Episode 2. Adrias Cromwell (2)

A strong nose and a noble posture.

A girl who exuded majesty from her mere existence, not from her forced appearance.

No, she could hardly be called a girl, as her womanly beauty was just blossoming.

Her neat black hair swayed with each step, drawing attention to her surroundings.

“‘That’s Miss Diene. I hear she got a perfect score on the Magic Mechanics exam this time?”

“uh. I also listen to the same lecture. It’s been 9 years since she got a perfect score.

“Wow! Really? I want to take the same lecture. How is it that everything about her is perfect, from her looks to her abilities?”

“Not just looks and abilities, what about her background?”

At that moment, Diane walked forward with a calm but confident stride, ignoring the noise around her.

Someone caught her eye.

At first, she thought she was looking at the wrong person and was about to pass by, but then she realized she was not mistaken and stopped.

“Adrias Cromwell.

The eldest son of the Earl of Cromwell.

No, I can’t even call him Earl anymore.

They’ll probably demote him soon enough.

She looked at the eldest son of such a shabby family for no other reason.

His family was indebted to hers.

As such, they had crossed paths many times since they were children, and were even somewhat close.

‘In my younger days, when I knew nothing.’

The good old days are gone, and now it’s just a relationship between creditor and debtor.

Ever since the last Earl of Cromwell had died the year before, he’d been on the verge of licking his feet at the mere sight of her.

He was a worm of a man.

No ability, no talent, no effort.

Just a piece of trash, alive because he was born, willing to humiliate himself for a moment’s peace.

That’s how it should be…….

“Why?”

Something didn’t seem right.

His unkempt, seaweed-like hair and stupid-looking face were the same as usual.

But he wasn’t slouching like he always did, and his usually sullen expression was dazed with excellence.

Of course, I’d seen him look sad a few times before, but not like this.

Suddenly, my gaze fell on the book he was holding.

“Conflicting Understandings of Nature and Mana?

I had already read it, of course.

But it wasn’t something a scumbag like him could understand.

He must be on somebody’s errand or something.

The Adrias she knew was that kind of man.

“Hmm?”

As if sensing her gaze, he snapped out of his reverie and looked up.

“…….”

A moment passed, and then he tilted his head slightly and walked right past her.

He walked past ……?

I looked back as casually as I could and realized that he had indeed just gone on his way.

“Huh?”

A clumsy exclamation escaped her mouth.

Stunned by the sound of her own voice, she quickly closed her mouth, but the very fact that she’d made the sound hurt her pride.

“Adrias, right?”

She’d thought it was someone else.

She was nervous when she saw him from afar, but it was different when she saw him face to face.

Adrias would see him and just say hello?

“It’s weird.”

Rather than anger, a wave of curiosity and questions flooded through her.

Surely he was trash, a bug, when I saw him last month.

What had happened in the meantime?

* * *

“Diane Alven. Wow, that’s creepy.’

I picked up my pace at the stare I could still feel.

I didn’t know why she was looking at me, but I didn’t want to get involved.

Diane Alven.

The beloved daughter of the Duke of Alven and a magical genius.

Also a playable character I once played, and the closest thing I have to Adrias, the current owner of this body.

Which means she’s the one most likely to kill me.

“Still, it’s refreshing to see her alive and breathing like that.

With the game’s difficulty ramping up as you progress, a high spec like Diane Alven was a great starter character.

I remember her as my third choice, and while she was talented, I couldn’t ignore the power of her family.

The Dukes of Alven were said to be one of the four pillars of the empire.

‘Come to think of it, I owe them a debt too.’

The sudden memory was painful.

The shame and inferiority complex of this body was intense.

But I had to be clear.

“These are not my feelings.”

Adrias.

It’s safe to say that even though he was only meant to be a minor character, I was so invested in the game that I found out everything I could about him.

Even if I didn’t know all the details, at least I couldn’t let him die like before.

‘Because I’m Adrias now.’

I am both Kim Jin-hwan and Adrias.

It’s taken me nearly a week to accept it, but I have to do my best to survive now.

And the first step was predetermined.

‘Traits.’

One of the reasons it took me so long to accept this reality.

This place was a mix of real and game-like abilities.

Or, more accurately, I seemed to have them.

-Thing!

[You have an unchosen trait].

This screen is proof.

If it weren’t for this, I might have gotten used to it a little faster.

When a game-like window pops up in front of you, aside from the location and people around you, it’s obviously a dream.

At first I thought I was crazy, even though I’m used to it now.

I closed the game window and opened my information.

[Adrias Cromwell]

-Human

-Mana: 1581

-Traits: Double Core.

-Talents: Black Magic Command (universal), Elemental Magic Water (dull)

-Skills: Black Magic〉〉 Elemental Magic〉〉

It’s just plain awful.

First up is Mana Quantity.

Unless you’re gifted with a mana-related talent, your mana levels are usually pretty low.

But ordinary people can’t survive in this world.

All the characters I’ve raised so far have at least one mana-related talent.

“How did you become a mage?”

It’s hard to become a mage unless you have a mana talent in the first place.

It takes a lot of money for a talentless kid to become a mage.

……Is that why the family went bankrupt?

Let’s get that out of the way, next up are traits.

Traits are randomly assigned at the start of the game.

Of course, there are some traits that are garbage and some that are so good that you can make a living with just one.

In the first place, there are four tiers of traits: Normal, Rare, Epic, and Unique, and there are bound to be good and bad ones.

The problem is that the traits that came out of that were…….

“Dual Core.”

The traits are randomized, so if you start a new game, you’ll be creating and destroying your character over and over again.

A.k.a. recursion.

Of course, you won’t get the highest tier of unique talents, but the lower tier, Epic, is pretty awesome.

In the game, I would start when I got a good trait, but in the real world, I couldn’t even use that trick.

[Dual Core]

-Epic.

-Two mana stores.

-Open up the possibility of magic swords.

Epic tier talent.

Of course, based on the tier alone, it’s an epic talent.

And what a romantic sounding name, Magic Swordsman.

“Bullshit.”

I’ve had my limbs torn off dozens of times.

Wouldn’t I have tried?

I’ve seen a dozen endings.

If I didn’t dig one well, I’d never break through.

With limited resources and time, and twice as many stats to improve, I was slow to get stronger.

Plus, this is real life, not a game.

As far as I can tell, we’re still in the past of the game’s starting time.

Although the grace period between crises has been extended, the important thing is that this is the real world.

“Or rather, it’s real, so I should raise it as a scavenger?

“Ha.”

I sighed.

Even in the game, I never had a no-death clear.

Even with characters far superior to Adrias, if there is no no-death, how the hell am I supposed to survive?

If it were a game, I could have made the decision to only dig one well, whether I died or not, but if my goal was to survive, the dual-core nature of the game didn’t seem to be a bad thing.

Now I’m not trying to clear the game, I’m trying to survive.

I ended up leaving the traits behind and looked at the talent underneath, and there was nothing more to say about this one.

I honestly didn’t even want to look at it.

‘It’s true that I have a miscellaneous talent. But even that’s not a common

Class A talents just have two words on them: ‘Magic’.

Or ‘swordsmanship’.

It’s not good to have a long description of something like that.

It means you’re only good at that one thing.

But even then, I’m a jack of all trades and master of none.

Especially in the case of dullness, it’s worse than nothing.

If a normal person is 100, a dull person is 70 to 80.

‘Water magic sucks,’ I realized.

I realized this.

It’s like the world is delusional and wants to kill me.

No wonder Adrias died so many times early on in the game.

Finally, skills are an extension of talent.

If you’re talented, you’ll be able to gain proficiency and level up quickly, but if you don’t have talent, you’ll be stuck without it, especially with magical skills.

-Black Magic: Basic Command (3/100) 〉〉 Summon Skeleton LV1

-Elemental Magic: Beginner Earth Class (2/100) 〉〉 Grease LV6, Rock Spear LV3, Earth Shield LV5

As a third-year academy student, your beginner level of proficiency in the subject matter is amazing, but the fact that you only have one elemental spell makes me jump for joy.

Knowing that in fifth grade, he’ll need to show magical performance to graduate and enter the Magic Tower, it’s clear that his future is bleak.

Ah, it wasn’t him, it was me.

In the end, there was only one thing left for me.

-Ting!

[You have an unchosen trait].

Choose a trait.

In all my years of gameplay, I’ve never had to choose a trait.

It’s a rpg, so sometimes you’ll get a talent for beating a mid-boss or getting an achievement, but it’s all random.

I was like, “I’m going to have to choose now to survive.”

Back in my dorm room, I put my book away and sat down in my chair.

I affirmed the words in front of me and they changed.

[Pick a trait you’d like to have].

Hundreds of traits popped up in front of me.

I looked at the list carefully.

First, I checked off all the normal and rare talents.

“Did they have these?

I was confident that I had seen most of them, but there were many that I had never seen in Epic or Unique.

In particular, unique talents cannot be obtained by restarting the game, so all but two or three of them were new to me.

Finally, there was one that really caught my eye.

“This is…….”

The words came out of my mouth.

I continued to think about it for a while.

What would be best for me to survive?

Is this really the best thing to do?

What resources and time do I have?

How is the situation?

“Whoa.”

With my life on the line, it wasn’t an easy decision to make.

I already had a stack of papers in front of me with all the notes I’d taken during my deliberations.

The conclusion I came to was…….

“In the end, I am a Necromancer, there’s no denying it. Even if I don’t use it, I can’t unlearn what I’ve learned.’

Then I have no choice but to use it.

As long as I don’t get caught.

Only when your life is truly in danger.

Furthermore, Necromancers are all-around monsters that are more powerful than any mage if they are allowed to grow up.

They’re so vicious that in the game, they’re the first thing you seek out and kill in every playthrough.

‘One of them is this guy’s teacher……. ‘Wait.’

I quickly checked my calendar.

“It’s late.”

The memory of Adrias blossomed in my mind.

I was supposed to meet with him tonight, I remembered now.

I was in trouble.

I wouldn’t die.

……probably.

I quickly put my clothes back on and prepared to go out.

I had to go see him now, or I’d really die.

‘Before that…….’

I stopped thinking and chose the trait I had in mind.

Thinking about it for a few more days wasn’t going to give me an answer, so I’d better get it and use it.

Now that I’ve chosen a trait, my goal is to plan well and survive as long as possible.

And the next step towards that goal is probably where I am now.

I’m going to survive this fucking situation.