Today, I watched academy cadets—children of privilege, sons and daughters of nobility—reduced to bloody, whimpering messes by bandits.
I stood in the treeline, hidden among the shadows of ancient oak trees, and observed as their perfect formations crumbled. As their ceremonial swordsmanship proved utterly worthless against opponents who fought dirty. As they screamed for mercy that wouldn't come.
The instructors and knights arrived eventually, cutting through the mercenary-bandits with brutal efficiency. But by then, the damage was already done. Broken bones. Severed fingers. Shattered pride.
I wasn't alone in my observation. My trained senses detected multiple hidden presences scattered throughout the forest—information brokers, rival academy scouts, adventurers looking for gossip to sell, perhaps even foreign spies. Everyone wanted to witness the legendary Starcrest Academy's humiliation first hand.
'What a bunch of fucking idiots,' I thought, watching the aftermath unfold. Medics rushing around. Nobles screaming at each other. Blood soaking into expensive Academy uniforms.
'This is not the Knight Department anymore. More like a department of wannabe knights playing dress-up.'
The scene played out exactly as the game had depicted it in text form. Every beat, every disaster, precisely as I remembered.
Satisfied after I confirmed the timeline was proceeding correctly, I turned and made my way back through the forest toward the capital. There was no reason to linger. The important part—the catalyst that would reshape the Academy—had occurred.
What happened next was already written in stone.
-
The walk back to my apartment took the better part of two hours. By the time I pushed open the door to my modest lodgings, the sun had begun its descent toward the horizon, painting the capital's skyline in shades of orange and gold.
My home was small—a single room with a bed, a desk, a few chairs, and shelves packed with books and papers. It was the dwelling of a man who spent most of his time elsewhere, who viewed his living space as little more than a place to sleep between commissions.
But today, I had a specific purpose.
I moved directly to the shelf in the corner, the one I rarely touched, and reached for a particular book buried beneath layers of dust and neglect.
The book was thick, bound in cheap leather that had cracked with age. No preservation magic protected it. No security enchantments guarded its contents. Unlike my carefully maintained records of Hidden Piece locations—which were warded with every kind of spell I could afford to pay for—this book had been left to deteriorate naturally.
I should have taken better care of it. Should have at least cast basic preservation spells. But honestly, after so many years in this world, I had stopped thinking about it. The information inside had become internalized, part of my subconscious knowledge rather than something I needed to actively reference.
Now, with the story finally beginning, I needed to refresh my memory.
"cough!! cough!!" I blew the dust off the cover, creating a small cloud that made me cough. Carrying it to my desk, I lit a lamp and opened to the first page.
The contents were incredibly crude. No elegant prose, no careful organization. Just raw information vomited onto paper in a desperate rush to record everything I could remember before the memories faded.
Character profiles written in shorthand. Event timelines with question marks where I couldn't recall exact dates. Rough sketches of locations. Lists of Hidden Pieces with cryptic location notes that only made sense to me.
It looked like the ravings of a madman.
But as I began reading, flipping through pages covered in my younger self's cramped handwriting, the dormant memories stirred. Details I had forgotten came flooding back. Story beats I dismissed as unimportant suddenly felt relevant.
The feeling in my chest was strange—almost uncomfortable. Like anticipation mixed with anxiety. A fluttering sensation that squeezed my heart.
After twenty-five years of waiting, of surviving, of building myself up from nothing…
The story was finally starting.
'What comes next…'
I traced my finger down a particular page, reading the notes I made about the Academy incident's aftermath.
The Emperor would be furious. The Dean would lose his arm—possibly his head, depending on how merciful the Imperial family felt. The Academy would be thrown into chaos.
And then, in response to the disaster, they would begin searching for new faculty.
'Now, will they start looking for new instructors at the academy?'
The conclusion was already set, predetermined by the narrative structure of the game. I knew how this would play out.
They would put forward a knight for appearances—someone with proper credentials and noble blood to appease the traditionalists who couldn't imagine the Knight Department being led by anyone other than an actual knight.
But they would also, reluctantly, invite an adventurer skilled in actual combat to serve as an assistant instructor. Someone who could teach the practical skills the cadets so desperately lacked.
I tried to recall the name of the adventurer who were chosen in the game. The one who served as the assistant instructor during the protagonist's first year.
Nothing came to mind. His name had never been important to the plot. He was barely a character—more of a plot device, really. Someone who existed to highlight how much more talented the protagonist and heroines were compared to normal people.
But I did remember his appearance. That detail had stuck with me for some reason.
He was an axe-wielder with a distinctive red beard. Gruff. Practical. The kind of man who looked like he was carved from stone and taught to swing heavy objects at monsters.
'Was there someone like that in the guild?'
I leaned back in my chair, trying to picture the various adventurers I encountered over the years. The problem was that I lived my life not paying much attention to men unless they were trying to kill me or hire me for a commission. The faces of male adventurers blurred together in my memory—a sea of scarred, weather-beaten features and rough voices.
Red hair and red beards weren't exactly rare among the northern-descended populations that made up a significant portion of the adventuring community.
'Could be anyone, really,' I thought with a mental shrug.
In the end, even if I did remember the specific adventurer's name, it would be useless information. The assistant instructor's role in the story was minimal—just a whetstone whose only purpose was to be surpassed by the 100th intake cadets, proving how exceptional they were.
He'd teach them for a few months, they'd quickly outgrow his lessons, and then he'd fade into the background while the real story unfolded.
What mattered to me—what truly mattered—wasn't who would be hired as assistant instructor.
It was something far more important.
'How to infiltrate the academy.'
I closed the book and stared at the wall, mind racing through possibilities.
The foundation of this world, the core structure of SoL, was centered entirely around Starcrest Academy. Every major event, every critical moment, every significant Hidden Piece—they all orbited around that institution.
Until the protagonist completed their third year and found a way to return to Earth, that fundamental truth wouldn't change, at least if this was truly an actual world, or else, everything will go blank, the moment the protagonist goes away. Anyway, the Academy was the stage upon which the entire drama would unfold.
Therefore, various Hidden Pieces existed within the Academy grounds—artifacts hidden in forgotten storage rooms, elixirs concealed in secret gardens, ancient texts buried in restricted library sections. Most of them were of a higher caliber and more immediately useful than the scraps I'd been scavenging from the wilderness for the past decade.
If I wanted to truly accelerate my growth, to gather power quickly enough to matter when the real threats emerged later in the story, I needed access to those resources.
But how?
'Becoming a cadet is insane.'
The thought crossed my mind and was immediately dismissed. Me? enrolling as a student? It was absurd on multiple levels.
First, my age. I was already in my mid-twenties. The Academy accepted students between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Even if I somehow managed to forge documents and lie about my age, I'd stick out like a sore thumb among actual teenagers.
Second, even if I overcame the age problem, the timing was wrong. The 100th entrance ceremony was in a month. If I enrolled at any point after that, I'd be joining the 101st intake at the earliest—a full year behind the protagonist and his cohort.
By the time I gained access to the Hidden Pieces within the Academy, the protagonist would have already claimed all the good items and would be metaphorically burping with satisfaction.
Unacceptable!
I briefly considered a more… permanent solution. Killing the protagonist before the story properly began would certainly solve multiple problems at once.
But that option remained on hold for now, for one critical reason: the mystery of the missing Hidden Pieces.
Over the past decade, I searched for dozens of items that should have existed according to my knowledge of the game. Artifacts that should have been waiting in specific locations. Elixirs that should have been growing in marked areas.
Many of them simply weren't there at all.
At first, I assumed I had the locations wrong, or that I was arriving too early. But as the pattern continued, a more disturbing possibility emerged.
What if the Hidden Pieces only materialized—only became real—when certain narrative conditions were met? What if my presence in this world, my interference with events, was preventing things from spawning correctly?
If killing the protagonist became the trigger that prevented Hidden Pieces from appearing at all, I'd be shooting myself in the foot. I'd eliminate a potential rival only to destroy my own path to power in the process.
No, if I were going to kill him, I needed to do it properly. Not just the protagonist, but his entire family. A clean sweep that eliminated any possibility of revenge or inheritance complications.
The problem was that his family possessed more power than I initially estimated. They were a Marquis household with deep connections to the Imperial military and the merchant guilds. Killing the protagonist would bring unwanted attention. Killing his whole family would require resources and planning I didn't currently possess.
'…This is a headache.'
I spun the book absently on the desk, watching it rotate as I pondered my limited options.
Direct infiltration remained the best approach. But as what? A cadet was out of the question. A faculty member? Impossible—I had no teaching credentials, no connections to the Academy administration.
Wait.
My hand stopped the book's rotation mid-spin.
'This 100th intake entrance ceremony was said to be festival-style, wasn't it…'
According to the notes I wrote years ago, the Academy was planning to make the 100th entrance ceremony a massive public event. A celebration. They'd open the grounds to visitors, host demonstrations, probably even allow merchants and entertainers to set up stalls.
It was meant to be propaganda—a display of the Empire's strength and the Academy's prestige.
But for me, it was an opportunity. A crack in the Academy's usually impenetrable security.
If I could attend the ceremony, if I could get inside the grounds during the chaos of the festival, I might be able to find a way to extend my access. To create a reason to return. To establish myself as someone with legitimate business at the Academy.
The plan was still half-formed, full of holes and uncertainties. But it was something.
A starting point.
I opened the book again and began taking notes, sketching out possibilities, trying to remember every detail about the entrance ceremony from the game.
Outside my window, the sun finished its descent, and night claimed the capital.
Tomorrow, I would begin preparations in earnest.