NOVEL NEXT Chapter 57
Chapter: 57
After the professor left, telling us to take a break, I stood up without hesitation.
I had planned everything in my head, so there was no room for doubt.
When the Soul Academy starts, the players have specific tasks to complete.
First, I need to decide which subjects to take.
Attending classes at Soul Academy significantly boosts proficiency in that subject, so figuring out this part is absolutely essential at Soul Academy.
I had no hesitation about this.
After all, the subjects a Blunt Weapon Tanker should take are clearly defined.
Next, I needed to grab something useful from the starting point of the Soul Academy.
Soul Academy is still a game, after all.
So, you can’t get super powerful items right from the start.
The Ruel’s Mace I’m holding right now, for example, is typically a weapon you would only get when you become a second-year student and can leave the Academy.
However, there are some not-so-great items that can be quite handy in the early stages.
I’m planning to gather those now.
“Where are you going?”
Startled by a voice from behind, I turned around to see Frey following me closely. Wow, that surprised me.
When did she start tailing me?!
[You didn’t notice?]
‘Of course I didn’t! Why didn’t you tell me?!’
[I thought you were pretending not to know.]
Grandpa! Do I really look that awful to you?
I may use rough language due to my skills, but I’m not a bad person!
Sure, Frey finds me annoying, but she doesn’t openly show it!
“Hmm?”
I snapped back to reality at Frey’s voice.
sigh What can I say to someone who doesn’t think they did anything wrong?
This is all Grandpa’s fault for not telling me. Whatever.
‘The library.’
“Library.”
“Library? Why are you going there?”
‘I’m…’
“What’s wrong with me going to the library?”
“It’s boring there.”
Oh, that’s what it was?
I mean, the library is indeed dull.
Coming from someone who used to nap in the school library, I totally get it.
“More importantly, let’s go to the training grounds together. It’ll be fun.”
‘Sorry, but…’
“Hah. Shoddy swordsman. I’m not as free as you, you know?”
“Ugh, wish I could go. Fine, I get it.”
Frey said that and turned away to leave.
She walks so quietly, I didn’t even notice she was behind me.
No wonder I didn’t realize.
[So, what’s your purpose in going to the library? You’re not the type to study, are you?]
‘Hey, I do study when I need to!’
[Is that so? I distinctly remember seeing you doze off whenever you opened a book.]
Well… that’s because I didn’t have a foundation of knowledge!
If I was taught properly from the beginning, I could study just fine!
[Enough of the excuses. Tell me why you're going to the library.]
‘…To get an artifact.’
[You’ve received a revelation from Armadi, huh?]
‘Yep.’
Truthfully, Armadi hasn’t done anything at all, but I used that excuse with Grandpa.
It was easier to blame Armadi than to convince him that I’ve been possessed by a game!
[Hmm. It seems Armadi is indeed watching over the apostles.]
‘…Yep.’
It makes me annoyed that my knowledge is attributed to Armadi, but I have no choice.
Damn it. Someday, I’ll definitely make Armadi known as the Shoddy, Useless Apostle Jushin.
As I opened the library door and stepped inside, I saw a familiar sight.
back in the day, when I was building a magic-type character, I spent all day in here.
Thank goodness I decided to be a tanker.
If I had picked a job that required unnecessary brainpower, I’d have to endure that suffering myself.
Physical hardship is better than mental strain. For sure.
Upon entering the library, I found the section I wanted without any guidance from the librarian.
If I looked at the third row of bookcase C62… there it was.
‘A thesis on the Wellspring of Magic.’
Upon discovering that title, I opened the book right to the last page.
There, I found what I was looking for.
[To the junior who reads this thesis.]
[Thanks for searching for my foolish research. I’ve hidden a special device in this book for you. If you write a certain word in the blank below, you’ll receive an amazing gift. The hint for this word is that it is the core of all my theses! Look closely!]
– ding
[Kerta’s Gift]
[Please solve the book’s riddle]
[Reward: ???]
Nice!
Kerta’s Gift, one of the hidden quests in Soul Academy, can be obtained by rummaging through the library.
From the content alone, it seems trivial, but when this game first launched, this quest was a major conundrum for players.
Kerta, who left a significant mark in the magic world, wrote hundreds of theses, and finding a common word among them seemed almost impossible.
Even though people who enjoyed riddles came together to share opinions, the quest simply wouldn’t be solved.
As people began to grow weary and theorized that there might be a bug in the quest, one person certified they had completed it.
People were shocked.
Why? Because the person who cleared it wasn’t an experienced player but one of the newbies.
Excited veterans crowded around that newbie, bombarding them with questions.
“How did you clear it?”
To which the newbie answered as if it was obvious.
‘The core of the thesis is, of course, the author, right?’
That’s right. This damn issue wasn’t academic.
It was nonsense!
At that moment, it was infuriating.
I ended up drinking soju that night because of that epiphany.
‘Kerta Vulcan’
[Quest Clear!]
[Rewards will be given]
I wrote that name down, and suddenly, a magic circle lit up behind the bookcase, and from the center, a ring popped out.
After appraising the ring, a message window popped up in front of me.
[Kerta’s Ring]
[A ring inscribed with numerous magic circles underneath. It feels like it has a mysterious power.]
Due to my low appraisal proficiency, the description didn’t come out clearly, but here’s the ring’s effect:
20% reduction in magic consumption for all skills.
While it’s not an impressive effect, and during the late game, it would be immediately discarded, it’s different now in the early stages.
Right now, I can’t use magic more than five times without running out.
For someone like me, the Kerta’s Ring is a precious item.
Moreover, this ring becomes a key trigger for an important quest later on.
I have to keep it.
As I slipped the Kerta’s Ring onto my thumb, it adjusted to fit my finger perfectly.
This is indeed a ring made by a Great Wizard!
While I delighted in the sight of the ring on my finger, I checked the clock hanging on one side of the library.
It’s almost 4 o’clock.
Isn’t time passing a bit too quickly?
Realizing I couldn’t afford to stand around any longer, I hurriedly moved my feet.
*
Afterward, I rushed around various places in the Soul Academy non-stop.
I had quests to pick up and hidden items to find all over the academy.
The process of picking up the quests came with various hardships and challenges.
The issue was my reputation and mesugaki speech.
When Soul Academy was a game, talking to anyone would get you a quest, but now that it was reality, it’s different.
People never even asked someone as untrustworthy as me for help.
Conversely, finding items was easy.
I didn’t have to meet anyone—who knew it would feel so liberating?
After wrapping up what I had to do in the academy, the last place I moved toward was the Soul Academy’s training grounds.
As it was the first day of the entrance ceremony, most of those training as the sun set here were originally attending the academy.
Usually, new students would be eating in the academy cafeteria with new friends or struggling to finalize their timetables.
Of course, not everyone was the same.
There are always oddballs everywhere.
Frey, who had urged me to go to the training grounds, was there alone, practicing her sword in the corner.
How focused she was; her dulled eyes showed nothing but the sword swinging in front of her.
Even more surprising was that the sweat she had shed formed a ring on the ground beneath her.
Has she been swinging her sword since I turned her down as she suggested to go together?
What a training enthusiast.
I felt a slight sense of kinship.
After all, I spent my days like that in the Allen family’s territory.
Did she notice my gaze?
Frey abruptly stopped swinging her sword and stared at me blankly.
Then, her eyes lit up, and she sheathed her sword and dashed towards me.
“Did you come to duel?!”
‘We’re doing it tomorrow, remember?’
“Shoddy swordsman. Is your memory akin to that of a goldfish? I told you tomorrow!”
“Then why are you here?”
‘I’m here to meet someone.’
“I need to find a shoddy one.”
“Shoddy?”
An NPC who is kind enough to teach the protagonist various things on their first use of the training ground.
However, if you manage to defeat him in a fight, he grants you good skills, making him a pitiful NPC who often gets beaten up by users.
As a veteran of the Soul Academy, I came to bother him.
The time was evening, so he should be appearing at the training grounds now.
Oh, there he is.
I spotted a man in the center, propping a wooden sword on the ground while surveying his surroundings, and immediately approached him.
He flinched back, startled by my approaching face, but I was quicker in speaking than he was in running away.
‘Excuse me.’
“Hey.”
“Yes?!”
‘You’re a third-year senior, right?’
“Are you asking because I look like an idiot? Are you possibly a third-year?”
‘…Yes, I am.’
‘Would you duel with me?’
“I thought it could be a good warm-up, but are you asking me, you idiot senior? Will you duel?”
His blatant disregard made the vein on the man’s forehead stand out.
With that level of anger, it seems like he won’t back down.
“Hey.”
Just as I was thinking it might go well with the quest, Frey, who had been following me, called out.
“Why would you duel with such a weakling? It’d be boring. Let’s duel instead.”
‘I’d rather not…’
“Nope. Today, this idiot senior looks adequate. Shoddy swordsman, you stay there playing by yourself.”
“Bullying weaklings is a bad thing. Strong people should fight strong people.”
‘That’s why…’
“Which is why I—”
As I tried to convince Frey to leave so I could face my opponent, I felt a sharp gaze and turned to see the guy glaring at me, absolutely furious.
“You guys! Just because you’re promising candidates in the first year, does that mean anything?! I’m a third-year senior!”
– ding
[Smash the Senior’s Dignity]
[Defeat the third-year senior.]
[Reward: Skill ‘Underdog’]
I didn’t mean to provoke him, but it all turned out well!