A Powerful Entrance! (3) — An Unexpected Encounter with the Protagonist
I had accidentally run into the protagonist. The main character of Academy's Savior, that is.
Academy's Savior supported such extensive customization that you could even change the protagonist’s gender and abilities. Because of how massive the game was, finding the main character was practically impossible. With only a few fixed details—his age, East Asian origin, and the fact that he hadn’t awakened any traits yet—I had searched every suspicious area I could think of. It had been hopeless.
After getting zero results from my search, I even started to wonder if the protagonist didn’t exist at all. Maybe my actions over the past five years had directly or indirectly affected his existence. Or maybe he had never been part of this world to begin with.
But here he was. Default male character with the default voice. Had this guy just spammed ‘Yes’ during character creation and gotten sucked straight into the game?
Still, meeting someone from the same homeland in a strange new world felt surprisingly nice. I wanted to talk, but first we needed to get a little closer.
Luckily, it looked like the protagonist had finally finished throwing his tantrum. He was sitting in a pose that made him look like a charred white statue.
“Ahem… Nice weather we’re having today, isn’t it?”
The man remained frozen like a plaster sculpture and gave no reply.
“You look like a new student. I’m starting today too.”
“I saw you running from far away earlier. Do you live pretty far? I actually live nearby. You should probably get a dorm room or find a studio apartment close by.”
“What grade of gates have you been checking out? Oh, right. It’s hard to enter gates before you enroll in the academy.”
He wasn’t unconscious, but it seemed like his mind had completely checked out. In that case, it was time for shock therapy.
I closed the distance in an instant and whispered directly into his ear.
“Are you a possessor, by any chance?”
His eyes snapped wide open as he stared at me.
“What possessor…? What are you talking about?”
From my perspective, every movement, every word, every expression was painfully awkward. He was like a flea trying to jump out of Buddha’s palm, a rat trapped in a jar.
I grinned and whispered again.
“You know Academy's Savior, don’t you?”
Clatter!
The chair shook violently. The sudden force had half-pulled the screws that anchored it to the floor. His eyes sharpened with clear wariness. Our sudden movements had created distance between us.
He looked like a close-combat specialist, yet he hadn’t immediately launched a surprise attack. Instead, he gave us space. What a deliciously fresh newbie.
“Are you planning to interrogate me after poisoning me? Either way, I have no reason to answer you!”
He scowled and dropped into a combat stance. The way his energy was circulating, it looked like he might charge at any second. One wrong move and this would turn into a real fight.
As a fellow person from the same world, I had no desire for bloodshed. Besides, I had even given him a gift by accident.
“You gulped down that precious Divine Ichor and you’re calling it poison? Come on… I went out of my way to be nice to a newbie and this is how you treat me? Thanks to you, I feel completely refreshed now, you know?”
Only then did the protagonist seem to realize that the fatigue in his body had vanished. Even so, he didn’t lower his guard. A proper villain knows how to use both the carrot and the stick. The fact that he hadn’t relaxed after just the carrot earned him five bonus points!
“Still, you’re not calling for help? I guess you’re curious, huh?”
No answer.
“I’m a possessor too. A victim of possession, actually. I was living a decent life when I got dragged into this world. You’re probably in a similar situation, right?”
The atmosphere had softened somewhat, but the protagonist still refused to drop his defenses.
“A possessor? Even if you are one, how do you plan to prove it?”
Fortunately, I had already prepared a way to prove I was a possessor.
I clapped my hands lightly.
“Then let’s do this. You ask me questions about my previous life. If I answer correctly, that should be enough proof, right?”
“If you just answer them yourself…”
“If I’m the one asking and answering, it could be a trap where I gathered information from somewhere else, couldn’t it? If you thought that was possible, why bother being cautious in the first place?”
He made a face like he’d been hit. A suspicious person pretending to be a possessor could easily have gathered some information about Earth.
After thinking for a moment, he made an unexpected suggestion.
“Then we’ll take turns asking questions, and after counting to three, we’ll answer at the same time. It doesn’t feel fair if I’m the only one listening.”
Fair? I almost laughed out loud at a word I hadn’t heard in a long time.
“Sure~ Then you ask first.”
The protagonist—now resembling Rodin’s Thinker—sat back down, rested his chin on his hand, and thought hard before speaking.
“National game.”
Oh, that was pretty sharp. He was probably aiming at the fact that copyright issues in this game world prevented using the exact same names. Copyrighted titles here usually had one or two screws loose compared to their real-world counterparts.
One. Two. Three.
“Legend of Legend.”
“Battle of Round.”
“What?”
“What? Battle of Round? That shooter game? That one gets crushed in PC bang rankings!”
“Then what about Legend of Legend? You grind ranks while stressed out of your mind only to lose because of your team. Does that really deserve the title of national game?”
My brow furrowed. Still, as the old veteran here, I had to endure.
“Let’s just move on to the next question. Greatest overseas soccer player.”
One. Two. Three.
“Messi.”
“Honnilda.”
“Huh… Messi? Are you serious?”
“What? There are still Honnilda fans left?”
Best ramen?: Buldak Carbonara! / King Ramen spicy flavor.
Dipping or pouring sauce?: Pouring, obviously. / Dipping. Must be dipping.
Black bean noodles or spicy seafood?: Black bean. The spicy broth is just a bonus. / It has to be spicy seafood. The broth is…
Pineapple on pizza?: It’s delicious. / I’ll allow it if the crust is baked crispy.
Mint chocolate?: It’s really good. / That’s toothpaste…
“Whaaat?”
“Is this right? Is this even real?”
“Who the hell shortens ‘Ulala’ like that?!”
This guy was hopeless. I had tried to be nice because he was a newbie, but he was just a terrible person. Luckily, I had one item in my inventory that could turn even a worthless human into a decent one.
I took it out… and then let out a long breath. This was getting too far. If I kept going, it would turn into a UFC match. I took a deep breath to calm myself.
“I think we’ve proven enough, so let me ask. How many years have you been in this world? I’ve been here for five years.”
“A little under a year. I was walking down the street at night when the ground suddenly gave way and I ended up here.”
“Have you been managing your stats well? You prepared for the difficulty to ramp up hard, right?”
“Stats? Difficulty? Was there anything like that in the original novel?”
Huh…? Novel?
“Novel? Not a game? Academy's Savior is a game, isn’t it?”
“What are you talking about? It’s obviously a novel. I read it all the way to the final chapter, wrote a 5,700-character review, sent it to the author, and got sent here.”
“I was playing the game, a message popped up saying I had unlocked a special route, and then I fell into this world?”
“What?”
“Huh?”
This was way beyond anything I had expected.
“Let’s set our origins aside. We’re definitely in the same story’s world, right?”
“I’ve lived here for five years and confirmed it thoroughly. What about you?”
“I’m a bit suspicious. I got possessed, but the world seems way too normal. It should have been a much darker, more depressing setting…”
“Ah, that’s because I put in some work. Ehehe.”
Normalizing the isekai world? Someone had already finished the job. And that someone was me.
“People always say that possessors’ knowledge of the future is their trump card, right?”
“Exactly. That’s why most of us avoid changing the future too much…”
That was true. Most possessors used their knowledge passively, afraid that changing the future would invalidate their precious trump card.
“I used up almost all of my trump card over five years. I kept spending it until I hit the limit.”
But if you used up all those cards and the result was good, wasn’t that fine?
“Then what happened to the possessor hunters?”
“They broke down into small independent cells.”
“What about the dark mages’ secret cults?”
“Now they have to be called by their academic names: necromancy and sacrificial studies.”
I hadn’t just spent five years stacking specs and looking for the protagonist. I had worked hard in my own way to eliminate ‘humanity’s enemies.’
“Still, there are too many new groups and threats to count. If your goal is public service, don’t worry.”
“Looks like I ended up using your trump card too. Don’t worry. I’ll carry you.”
Pfft.
When I put on a cocky expression, the protagonist’s face flushed red as his previously subsided anger flared up again.
“Hmph. I don’t need any future foresight or whatever. I’m plenty strong without it.”
Still, it seemed he had regained some composure. He shook it off and answered.
“My head already hurts from everything that happened today, so let’s talk about the details later. So… your name is…?”
“It’s clearly written on my name tag. Do I really have to say it out loud?”
I emphasized the name tag on my uniform with the edge of my hand.
“No, even if it’s late, shouldn’t we at least introduce ourselves properly?”
“Do we really have to?”
“Of course. It’s basic courtesy, and honestly, it’s more romantic that way, isn’t it?”
Romantic? As I wondered about that, the protagonist answered before I could think further.
“Then I’ll go first. I’m Kim Si-woo. My previous name was Shin Do-yoon. Nice to meet you.”
A name. It really had been a long time since I last thought about it.
“Yes… My name is Lee Haneul. Both in my previous life and this one, it’s Haneul.”