, it'd be weirder if I couldn't charm a few girls. So let's try a little harder!
Once this episode was over, the second one would take place inside the Academy. That was where I'd get my chance to raise affinity with Novena and the other heroines.
Maybe it was thanks to Seria sticking with me yesterday. The tension and pressure were still there, but something like confidence had started to swell — the feeling that I could actually pull this off.
I cleaned the classroom, erasing every trace that I'd spent the night there, then tucked my meager arsenal — a handgun and a dagger — into my clothes. No point wasting any more time. I headed for the central plaza where the assembly was scheduled.
"Tch, come on, at least give us Saturday off."
"This job is absolute garbage…"
Even at this early hour, students thronged toward the plaza in noisy clusters. Looking around, I seemed to be the only one walking alone, cut off from every group.
"Haa."
I miss Novena.
I miss Hino too.
And Seria…
Do I… miss her…?
Mm. Maybe I do?
Whatever the case, what I had to do hadn't changed. All I could do was try to save the heroines.
I'd drawn on every memory of grinding through Four Crowns countless times and built a thorough plan tailored to my current situation. If I rewound a few saves and retried as needed, clearing the first episode shouldn't be that hard.
So stay tense — but don't let the tension crush you…
"Whoa, hey. Look at that. What the hell is that?"
"Tch. Guess the Academy's finally starting to go to shit."
Hm?
I'd been walking with my head down, hoping not to draw attention from the other students, when those uneasy voices drifted over from nearby. Whether it was herd instinct or simple curiosity, I lifted my head without thinking and checked my surroundings.
"…Huh…?"
And beyond them, I saw the horror.
"Looking at the state of it, someone did that on purpose."
"A warning from the cartels, maybe?"
It was a scene I'd never seen in the game. A massacre so grotesque I could barely stand to look.
"Hhk! Hnnngh…?!"
I tried edging backward. Even so, my head, my eyes, felt locked in place — I couldn't look away.
"Urgh—! Uweeeegh—!!"
Only when the physiological reaction hit and I vomited did I finally tear my gaze free.
Stomach acid spattered from my mouth. I'd barely eaten anything, so my gut was empty — empty enough that I could feel the shape of my stomach itself, a raw, stinging burn.
"Haa… haa…"
What I'd seen wouldn't leave me.
A male student who looked a little older, dressed in a sloppy Academy uniform. His head had been torn free of his torso and hung dangling from the neck bones and spine — as if some ogre-sized monster had ripped the whole skull clean off in one go.
"…Urgh."
I'd never seen a corpse that mangled. Since transmigrating into this world, I'd watched crowds die en masse in the plaza more than once — but those had been the deaths of nameless masses, temporary disasters I could always rewind by my own will. In the end, not a single person had actually stayed dead; they'd all scattered alive. That was how I'd managed to bury those situations deep inside, the ones where I'd had to die over and over.
But this…
A death somewhere I didn't know. A situation I couldn't control. I had no idea when or how that man had died, so there was no way I could reverse it with my power.
Maybe that was why the shock hit so much harder.
What if it hadn't been that man hanging up there — what if it had been Novena, or one of the other heroines?
"God, fucking disgusting."
Students clicked their tongues and steered clear of me as I heaved again and again, as if I were the repulsive one. Apparently a stranger's head dangling over their own mattered less than my vomit.
Something about this world was broken at the root.
Everyone was insane. Or maybe I was the only one who'd lost it.
"Haha… ha…"
So I got to my feet. I didn't spare another glance at the head swinging overhead, acting as if nothing were wrong. I licked the sour acid from my lips, spat onto the ground, rubbed my reddened eyes to hide them, and joined the crowd in the plaza as if nothing had happened.
Forget it.
Not my problem, right?
I can laugh it off just like them.
As long as I have the heroines, that's enough.
Naturally enough, most of the students gathered in the plaza were trading shallow, casual talk about the unidentified corpse. Things like:
"I'm telling you, a troll that was living under the Academy broke out and did it."
"Tsk tsk, are you stupid? If it was a troll there'd be bite marks. This was definitely the giant anaconda living under the Academy."
The light atmosphere was almost enough to make even me wonder if someone had just staged a prank.
Ah.
Of course, I didn't laugh out loud the way the others did. Ever since arriving at the plaza, I'd locked eyes with several students staring at me with an intensity that was anything but normal.
Why the hell were they doing that?
Their corneas looked so wet it was unnerving — eyes round and wide, never blinking once as they stared. And among them was even the male lead character, the Crown Prince, which did nothing for my mood.
A character who clung obsessively to his own "plans" and never gave a damn about anyone else's opinions. Female players seemed to eat him up as the classic cold-to-everyone-but-warm-to-me type, but I hated the Crown Prince. His self-centered personality rubbed me the wrong way.
It had nothing to do with him being a guy.
Anyway, the reason I stood there enduring those intense stares from the Kingdom students was simple. Somewhere in that crowd, Novena might be mixed in — and I wanted to meet her eyes at least once.
But wherever she'd hidden herself, Novena still showed no trace at all.
"All right, thank you all for gathering."
Assembly time must have arrived; professors filtered in one by one and began restoring order to the plaza. They'd clearly been busy handling the terror attack and prepping this purge operation — every one of them wore dark circles under their eyes. The only person who looked relatively fine was Professor Enyut, same as always.
"You've all seen the corpse on your way here. We'll address that as well. First, attendance — then the briefing."
Over a hundred students packed into this vast plaza. To an outsider, it might have looked like they were mustering for war. Even the roll call, which in the real world would have been waved through with a shrug, was conducted with absolute thoroughness.
Though the process itself was far simpler than reality.
A deep hum rose as blue waves spread out over the students' heads, automatically verifying every identity.
Meanwhile—
"Damn it!!"
"That bastard's a spy! Grab him!"
A handful of fake students and staff who weren't registered in the Academy roster were exposed, subdued, and dragged away. They'd even gone to the trouble of changing their appearances. But this identity magic was registered against every person's blood and hair samples — no ordinary trick could fool it.
Idiots.
Even without knowing magic existed, how had they not considered that an Academy packed with the upper echelons of every empire would have some defenses in place? Or maybe last week's terror attack had filled them with baseless confidence — hey, I could pull that off too — and they'd come charging in.
Either way, the commotion was brief. Neither students nor professors so much as flinched at the appearance of spies. They handled the aftermath as if it were routine, then moved smoothly into explaining the schedule ahead.
Truly remarkable people.
"As most of you have guessed, today's assembly is to suppress the parties suspected of masterminding the Academy terror attack. Two cartels are on the shortlist. We will divide into four teams to raid their strongholds inside and outside the city."
Thankfully, nothing had changed. The professor's explanation matched my predictions exactly.
Alpha Team: purge the stronghold inside the city.
Beta Team: purge the stronghold in the outer forest.
Theta Team: purge the stronghold in the outer mountains.
Omega Team: emergency support and purge assistance.
"Volunteer for whichever team you prefer. However — Omega Team carries a significantly higher risk than the others, so it will be composed of pre-selected personnel."
The professor waved a hand casually, and a blue roster materialized in the air above them.
I swallowed dryly. Whether from the vomiting or the nerves, my throat stung with an unpleasant heat.
Did Seria keep her promise to me?
The following 12 personnel are hereby assigned to Omega Team.
Ah.
I'd been overthinking it after all. Right in the middle of the roster the professor revealed, a single unreadable smear of text — the only one I couldn't make out, and almost certainly my name — had appeared.
Seria had kept her promise. Thanks to her, I'd be able to handle the problems ahead.
But even in a situation that should have been satisfying enough to tug my lips into a smile, I couldn't feel any joy. The Crown Prince and several other Kingdom students had been staring me down for a while now. I'd almost gotten used to their gazes — but after the Omega Team roster was announced, the number of eyes fixed on me only kept growing.
Something felt wrong.
Just knowing that hundreds of students recognized my name and face was enough to make my skin crawl. And most of those stares carried contempt, disgust — outright hostility.
Ah.
Why are they doing this?
I wanted to demand an answer. Why were they so blindly hostile toward me? I wanted to ask Novena and Hino whether I looked that strange to them too.
But there was no need.
"Wow, she's actually standing there like she belongs. Does she have no shame?"
"Guess she doesn't even feel embarrassed. A talentless commoner, and she still keeps putting herself front and center for attention. Must be exhausting."
Murmurs rose on all sides. Even the professors kept their mouths shut and simply watched, while the students around me started trading open gossip — loud enough that I was clearly meant to hear every word.