Chapter 4
A long day.
After the entrance exam concluded, a meeting was held at Grandia Academy.
The faculty members were all gathered around a round table.
“Thank you all for your hard work.”
““Thank you for your hard work!””
The entrance exams had been conducted over the past two weeks.
At last, the schedule had ended, and it was time to review the results.
“There are quite a lot of promising talents in this year's class.”
“Indeed. Regardless of the discipline, I saw quite a few children worth looking forward to.”
Each faculty member manipulated the crystal ball in their hands.
The screens were packed with the students' measurement results.
With just a few clicks, dozens of profiles flew past in a blur.
“Lanne Kihano. As expected, she passed with ease. Every grade is B or higher.”
“The eldest daughter of Count Kihano's house, right? She made quite a name for herself some time ago, didn't she?”
“That's right. They say she has outstanding talent as a knight...”
This year's class had an especially large number of promising newcomers.
Several names were brought up.
“The new student's top student is... as expected, Lady Glaciesia.”
“Overwhelming. She was practically a fully realized mage already.”
“There are talents worthy of being called the best in curses and divine power as well...”
The faculty members scanned the records with expectant eyes.
Class A.
Class B.
Class C.
Class D.
And finally, all the way down to the lowest class, Class E.
Even as the faculty members engaged in heated discussion, their eyes soon turned to the final profile.
“Victor...”
Victor.
A person admitted at the joint bottom rank among this year's class.
He was a boy wearing a strange mask over his face.
He was holding up a comical V toward the screen.
“The bottom rank... He's the last student in Class E, even within the class.”
“He received an E in every category except theory.”
“How strange. How did someone like this get admitted?”
“Apparently he got a perfect score on the practical test, but is that even possible?”
The faculty members each had their doubts.
They checked the footage recorded during the practical test.
[Assistant?]
[Are you all right? There's still one try left.]
Bugs are not recorded.
Thus, no unusual effects or hallucinations could be seen in the recorded footage either.
All the faculty saw were shadows flickering into view here and there.
The eyes of those who had been indifferent grew serious.
“What is this...?”
One professor muttered unconsciously.
Everyone had a similar impression.
“It's unsettling.”
“Would you call it killing intent...?”
Every faculty member furrowed their brow.
A bizarre chill swept over the napes of their necks.
A smiling mask.
A mask smiling broadly.
The air was sharp enough to cut.
“And someone like this is the bottom-ranked student...?”
Grandia Academy, the finest educational institution on the continent.
Its faculty were as elite as befitted its reputation.
People at the forefront of their respective fields: swordsmanship, magic, curses...
“The profile is strange, too. Was it tampered with?”
“Stamina, strength, agility... They're all E grade, aren't they?”
“He overwhelms a teaching assistant with stats like that?”
The professors narrowed their eyes.
Suspicion.
“This is the bottom-ranked student? Going by the footage, I could believe he was in Class A.”
“It took exactly one minute and twenty-seven seconds to clear the practical test with a perfect score.”
“What was this year's top score again?”
“Cerilla Glaciesia. Three minutes and twelve seconds.”
“That means he was twice as fast as the top student...”
The clown mask.
Whenever their eyes met through the screen, it felt as though a chill crawled through their hearts.
It was too devoid of murderous intent to be killing intent,
and his abilities were too lacking for it to be called intimidation.
If they had to pin it down and define it...
“It's an unpleasant atmosphere.”
Unpleasantness.
No, something even more alien, a sensation like one side of the heart being scraped.
The atmosphere emanating from the boy was that chilling.
It felt as though even a blank white sheet of paper would be stained pitch-black if placed beside him.
“He seems to be wielding some kind of... special power.”
“No matter how I look at it, it's not a normal power. Mana, divine power, curses... I can't sense even a trace of any of them.”
“This smells fishy. Could he be a spy? Wasn't he sent by those cultist bastards?”
“No demonic energy was detected. If there had been even the slightest sign of it, we would have noticed from the moment he set foot in the academy. Besides, his approach is too clumsy for a spy...”
“How can you be sure? We must always keep every possibility open...”
The temperature of the conversation plummeted.
In the end, the professors began to argue.
“It's not right to suspect someone so readily! That child is also a student we are meant to take under our wing, isn't he?”
“Who said we should suspect him without cause? He's suspicious. If there are circumstances pointing to it, ignoring them is also...”
“More than anything, the performance he showed in the practical test. It was unbelievable for someone with those stats...”
“Certainly, that aspect requires an explanation...”
The hall buzzed with murmurs.
Then an old man opened his mouth.
“Enough.”
““······.””
At that one word, the professors fell silent as if by magic.
The old man in the seat of honor wore a wrinkled smile.
That alone was enough to silence those around him.
The faculty lowered their heads and listened to the old man's voice.
“We are Grandia Academy.”
In the past, he had been known as the Massacrer of Cultists.
The man leading Grandia's faculty.
The dean.
“We do not discriminate in matters of learning.”
Valter Droit.
The old man expressed his opinion with a benevolent smile.
That alone left the professors unable to raise their voices any further.
“Student Victor is qualified. There is no problem with his admission.”
““······.””
“Of course... There are unsettling aspects, so some safety measures will be necessary.”
Fingers tapped lightly on the desk.
As if hearing the signal, the shadow standing behind the old man stepped forward.
“I will assign Professor Javert as the homeroom teacher of Class E.”
“You mean Chief Investigator Javert...?”
“There is no one more reliable for a matter like this.”
Chief Investigator Javert.
A professor specializing in teaching methods for dealing with cultists.
A woman said to have killed more than a hundred dark mages.
“Professor Javert.”
“Yes, Dean.”
“I will assign you as Class E's homeroom teacher starting this semester.”
“Yes.”
A dry answer.
The air around her, and her expression, were cold enough to cut.
The woman looked as though she had been forged from steel.
Red hair cascaded down.
“Please keep watch over Student Victor. If you discover that he is connected to the cultists or notice any suspicious signs...”
“I will deal with it at my discretion.”
“I'm counting on you.”
Surveillance, investigation, disposal.
At the direct mention of it, the atmosphere in the hall grew heavy and died.
The ominous mask still stood beyond the crystal ball.
Distrust and wariness flickered in the faculty members' eyes.
Meanwhile.
Whether he knew of his own predicament or not,
the person in question was walking along, bobbing his head.
“Ah~ I really milked that bug for all it was worth!”
Saying something carefree.
***
After finishing the entrance exam, I was walking down a secluded alley.
Easy satisfaction melted into each step I took.
‘Perfect.’
I recalled the practical test.
Since possessing this body, I'd spent the past month diligently getting the hang of it.
Among the bugs I used for movement, it was considered fairly high-difficulty.
It failed more often than not if the timing was off even a little.
‘Two steps with the left foot, one with the right, then a big turn...’
Crackle-.
When I stepped in the correct sequence, my vision flickered.
I had teleported roughly five meters in an instant.
I continued chaining those hectic movements together.
Crackle-.
This time, the steps launched me even farther.
It was a bug that exploited a tangle in the commands.
It was difficult, but once mastered, it was a bug useful anywhere.
‘Thanks to that, I got a perfect score on the practical.’
If there was one drawback, it was probably the severe motion sickness.
If I used it several times in a row, the world spun around me.
‘Anyway, I got admitted, and...’
I guessed I'd be placed at the bottom of Class E.
Well... honestly, there had been ways to get into a higher-ranked class using shortcuts.
I could steal a letter of recommendation with a bug, or tamper with the measurement results.
‘But.’
There was a reason I had deliberately entered in Class E.
In other words, it was buildup I had intended from the start.
‘Because a major incident happens there, too.’
It was something that happened quite a bit later, but it was also my responsibility to deal with.
I crossed the pitch-black alley, turning over idle thoughts.
The sky had grown dark in the meantime.
‘The semester starts in a week.’
Until then, I had to wait at a nearby lodging.
‘Then... shall I take care of some business in the meantime.’
There was someone I needed to meet.
Stomp, stomp-.
Before I knew it, my footsteps had reached a corner of the city.
A sparsely populated place. The night trembled with every breath.
“Oh, here it is.”
I turned down the fifth alley and walked exactly 3.5 meters.
At the same time, a wall came into view.
A stone wedged slightly beneath it.
Without hesitation, I lay facedown on the stone.
Then I began rubbing my body against it.
Tap, thud-.
‘Maybe it's because the stone is poking me, but this hurts a little...’
Still, I endured it and rubbed my body.
Anyone else seeing this would have called me a genius at wild ground masturbation.
There was a reason I was doing something this fucking stupid.
‘When is this going to activate...!’
Because this was a point where a bug occurred.
I was serious.
‘The map-clipping bug.’
A bug in which, if you rubbed your body at a specific point, the character would pass through a wall.
I had wondered if it would work in reality, but it operated on a concept similar to teleportation.
It worked by moving me when I rubbed my body against the point.
I had already tested it several times.
‘If I break through the floor here, I can get to the destination in one go...!’
I was a respectable member of society, with a sense of honor, too.
(While rubbing one out in a back alley at midnight.)
I was merely enduring a little humiliation and shame for the greater good.
It had been about three minutes since I began copulating with the floor.
I felt as though my body were slipping.
Stagger-!
“Whoa!”
Flop-.
My body sprawled across the damp floor right afterward.
It seemed the bug had finally taken effect.
‘That was close.’
The surrounding scenery had changed considerably.
A dank stench stabbed into my nose.
An underground sewer.
And a remote place far from the academy.
I got to my feet.
“Hmm.”
A familiar view.
It was a background I had seen countless times while playing the original.
It seemed I had arrived at the right place.
Could it be reacting to a nearby event?
A response echoed from the status window as well.
Ding-!
[Story ‘Carmilla's Night’ in progress.]
[Would you like to accept the main quest?]
Without hesitation, I clicked Yes.
Immediately afterward, the status window flipped open like pages of a book.
[Main Quest]
-Rescue ‘Carmilla,’ the last princess of the Vampire Dynasty.
-Time remaining until Carmilla is killed:1 hour 36 minutes
Carmilla, the last vampire.
A supporting character who is killed early in the story if the player does not save her.
That was why I had gone to the trouble of visiting this old sewer.
Because she was someone I absolutely had to recruit.
“Then... shall we go save the princess?”
A scream and another sign of human presence could be heard from beyond the darkness.
I advanced, my black robe fluttering.
Toward a certain girl who would be waiting for her savior.