Academy’s New Guard is Unusual - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 1
‘Sigh-.’
The unit under Derek’s command numbered in the low hundreds.
He was a seasoned soldier, but even Derek couldn’t help it this time.
Because his opponent was a war hero.
‘War hero, Jeron.’
Rumors about Jeron ran rampant.
He wielded a sword like a Sword Master, his magic was as powerful as an Archmage’s, he wielded Holy Power more brilliant than a Cardinal’s, he cast curses like a Black Mage who’d made a pact with demons—such things were said.
It was absurd. A Sword Master was a Sword Master, yet he was also an Archmage, a Cardinal, and a Black Mage all at once? And supposedly master-level in all of them.
It made no sense.
Of course, people who’d mastered multiple disciplines weren’t unheard of.
But Aura, Black Magic, Magic, and Holy Power formed a chain of mutual opposition—they countered each other.
A knight wielding Aura was weak to a Black Mage; a Black Mage was powerless against a priest who wielded Holy Power.
There were those on the front lines who handled multiple forces, but they were only side branches, at best.
No matter how much of a war hero Jeron was, it didn’t make sense that he wielded all four forces at master level.
That’s why everyone assumed the rumors were exaggerated.
Derek was one of them.
Yet after conducting operations alongside Jeron, Derek came to realize the rumors weren’t exaggerated at all—in fact, they’d been understated.
“Is there something on my face?”
“Oh, no!”
“No? Then speak your mind.”
“How—how can you use Aura, Magic, Holy Power, and Black Magic all at once?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Derek blurted out what he’d been curious about. Jeron’s brow furrowed, but Derek, pulling out a notebook to jot things down, didn’t notice.
“Max all your Stats to S.”
“……I’m sorry, what?”
“A joke.”
Jeron added flatly. His voice was so deadpan it didn’t sound like a joke at all.
Jeron casually steered the conversation elsewhere.
“As for Aura—I was born into a fallen swordsmanship clan.”
“Ah, I see.”
“The Clan Head wanted to revive the fallen house, so he beat me with Aura every day. A Forbidden Family Technique, he called it.”
“What? That’s barbaric—”
“When your bones or muscles rupture from Aura strikes, Aura accumulates, or so the theory goes. Well, the results were spectacular. I became tough because of it.”
Getting hit with Aura hurt several times worse than getting hit with a club. Yet he’d been hit with Aura like that since childhood—.
Derek was left speechless, but Jeron continued without hesitation.
“Then a Witch suddenly appeared, burned the clan down, and kidnapped me. Apparently my tough body was ideal for experimenting with a fusion of Black Magic and Magic. Thanks to that, I can wield both Black Magic and Magic simultaneously.”
In common understanding, Witches were classified as more dangerous than demons themselves. To a Witch, humans were merely experimental subjects.
To be kidnapped by such a Witch and subjected to experiments—in some ways, it was more horrifying than Aura training.
“Then the Holy Empire suddenly attacked the Witch and dragged me away, claiming they were saving me. They said they’d raise me as a Combat Priest.”
“You mean—Combat Priests? That horrible—”
“Oh, you know?”
“……One of my cohort was from the Combat Priest training program.”
“You must’ve had it rough then.”
At Derek’s reluctant response, Jeron nodded as if he understood.
“Yes, every time they went into battle, they’d strip naked, stab themselves with blades, and curse God—”
“Not all Combat Priests do that. Most do, though. I don’t strip.”
“Thank—thank goodness.”
“Otherwise, if I caught a cold, what then? Tsk tsk.”
“……? Oh, right!”
Something felt off, but Derek nodded along anyway.
The man was a war hero, after all. How could he dare to question him?
Then he smoothly changed the subject.
“You’ve accomplished something truly great this time. Everyone’s saying the war might end thanks to you. They all say you’ll become the youngest Grand General.”
“Bullshit. What, am I insane enough to stake myself in the army?”
Jeron said, making a face.
The Imperial Army—the greatest military on the continent, called humanity’s strongest force in history. In the Imperial Army, the rank directly below the Commander-in-Chief was Grand General.
To describe such a position as a “stake”—
It was a harsh joke. Worse, there wasn’t a shred of laughter in Jeron’s voice.
Just then, Jeron stood. Derek hastily followed suit.
“So just screw off and do your thing. Derek.”
Jeron patted Derek’s shoulder and moved to leave.
He’d said Derek, not Derek—wait, he had said Derek. But Derek swallowed the protest that rose to his lips and saluted.
“Glory to the Empire—!!”
Jeron didn’t turn back, just waved his hand.
Watching Jeron’s retreating figure, Derek suddenly found himself wondering.
Jeron was already a war hero. Now he’d performed an act that could turn the tide of war itself. Derek had no idea what reward awaited him.
‘Maybe he really will become the youngest Grand General—’
Derek’s eyes sparkled with boyish anticipation.
* * *
“……What? You’re saying you’re resigning?”
A middle-aged woman with an eye patch over her left eye stared at me.
One of only five Grand Generals in the Empire, and among them, the one contending for the top rank: “Red” Cassandra.
I nodded lightly.
“Yes, I will resign.”
“Did that bastard Brown call you?”
“Grand General Brown may have summoned me once, but—”
“The audacious bastard, trying to poach what’s mine? I should rip his tongue out.”
I wished it were a joke, but sadly, Cassandra was serious. She was the type who always looked for pretexts to fight other Grand Generals.
I hurried to speak before a civil war broke out.
“Of course I refused. How could I serve two Grand Generals with one body?”
“Then why?”
Cassandra’s one eye gleamed menacingly. Just looking at that gaze made my breath catch.
“The war hasn’t ended yet. If I resign now, my record will be expunged. You know that.”
It was true. The unit I belonged to was a classified unit. If I resigned now, all my accumulated merits would be erased.
Still, I wasn’t particularly bothered. It wasn’t a stellar record anyway, and in fact, having it expunged would make it easier to move around.
“I don’t mind.”
“The war will be over soon. Yet you, who contributed the most, are backing out.”
The war will be over soon—those were the words circulating on the front lines lately.
But no. Unfortunately, the war would never end.
“I have something to do.”
“What?”
“It’s classified.”
“I thought we were closer than that.”
“Don’t say things that invite misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding? We’ve rolled around naked together, haven’t we? Very hotly too.”
“That was inside the Greater Demon’s belly.”
Cassandra laughed aloud. It sounded like a bear laughing. Her eye patch crinkled slightly.
“Fine, can’t stop you anyway. You’re a bastard like that.”
“Doesn’t the saying go that subordinates follow their seniors?”
Cassandra put a cigar in her mouth.
“The rest of the unit will miss you.”
“They’ll be happy about it. They’ve been dying to get rid of me.”
“People who like someone want to bully them, that’s just how it is.”
“Cut the crap—”
A curse slipped out before I could help it. Cassandra’s single eye curved into a thick arc.
“Resigning already and talking like that.”
“Yes, well, when a Grand General retires, she becomes a middle-aged woman, doesn’t she? Or is it an old woman?”
“Since I’m unmarried, you should call me miss.”
“My conscience—”
When I straightened my expression, Cassandra burst into raucous laughter.
“Fine then, resign.”
Cassandra said it as if doing me a favor. I bowed deeply to her.
“Thank you.”
The unit I belonged to wasn’t a place where you could resign just because you wanted to. Even for Cassandra, this was quite a stretch.
“So what’ll you do after you resign?”
“I’m going to Elisium.”
“Why? Going to teach? With your personality?”
“What are you talking about? There’s no one as intellectual as I am.”
“Hahahaha!”
Cassandra laughed until she had to clutch her stomach. She laughed so hard my ears were ringing.
“Anyway, it’s not teaching.”
“If you became a professor, there’d be quite a few people visiting. I’d like to drop by once myself.”
I couldn’t deny it.
“Are you going to enroll as a student instead?”
“How could I enroll at my age?”
“True. It’d be grotesque. When I first saw you, you were fresh as a daisy. Now you’re a full-fledged middle-aged man.”
“I’m still young.”
“So am I, a young miss.”
I couldn’t bring myself to nod. Cassandra flicked ash from her cigar and asked.
“Neither teaching nor studying, then what?”
“I’m going to get a job with the security detail.”
“Funny joke. Why not just say you’re becoming headmaster?”
Cassandra laughed loudly.
She didn’t believe me.
It was a reasonable reaction. Elisium was the premier academy on the continent, but it was still just an academy.
The people who graduated top from Elisium came here, to the Southern Front. I ranked in the top ten even among those on the Southern Front.
For me to resign and go to Elisium—even I found it hard to believe.
But there was no help for it.
The game I’d possessed was an academy game.
Moreover, not just any academy game—a Romance Fantasy, a romantic game academy.
Romance Fantasy is originally a pink-tinted genre centered on romance.
So why had I been rolling around on the battlefield in a Romance Fantasy game?—
‘Goddamned Stat distribution.’
[Tutorial] Survive.
Time remaining: 0 days 2 hours 14 minutes
I stared at the translucent window and dredged up my memories.
* * *
“Harder Than Romance, Easier Than Graduation”—or “Harder Than Romance” for short—was an unreleased game. You could only access it with a special invitation.
Even as a connoisseur of garbage games, I’d gotten an invitation and started Harder Than Romance.
Harder Than Romance was……a hundred-percent organic piece of trash.
There were several reasons why Harder Than Romance was a failure, but the most fatal was its absurdly brutal difficulty.
Harder Than Romance was so hard that even garbage-game enthusiasts—the kind who’d devour any trashy game—all threw in the towel. Yet I kept at it.
There was no grand reason. Just simple obstinacy.
On the day that became my third year with it, I finally cleared the game.
True to its nature as garbage, it was a sad ending. I was ready to never touch it again, so I skipped through the ending credits and went to shut it down, when I noticed a “Hard Mode” button on the home screen that hadn’t been there before.
‘Hard Mode on a Romance Fantasy?’
I clicked Hard Mode like I was entranced.
Hard Mode cannot be undone once started.
Will you proceed?
Something felt off, but I didn’t give it much thought at the time.
Next came character creation. Of course, I spent a lot of effort on appearance. Character customization was the most fun part of Harder Than Romance. A decadent pretty boy with an air of intrigue—
And then the Stat screen appeared.
Harder Than Romance had four Stats in total.
Aura, Black Magic, Magic, Holy Power—four forces.
Just as I was about to allocate Stats, I got a notification about a new Privilege being granted: “One Who Saw the End.” Thanks to the Privilege, my bonus Stats quadrupled.
Harder Than Romance normally distributed Stat points very stingily.
Originally, even if you dumped all points into one Stat, A was the limit, but with all the bonus Stats concentrated, you could reach S+ or even higher.
S+ was a rank I’d never seen before. Putting it all into Aura would’ve made me a Sword Master for sure.
But I didn’t dump everything into one Stat. I distributed them evenly across all four.
Because of the Compatibility System. Stats were related to each Stat’s resistance, so all-in was too risky.
Warning! Stat distribution variance is too high.
Harder Than Romance, being a Romance Fantasy, set the character’s narrative based on the Stats you allocated.
If you invested in Aura, that character became a genius born into a swordsmanship clan, for example.
Since I’d distributed all Stats to S, the system seemed to overload.
It was just a game, yet it was throwing an error over Stat distribution.
……I should’ve stopped there.
You were born into a declining swordsmanship clan. Seeing your talent, the Clan Head forces the Forbidden Family Technique upon you for the clan’s prosperity. The moment the technique succeeds, a Witch appears, burns the clan to ash, and kidnaps you. The Witch uses you as a test subject for a fusion of Black Magic and Magic. You endure years of cruel experimentation under the Witch before being captured by the Holy Empire and subjected to Combat Priest training. You barely escape and flee to the front lines, beyond the Holy Empire’s reach.
It was a character backstory, yet it was laid out with a coldness that made my skin crawl.
Do you wish to proceed?
Of course, I clicked “Yes” without hesitation.
The reason was simple.
‘I didn’t know I’d be possessing it.’
I really didn’t know.
Truly.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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