Clara.
Abyss City’s S-rank limited character. At the time of release, she topped the sales charts, ranking #1 in the store.
The character PV views had surpassed 2.7 million the last time Rohan checked.
Compared to Ichinose Yui and Noah Frozenheart, Clara’s time in Rohan’s party was relatively short.
However, she was the third S-rank character Rohan fully maxed out, and she received just as much love as the other two, never falling behind.
That’s why Rohan remembers her backstory clearly.
“Clara hails from Geno.”
Geno is a poor, isolated country in the west, a small nation with a closed-off attitude, avoiding external interactions.
And yet.
Unlike Rohan’s homeland in the south, Geno is a country walking the path to ruin due to internal conflicts.
Recently, it’s been said that with the successive deaths of its leaders, the country has fallen into a state of anarchy, and neighboring nations have started reaching out under various pretexts.
Clara probably knows this too.
Anyway, unlike Geno’s hostile stance toward foreign countries,
internally, they poured all their efforts into training spies for purposes like assassinating key figures, gathering foreign intelligence, and extracting technology.
Clara was one of the street kids raised and educated there.
“Back then, she wasn’t called Clara but Number 11.”
As you can see, her natural temperament was passive, and like the other street kids who came for food, she could’ve been kicked out at any moment.
But her talent in combat far surpassed everyone else she trained with, so even within Geno, expectations for her were sky-high.
“Such a twist of fate, huh?”
But the ups and downs of destiny come when you least expect them.
One day, Clara was tasked with tracking down a group smuggling foreign goods into Geno, eliminating them, and confiscating their assets…
What more needs to be said?
The girl, who had been living under the heavy burden of “selfless devotion” without understanding why, caught a glimpse of the outside world through foreign culture that day.
Smartphones without owners, laptops, colorful books, external hard drives filled with anime and movies.
At first, she dismissed it as lowly propaganda meant to confuse Geno’s citizens.
But Clara, though shy in social situations, wasn’t stupid. She secretly kept some of the items and returned the rest to Geno.
“Here, the two big mistakes made by Clara’s handler.”
The first mistake was assuming Clara wouldn’t dare run away, judging solely by her passive behavior.
The second mistake was sending her on that mission before properly educating her mentally.
And so began her time of endurance.
The girl, who spent her days accumulating knowledge and waiting for a chance to escape…
“Did she think the sky was pitiful too?”
An incident occurred where the nation’s foundation shook, and cracks began to form, as if urging people to step outside.
The peasants, living in a society so poor that it was mocked by other countries as a “beggar nation” rather than Geno, rose up and formed military organizations or bandit groups.
The leadership, lacking a dominant ruler, repeatedly clashed in opinions, and the small country began to crack.
On the day one of the leaders sent the spies they had nurtured, not for their original purpose but to suppress the uprising in their own country, Clara escaped without looking back.
“…”
Rohan looked at the girl standing before him.
‘It’s different seeing the person who actually experienced what I only knew from the game.’
Rohan even understood why Clara stuck to her unique fashion sense.
She wore only tight black outfits every day, but she fell in love at first sight with a fashion magazine she had snatched.
‘I heard she got into games while trying to learn about the outside world.’
Rohan, who knew all this about Clara, was unaware of one thing.
That was the “present.”
He knew up to the moment she left Geno, but there was a gap from then until she met the protagonist in her second year.
So Rohan wanted to know the situation Clara was in now.
He was also happy because it seemed like the girl would willingly share her personal story.
“Um, aren’t you going to ask anything? Like why I’m like this every day…?”
Clara started the topic, and Rohan carefully responded.
“Honestly, I was curious, but I thought it might be an uncomfortable question.”
“So you were curious…!”
The girl’s eyes sparkled and widened.
Her twin tails swayed like a tail, creating an illusion.
‘That’s what makes her happy.’
Rohan wondered what personal story Clara would tell, so he decided to ask subtly.
If it was a distance that could be a topic, it seemed fine.
“Will you tell me?”
“But… it might not be interesting.”
Rohan, who had been quietly watching Clara fiddle with her drink, reached out.
He tapped her pale hand with his finger.
“!!!”
The startled girl met his eyes, which she had been avoiding.
Only then did Rohan smile and speak.
“Is fun important between us? Getting to know each other is what matters.”
“…!”
They met almost every day, shared hobbies, were in the same guild, and hung out after work.
Where else would you find such a close friend?
“Wouldn’t it be nice to talk more comfortably? What do you think?”
“Ah! Huh? Uh, uh…?”
Clara made a strange sound and averted her gaze.
He couldn’t make it.
Although he looked quite, no, very flustered, Rohan didn’t seem like he would run away from his seat, so he quietly observed and enjoyed the fresh reaction.
Clink!
The melted ice in the cup clinked as it collided.
“Our relationship… our relationship…”
The girl, who had been pondering Rohan’s words for a while, seemed to have made up her mind.
She straightened her back, placed her hands on her knees, and nodded with a sense of gravity.
“O-okay! Feel free to…!”
“Then is it okay if I just call you Clara?”
The girl gave a small nod.
She awkwardly mixed informal speech as she asked what she should do. But she still remembered her own age.
“I… no, I can’t enter the Academy until next year…”
“What’s the big deal about a one-year difference? You can call me by my name, so call me whatever you want.”
Even though it was just a one-year difference, Clara felt that Rohan was much older.
The way they addressed each other eventually went in one direction.
“T-then, Rohan oppa…?”
“I’m fine with that. Just hearing it makes my ears feel spoiled.”
Clara, still awkward with informal speech, twitched the corners of her mouth.
Rohan enjoyed the ticklish conversation, but now he wanted to get to the point.
“Now, will you tell me about Clara?”
“…Yeah.”
With the premise that it wasn’t everything, Clara continued with her personal story.
“I came from a bit far away… I mean, I came.”
“I see.”
It meant that her home country wasn’t one of the three major powers that operated the Academy City.
There was no need to specifically mention Geno.
“W-well, being at the bookstore is partly because I can’t work anywhere until my status is confirmed… and I just like the bookstore…”
“Status?”
“When I went to the Security Bureau, they said my situation is similar to a refugee, so I had to apply for immigration and get my status recognized first, so I went to the government office… I mean, I went, but?”
“Ah.”
“I was consulting on that floor when I met the store manager who was visiting for other business…”
Rohan already had a clear picture in his head.
‘So that’s where the store manager met her and was surprised when she came to the bookstore.’
With understanding.
He focused on Clara’s voice and listened attentively.
“It’s hard to explain in detail, but… in my case, the process of getting my status issued seems really, really complicated and takes a long time…”
“So you need that first to look for work or anything, right?”
Nod nod.
Clara, who agreed, went on to explain more about what she heard at the government office at Rohan’s request.
Rohan absorbed every piece of information without missing a word.
The conditions for obtaining status were…
At first glance, it seemed simple.
First, you had to get admitted to the academy, which was practically the symbol of the academy city, Elysium.
Second, you had to be a citizen of one of the three major powers that run the academy city—the Tri-Nation Alliance, Tigroba, or the Sepia Archipelago—or an honorary citizen recognized by those nations.
Third, you had to pass an evaluation to become an official part of the academy city itself.
The most common ones were these, and Clara fell into the third category.
There were also ways for businesses or individuals aiming to trade to pass, but that had nothing to do with Clara.
“The third one is too vague and broad… These things get complicated when you dig into them.”
Since even playing Abyss City didn’t give detailed insights into these institutional aspects.
It was new information for Rohan too.
In conclusion.
Getting an identity to use in the academy city was incredibly easy for some, but for others, it was so difficult they couldn’t even dream of it.
“So, how are you managing now?”
“Th-they provide food and lodging until the document review is done… And the phone bill is covered exactly as the manager said, so the subsidy is just enough…”
“Hmm.”
Rohan’s expression turned serious.
It wasn’t a pleasant story for a character he cared about.
Even though the academy city was a gathering of powerful nations, how great could the food and shelter they provided to Clara, who was waiting, really be?
“Could it be that even after all this time, she still didn’t get her identity and ended up enrolling in Orion Academy?”
It’s hard to say for sure.
But recalling Clara’s appearance in Abyss City, the possibility seemed high.
Her abilities alone were more than enough to get admitted.
“Is the room they provided warm? Does the hot water work?”
“I-I don’t really need to wash with warm water. Ah, um, no…? And I don’t really feel the cold much…”
She replied with awkwardly humble words, far from being smooth.
In the end, it meant she washed with cold water even in the middle of winter and slept in a freezing room with no warmth.
“Hmm.”
Rohan’s concern only deepened.
