The oppressive silence in Lecture Hall 4B was so thick it felt as though the students were submerged in deep water. After two grueling hours of dissecting the highly volatile theoretical applications of abyssal mana conduction, the entire class looked physically drained. Quills scratched frantically against parchment as the first-year nobles tried desperately to capture the final, esoteric diagrams glowing on the massive chalkboard.
Professor Vane stood at the heavy oaken podium, his pale, skeletal hands resting flat against the polished wood. His dark crimson robes seemed to absorb the ambient light of the room. He surveyed the exhausted, terrified faces of his students with eyes that held the cold, calculating intelligence of a predator deciding which member of the herd to cull first.
"That will conclude today's theoretical framework," Professor Vane announced, his dry, rasping voice slicing through the scratching of quills.
He closed his heavy, leather-bound grimoire with a sharp, resonant snap.
"All of the academic contents we have covered—everything from page one to page two hundred and seventy-five of your primary texts—will be included in our upcoming Theory Midterm Examination. It will not be an exercise in mere memorization; it will be a test of your fundamental comprehension of the arcane arts under absolute pressure."
Vane leaned forward slightly, his shadow stretching unnaturally across the front row of desks.
"So, I highly advise that you all dedicate every waking hour of your evening to studying those two hundred and seventy-five pages. Because if you do not..."
Professor Vane slowly raised his left hand, extending his long, bony fingers, examining his immaculate fingernails with a chilling lack of concern.
"...You already know exactly what will happen to your grades, and subsequently, to your futures within this esteemed institution. Failure in my class is not merely an academic setback; it is the definitive end of your magical careers."
He lowered his hand and turned toward the heavy oak doors.
"Class dismissed."
With a swish of his crimson robes, Professor Vane glided out of the lecture hall, the heavy doors shutting automatically behind him.
The moment the latch clicked into place, a collective, heavy groan of pure misery erupted from the seventy students in the amphitheater.
'Tsk. Stingy, sadistic bastard,' Rudeus whispered under his breath, casually tossing his freshly sharpened pencil into his satchel.
He then began to methodically pack his belongings, his movements unhurried and precise. Around him, the initial shock of the midterm announcement seemed to be rapidly dying down, replaced by a frantic, buzzing panic. He couldn't exactly blame his classmates for their terror. Even in the lore of the game he used to play, Professor Vane's midterm examination was universally infamous for being the absolute hardest, most punishing academic hurdle in the entire Imperial curriculum. Only the students who managed to scrape by with a passing grade were permitted to advance to the second-year level. The rest were summarily expelled and sent back to their families in disgrace.
As Rudeus stood up from his desk and slung his satchel over his broad, newly muscled shoulder, he felt the familiar, burning prickle of a hostile stare.
He casually glanced to his right. Sitting two rows back, Aemond Blackfyre was glaring daggers at him, his icy grey eyes filled with a toxic mixture of aristocratic entitlement and deeply wounded pride.
Rudeus completely ignored him. He didn't offer a smirk. He didn't offer a challenging nod. He simply treated Aemond with the exact same level of profound, suffocating indifference one might show to a stain on the floor.
He didn't need to pay any heed to Aemond's pathetic glaring right now. His mind was entirely focused on his own schedule. He needed to get to the subterranean gymnasium immediately, since there were no afternoon classes scheduled for today.
'Professor Avalon really should learn how to be a little bit more stingy and bureaucratic sometimes,' Rudeus mused inwardly as he walked down the carpeted stairs of the lecture hall.
Normally, Avalon Pendletree's advanced physical conditioning class would be the next subject on the docket for the afternoon block. But, in true, chaotic Avalon fashion, the boisterous instructor had casually strolled into the middle of Professor Vane's morning lecture to loudly announce that he was canceling all afternoon classes. He had declared it a "mandated rest and preparation period" ahead of the massive practical combat exams scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Naturally, this brazen interruption had profoundly angered Vane. Avalon had possessed absolutely no official administrative permission to barge into another professor's lecture to disrupt the students. But Avalon, being the universally beloved, untouchable hero that he was, had paid absolutely no mind to Vane's icy glares. He had simply scratched the back of his head, offered a booming, entirely insincere apology to the Senior Arcanist, and walked back out.
As Rudeus navigated his way out of the Arcane Theory wing and headed toward the central corridors that connected to the martial quadrant, he noticed a massive disruption in the usual flow of student traffic.
The grand, sunlit hallway ahead of him was completely blocked.
Dozens of students—from minor barons to high-ranking dukes, both male and female—were gathered in a tight, massive circle in the center of the corridor. It wasn't a fight. The atmosphere wasn't tense; it was electric, buzzing with a strange, almost hypnotic awe.
'What in the world is happening this time? Another aristocratic circus gathering?!' Rudeus asked himself inwardly, letting out an annoyed sigh.
He was annoyed because it was blocking the most direct route to his sanctuary of iron and sweat. He considered turning around and taking the long way through the botanical gardens, but his curiosity—or perhaps his gamer's instinct—got the better of him.
He used his newly acquired physical bulk to smoothly but forcefully push his way through the outer fringes of the crowd. He peered over the shoulders of a few shorter noblemen to get a look at the center of the spectacle.
He saw two young women standing in the middle of the clearing. One was a third-year senior offering directions.
But it was the other woman who made Rudeus's heart stop dead in his chest.
Rudeus's crimson eyes widened to the absolute limit. The air rushed out of his lungs.
'Why is that woman here right now?!'
Standing in the center of the hallway, looking slightly overwhelmed but impossibly radiant, was a girl with flowing, midnight-black hair that cascaded perfectly down her back. But her hair wasn't what commanded the attention of everyone in the room. It was her eyes. They were a brilliant, luminous, burning gold. They held a unique, ethereal beauty that transcended the mundane attractiveness of the nobility. It was the kind of beauty that possessed its own gravitational pull, a charm so potent and absolute that even the snobbish, elitist daughters of the high aristocracy were looking at her with flushed cheeks and starry eyes, utterly captivated.
She was officially known in the Imperial records as the illegitimate, commoner-born bastard of Marquis Van Hestianna.
But Rudeus knew exactly who she really was.
'Goddamnit! Why are you here, Adelina Van Hestianna?!' Rudeus screamed inwardly, absolute shock rattling his carefully constructed composure.
He was staring directly at the Protagonist of the universe.
'Argh! Goddamnit, how could I forget?! How could my tactical mind let that slip?!'
He took a frantic step backward, bumping into another student.
'I genuinely, completely forgot that crucial piece of the timeline!'
A massive, terrifying detail regarding the deep lore of the game suddenly slammed into his consciousness.
In the official storyline of The Chronicles of Adelina, even though Adelina was introduced to the player as a naive, wide-eyed first-year student when the main plot kicked off, there was a dark, hidden truth to her character bio. By the time the game actually started, Adelina was biologically eighteen years old. She was supposed to be a third-year student, the exact same age as the original Rudeus, Princess Veronica, and the rest of the main cast.
But she was held back as a first-year because she had lost a massive chunk of her life.
She had suffered a catastrophic, magically induced coma that lasted for exactly five agonizing years.
And what event, specifically, had triggered that five-year coma?
It was the tragic, disastrous failure of the mandatory First-Year Dungeon Simulation Exams.
The exams that were scheduled to begin... a day after tomorrow.
'Holy shit,' Rudeus thought, his mind racing a million miles an hour. 'The inciting incident of the entire fucking franchise is happening right now. The disaster is imminent.'
Rudeus didn't stay to watch her ask for directions. He didn't want to get caught in her narrative gravity well. He immediately turned around, shoving his way roughly out of the gathered circus of swooning nobles.
He didn't take the main corridor. He veered sharply to the left, pushing open a heavy, unmarked wooden door that led to a narrow, spiraling emergency stairwell intended only for the academy staff and servants.
The door clicked shut behind him, plunging him into the cool, dimly lit quiet of the stairwell.
"Haah... haah..."
Rudeus leaned his broad back against the cold stone wall, gasping for air as if he had just run a marathon. He dragged a trembling hand down his face, trying to calm his racing heart.
"That was a close call," Rudeus whispered aloud to the empty stone stairwell. Getting tangled up with the Protagonist before he even had a chance to secure his escape route to the North would be an absolute death sentence.
"What exactly do you mean by 'close call'?"
The voice was cold, sharp, and dripping with aristocratic disdain. It echoed sharply in the confined space of the stairwell.
Rudeus froze. He heard the rustle of expensive silk.
He slowly turned his head, looking down the flight of stairs.
Standing on the landing just below him was Princess Veronica. She was wearing a breathtaking, meticulously tailored day dress of pale, shimmering silver-blue silk—a color that perfectly matched the luxurious cascade of her hair. Her arms were crossed elegantly beneath her chest, and she was glaring up at him with an expression of intense, suspicious scrutiny.
Rudeus immediately pushed himself off the wall. The ingrained survival instincts of his past life, combined with the terrifying memory of Amanda the Deathstalker holding a blade to his throat, kicked in. He had to maintain the charade of respectful deference, at least in public spaces.
He executed a stiff, formal, perfectly angled aristocratic bow.
"It is good to meet you, Your High—"
Before he could even finish the standard pleasantry, Veronica aggressively interrupted him.
"Stop it. Stop the fake, flowery pleasantries right this instant," Veronica snapped, taking a step up the stairs toward him. "It's not like I don't already know exactly what your true, wretched personality is like behind closed doors. I bet you are only doing that little bow to mock me and ridicule me again."
Rudeus slowly stood up straight, his face an impenetrable mask of stoic indifference.
'I'm not trying to ridicule her, though,' Rudeus thought inwardly, feeling a familiar twinge of profound annoyance. 'Even though I genuinely hate her guts, both in the game's lore and in real life, I still absolutely need to show my basic respect since she's royal blood. Because if I don't show proper etiquette toward her, Amanda will undoubtedly materialize out of my own shadow and slit my throat before I can blink.'
"So, do tell," Veronica demanded.
She raised one perfectly manicured hand, casually examining the pristine polish on her nails in a blatant display of feigned boredom, though her oceanic blue eyes remained locked onto him with burning intensity.
"What exactly did you mean by 'close call'? Were you running away from something? Or someone?" Veronica asked, raising an inquisitive, highly suspicious eyebrow.
"It was nothing of importance. Please forget you heard anything. Furthermore, it is not your business anyways, Your Highness," Rudeus replied immediately, his tone clipped, flat, and aggressively dismissive.
He adjusted the strap of his satchel on his shoulder and moved to step past her on the narrow stairs.
"Also, I am currently in a very pressing hurry. Goodbye."
Rudeus didn't wait for her permission to leave. He took the steps two at a time, moving with an athletic grace and heavy speed that forced Veronica to instinctively press herself against the stone wall to avoid being bowled over.
"Hey! Wai—!" Veronica reached out a gloved hand to grab his sleeve, but he was already past her, his heavy combat boots echoing up the spiraling staircase.
She stood alone on the landing, her hand suspended in the air.
"Tsk! Is this how you really treat your politically mandated fiancée?!" Veronica shouted up the stairwell, her voice ringing with clear, unadulterated annoyance and wounded pride.
She didn't receive an answer. Only the fading sound of a heavy door closing on the floor above.
Veronica lowered her hand, her manicured nails digging into her own palms. Her face flushed with a complex mixture of anger, confusion, and a strange, deeply unsettling frustration.
She stared up the empty stairwell.
She remembered how he used to be. For years, he had followed her around like a pathetic, whimpering puppy, always groveling, always apologizing, always staring at her with those sickeningly desperate, lovestruck eyes. She had hated him for his weakness.
But now? Now, he looked at her as if she were an annoying insect buzzing in his ear. He spoke to her with cold, calculated indifference. And his body...
She felt a flush of heat rise to her cheeks as she recalled the sheer, terrifying physical presence he had projected when he pushed past her. His shoulders were impossibly broad. The muscles in his chest and arms strained against the fabric of his uniform. He moved with the lethal, silent confidence of an apex predator.
He was no longer a defect. He was dangerous. And he completely ignored her.
"Argh!" Veronica shrieked in frustration, spinning around and viciously kicking the stone wall with her delicate, expensive shoe.
"I wish he didn't change! I wish he was still the same pathetic, crying loser! And I absolutely hate his damn, stupidly perfect new body!"
Veronica muttered to herself, her heart hammering an erratic, confusing rhythm in her chest. She turned and stormed down the stairs, stomping her feet in a fury she couldn't entirely explain to herself.
***
Later That Afternoon.Subterranean Level 4 - Advanced Martial Arts Gymnasium.
Rudeus finally arrived at his iron sanctuary. He unlocked the heavy tungsten doors with his metal token and slipped inside, letting the silence of the massive arena wash over him.
He was incredibly lucky that almost the entire student body was currently holed up in the grand libraries, either desperately cramming magical theory into their heads for tomorrow's midterm exams, or completely distracted by the radiant arrival of Adelina in the central courtyards.
Rudeus dropped his satchel onto a bench and began wrapping his hands with heavy linen tape.
He shrugged, a cynical smirk playing on his lips.
"Ehh. She's the literal protagonist of the universe," Rudeus muttered to himself as he pulled his taping tight. "So I suppose it's completely natural that she instantly gains everyone's undivided attention the moment she steps onto campus. The plot demands it. Even the girls were already hopelessly fangirling over her in the hallway. The harem mechanics are already locking into place."
He walked over to a heavy, reinforced leather punching bag hanging from a steel chain in the corner of the room.
"Sighs. Let's just start the routine. I need to clear my head," Rudeus said, dropping into a perfectly balanced combat stance, his muscles coiling like steel springs.
"Because tomorrow morning... there is a certain white-haired, arrogant little brother I desperately need to humiliate in front of the entire Empire."
Rudeus threw his first punch.
-BAM!
The heavy leather bag folded almost completely in half, the steel chain rattling violently against the ceiling as Rudeus proceeded to ruthlessly, methodically unleash three months of pent-up aggression onto the inanimate target.
***
The Next Day.01:00 AM - The Witching Hour.The Royal Annex - Princess Veronica's Bedchamber.
The royal bedchamber was a masterpiece of opulent design. The massive, four-poster bed was draped in layers of fine, silvery-blue silk imported from the Elven enclaves. The room was illuminated by the soft, ambient glow of enchanted pearls resting on gilded nightstands.
But despite the sheer luxury and the powerful, calming wards woven into the walls, the occupant of the bed was not resting peacefully.
Underneath the heavy silk duvet, a young woman was thrashing violently.
She was gasping for air, taking short, ragged, terrified breaths. Her delicate hands were clenched tightly into the expensive sheets, her knuckles white. Her silver-blue hair was matted with a cold, terrified sweat, plastered against her pale forehead.
She was trapped in the suffocating grip of a nightmare.
"AMY!"
The shriek tore from her throat.
Princess Veronica violently bolted upright in bed, her eyes snapping open wide. She was panting heavily, her chest heaving, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird trying to escape its cage.
She looked frantically around the dim, quiet, perfectly safe room. There was no fire. There was no smell of sulfur or burning blood.
"Haah... haah... haah! What... what was that?!" Veronica gasped, trembling uncontrollably as she dragged a shaky hand through her damp hair.
The dream was receding, but the sheer, visceral terror of it lingered on her skin like a physical residue. It was more vivid than any nightmare she had ever experienced. It felt like a memory of something that hadn't happened yet.
She remembered the dream in fragmented, horrifying flashes.
She dreamt that she was trapped inside of a massive, labyrinthine structure. It felt like one of the Academy's training simulations, but the magical safeguards were completely gone. The air was choking with the stench of actual death and abyssal corruption.
She then saw a girl in her dream. It was the girl from the hallway today. The beautiful, black-haired commoner with the golden eyes. But in the dream, the girl was lying on the cold stone floor, completely unresponsive, locked in a deep, unnatural coma, her golden eyes rolled back into her head.
And standing over them, protecting them both, was her Head Maid. Amanda.
But Amanda wasn't wearing her pristine uniform. She was covered in deep, bleeding gashes. She was wielding twin trench knives, fighting a desperate, losing battle against a towering, monstrous entity composed of pure shadow and hellfire. It was a demon.
"Princess, get out of here! Now!" The dream-Amanda had screamed over her shoulder, parrying a massive, flaming claw that threatened to cut Veronica in half. "I will try to buy you some time! Take the girl and run!"
"No—no! I won't leave you! I'll fight with you!" The dream-Veronica had cried out. But even in the dream, she felt completely, pathetically useless. She couldn't cast a single spell. She couldn't control her own body. She was trembling and terrified, frozen in absolute, paralyzing fear as the monster loomed over them. "P-please! You promised me we would get out of here together! You promised my mother!"
Then, the horrifying climax of the nightmare occurred.
The Demon moved with blinding, impossible speed. It swept its massive claws forward.
It cut cleanly through Amanda's defenses, severing her left hand completely off at the wrist.
"ARGH!" Amanda had screamed, a sound of pure, agonizing pain that had made Veronica's blood run cold. Blood sprayed across the stone floor as the severed hand landed near Veronica's feet.
"AMY!" Veronica had shrieked, dropping to her knees in horror.
"RUN!" Amanda shouted, turning back to face the Princess. Despite the agony, despite the arterial bleeding and the certain death standing before her... Amanda had smiled. A sad, fiercely protective, beautiful smile.
"Get out of here with that woman, Veronica. I promise you... I'll catch up." Amanda smiled, tears in her eyes. And then she turned back to the monster.
-CLANG!
She desperately parried the Demon's next massive, flaming attack with her single remaining right hand, buying her Princess the precious seconds needed to escape.
"No! Don't run! Don't you dare run away!" The waking Veronica had screamed at her dream self from the void of her subconscious. "Don't leave her behind!"
But the Veronica from the dream didn't listen. Driven by a primal, cowardly instinct to survive, the dream-Veronica had picked up the unconscious body of Adelina, hoisted the black-haired girl onto her back, and fled down the dark corridor, weeping hysterically, completely abandoning the woman who had raised her to die alone in the dark.
After that final, shameful act of cowardice, the real Veronica had violently woken up.
Sitting in her lavish bed in the present, Veronica pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. She was shaking so hard the bed frame rattled slightly.
She felt a profound, absolute, and genuine terror. It was a terror she had only ever felt twice before in her entire life. The first time was when the First Empress had looked down at her and her mother and called her a 'bitch'. The second time was when she sat beside the bed, watching the light slowly fade from her mother's eyes as the poison finally claimed her.
And now, the third time was seeing this apocalyptic dream.
Veronica clenched her fists, burying her face into her knees, tears streaming down her face.
'Why did I do that?!' Veronica asked herself, consumed by a suffocating, sickening guilt for an action she hadn't even committed in reality. 'Why did I run away like a coward in that dream?! I should have stayed! I should be rational! I already promised myself, sitting by my mother's grave, that I would never abandon anyone I loved ever again!'
The sheer, overwhelming pressure of the nightmare and the self-loathing became too much to bear.
She threw the blankets off, swinging her legs out of bed. In a fit of sudden, violent frustration, she grabbed a priceless, Ming Dynasty porcelain vase resting on her nightstand.
She hurled it across the room.
-CRASH!
The priceless vase shattered into a thousand pieces against the mahogany doors, the sharp sound echoing loudly in the quiet suite.
She stood there in her silk nightgown, her chest heaving, staring at the broken porcelain. She was in deep, chaotic anger. The thing her dream-self did was entirely irrational. It didn't make sense. She didn't even know if it was truly her in that dream, or if it was some sick, twisted premonition sent by an enemy mage.
Suddenly, the ambient temperature in the room dropped significantly.
A soft, pulsing blue light illuminated the darkness of her bedchamber.
Veronica's oceanic eyes widened in alarm. She spun around, her hands instinctively raising in a defensive, basic magical posture.
Floating in mid-air, directly at the foot of her bed, was a rectangular, glowing blue screen. It looked like a pane of sheer, illuminated glass inscribed with strange, glowing white text.
"Wha-what in the world is that?!" Veronica gasped in absolute shock.
She cautiously took a step forward. She reached out a trembling, pale hand, intending to touch the smooth surface of the glowing object to determine its elemental origin.
But her hand passed completely, harmlessly straight through the blue screen, as if she were waving her hand through a beam of light.
"What is this magic? Am I still dreaming?!" Veronica demanded, her fear quickly morphing into profound, aristocratic annoyance. She hated things she couldn't understand or control.
Then, the text on the glowing blue screen shifted, rearranging itself into a language she could read perfectly.
The screen showed her a message.
[Would you like to view an inevitable future? Bad End #2.]
[Title: My First Mistake]
[Please Click]
[ Yes ] or [ No ]
[For Final Confirmation]
Veronica tilted her head, her brow furrowing in deep confusion.
"What in a nightmarish hell is this?!" she whispered.
She was completely, utterly baffled by the situation she was currently experiencing. This was the very first time in her life she was seeing a technology—or a magic—that looked like this. The Rosania Empire was incredibly advanced in alchemical engineering and elemental magic, but they had absolutely nothing that resembled holographic, interactive digital interfaces. It was a concept entirely alien to her reality.
She stared at the floating options. Yes or No.
Veronica let out a long, shuddering sigh. She stood there in the cold blue light for a grueling, terrifying five minutes, her mind racing. Was it a trap? Was it an illusion? Or was it a genuine warning from the heavens?
She closed her eyes, steadying her erratic breathing. She thought of Amanda's severed hand. She thought of her own cowardice. She needed to know the truth. She needed to know if that nightmare was her destiny.
She opened her eyes, her gaze hardening with royal resolve. She was certain of her decision.
She reached out her hand and firmly tapped the glowing word [ Yes ].
The moment her finger phased through the word, the blue screen exploded with a blinding, flashbang-level of white light.
Without a single sound, without any sensation of movement or teleportation, the opulent royal bedchamber simply vanished.
When Veronica opened her eyes a second later, she was no longer in her room.
"Wha-what the...!" Veronica screamed, her voice echoing infinitely as she found herself standing in absolute, genuine shock.
She was standing in a void. It was an endless, stretching expanse of pure, suffocating blackness. There was no floor, no ceiling, no walls. She was simply floating in a sensory deprivation chamber of cosmic proportions.
Then, the familiar, glowing blue system window popped up again, floating a few feet in front of her face in the darkness.
The text began to type itself out, the sound of the keystrokes loud and distinct in the silent void.
[In a distant, highly probable future timeline...]
[You make a choice. You choose to save the woman you eventually fall in love with—Adelina Van Hestianna—from the clutches of the Greater Demon General Dratkthar, the Architect of Agony.]
[Because of that cowardly, selfish choice... it becomes your first, greatest mistake.]
[That choice directly causes you to lose the second most important person of your entire life. Your guardian. Your mother figure.]
[And you know exactly who I am talking about. You just saw her die for you.]
[This specific tragedy costs you so much of your sanity and your soul that you completely break. You formally retract your position as a Princess of the Realm. You abandon your duties, leave the Academy, and flee the Empire in disgrace.]
[And after one year of agonizing, unending guilt...]
[You kill yourself.]
Veronica stared at the glowing white text. She couldn't breathe. The words hit her like a physical barrage of blows.
[You have precisely 5 minutes before the visceral viewing of 'Bad End #2' commences. Please prepare your mental health.]
Veronica clenched her teeth together so hard she heard a faint pop in her jaw. She clenched her fists until her nails drew blood from her palms.
'Me? Sacrificing myself?!' Veronica screamed inwardly, her royal pride and her deep-seated survival instincts fighting a desperate war against the horrifying narrative the screen was presenting. 'And worse... throwing my life away, giving up my title, and ending my own existence... over another woman?! Over a commoner?!'
"What absurd, completely ridiculous situation is this?!" Veronica screamed into the endless darkness, her voice tearing at her throat. "Who are you?! Show yourself, you coward! Face me!"
She spun around, searching the blackness for an architect, for a wizard, for a god to strike down.
But instead of answering her furious plea, no one showed up. The darkness remained absolute and indifferent. Because, after all, she was trapped in an endless, programmatic void.
She turned back to face the floating blue screen. The countdown timer was slowly ticking down from five minutes.
"Fine!" Veronica snarled, running her trembling hands through her silver-blue hair in profound, terrified annoyance. Her fear crystallized into a desperate, furious need to prove the prophecy wrong.
She glared at the screen, her oceanic eyes burning.
"Show it to me! I will view that goddamn, pathetic scene of yours! And I will prove it wrong!"