Ch.3030. Raising the Protagonist

# The Academy’s personnel have significant differences in rank.

Basically, they’re divided into three categories: lower class, middle class, and upper class. Since the Academy is a four-year institution, there are effectively 12 different divisions overall.

Among these, excluding first-year students who haven’t received proper education yet, who would be at the bottom of the hierarchy?

-Second-year lower class

-Third-year lower class

-Fourth-year lower class

That’s how it ends up.

In terms of actual skill, they wouldn’t be completely outmatched by lower-grade juniors since they’ve received more education. For example, an average fourth-year lower class student might be comparable to a second-year middle class student.

But well… it’s rather ridiculous that fourth-years are being compared to second-years in the first place.

Yes, ridiculous people. That’s what the lower class was.

A graveyard for the untalented. The Academy’s trash bin. That’s what they were called.

But it’s not strange that they’re called that, since the Academy’s student distribution isn’t shaped like a pyramid. It’s more of a diamond shape, with fewer students in the upper and lower classes, and the majority in the middle class.

In terms of percentages, it might be 10% upper class, 65% middle class, and 25% lower class.

As a result, an atmosphere developed where the upper class was admired and the lower class was despised.

So then, how are first-year lower class students—the least skilled of all—treated?

Well… surprisingly well.

So many gems have been discovered there that many people watch their growth with interest.

You could consider it a protection period for new users. But once you remove the “newbie” tag and become a second-year lower class student, there’s no mercy.

In the actual game, if you failed to escape the lower class and advanced to second year, the game difficulty increased vertically.

Even if you perfectly cleared the main story, you’d likely get a bad ending.

Your reputation would plummet, cutting the number of available quests in half.

And after struggling to find and complete those halved quests, the rewards would be halved again…

On top of that, all sorts of interference events would occur randomly, making time management impossible. It was beyond what could simply be described as “difficult.”

This was so awful that there was an achievement for escaping the lower class after advancing to second year, and the completion rate was less than 0.01%.

I did achieve it, but thinking about how many attempts it took, it’s an achievement condition I never want to try again.

If you couldn’t escape the lower class in your first year? It’s better for your mental health to delete your save and start over.

…Why am I suddenly talking about this?

“Artes.”

“Who… Oh, you’re… Ludion?”

“Shouldn’t you be training right now?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I’ve already attended all the lectures.”

“That’s not what I mean. Don’t you do any personal training?”

“Training? Never done it. Don’t plan to either.”

The protagonist seems to be one step away from becoming a disaster.

I ran into Artes completely by chance.

After Lilith’s training ended. Normally, I would have been dragged around by Celia until evening, but since Alkine had witnessed her skills and took her away to talk, I was able to enjoy some rare free time alone.

But I had nothing particular to do, so I was heading back to the dormitory to get some rest when I spotted a familiar face. Someone sitting on a bench, staring blankly at the sky.

Artes.

A tall man with striking looks, befitting a protagonist. His flaming red hair and golden eyes commanded attention even as he was just lounging on a bench.

He is… simply put, a hero.

Not because he’s the protagonist or because he’s handsome, but because he later unlocks the hero trait and becomes a genuine hero.

I hadn’t run into him for a month so I’d forgotten about him, but seeing him now made me happy enough to approach him.

‘Why is he so thin?’

Contrary to my expectation that he would have built up plenty of muscle by now, his physique was no different from when I first saw him at the entrance exam. No, if anything, he seemed to have lost weight, as if he hadn’t been eating properly.

Curious about his appearance, I spoke to him and received a shocking answer.

“Training? Never done it. Don’t plan to either.”

…Something seemed to have gone terribly wrong without my knowledge.

Normally, just by following the story, he should have developed enough specs to advance to the middle class by midterms.

Could it be that without Reina, his growth episodes disappeared?

I was aware that my appearance had somewhat twisted the protagonist’s growth path… but I didn’t know it had twisted to this extent.

I thought he would grow on his own even if left alone.

After all, he possesses the overpowered trait “The One Who Advances.”

The One Who Advances. A simple but powerful trait that fixes the growth requirements for all abilities.

In other words, requirements that would normally increase like 100, 300, 500… would remain fixed at 100.

It’s truly a contrasting trait to mine, where the abilities themselves are fixed rather than the growth requirements.

…I suddenly feel deprived. Is this how Lilith felt when she saw Celia’s magic? I should treat her to not just one meal, but three.

Anyway, the fact that he remained in this state despite having such a trait confirmed that his growth episodes had disappeared.

“Why are you suddenly acting friendly? What business does someone from the upper class have with someone like me?”

This damn protagonist. He doesn’t even realize I’m worried about him and just grumbles.

But strangely, it doesn’t feel unpleasant. He radiates some kind of friendly aura.

It might just be that I have an internal familiarity with Artes as a character, but even accounting for that, he gave off the feeling of a friend I’d known for a long time.

Is this the secret to being able to talk to any NPC in the game?

Well, that aside… in this situation, there’s only one thing for me to do.

I’ll have to train him myself.

“Hey, Artes. Are you free right now?”

“I don’t have anything particular to do.”

Of course. That’s why he was sprawled out here staring at the sky.

“You’re going to get special training until dinner time.”

“What are you… I don’t really want special training…”

“I’ll buy you dinner when we’re done.”

“…Well, if that’s the case.”

As expected, he seemed to be in a tight spot financially, as he immediately followed when I mentioned buying him food. He seemed to have inherited the gamer’s trait of accepting first as long as there’s a reward.

Sigh… I thought he would grow on his own and neglected him, resulting in this situation, but I can fix it from now on.

It’s definitely annoying. This happened right after I finished training Lilith.

But I felt sorry since it seemed to have happened because of my interference, and it would be troublesome for the later storyline if the hero wasn’t around, so I had no choice.

Still, since he’s the protagonist and has such a cheat trait, if I just help him enough to advance to the middle class by the midterm exams, he should do well on his own from then on.

First, I should let him taste the satisfaction of ability growth.

Ding!

As I was thinking this while walking, the messenger in my bag suddenly rang.

I usually kept the alarm off, but after Celia complained about why I wasn’t reading her messages, I decided to keep it on.

Besides, hardly anyone else sends me messages.

This time, too, it was a message from Celia.

[Celia: I finished talking with Alkine.]

[Celia: Where are you?]

It seemed the conversation had ended sooner than I expected.

Since we weren’t far from where we had initially dispersed, we agreed to meet there again.

“Ludion. Who’s that person next to you?”

“Gasp, it’s the princess!”

And thus, Celia and Artes’ first meeting was established.

Originally, they would have first met around the middle of the second semester when an incident occurred… but I suppose it doesn’t matter much if they meet here.

I answered Celia’s question.

“This is Artes from the lower class. I’m going to help him for a while.”

“Lower class? Why would you help someone like that?”

Don’t say it like that, Celia… He may be just a lower class student now, but he’ll eventually defeat the Demon King.

However, since saying that would be a spoiler, I gave a vague answer.

“Well, I think he could grow quickly with a little effort?”

“Ludion, you’re not the type to take interest in others like this.”

“That’s true, but…”

“Hmm…”

As my voice trailed off, Celia looked Artes up and down with half-closed eyes, then muttered in a small voice.

“…Well, I’ll let it slide this time since it’s a man.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. Can I come along and watch?”

“You’ll follow even if I say no.”

“Of course.”

Right. Do as you please, Your Highness. We’re not going to do anything special anyway.

And so, Artes’ training began.

That training was… 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10km run.

I’ll make him do this every day with food as bait.

“What kind of training is this? You’re just making him exercise by himself.”

Celia complained as if it was ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it.

This is the only training method I know.