A stark-white space where all I could hear was a beeping sound.
And surgical lamps.
That light, which permitted not the slightest shred of darkness.
Yet the backlight it cast made it impossible to see anything ahead of me.
And so.
He cuts.
He inserts.
He cuts.
He inserts.
The masked doctor repeated those actions.
No salvation such as anesthesia came, no matter how I begged him and told him it hurt.
No salvation such as euthanasia came, no matter how I begged him to kill me.
All for a single experiment.
As I lay there, staring at the light pouring from the many apertures.
I repeated pain that felt as though it would never end.
"Huff, huff!"
I woke up.
When I opened my eyes, what I saw was not surgical lamps pouring out brilliant light from countless openings.
It was the ceiling of the academy dormitory, dark and tinted a soft yellow by the bedside lamp.
I drew ragged, deep breaths, so breathless it felt as if I might stop breathing altogether.
The blanket, the bed, and the clothes Ian had given me were long since drenched through with my cold sweat.
Having woken from that unpleasant dream, I lifted an arm to check whether I had turned into a wolf again.
"You haven’t changed."
The man sitting beside me said it as if it were nothing, but I could not trust his words, so I checked with my own eyes.
Just as he had said, my body had not changed.
As though relieved, I took a deep breath, then lifted my right arm and covered both eyes.
"Ian, I’m sorry, but could you tell me how many times this makes..."
I barely managed to force out the words.
"The third time."
Ian answered as if it were no big deal.
Haha. It had not even been two hours yet.
And this was already the third time I had had a nightmare, suffered a fit, and woken up....
I felt so pathetic that I laughed at myself.
Dotore’s collar had long since been broken by Ian.
Yet I still seemed bound to the past.
Ian had gone to the trouble of lending me his bed and clothes, and I had soaked them through with sweat.
Once again, I barely summoned enough strength to open my mouth.
"I’m sorry. You lent me your bed and clothes."
"Don’t worry about it. Want me to peel you an apple or something?"
But Ian shook his head as though he did not mind, and as he started to rise—
"No, I don’t need an apple."
I forced a smile as I declined.
I’m sorry. I don’t want an apple right now.
I had no right to be fussy, but apples, right now...
They scared me.
I was scared to sleep now.
It had never happened in the infirmary.
When I slept alone, I fell back into that past.
Unlike now, I had liked sleeping back then.
Sleeping had been one of the reasons I was able to endure that hell.
Because if I just slept a little longer, I could forget all that nonsense.
But.
Now that nonsense tormented me in my dreams.
The beeping.
The droning.
The sound of something being torn apart.
Even the sound of nails scraping harshly against the bed.
As though mocking me for still being chained to the past.
Cutting and inserting, cutting and inserting.
If I could just sleep a little, only a little longer.
It felt like I might be able to forget all that nonsense.
But the more I slept, the more that awful nonsense continued to torment me.
Then just how long?
"Ian."
"What?"
"How long do I have to sleep before I can forget all that nonsense?"
I don’t know how long I have to sleep before I can stop hearing it.
I don’t know how long I have to keep dreaming before I can escape that man.
"...I suppose it will take more time."
"Is that so...?"
I smiled bitterly at his answer.
Of course, there was nothing Ian could do for me.
He was the one who had broken my collar; he had already done everything he could.
Breaking these chains was something I had to do myself.
I shifted my body, preparing to sleep again.
"You’re going back to sleep?"
"...Yeah. I have to."
I had to sleep until I could escape that nonsense.
Just as I was about to close my eyes—
"But why didn’t you have a fit when you slept with me?"
The thoughtless bastard’s muttering reached my ears.
Who knew?
Why didn’t I have a fit when I slept with Ian?
Was it because he was the person I had made a contract with?
No, it felt like there was something more fundamental than that.
A memory from when I was very young, now faded and faint.
If I searched through it, I felt as though I might remember something.
It was not an apple.
I thought there had been something soft that I could hug.
But I could not remember.
It was a memory from childhood.
Unlike the apple, it was so vague that it could not have been very important.
"Did you sleep hugging a doll when you were little?"
"...As if. A doll would have been a luxury for me."
There was no way I could have had a doll.
Hadn’t I barely survived as a pickpocket?
There was no way someone like me could have owned a doll to hug.
At that moment.
"You’re going to get dehydrated, idiot."
He slowly approached and lay down beside me.
"Why?"
"I can’t sleep anyway, and if you keep this up, Dante might wake up. I’ll just lie beside you with my back turned. You said you don’t have a fit if you’re hugging something."
Ian muttered that while staring at the ceiling.
It was so ridiculous that a hollow laugh escaped me.
"You’ll get damp...."
"It is pretty damp. Want me to buy you a doll or something?"
"No, it’s fine...."
He was not faintly soft. He was simply hard.
But he was a good size to hug.
Maybe he was just like that thing I had hugged back then....
Still.
If I slept now, perhaps I could forget all that nonsense.
#
About three days passed after that.
In front of the clubroom after afternoon classes had ended.
I slid the door aside with a scrape.
The clubroom was dark, and there was no one inside, as though proving I was the first to arrive.
Since the door had not been locked despite my being first, Eileen had apparently opened it and gone somewhere for a while.
I sat down in an empty seat, and Angelica, who had come with me, took another empty seat. I opened my status window to check on things.
【Ian de Logres】
◈ Level: 37
◈ Title: [Rival of the Sword Demon]
◈ Traits: [Dragon Strength], [Insight Eye], [Oath of Chivalry], [Flower of Chivalry]
◈ Stats
Physical: 276 | Mana: 125
Luck: 10 | Mental Strength: 30
Aura: 70 | Spirit Power: 0
(SP Held: 0)
▶[Skills]
After all the hardship of sparring with Angelica.
I was now level 37.
Not only that, [Logres Swordsmanship] had reached level 6, [Orlando’s Muscle Cultivation Method] had reached level 3, and [Mad Orlando] had risen to level 2.
It was pitifully low compared to Angelica’s level right in front of me.
But this should at least be enough to keep me from dying in the upcoming event.
Yeah, all I had to do was not die.
Unlike last time, I did not need to win.
This event was a scripted defeat event.
Early in the academy arc, one of the Dawn Troupe’s executives led a group of troublemakers in an assault on the academy.
The event boss was a villain named Scaramuccia.
He was a character introduced to show just how powerful the executives of the Dawn Troupe—the enemies we would have to fight going forward—were.
In the story, he suddenly appeared when powerful figures such as the headmaster and Professor Luke, the skeleton, were unable to intervene.
While the protagonist was in the high thirties and the allied side’s strongest fighter was either Cassian or Professor Silves.
He alone had stats above level 70, and on top of that, he had a shameless gimmick that made him take no damage unless you knew how it worked.
Unlike the enemies encountered early on, he was the first to bring a gimmick into the game. He was more of a teacher than the professors themselves, personally teaching clueless newbies all about gimmicks.
In other words, he was what they called a newbie crusher.
It was a defeat event, but in order to clear it, you still had to deal a certain amount of damage and hold out until Professor Luke intervened.
If you did not know the gimmick, all you could do was join hands and die together.
But how would protagonists meeting that villain for the first time possibly know about his gimmick?
Exactly. Which meant I had to run around doing the work again.
Fuck.
To make matters worse, Cassian was not the one who had enrolled at the academy; Dolnesia and I were. That made things even harder.
There were four protagonists instead, and we did have a monster named Angelica on our side. But unlike back then, our opponent was a genuine Sword Master who could use both aura and mana without restriction, so in reality, it did not make much difference.
If there was any consolation, it was that, due to some restriction, he could not use an Aura Blade—the exclusive domain of Sword Masters.
He was also missing his left arm, as though he had gotten it chopped off somewhere.
Of course, even with those penalties, the problem was that he could still wipe us all out with room to spare.
Another problem was that I had no idea when or where these bastards would show up.
Like the Kafka incident, the dungeon’s appearance location was random, and I knew they attacked during club hours after all afternoon classes were over.
In the game, I remembered the event beginning immediately after an extra shouted, "We’re under attack!" while the protagonist was doing club activities in the clubroom.
Taking advantage of a time when there were few professors around—they truly were despicable bastards.
Still, since they did not attack over the weekend, perhaps even villains respected days off.
At least it could randomly happen any time before the midterms, so they did not commit the truly wicked act of attacking during midterms and forcing everyone to take a retest.
‘By the way, Ian.’
‘What?’
At that moment, the sliding door opened.
The woman who came in with her golden hair swaying was Eileen.
And then—
Clatter.
"Is this the Ancient Documents Club?"
A skeleton entered the clubroom, its joints clicking as it moved.
Luke Eaenril stood behind her.
But why was this man at our club?
"Professor, why are you here?"
"Hm? Didn’t you hear?"
Blue flames flickered in his eye sockets as Professor Luke opened his jaw.
"I have become the faculty advisor for the Ancient Documents Club."
......?
What was that supposed to mean?
Professor Luke had clearly shown no interest in being a club advisor in the game.
President Eileen’s eyes shone as she clenched her fists and chimed in.
"Professor Luke agreed to be our club advisor!"
Seeing how happy Eileen was.
She had talked a good game before, but it looked like she really had used her father’s influence to bring him in.
"So you decided to wield imperial authority after all...."
At my joke, Eileen’s face soured. Just as she was about to say something, Professor Luke cut in.
"No, I simply decided to do it myself."
With a clatter, he tapped his own jaw with a bony finger.
"Originally, I considered the Confectionery Club, where Miss Iris, Charles, Kyle, and Dante have enrolled, but..."
Ah, so Dante was in that club.
I had asked Dante about it once before, and he had refused, saying he had already joined a club.
As for Kyle, the young ladies around him had made such a fuss that I had known even if I had not wanted to.
"I did not think Miss Iris and I would be a good fit."
The blue flames in his eye sockets began to shrink.
Perhaps because he was undead, he seemed to have seen through Iris’s talent as a saint.
And since Asdel of the Holy Kingdom was there as well, it might not have been strange for Professor Luke to be reluctant.
"So the headmaster decided to take that club."
"The headmaster himself?"
Professor Luke nodded at Eileen’s words.
"It is a place where famous figures from various nations have gathered, after all."
This was unchanged from the game.
In the game, the headmaster personally oversaw the club that the protagonist and the male leads belonged to as well.
But.
Why had this man become our club’s advisor?
Other than being an old skeleton, he had no connection to the club at all, did he?
"But why become the Ancient Documents Club’s advisor?"
"Well..."
Just as Professor Luke opened his jaw to say something—
[Oath of Chivalry has activated.]
[The Stars of Knights are watching you.]
A notification window suddenly appeared before my eyes.
And then.
—Hummm.
With a low hum, black flames scattered around us.
Riiiip—!!
The empty air in the corner of the clubroom tore apart.
From its center, the clubroom gradually became covered in blue moss. Black vines rose above it and began to fill the space.
Dungeon encroachment.
The phenomenon that occurred when a dungeon formed.
There was only one reason something like this could happen inside the academy.
Already?
No, but it was appearing here, right now?
I looked at the skeleton professor before me.
"Are we having a celebration party to commemorate your becoming our advisor?"
As though answering Professor Luke’s flippant words, hands burst from the torn space.
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