A Saintess's Transparent Body: Fixing It Was Just the Beginning (Part 1)
In the game, the simplest and easiest way to fix a transparent bug was to log out and log back in.
But this place wasn't a virtual space. There was no logout.
That's why I had to rewrite Astoria's body so the world would see her again.
"Among monsters, there's something called a doppelganger. It hunts by pretending to be dead and luring prey with its imitation."
Oner Dreamwalker, the teacher of the Magic Class, was lecturing while hugging a huge pillow and yawning.
"It's a rare case, but even humans do it—imitating dead parents or lovers to get close. Haaam. You have to be careful."
"Teacher Oner, this is the Magic Class lesson, right?"
"Huh? Ah, my mind's all messed up. I kept dozing off and mixed up the times."
In the original lesson, Oner would have been teaching about magic and runes, but now he was telling us about monsters.
Probably narcolepsy.
The way he kept drifting off seemed completely at odds with the title "Sage."
"Let me see. What do you all want to learn today?"
"...I want to learn about runes."
The moment Oner asked the other students what they wanted, I raised my hand first.
Runes
In Fantasia Island, they appeared every three months to let players create personal builds.
They could cause storms around you when you cast electric magic, or create shields when you swung your sword.
They weren't tied to equipment or items. They could completely change how you fought.
"Runes? That's pretty difficult. Even if I teach you, can you understand?"
"I've read related knowledge in the library at the estate since I was young. Basic interpretation and combinations are possible."
Among them, the real value of runes lay in special combinations.
"Hmm. Then come up here and try combining the runes I wrote on the board."
Oner looked at me with a slightly suspicious gaze, then set the rune-etched stones down in front of the platform and spoke.
He must have noticed I wasn't an ordinary person after seeing my overwhelming sword strike that dominated even the crown prince.
"The runes here are divided into ice, fire, and electric magic."
I slowly examined the stones and muttered.
Even standardized builds could have some tweaks to avoid conflicts in the rune system.
I had confirmed multiple times that I wasn't mixing runes that would cancel each other out, then began attaching them.
"First, when electric magic hits, I'll put the rune that spreads three branches of sparks in the front."
"Oh? Then what next?"
"If you're electrocuted, I'll mix in the freeze rune to lock you in place... and then the rune that makes lightning strike the spot where the magic lands."
"......What?"
"Finally, to make this chain keep looping, I'll put the repeat rune at the beginning and end."
I inserted the completed rune combination into a wooden board and spoke.
This was the discharge build I used to farm weak enemies and raid high-difficulty content in Fantasia Island.
It didn't do much damage to bosses or elite monsters, but it was a guaranteed way to one-shot weak ones.
"Even enemies with electric resistance would melt from lightning...?"
"Yes, but it won't pierce immune skin or scales. It's perfect for wiping out weak fry all at once."
"...Who exactly are you?"
Oner, who had been floating in the air hugging the pillow like he was napping, came down to the ground after hearing my explanation.
His face was terrifying as he glared at me.
"I've been interested in these things since I was young. I just thought about them myself."
"I heard the third son of the Baskerville family stays hidden in the estate... Yet even the Sage doesn't know this? How do you know?"
"I was lucky. I got hints from eastern books."
I instantly thought of an excuse.
From a young age, I'd stayed hidden at home to avoid the heroine Alice and had read a lot of books.
I knew that in romance fantasy novels, the world was slightly different, so knowing something was the only advantage I had.
Actually, I'd adjusted my rune build by referencing game community posts, so it wasn't entirely wrong.
"...Then what about the sword strike from before? That definitely wasn't magic."
"Good instincts."
"Not just instincts. I can tell by looking at you. You're sealing mana in your body and turning it into aura, right?"
Ugh. As the Magic Class teacher, his senses were terrifyingly sharp.
Right now, I was using the exact habit from Fantasia Island—sealing mana to turn it into aura.
It was a little cheat, but it made me much better at handling a sword than casting magic.
"Is the Baskerville family raising monsters? Even if your territory is small compared to other nobles, you're one of the Empire's swords."
"You have to hone it so it can be used at any time."
"That's ridiculous. You can't even call someone like you a sword. Earlier, the crown prince couldn't even beat you."
Oner looked completely fed up and stuck out his tongue.
By training against the crown prince Shaint to clear suspicions of colluding with the Holy Kingdom of Valentia, had he really been trying his best with a handshake?
Now every student in the classroom was staring at me with different eyes, and all attention was focused on me.
Among them, a pair of eyes that couldn't be ignored.
"Why is that kind of guy first...!"
It was Alice, munching on a handkerchief in the typical romance fantasy way, venting her frustration.
Probably in the original story she would have shown off her magic talent here.
And the male leads—crown prince, northern duke, knight captain—would have taken interest in her.
'If her mana sensitivity caused her to go wild and the magic broom went berserk, that makes sense...'
Through Oner's mouth, it could even prove that I wasn't a normal civilian, just like the way she looked through me.
...I didn't know most of the original story's plot, but the cliches in ordinary romance fantasy were like that.
'Actually in Fantasia Island, even without glitches, being strong and good at magic was a mage class. That part was believable.'
In the end, all of it was to make the heroine Alice stand out by using relatively weak, idiotic supporting characters.
Actually, I thought dukes and counts had the highest status, but I learned that reality was different from the novel.
In the end, everything was decided by the size of your territory or power, so even barons like us had weak families.
In the end, in a world with no guard dogs, no demon kings, no heroes—anything could be used as a substitute and discarded at any time.
***
After the Magic Class lesson ended, I secretly took the rune-etched stones with me.
"Saintess, could you come to the training ground for a moment?"
"Yes? What's the matter?"
"Please follow me. It's an experiment that might succeed or fail."
In Fantasia Island, certain places were off-limits for using runes.
The most representative was PVP—when fighting someone else, runes would lock and deactivate.
But there was a glitch that could be used right here.
It was a bug where you could combine a powerful rune that could only be created once with a duplication that allowed repeated combinations.
"Why suddenly came to the swordsmanship training ground?"
"I remembered a way to fix the transparent bug on your body. I wanted to test it."
"What? You said you didn't know how before..."
Luckily, it was the first day of Grancia Academy, so no one else was at the swordsmanship training ground except me and the Saintess.
Since my glitch had a high risk of error, if anyone was watching it would be a problem.
"My body is currently using mana converted to aura."
"Indeed, Teacher Oner said that. You have well-developed muscles and firm hands... so it's not wrong."
gulp.
The sound of swallowing echoed, and the Saintess's veil fluttered slightly.
Perhaps it was fortunate that her face was transparent and invisible.
It felt a little strange, as if something was fixating on me.
"Then, why does that have anything to do with why my body is transparent?"
"...I'm going to cause trouble for this world. I'll make your body visible again using that method."
It was a slightly embarrassing thing to say, but explaining it was enough—using the rune glitch to break the game engine.
If I called it a bug, glitch, or game, no one in this world would believe it.
"Really? That's possible...?"
"I think it's worth trying."
I took out several large mana-runed stones and began attaching them.
These runes were locked and inactive. Plus, they could only be used alone.
"Why use useless runes? The training ground inside deactivates them anyway."
"That's exactly why I can combine them."
I combined as many mana-giving runes as possible in a setup only the Saintess could see.
"Right now, when I pour mana into my body, I can convert it to aura in proportion."
I put the completed runes in a leather pouch, then walked to the edge of the swordsmanship training ground.
That way—the runes would activate and the pre-combined ones wouldn't deactivate.
"Practice dummies won't break no matter how much I hit them. I'll use those with the runes."
This was going to massively inflate the damage and turn this game world off and on once.