Episode 28. Plan (2)

“It’s been a while, everyone.”

Standing on the podium was Dr. Kang Hyorin, known as the genius of dungeon and monster research.

It was the first time seeing her face since she disappeared last time, citing an urgent matter.

“Something unfortunate happened in my family… so I’m only now able to return to teaching.”

Dr. Kang Hyorin must have had a really tough time, as dark circles stretched long beneath her eyes.

“But let’s push forward with the lesson! The pop quiz from last time hasn’t been graded yet, so today we’ll be doing Strategic Chess.”

“Ahhh….”

A sigh spread among the cadets.

Strategic Chess was a complex practical exercise that the cadets disliked just as much.

“Alright, the Strategic Chess I’ve been waiting for!”

“…?”

Since we became part of the same club, I’ve gotten closer to Lucy and Lumi. Not right next to me, but Lucy and Lumi were sitting side-by-side in the seats in front of me, and I was sitting alone right behind them.

I couldn’t see their faces, but the subtle, sweet scent of the twins wafting during class made it impossible to concentrate.

The reason I questioned Lucy’s words was because Lucy isn’t exactly the studious type.

Not all mages are good at studying. There are parts like magic circles that require rote memorization, but for the most part, mages tend to rely on talent.

Lucy’s usual reaction during theory classes was ‘Ughhh!’ while clutching her head, so why was she so confident now?

Especially for Strategic Chess, which is notoriously difficult.

The hologram monitor attached to my personal desk lit up, forming a chessboard-like field.

‘Wow, it’s been a while. Seriously.’

Strategic Chess. It’s one of Victoria Academy’s practical exercises. It’s a game-like system where I become the commander and lead an assault team to clear dungeons.

I used to think, ‘I wish games were exams~’ a lot back when I was a student, but games are only fun when you play them as games.

If you couldn’t get into a good university because you were bad at games, or if you got nagged by your mom for being bad at games, you might find yourself saying, ‘Ah, I wish I could just study instead of playing games.’

This Strategic Chess is no different.

It’s a turn-based game like chess, where you win by defeating all the enemy monsters while moving your team members one by one.

Strategic Chess had a notorious reputation even in the original game.

Strategic Chess has three elements.

The dungeon, which serves as the background.

The monsters, playing the role of the opponent.

And the assault team that I control.

All three have over 50 patterns and cycle randomly.

The difficulty ranges from Easy to Extreme.

Perhaps because it’s the first time, she’ll likely give an easy problem, but knowing Dr. Kang Hyorin, who seemed to enjoy students’ suffering by giving an Extreme-difficulty pop quiz last time, I couldn’t be sure.

“Alright, let’s begin the practical exercise~.”

As soon as Kang Hyorin spoke, the hologram in front of my eyes began to change.

My dungeon was [Jungle], the opponent was [2 Banana Blood Monkeys], and my assault team was a combination of [10 Melee Warriors, 5 Curse Mages, 5 Support Mages].

“What is this?”

It wasn’t a combination with great synergy, but honestly, the difficulty wasn’t high.

Banana Blood Monkeys are boss-type monsters; they’re strong but not very intelligent.

If I put the melee warriors up front and stack curses with the curse mages, I should be able to subdue them with minimal damage.

“What the? This is super easy?”

“Yeah. Right? Maybe the Professor adjusted the difficulty since it’s the first time.”

“Lumi. I’ll show you how it’s done first, so watch carefully, okay?”

“Mm-hmm. Go for it.”

‘Hmm.’

Thinking about the Professor’s face during the last pop quiz, that didn’t seem likely.

Back then, another cadet raised their hand and said.

“Huh? What the! Professor, my assault team members aren’t listening to me!”

Dr. Kang Hyorin grinned as if she had been waiting for this.

“It’s okay. The setting for this problem is that the team members are timid. They won’t follow orders unless the plan seems absolutely safe and risk-free.”

“Y-yes? What do you mean, risk-free plans? Where do those even exist!”

“That’s something you’ll have to figure out.”

“……!”

“Well, it’s meant to test your creativity and leadership, so relax. The important thing isn’t the result, but the process. Try anything~.”

No matter how she put it, it couldn’t help but feel burdensome for the cadets trying to solve it.

“You probably won’t clear it anyway, but for motivation. Cadets who clear it will receive bonus points~.”

Is that something someone trying to motivate others would say?

‘Speaking of which, this is Extreme difficulty?’

Even when playing the original game, minimizing damage to the main force was crucial.

That’s how you get a high score, and that’s how you stay away from expulsion.

Moreover, to pursue the Alice route, I had to beat Alice in exam scores, which made it even more critical.

“Ugh? Why aren’t you listening, guys…?”

The once confident Lucy was now issuing commands to her motionless, stunned team members.

“Aaargh! No, if you charge in there, you can kill them, so why aren’t you charging!”

The other cadets were in the same boat.

Watching the cadets scream and restart from the beginning, Dr. Kang Hyorin sipping her coffee looked slightly terrifying.

No matter how I looked at it, she seemed a bit sadistic.

I slowly analyzed my own problem.

In the damn trashy visual novel ‘Sex Academy’, you had to clear this Strategic Chess at least five times to progress the scenario.

Every time, all the elements changed, making memorization impossible.

However, I had cleared every route, and I had completed this Strategic Chess countless times.

I knew the characteristics of the Banana Blood Monkey like the back of my hand.

Banana Blood Monkeys appear as a couple.

Their staple food is bananas, so they are extremely wary of outsiders who mess with their bananas.

There are young ones in the nest.

However, you must not touch the young.

If the young ones die, the Banana Blood Monkeys go berserk, making them even harder to deal with.

“Ummm… this seems doable.”

After analyzing my assault team and the monsters, I moved my team.

Since they were the type who wouldn’t accept unsafe orders, I had five melee warriors go and attack the banana trees from afar.

At first, they didn’t listen to this order either, so I told one person to cut down just five trees each and then immediately retreat, and only then did they obey and go chop down the trees.

I took the remaining five melee warriors, five support mages, and five curse mages and advanced towards the monkeys’ nest.

Since one support mage could cast shields on three people, the situation was relatively safe.

While quietly hiding and observing the nest, the monkeys rushed out to deal with the intruders attacking the banana trees.

The melee warriors cutting down the trees must have already fled.

While the Banana Blood Monkeys were away from the nest, I took the rest of my forces into the nest and stacked curses on the still-young baby monkeys.

Instead of curses that would harm their lives, I cast highly contagious curses that would paralyze their bodies, then quickly exited the nest and fled.

“Now, run it at 3x speed and it’s over.”

The curses embedded in the baby monkeys would slowly spread to the Banana Blood Monkeys.

Those with excessive maternal instincts would care for their young until their own bodies became paralyzed by the curses.

Then, when that happens, send in the troops to finish them off, and the conquest is complete.

The key to this strategy is patience.

After setting it to 3x speed, you just have to wait.

For over 30 minutes, doing nothing but repeatedly moving to adjacent squares, the monkeys would remain stationary in the nest, slowly becoming contaminated by the curses.

It would take a long time, docking some points, but this was the only way to finish it reliably with no casualties.

“Aaargh!”

Startled by the scream from the front, I looked ahead and saw Lucy groaning, clutching her head with both hands.

“I practiced Strategic Chess all last week! How could this happen to me!”

“….”

“Waaah. It’s all ruined.”

“D-don’t cry, Lucy… It’ll be okay.”

While they were having their dramatic scene up front, my assault team members decapitated the monkeys who couldn’t move due to the curses.

Yeah-

The words ‘Victory!’ appeared on my hologram, and Strategic Chess ended.

“Huh? Someone already cleared it?”

Dr. Kang Hyorin said, sounding surprised.

The other cadets also looked towards me with awe.

“Tch. A promise is a promise. That’s 1 bonus point.”

Dr. Kang Hyorin said, licking her lips as if disappointed.

I stood still, feeling a bit embarrassed for no reason, when Lucy, who had been pretending to cry while face down, suddenly whipped her head around.

And she widened her eyes upon seeing the ‘Victory!’ message floating before me.

“H-how!”

“I got lucky. It was an easy problem.”

It was a problem that could be easily solved if you just knew the characteristics of the Banana Blood Monkey. Of course, knowing the characteristic that they keep hugging their young even if they get hurt wouldn’t be easy.

“Give me some tips too… Ah, no. Now’s not the time. Let’s work harder!”

Lucy, who had been asking me for tips, flinched when her eyes met Dr. Kang Hyorin’s, then turned back forward, igniting her passion.

30 minutes later.

“It’s not working! It’s just not working! Who made this thing!”

Waaah-

Watching Lucy crying face down again, I thought.

‘Thankfully, her character trait of being bad at studying hasn’t changed.’

*

After school, Lucy headed to the clubroom for the ‘Let’s Play’ club.

Today, I had told Lee Hoyeon to definitely come so we could recruit new members.

– Sorry, I have something urgent to do today. I’ll head over after I finish it.

He said this and quickly ran back to the dorm.

Lumi said she was out of cookies and was going to buy some from the bakery.

“Aaaah, I’m bored.”

Lucy was naturally active and loved to be on the move.

So she created a club, but since no one came, she was thrilled when she heard new members were joining.

Knock knock knock

“Yes~ Who is it?”

“Um, it’s Felix.”

“Ah! I’ll open it right now!”

When Lucy opened the door, a platinum-haired boy with innocent eyes stood there.

“Not everyone’s here yet, let’s sit and wait.”

“Y-yes.”

Felix seemed uncomfortable in the place, darting his eyes around before cautiously sitting on the sofa.

Lucy, who was very sociable, took good care of the timid Felix while they chatted.

“Yep, yep, our club consists of a boy named Lee Hoyeon, my sister Lumi, and me.”

“Are you perhaps talking about Lee Hoyeon… the one from the Student Council’s Public Relations department?”

“That’s right. Our club has members who are student council officers.”

Puffing up her chest. It wasn’t much, but Lucy, the founding club president, felt proud.

“Ah, I see… So that’s why no one joins the club… cough.”

“What was that?”

“Ah, it’s nothing.”

“No, I definitely heard you, so say it again. Do you know why people don’t join our club?”

Lucy looked at Felix with a seriousness unusual for her.

Felix lowered his head as if he had made a mistake and let out a sigh.

“You absolutely must keep what I’m about to say a secret.”

“Okay. Don’t worry. What is it?”

“Actually… there are a lot of bad rumors about that Lee Hoyeon person.”

“… Bad rumors?”

“First off, the most famous ones are about his relationships with women. There are many rumors involving the Student Council President, Professor Im Sol, and even Alice from Public Relations.”

“….”

“And there are rumors about him being seen going to a motel with a classmate.”

Lucy didn’t judge people based on rumors. She was the type to only believe what she saw with her own eyes.

The Lee Hoyeon she had seen, though their connection started with a misunderstanding, was a kind and diligent student.

But that initial misunderstanding.

What if the incident where he touched Lucy’s chest wasn’t an accident?

“It’s true… come to think of it, Lee Hoyeon is almost always surrounded by women.”

Lucy has male friends too, but I’ve never seen Lee Hoyeon talk to any guy except for one male cadet named Kim Young-han.

“Right? I think that’s why female cadets don’t join.”

“… Maybe so.”

Since creating the club, many guys had approached them drawn by Lucy and Lumi’s looks, but no female cadet had ever expressed interest in joining.

“Well, none of it is confirmed, of course. It’s just that such rumors exist. Still, being in the same club as you, Miss Lucy, I hope it’s all just baseless gossip.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Felix smiled at Lucy, saying things that would make Lee Hoyeon curse him out if he heard them.

Ting-

Just then, an alarm notification arrived on Lucy’s smartwatch.

“I had no idea there were such rumors… Anyway, Lumi and Lee Hoyeon are both coming, so wait here! I’m going to go meet them.”

“Okay.”

Lucy quickly left the clubroom, and Felix, left alone in the room, wiped the smile off his face and frowned.

“From the looks of it, they don’t seem to be dating….”

Felix, who had assumed Lucy and Lee Hoyeon were at least romantically involved, if not dating, had spread fabricated rumors himself to drive them apart, delivering them directly to Lucy.

However, contrary to his expectations, they were just friends, so Lucy didn’t undergo any drastic changes.

Felix smacked his lips and took a sip of the drink on the table.

“There’s still plenty of time, so I’ll have to take it slow.”

Lucy.

She was the woman Felix, a mind-reader, fell in love with at first sight.

She was the one who made him do dangerous things like infiltrating the academy.

Being here now was also quite risky, but if he could have her charming face and voluptuous body, that level of risk didn’t matter.

Thump thump thump

Just then, footsteps were heard from outside.

Felix returned to his innocent facade, put down his drink, and sat tensely on the sofa.

“Oh, it’s clean now?”

Lee Hoyeon said, looking around the clubroom.

“You’d be surprised if you knew how hard Lumi and I cleaned. Heh heh.”

“You worked hard. You should have contacted me to help.”

“But Lumi absolutely refused, what could I do~.”

“But… without you, Hoyeon-ssi, our club wouldn’t even exist….”

“Aww. It’s putting me on the spot now, so you don’t have to say that anymore.”

They engaged in intimate conversation naturally right after he walked in.

Despite spreading fabricated rumors, nothing seemed different.

Felix felt like his insides were churning, but he endured it and looked towards them.

“Ah, right! We’re trying to recruit new members this time, so I called you to ask your opinion too. What do you think? Doesn’t he seem nice?”

Lucy introduced Felix to Lee Hoyeon.

Lee Hoyeon and Felix acknowledged each other for the first time.

They made eye contact, and Lee Hoyeon smiled broadly.

Seeing that, Lucy expected him to say something positive, but what came out of Lee Hoyeon’s mouth was completely unexpected.

“No thanks.”