episode_0005

“…What’s the information on Ain Frostgarm?”

“Once upon a time, Your Highness the Princess.”

As Princess Erpeion heads to the female dormitory, another guard appears besides the two guards who were with her and salutes her.

“As you know, he is the youngest son of the Northern Baron family of Frostgarm. His parents are Baron Frostgarm and his husband Baron Raspberry, and his female siblings are Baron Snowball and Baron Edelweiss.”

“Frostgarm, Raspberry, Snowball, Edelweiss… They are all barons favored by the Northern Counts.”

“Yes. It seems that the four families formed a marriage alliance through the arrangement of the Marquis, so the Marquis’s plan was effective.”

Princess Erpeion nodded without stopping at the guard’s report.

“What about him?”

“Ain Frostgarm, it is said that he was famous in the North for his looks since he was young. He also had a rare talent for healing magic and medicine, and from a young age, he visited the infirmary in the operational area and demonstrated his abilities despite his parents’ dissuasion.”

“…keep going.”

As the princess nodded and spoke, the guard continued his explanation.

“Also, as he moved around the operation area, he often had the opportunity to meet the ‘liberators’, and it is said that he showed a dignified appearance in front of the liberators despite being a young male. Other than that, he is said to have a brilliant mind and a kind personality regardless of gender, and is trusted by everyone in the territory regardless of their status.”

“I see, I know that because I met you today. But you’re not afraid of the Liberator either…”

As she muttered, the princess fell into thought for a moment. I heard that even trained knights would panic half of the time when they encountered the Liberator in their first real battle. She too had felt dizzy when she saw the Liberator, who had been created as an illusion by the wizard as part of her training.

“…What about the female relationship?”

“…Yes, I think this was a joke from a spy…”

Neither the princess nor the guards were speaking for a moment. Even the two guards escorting the princess seemed to be waiting for the next words.

“I stabbed all the females in the northern territory with intact limbs…”

“Ahem!”

The princess coughed loudly as if she was uncomfortable with the guard’s words. As a result, the guard who was relaying the information shrugged his shoulders.

“And… the three young ladies of the Countess of Byung-baek also showed interest.”

“…? Didn’t all of the young ladies of the Baekje Royal Family graduate from the academy, even the youngest?”

“Well, aren’t there many groups where the age difference between the male and female is quite large?”

“I don’t understand. Isn’t that pedophilia?”

When the guard heard the princess’s words, he thought of the age difference between the Empress and the princess’s father, the Third State Councilor, but he quickly erased it from his mind.

“The Marquis of Moratium and the Duchess of Anastasia also showed interest in him right away… Haa.”

The princess, who was sparing no words about the first male she had developed feelings for since birth, sent away the guard who had conveyed the information with a gesture. After a while, the princess left two guards waiting at the entrance to her private room, and with a complicated expression, she went into the room and closed the door.

In Academy Story 2, players are naturally given a private room.

Although it appears to be a background screen when in a private room, and is depicted as a small, cozy room that is not that big, the private room that I saw was not like that at all.

“This is a bit… too big.”

After confirming that my assigned dormitory was room 401 at the entrance of the male dormitory, I climbed the stairs and opened the door. A room that was larger than necessary greeted me, making me wonder if a family of four could comfortably use it, despite its name, “private room.”

“That’s because since the academy was founded, the number of male students admitted has been ridiculously low compared to the size of the dormitory.”

As I was standing there in a daze, with my trunk down at the entrance to my dorm room, I suddenly heard a cute voice behind me.

“…?”

I looked back and saw a male Welsh Corgi smiling brightly. The graphics had changed, but I knew right away who it was.

“Are you the self-made Yeong-sik of Damyeon Lotus Flower?”

“Hey, do you know me?”

Let me pretend to know, Damyeon Jajak Yeong-sik, with his signature Welsh Corgi smile on his face, asks in surprise.

The Lotus Flower is a noble family in the southern part of the Perion Empire, and is famous for being born with the ability to specialize in recovery magic. It is also widely recommended for players (especially when playing female characters) to form a party. It can be considered one of the typical safe assets.

“My name is Ain Frostgarm.”

“Nice to meet you.”

When I greeted him politely, Damyeon’s Count Youngsik also smiled and greeted him. And as far as I remember, Damyeon showed up…

“Damyeon, were you here?”

“What, who~?”

Over Damyeon’s shoulder, two people can be seen walking up the stairs.

One is a male black tiger, and the other is a male white sheep. Both of them are so memorable that the information comes to mind as soon as I see them.

“Baron Ain Youngsik, do you happen to know my friends?”

At Damyeon’s words mixed with laughter, I nodded faintly, and the two people who had appeared newly had a questioning look on their faces as if they were wondering what I was talking about.

“I know them as Sea Moon Glow-C Self-made Youngsik, and Nari Lily Blossom Self-made Youngsik…”

I cautiously said the name that came to mind.

The Black Tiger side is Sea Moon Glow-Sea’s self-made Young-shik, and is a rare male friend character known as a tank character. Despite his small size and cute appearance, he uses magic directly on his body and takes on the role of leading the battle line, so he is often brought along by female players who need a magic attack tank or because he is cute and has good performance.

The white sheep are Nari Lily Blossom’s Count Youngsik. Although his direct combat ability is not that good, he is a Count’s family, but he is one of the wealthiest noble families in the Perion Empire, so he is a companion recommended especially for beginners.

“Wow, that’s amazing?”

“Do you know us?”

“Really~? I get sleepy just looking at the cover of the Imperial Nobles Guide…”

They say life is like a blessing in disguise. Three main heroines, who were like a curse I didn’t even want, ended up sticking together, and this time, three of the safe assets I had in mind ended up coming to me first. I guess I’ll live long enough to see what happens.

“It’s nothing.”

When I bowed my head to show my respect, Nari Viscount Youngsik, who had a languid expression on his characteristically closed eyes, shook his head.

“No~ You must have studied really hard to memorize the Imperial Nobles Guidebook to the point where you can tell who they are just by looking at their faces.”

“It’s nothing special, I just wanted to be friends with you, so I approached you. I heard from my parents that there are unusually few male students entering the academy this year.”

“It’s an honor.”

I was thinking about what to say, and then I remembered the answers that players give when they talk to characters. I also remembered that the lines that players say are basically unanswerable unless they are characters who are determined to start a fight.

“You should have unpacked your luggage too, but we were holding you back.”

“No, it’s okay.”

You may think that I’m being too rigid, but it’s awkward to just play the game as you please without being able to save/load or exit the game, and more than anything, unlike before when you could play leisurely, thinking carefully and keeping various things in mind beyond the monitor, the character acts directly… as if a person is talking to you, so it’s burdensome.

“You must be tired from coming all the way to the Academy from the North, so let’s go.”

“…Yes, thank you for your consideration.”

It may seem like the right thing to do for a male, but Damyeon smiles prettily and goes back down the stairs with her friends Bada and Nari. It seems like there is a private room on the floor below mine.

I stood at the entrance to the private room until their voices could no longer be heard, and only after the dormitory became quiet did I close the door and enter the private room.

The first thing I saw when I entered the private room was a large glass window. Blackout curtains were neatly arranged on both sides to block out the outside view and light, and the temple of knowledge was clearly visible through the glass.

The bed was so large that it could be considered excessively large, and was located in the center of one wall of the private room, and even had a canopy.

There, a fancy vanity table that seems to be something that only women would need, if it were common sense, stands out. Since I’ve never seen anything like this in an actual game, I wonder if the male characters in this game adorn themselves in front of a vanity table like this.

“Anyway, we have to sort things out.”

I put the heavy trunk on the large bed and opened the door, and saw that it was packed to the brim with luggage. I even took out the contents in a haphazard manner to organize them by category, but as if some kind of magic had been cast on them, the luggage started to pop out endlessly!

Obviously the trunk is much smaller than the bed, but after taking out all the luggage, it was not enough to fill the bed, so I had to spread it around the bed before the trunk was completely empty.

“When you start the game, you’re basically broke, so why is there so much?”

There was just a lot of everything, but the most common thing was clothing. I understand there are a few sets of the same uniform, but there were so many that it was hard to count, and there were even a lot of formal clothes for men that looked like they would be used at a party event.

After organizing all the clothes piled up like a mountain, countless cosmetics that I didn’t know how to use, books that I needed for class and books that I didn’t, and all sorts of other miscellaneous items, I was completely exhausted. My arms were shaking, perhaps because my stamina-related status was low.

“But even though it’s a VR game, can it be this difficult?”

As far as I remember, no matter how much VR has developed, when you do physical activity, you only see your stamina or energy go down, and it doesn’t feel as difficult or painful as if you were doing real physical labor. I’m just surprised that VR has developed this much while I’m getting older.

After finishing cleaning, I checked the fancy wall clock on the dresser and saw that it was past lunchtime. Since I am small and weak, it seems like cleaning took a lot of time.

“I’m hungry… How can I be hungry in VR?”

I’ve never felt hungry in a VR game before, and my body feels tired, so I leave my private room and head out to the male dormitory. When you start the game, you only have 10,000 gold, but when I checked, I had much more than that. There’s just so much I don’t understand…

“Go to the restaurant, and if it’s closed, go to the store next door.”

As the academy is large in scale, there is a family that has signed a contract and operates a store within the academy. That is the store of the Lily Blossom family, the family of Viscount Nari Yeong-sik that we met earlier.

There is a large mart-like store near the Academy’s cafeteria that sells all the supplies needed for the Academy, as well as rare items that are hard to find, so you can look around in addition to satisfying your hunger.

But as I walked towards the restaurant, I felt more and more eyes on me, so I hastened my steps as much as possible without any way to hide my face.

But the restaurant was closed. In the original game, there was no system for eating in the first place, and it was a place you could only visit for events, so all I can say is, “Maybe so.”