Chapter 3
".........Where am I."
It's an unfamiliar ceiling.
"I'm sure I was getting out of the capsule when I got an electric shock......"
Just as I thought that and tried to grasp the situation, I started feeling many unfamiliar things.
My hands had become thin, like those of a middle school student, and my short hair had somehow grown long enough to reach my waist.
Most importantly.... my third leg had disappeared, and instead, lumps with a certain weight had appeared on my upper body?
"Wh-what is this."
'A status window, but... the name is Yun Sea?!'
'It just appears suddenly, says only that, and leaves?'
First off, seeing that blue window, it seemed I had been possessed. And into the game I was playing just moments ago,
Usually, in situations like this, the person who possessed me here—usually the developers or a god in these situations—would show up. But there was nothing like that.
Anyway, usually that god fellow would use the status window to show something like, 'To return to your original world, do this and that well,' or, 'Hehe, user, if you don't do the quest I assign (usually about saving the world), you die. GG.'
'......Is there really nothing?'
This system window has nothing.
Really, nothing at all.
Something shimmering pointlessly before my eyes was blurring my vision.
"Ugh..... my head."
I tried to look straight at it, but my vision kept blurring, so I squeezed my eyes shut.
As soon as I closed my eyes, memories that shouldn't exist flashed through my mind.
...
...
While only a black screen was visible, it suddenly shifted to a scene so cruel it was hard to believe a young girl could have experienced it.
-Stab!
"Aaaargh! It hurts, Fath...er!!"
On an experiment table in an underground laboratory, a girl about 10 years old, with her limbs severed and bleeding profusely, cried out to a man in a white coat.
However, the man called father pressed a button to increase the intensity with a blank expression. Soon after, he injected an unidentified drug into her neck.
"If you can't even endure that, it means you are worthless to our Yuseong Group. Let's quickly inject the next experimental drug. Tell me if it hurts. I won't stop, but... I'll at least listen."
-Whirrrrrrrrr!!
"Uwaaaaaaaaargh.....!!"
"Hmm.... Even if the lower body is severed, the body regenerates quickly. It seems we can increase the concentration of monster blood."
The young girl couldn't even grow up receiving the abundant love of her family. The reason was obvious.
Because for the daughter of a prestigious family, her skills were pathetic.
With only a single skill called
Thanks to that, she grew up being treated as if she didn't exist within the family, and couldn't even participate in the banquets always attended for fostering connections within the family.
'So, within the family, Yun Sea's image was just that of a human experiment, nothing more, nothing less.'
I knew the story that she was brainwashed, resisted the brainwashing to the end, but her body and mind were broken by the experiments.
Until she entered the Academy as if running away, she had to spend every day on the experiment table, and later, in the Yuseong Group episode, a story arc that holds significant weight in Academy Swordmaster.
"Thanks to my lovely daughter, Sea, I could conduct experiments without anyone finding out. If I captured a normal human for experiments, the government would detect something strange and investigate, but experimenting on that child, even if I cut off her limbs, she recovers perfectly. Where could I find a more perfect lab rat!"
The words of the boss there, Yun Seong-ho, stated that Yun Sea, with her Natural Healing skill, served as the perfect lab rat, allowing him to conduct experiments transplanting monster blood and flesh into humans without being caught by anyone, including family.
However, I didn't know it was this bad.
The only sibling she had was an older sister four years her senior, but like her father, she also showed a somewhat warped side.
-Thwack!
"Ack...?!"
"Weak. Even when trying to spar, you just keep collapsing weakly. Like that, you only tarnish the name of Yuseong. If you're going to live like that, why don't you just hang yourself and commit suicide?"
Yun Sea's older sister, Yun Seol-hwa, cruelly trampled and abused her.
The reason given was that instead of being a source of strength to her proud father, she only collapsed like a weakling, thus disgracing the family's honor.
Then, perhaps because her adolescence ended, or maybe she happened to witness Yun Seong-ho's experiments, she apologized and started treating Yun Sea well again, but....
Yun Sea's already terribly shattered heart couldn't be mended, like a broken windowpane, and Yun Seol-hwa. No, Lee Seol-hwa, ran away from home as if fleeing her guilt.
Lee Seol-hwa.
In the original story, there was only the explanation that she was an A-Rank Hero who helped the protagonist, but I never knew there was a story about her abusing Yun Sea since childhood.
Before I could even sort through the confusing memories, the girl named Yun Sea had somehow turned 17, and disaster struck.
When her older sister, Yun Seol-hwa, left home, Yun Seong-ho suddenly started force-feeding Yun Sea—whom he had previously viewed only as a test subject—elixirs for strengthening and monster carcasses to the point of food torture.
And then came the final human experiment performed on her.
Yun Seong-ho, somehow, procured the eye of a subjugated S-Rank monster and gouged out one of Yun Sea's eyes as she lay on the experiment table.
Without even administering anesthesia, Yun Seong-ho shouted at the screaming Yun Sea to shut up because she was noisy, and before the gouged-out eye could regenerate due to the Natural Healing effect, he forcibly transplanted the monster's eye into Yun Sea.
Fortunately, experiments of such a cruel level didn't occur afterwards, but.... young Yun Sea's heart was cruelly broken.
'And on top of that, she was being brainwashed since childhood?'
That was why, even when screaming in pain and suffering, she couldn't refuse Yun Seong-ho's command to come down to the lab for experiments.
Even before knowing these details, Yun Sea's story was the epitome of bleakness, but after learning the specifics... indescribably disgusting feelings began to surface.
"...........So this was Yun Sea's... no. My story."
'........My head feels dizzy.'
Something is sparkling before my eyes; it seemed to be moving unpleasantly, as if hypnotizing someone by waving a coin back and forth, emitting something.....
"Stop interfering and get lost.....!!"
Feeling like it was needlessly grating on my nerves, I gestured irritably with anger, and with a 'Crunch!' sound, something broke.
This is Yun Sea's ability,
'Finally, it's quiet.'
"......It's finally quiet now."
I could see the sight of some device, crushed and miserably shattered.
'As expected, that was the problem.'
"It seems that was the correct answer."
Only then did my dizzy vision quickly clear up. Having come to my senses, I could grasp the detailed situation.
First, judging by the room's decor, this was a Raon Academy dormitory, the single room where Yun Sea was staying.
'I roughly understand. So, I've been possessed into the situation before the original story begins, right?'
"Hmm..... It's an ambiguous situation. Truly, one could call it an avant-garde situation."
'No, why does my speech keep getting corrected like that? It wasn't like this just a moment ago.'
"Hmph, this is... quite a troublesome situation, isn't it?"
First, my way of speaking comes out strangely, as if being corrected by something.
In my head, I'm conveying what I want to say, but it's quite strange that it comes out in a distinctive young lady's manner of speaking, as if there's an error midway.
'This makes it seem like I'm just muttering nonsense to myself.'
"Hmm..... It seems the meaning and nuance are conveyed well, so that's a relief."
Now that I've confirmed the internal situation, all that's left is to check the external situation.
'So, what is that thing?'
"Hmm.... So, that utterly unpleasant object is....."
I slowly get up from the bed and look at the 'something' before my eyes.
Looking at the fragments of a purple sphere contained within a small, elephant-shaped stone statue, I scoffed.
'So this was the thing she was brainwashed with since childhood. As expected.'
The reason Yun Sea moved to kill the protagonist wasn't revealed.
It could just be said that she fell under the Final Boss's brainwashing and ended up acting that way, but is this one of the prerequisites for that?
'Isn't this the item Yun Sea's father supposedly gave her as a gift?'
"This statue..... Ah, I remember. It was the thing that man called my father threw at me as a souvenir, wasn't it?"
The Affinity-increasing item, the 'Elephant Statue', which is given to raise Yun Sea's Affinity.
I knew that upon receiving this gift, she would say, 'Huhu, it looks very similar to the souvenir Father gave me.'
It was a memory hazy like fragments of a broken mirror, but Yun Sea received this item as a gift from her father figure to commemorate her Academy admission. It seems Yun Sea placed this item by her dorm bed.
But for me, who knows the truth, Yun Sea's father was nothing more and nothing less than a villain who cruelly abused her just to use her.
'.........Wait, then has the brainwashing been broken?'
"However, how should I overcome this predicament....."
No, I was just thinking about it, what am I supposed to do if I blurt it out like this?
-Beep beep beep beep!
[7:30]
While I was contemplating,
'.........First, I need to go down to get information.'
"First, shall we go down for breakfast?"
Well, what can I do? If I stay cooped up in this room, I won't get any information.
The only facts I know are that this is a Raon Academy dormitory, and I've possessed the body of Yun Sea, the Student Council President of Raon Academy.
Since I had never worn women's clothes before, I was worried about how to put on everything from women's underwear to a skirt.....
'Memories ingrained in the body, the best!'
"......These kinds of memories are convenient, good."
Thanks to the habit-like memories of Yun Sea ingrained in the body, I could prepare to leave very easily.