Lilith Raphi. Now just Lilith, she was the princess of the Raphi Kingdom.
But unfortunately, the Raphi Kingdom was located closest to the territory of the Demon King’s army.
Because of that, they were attacked by the Demon King’s army, who wanted to expand their territory, and the kingdom was completely taken over. In the process, her family was scattered.
In the end, she fled to Rubetia to survive, hiding her identity as a princess and living in a convent.
Then one day. Following the advice of a priest who visited the monastery, she tried using light magic and awakened as a Saintess. She discovered that the special power called Holy Power, which she gained, was effective against the Demon King’s army that had destroyed her kingdom. So, she decided to temporarily put aside her goal of finding her scattered family.
Of course, she wanted to see her family, but more than that, she wanted to take revenge on the Demon King’s army that had taken her homeland.
But knowing she was still lacking, she decided to first grow stronger and entered the Akadeumi (Academy). That was Lilith’s early story.
But the current situation was way too different from what I knew. She wasn’t hiding in a convent, and judging by the pendant with her kingdom’s emblem, it didn’t seem like she was hiding her identity as a princess.
To begin with, her appearing in the entrance exam was something I’d never heard of. Originally, she was supposed to suddenly show up during the first semester’s finals after awakening as a Saintess… What on earth happened?
While all sorts of random thoughts were swirling in my head, one sentence from Lilith sent a chill down my spine.
“My specialty is light attribute magic, you know? Tricks like curses won’t work on me, so keep that in mind.”
Curses. In this world, that’s how they referred to deceptive or underhanded tricks using magic.
Also, since the origin of curses was closer to evil, they were easily countered by light attributes.
But is the game system a curse? No way. It wasn’t even comparable to something like curses.
Even if it were, it wouldn’t matter. Did you think I wouldn’t have light attribute skills in my meticulously organized Excel sheet of dodge timings?
She’s treating me like some kind of scammer. She’s completely ignoring the career I’ve built through fair(?) fights.
Saintess or whatever, you need to be taught a lesson. If you’re a newbie, just say, “Wow, you’re so cool. Amazing.” How dare you doubt me?
“Shall we start? You attack first.”
I gave her the first move.
Maybe she thought my confidence was arrogance, as she smiled and activated her magic.
“Don’t regret it.”
The space began to fill with light magic, and the surroundings brightened.
A purification barrier. In simpler terms, a domain expansion… ugh. Anyway, within this domain, anything evil like curses will be reduced to nothing.
And then, another spell flew toward me.
Ssshhh!
A spear of light. A basic skill that increases in piercing power depending on the user’s magic.
Its attack power is decent, the speed of the spear is fast, and it has piercing power, so anyone who’s tried the light magic path would know it well.
However, the Spear of Light had quite a few flaws for a skill called “Gukbap Skill.”
Due to the nature of the skill, which involves shooting a spear, the attack range was narrow, and it flew in a completely straight line.
That’s why you could dodge it with just a slight sidestep without even needing to use an evasion skill… But if I do that in front of this kid who’s accusing me of using tricks, wouldn’t they really think I’m using some kind of trick?
I couldn’t let that happen, so instead of sidestepping, I jumped forward. The Spear of Light pierced through my abdomen and flew past.
If I had failed to dodge, there would’ve been a hole, but when I checked my abdomen just in case, it was perfectly fine.
I was bragging about how tricks don’t work on me, but what do I do now? It’s working way too well!
“How… are you using tricks in this space…?”
“Then maybe it’s not a trick.”
“That can’t be.”
Ugly Lilith. At this point, just admit it.
Of course, I’ll admit that it does look like some kind of trick at first glance… But just because it looks like that doesn’t mean you should jump to conclusions, okay? Looks-based judgment is so dangerous… Oh, maybe you don’t get it because you’re pretty yourself?
Anyway. Since I’ve shown that even light magic doesn’t work on me, the others probably won’t see me in a bad light now.
This situation might actually be fine?
“Eek!”
But Lilith, perhaps hurt by her magic not working, suddenly surrounded herself with a halo of light and charged at me.
The variations of light magic are pretty wide, huh? What’s this? Did she already awaken as a Saintess?
“Die!”
With a rather aggressive choice of words for a Saintess, her fist flew toward me. I dodged again, and as I did, a burst of energy erupted from her fist… Hmm, not mana. That color is definitely Holy Power.
Holy Power. Aside from the fact that it can only be used for light-attribute skills, it’s not much different from mana. But true to its name, Holy Power is like a deadly poison to demons, the Demon Race, the Demon King’s army, and anything related to “demonic” forces.
And the unlock condition for Holy Power is the awakening of a Saintess.
It’s one of the abilities that a male protagonist like me could never obtain.
But the fact that she’s using Holy Power means Lilith has awakened as a Saintess now. Does that even make sense?
As far as I know, there’s no route to awakening without going to the convent…
While dodging Lilith’s relentless attacks, I pondered this, but since meeting Lilith at this point in time was already something that shouldn’t have happened, nothing came to mind.
In the end, this situation meant that a completely different story from what I knew was unfolding.
When I reached that conclusion, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.
“Hmm, could it be…?”
In the past, there was a part of the developer notes about upcoming content updates.
[We are currently developing the next level of difficulty after the existing Hell difficulty: Heaven difficulty. Meet new characters who grow even faster, and uncover truths that have yet to be revealed.]
I remember them repeating “in development” for months before quietly scrapping it and patching it up with other new content.
The content added at that time was…
It was so fun that I completely forgot about the new difficulty level, but since I was somewhat looking forward to it, I felt a bit disappointed.
Anyway, enough of that. What I needed to look at now was this sentence.
“Meet another story with characters who grow even faster.”
So, in this difficulty level, the characters grow faster, which leads to changes in the story.
Given the game’s narrative that characters grow stronger through hardships, it made sense that Lilith, the only one who had faced hardships at this point, was significantly affected.
I couldn’t be sure if it was true or not, but it seemed right to judge based on that assumption.
I’d know for sure once I saw how fast the others grew.
“After all, everyone grows rapidly after entering the academy. I might be able to confirm it sooner than I thought.”
“Eek! What the heck! How can a human body pass through that? It’s seriously creepy!”
“Ah, but if the kids get stronger faster, how am I supposed to keep up? The balance is totally ruined.”
“Stop muttering to yourself! We’re in the middle of a sparring match! Focus on the match!”
For now, I’ll just play along with this noisy guy until he gets tired. The patterns are varied, so dodging is more fun than I thought.
But shouldn’t she, being a saintess and a princess, be a bit more refined like Seria? She looks like a classic saintess, but her actions are so different.
This gap is why many people like her, but there’s still a bit of awkwardness from the mismatch between her appearance and behavior.
In the end, she went wild until she exhausted all her magic and collapsed from mana depletion.
“…You really shouldn’t judge people just by their looks.”
“She’s really pretty… but it’s a bit jarring.”
That day, Lilith’s achievement was selected as one of the “Top 10 Conversation Topics for Awkward Encounters” and was talked about for a long time. She also earned the nickname “Mad Dog” for a while.
Even former royalty can end up stuffed and displayed. What a scary world…
The rest of the sparring matches went smoothly.
In fact, ever since I gained the ability to dodge, I couldn’t lose in these one-on-one matches.
Even if the protagonist came back with their final stats, I was confident I wouldn’t lose in a one-on-one. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to win either…
Thanks to that, I was able to stay on the training ground until everyone finished their tests.
“…Is it over?”
“Yeah. There’s nothing left to be amazed by.”
“Are you a monster? How can you fight for hours without even panting?”
At this point, I’m pretty sure my stamina is also being affected by the [Irregular] trait.
No matter how you look at it, taking on so many opponents and only defeating them after they’ve shown their full strength is beyond just having high stamina.
Parrying, dodging, dash canceling, automatic stamina recovery…
Just listing what’s already revealed is absurd, and it’s even scarier because it feels like this isn’t the end.
Now that I think about it, the game system is truly the pinnacle of absurdity…
I feel a bit guilty for bringing it over as is, but… I’m supposed to just sit back and watch you guys grow, right? Cut me some slack. Eventually, my stats will be so bad I won’t even be able to hang with you.
Thinking about that just killed my motivation.
Ugh. The future looks bleak. Well, the test is over, so maybe I should head up.
“…Huh?”
Just then, someone came down to the Training Ground.
Was there still someone who hadn’t taken the test yet? When I turned around, I saw a familiar face.
“Rudion!”
It was her—Seria, my first sparring partner. She had come down.
The famously introverted Seria, walking into a place full of people’s gazes? What on earth happened?
‘Oh no.’
Suddenly, my crime flashed through my mind. The huge sin of knocking her out with an elbow.
And now Seria, who I wronged, was standing in front of me… Given her personality, if she’s showing up like this in front of everyone, she must be really mad.
Wait. Is she planning to publicly execute me here? Well… I guess I deserve it.
Without hesitation, I bowed my head.
“I’m so sorryyyyy!!!”
“W-what are you doing all of a sudden?! Wait… why are you bowing to the ground… Stop it! I said stop!”
I poured all my energy into the ultimate apology—head-bowing! Still not enough? Then all that’s left is a full prostration!
“What are you even doing?! It’s embarrassing, so stop it and get up already!”
She started hitting my back, but her strength stat is only 4. It wasn’t completely painless, but I could handle it.
“Will you forgive me?”
“What are you even apologizing for? What do you want me to forgive? I have no idea… Ugh, whatever. There are too many eyes here, so just follow me for now.”
The fact that she’s worried about people watching means her anger has probably subsided. See? When you mess up, you gotta bow your head first.
But she told me to follow her… Where is she even planning to go?
I was terrified, but since I was the one who messed up, I had no choice but to do as she said.
—
After Rudion followed Seria out, the Spectator Seats were abuzz.
“…Are they dating?”
“No way. Don’t you know who that girl is?”
“I do, but… why does it look like she’s just a girlfriend suffering because of her clueless boyfriend?”
“Honestly, Rudion? He’s good-looking enough that they’d make a cute couple.”
…
…
…
“Wait, when we first got here, weren’t they sparring alone?”
“…Now that you mention it, yeah.”
“Doesn’t that mean they’ve been secretly dating this whole time?”
“Nah, no way. But if they were, that’d be so juicy. I love secret relationships.”
In their memories, the image of Seria getting knocked out by an elbow had long since faded.
If Seria had heard this conversation, how red would her face have turned?
We’ll never know.
