NOVEL NEXT The Strongest Solo Gamer with Terrible Social Skills Reincarnates as a Hated NPC in a VRMMO Chapter 2
2: The First Day of School is Filled with Contempt
Although the situation is still chaotic, I’ve realized a few things. The owner of this body is a boy named Ishiru Shouma.
At first, the name didn’t ring a bell, but I’ve heard of it before.
VRMMO Legacy Sense. The character Ishiru Aina, who appears in the game, has a brother named Ishiru Shouma.
In terms of role, it’s not an exaggeration to say he’s a mob character. He appears in the early stages of the scenario, opposing the players, and eventually gets defeated and fades out. That’s why I didn’t remember much about him.
The Ishiru family, his birth family, is a renowned martial arts family that has continued for generations. Ishiru Shouma is the only son and heir to the family. He’s a proud and arrogant character who looks down on those around him, using his family’s authority to intimidate others―that’s the general impression players have of him.
The setting of Legacy Sense is based on modern-day Japan. It’s not a typical fantasy world, but rather a parallel world where historical events have unfolded differently. The game’s graphics are incredibly realistic, and its high completion rate has made it popular not only as a game but also as a simulator.
Of course, the game includes battle elements. The “ABYSS” towers that appear in each country are dungeons that players must conquer. This is the ultimate goal of the players. Since the game has a high degree of freedom, many players have been enjoying the game without focusing on the ABYSS conquest.
As for me, I was a top player in Legacy Sense, ranked 3rd in the world. However, since I only focused on ABYSS conquest, my knowledge of the scenario is lacking. That’s why I had forgotten about Ishiru Shouma’s name.
And the fact that she’s his fiancée… Of course.
“… Let’s hurry up.”
“Ah, okay.”
The one walking ahead of me on the school path with a stern attitude is Ishiru Shouma’s childhood friend and fiancée, Ootori Kureha. She’s one of the heroines in Legacy Sense’s main story. Her distinctive red hair is still styled in a long ponytail. Seeing her in person, I’m struck by how beautiful she is.
… Well, as long as I’m “Shouma”, it’s unlikely she’ll ever notice me, though…!
The Ootori and Ishiru families were both samurai families. In this world, it was customary for samurai families to marry within their own social class. As a result, she was engaged to me, a union decided by our families without considering my own wishes.
As my fiancée, Kureha Ootori loathed me, Shouma, like a snake and a scorpion. Although our families had promised to keep up appearances, we attended school together, but her cold demeanor towards me made it clear how she felt about me.
In my heart, I still didn’t have the real sense of “I am Shouma.” However, the harsh reality of being one-sidedly disliked by a beautiful girl was painful.
“…Shouma is also in Class D, right…?”
“Huh? Wh-what?”
Kureha muttered to herself, as if she had just remembered something. Her voice was low, almost like a soliloquy. She didn’t even glance at me as she walked ahead, her silence piercing.
The atmosphere was terrible.
I tried not to think about her and instead focused on the school we were heading to.
The Academy, established by the government, was a training school for explorers aiming to conquer ABYSS. As a student, I had to attend this school to become a great explorer in the future. The players of Legacion, including me, had entered the Academy as freshmen and were now experiencing love, exploration, and youth.
However, I was in Class D, the lowest-ranked class. The class division in Legacion was based on the players’ initial choices, which determined the faction they belonged to. Class D was the worst, and it was set up for students who transferred from high school.
To be in the same class as Kureha, who thought of me as a nuisance…
I suppressed my sigh and walked to the Academy, surrounded by an awkward atmosphere.
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The semi-transparent, gigantic tower that had been visible from afar was the ABYSS, a chaotic crucible that granted wealth and honor to humanity. The Academy, our new school, was located inside the ABYSS. The Japanese government had established the Academy within the ABYSS to research it. The vast, safe area on the first floor was our school.
The campus had a cafeteria, dormitories, and facilities that processed resources from the ABYSS to create weapons and items. The students of the Academy operated these facilities, while the teachers were in charge of ABYSS research and classes. The student council, backed by powerful families, held significant authority.
“It seems like everyone is seated. Now, I will distribute the status papers. This paper will briefly display your current status. Since none of you have exploration experience, your LV will be displayed as 1, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Please confirm your initial status and skills, and then wait.”
I was in Class 1-D.
The teacher, Kageyama Ryoko, stood at the podium, wearing a crisp black suit. She was the homeroom teacher of Class 1-D and seemed to be in her late 20s, around the same age as me in reality. Her distinctive feature was her purple, long hair. She looked more like a capable office lady than a teacher.
There were 25 students in the classroom.
I didn’t see anyone absent, which meant this was the entire Class D. I thought there would be more students, but most of them were NPCs, and there didn’t seem to be any player characters.
…Did players not exist in this world? Or were they already inside the existing NPCs? This was something I needed to investigate further.
As I sat in the last row, I received the status paper from the student in front of me and gazed at it.
“Once you’ve received the status paper, please ‘use’ it. You can touch the paper anywhere and just think about using it.”
It felt more vague than I thought. In a game, I would just press a button, but in reality, it seemed to work like this.
I touched the paper, focusing on “using” it, and the characters on the paper began to appear. The response time was faster than I expected.
The characters on the paper were in Japanese. Did the language depend on the user? I quickly checked my status.