I Killed the Player of the Academy-Side Story 1 ༺ Side Story – Familiar (1) ༻

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The end of the long Winter came with a late Spring.

However, traces of the Winter had yet to fully disappear. Piles of snow had yet to melt from rooftops, and demonic beasts waking up late from their hibernation often drifted downward.

Although an enormous war had just ended, the world was still in chaos.

Knights and mages were valuable in times like this, including even the current students of the Academy.

With great power comes great responsibility. I vowed to do whatever I could to help the people that were still in great suffering.

“So… Is that your excuse for just running away without making a decision?”

“What a dickhead.”

Lark and Jaeger commented while looking at me like I was some piece of trash.

“You guys are such horrible friends. Don’t look at me like that!”

“I can’t; I just can’t understand this guy.”

Seriously, they were the few ‘male’ friends that I had, so I hoped they would be a little bit nicer.

“Fuu… Maybe I need to ask other people.”

“Do you even have friends to consult with apart from us? Apart from maybe Dorron and Kranel?” asked Lark, seeming genuinely curious.

Well, I did have quite a few friends though.

“I could ask Professor Deina, Professor Lulara, Mary, Melina, Jenna-sunbae, Jurie, Liel-sunbae or Elza-sunbae – you know, the one that graduated this year. They should be able to help out. Hmm… Or, wait, since it’s about relationships, maybe Mielle or Claria could help me better… There’s also Mrs McMillan – I helped her when she had a problem with one of her cats – and Anna might be able to help as well considering how mature she is. Actually, I guess asking a 10-year-old girl about relationships isn’t the best idea.”

“…There are more and more names being added.”

“I swear, this guy is one hell of a bastard.”

The two of them condemned me with eyes of contempt. There seemed to be a misunderstanding here.

“It’s not like that, you idiots! They’re all just friends!”

It was guys like them who always said ridiculous things like how men and women couldn’t become true friends.

But that wasn’t the case, and I was the living proof of it.

I had close friends like Younghee-noona, Hanbyul, Seyoung, Misha and Fujiwara. They were super close with me alright!

– Thud!

Suddenly the carriage came to a stop. We had arrived at our destination, which was a small village not too far from the Academy.

“Aigo, dear guardians! You have arrived!”

The chief, whom we had seen here and there, welcomed us with great passion.

“Haaht?!”

Upon seeing me, the chief immediately got on his knees and bowed down.

“O, O Sun…!”

He wasn’t the only one. The villagers who had gathered around the entrance to see the visitors all went on their knees.

““O Great Sun…!!””

Seeing them on their knees, Jaeger smirked.

“Did you hear that, o great savior?”

“Aigo…”

I had a headache seeing that. This was because of Estelle’s rumors to a great extent.

During the process of fighting back the Old Faith’s prophecies about the Apocalypse, Estelle added lines about me on her own accord.

A New Sun will rise.

This alone might have been simply interpreted as a hero that would save the world, but Estelle preached prophecies that implied different things about me, as if really trying to make me a god.

And most importantly—

“To be fair, anyone who saw that wouldn’t think of you as human.”

“Honestly… I can’t see you as a human either.”

Even Jaeger and Lark had such reactions, because of the Sun I manifested to bring light back to the world and melt the Winter.

People seemed to have seen the descent of the Sun that brought warmth back unto the world from everywhere, and witnesses were telling stories even from the corners of the continent.

Was it fair to see someone who was capable of doing that as a normal human? Even the royal capital appeared to have unending discussions on that topic.

“Well, that doesn’t change anything,” I replied. “I’m just a human who’s a bit too amazing.”

“Here he goes again.”

“It’s times like this that you do seem like a normal human.”

The two of them continued grumbling all the way until we were ready for our job today of military civil aid. Our job was to remove the snow around the town and deal with any demonic beast or spirit that could appear in the vicinity.

It was like a volunteer activity, with the only monetary payment being a reimbursement for our travel fees.

“By the way, is it really okay for you to be out here?”

Jaeger asked while scooping up a pile of snow. Lark replied in my stead.

“He’s just buying time. He probably couldn’t decide what to do and just opted to run away. This civil aid is nothing but an excuse.”

“Kuhk…!”

Lark knew me too well.

“But is it really that hard?” asked Jaeger. “It’s only five… wait, how many was it again?”

“Marie-sunbae, Alicia, Hua Ran, Miss Lunia, and Her Highness Estelle and Miruam… We have to include Chairman Erin as well. It’s seven so far, I guess,” replied Lark yet again.

What was that ‘So far’ for? Huh? Lark?!

“That is so much. But shouldn’t you consider Hua Ran as two?”

“Well, but for Hua Ran, it’s not like he needs to choose one of them.”

“Then wouldn’t Hua Ran be the best choice?”

No choice but to embrace polygamy…! Jaeger uttered nonsense which Lark cut off with a shake of his head.

“On that note, you would have to group up the Arden sisters and Her Highnesses as well.”

Lark mentioned the Arden sisters who were eagerly waiting for a chance to steal each other’s love, as well as the two princesses whom the King had officially given his permission to take.

“But dude, you can’t give up on Marie-sunbae either. You know how much money they have? They have dozens of mines and 2 million hectares of farmland.”

“It’s so ridiculously big that I can’t even fathom it.”

“And her breasts are huge too!”

“…It is an honor to have her as my future boss,” said Lark Buhgman, a predestined future employee of the new tower of mages, the Dunareff Tower, thanks to the power of connections.

“But Alicia’s also hard to give up on. It feels like she’s the perfect example of a good wife. She has a great personality after all.”

“She’s kind and sometimes cute when she shows her clumsy side.”

“Most importantly, I think she’ll be open to cheating and accept them as wives.”

“…I agree. She would be the perfect wife for Korin.”

“And Hua Ran too! Seeing Ran whisper, she’s like a fox.”

“Plus, Hua is mostly indifferent but quite cute when you start talking to her.”

“And one plus one combo as well! Two flavors!”

Without refraining, I looked on with eyes of contempt at the two of them and their stupid conversation.

“…Seriously, the way you guys think is horrible.”

Jaeger turned around.

“Who do you like the most then?”

“…”

“Don’t you have to choose someone in the end? You’re not going to ignore all of them are you?”

“I can’t… do that.”

I had to make a decision. I had to, but there was… a problem…

〚I will not disregard the misfortune of the good.〛

[Fulfil your Precept]

From Marie to Master… there was a system message for everyone except for Miruam.

Right – the Precept, ‘I will not disregard the misfortune of the good’ also applied to my romantic relationship as well.

If I were to choose someone, the rest of them would lead a sad life, and the Precepts wouldn’t allow that to happen!

The reason Miruam was excluded… was probably because my own standard of Miruam was far from that of a good person.

However, that didn’t mean I could exclude only her from the list of options, since she was also one of the people who loved me.

“The aftermath is the real problem… If I were to choose someone, then the rest of them would…”

It would be going against the Precept for the rest of them. That would be the first time I would experience a penalty of that level from going against the Precept, because I had never gone against it in the first place!

Besides, it had a difficulty rating of S, and I couldn’t possibly imagine how big of a penalty it would be.

‘Thinking about how it was for Tates in the game…’

In the original game, Tates had lost a drastic amount of his power, but my current situation was even worse.

It would make 6 people unfortunate – six S-rated penalties!

“You’re right… I don’t think the rest would just sit there and accept it if they see you choose someone else.”

The two of them, who had no idea what my concerns were about, appeared to have taken it the wrong way.

“No, well… That’s not the issue here.”

I thought about a what-if scenario – about what other people would do if I were to choose only one of them as a lover.

“…They are all nice, so I don’t think anything dramatic would happen.”

“…”

“…”

“What… What’s wrong with you guys?”

“…Nothing.”

“If you say so, Korin.”

Weird, but in any case, it was to postpone the problem and buy time that I volunteered to come here.

I applied for a mission that would take several days to complete and this one alone was long enough to fill up this year’s required voluntary service hours.

[A one-week-long military civil aid… Hmm, well, I feel like I know why, but I will give permission.]

Lady Josephine seemed like she knew my intention judging from how she was shaking her head.

‘After a week or so… I should have more time to think for the time being.’

Marie was due to graduate, and Hua Ran and Estelle were going to be busy dealing with things related to the Order. And as for Miruam, well, she was always busy.

Because all of them had urgent matters at hand, I was sure I would be able to buy a lot more time by disappearing for a short period of time.

‘But would having more time let me solve this problem?’

Whichever decision I were to make, it would make everyone unfortunate except for one, right? Was this even a solvable problem?

Damn this Precept. Was it too late to remove it? It had been a reliable aid helping me through hardships all until now, but to think it would smack me at the back of my head at the very end!

Problems like this were best discussed with Master, but even Master was a part of the problem in this case.

“AHHKKK…! DAMN ITTTTTT…!”

“He’s doing that again. He’s gone mad for sure.”

“Let him be. He’s having the freaking happiest dilemma of a man.”

“I did see this coming from a mile away though.”

These two friends were of no help. They did nothing but look at me with contempt like I was having a happy dilemma, and calling me a damn player.

“Ehew…”

Worrying wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I decided to continue helping people since I was here and headed to the chief.

“Sir Chief.”

“Aigo, Esteemed Sun.”

“Please don’t be so formal. You can treat me as per normal.”

“How could I possibly be so insolent to the Champion of the Sun acknowledged by the Saintess?”

“…”

Seriously, what was she doing out there?

“What’s the most urgent task at hand? Should I melt all the snow?”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t use the Sun for a while. It had been overused when I was melting the Winter around the world and needed some time.

I had to focus on recovering my divine energy, but I could still use Runes of the Sun to melt the snow built up around the village.

“More urgently than that…” the chief said. “Right, there is a mage who came here several days ago.”

“A mage? That’s strange. When I checked the record, there were no guardians that were dispatched to this region.”

Right now, I was the Chairman of the Guardian Association. Although I was soon going to give away the position to someone else, I did my research before coming here and there weren’t any guardians sent here.

“It was a mercenary lady. She visited our village in the middle of her trip, and kindly volunteered to deal with the demonic beasts at a cheap price.”

“Really?”

Even low-grade mages were expensive to hire. For a remote village like this to be able to afford one… they either had to be a really low-grade mage, or someone really kind.

“She left to search for demonic beast nests but hasn’t been back for two days. She did take a camping kit with her but… she was a young lady so I’m a bit concerned for her sake.”

Being away for two ways sounded pretty normal. If the nest was on the bigger side, there were several measures that had to be made to make sure none of the beasts escaped alive, after all.

Besides, it was especially more time-consuming for mages, who unlike knights couldn’t simply run into crowds of demonic beasts and bash all of them to death.

“Which way did she go? I will go help.”

“Aigo! I’m sure the Esteemed Sun would easily be able to deal with the beasts, but I am afraid it might seem like I am ordering around an esteemed one.”

“Please treat me like normal. Please.”

Leaving behind the chief, I went towards Jaeger and Lark who were still removing the piles of snow.

“I have to head off to the mountain over there for a bit.”

“Huh? What is it for? We need runes to melt the snow though.”

“Ask Lark for fire. There seems to be a nest of demonic beasts over there. I’ll quickly deal with it and come back.”

“Alright. Leave the village to us and go. Do you need rations?”

“I have mine.”

Leaving the two of them behind, I headed in the direction that the mage lady had gone off to.

The mountains were quite rough with no roads, but there was no issue finding the nest of demonic beasts.

‘Boar-type monsters, huh.’

They excelled at climbing mountains and lived in large groups. Although they were Grade 4 demons at best, there were a lot of them and they had to be dealt all at once.

Or the other option was to build traps all around to make sure they couldn’t run away and start another group elsewhere.

‘No wonder the mage couldn’t come back straight away.’

Killing them with large-scale flame spells was difficult because it might lead to bushfires or destroy the natural wildlife here. When dealing with a nest like this in the middle of a mountain, a large group of average guardians was much better than having one exceptionally powerful guardian.

‘Let’s find the mage first.’

She must have been making preparations for the past two days, so most of the preparations should be made by now. In fact, she might not even need much of my help.

It didn’t take long for me to find the mage.

“Who is it…!”

Noticing my presence, the mage immediately turned around and I quickly threw my hands in the air and revealed my agenda.

“Calm down, calm down. I came from the village under the chief’s request.”

“…”

The mage lady seemed vigilant with her staff still pointing at me. She was quite… the beauty.

She had a slim but healthy S-line body, and brown hair that gave off a cool aura. For some reason though, her face, or rather her atmosphere, felt quite familiar.

“Sorry, I had to be very cautious these past two days observing the nest. My apologies, Mr. Korin Lork.”

“Do you know me?”

Hearing my question, she replied with a faint smile as if it was a dumb question to ask.

“Who wouldn’t be able to recognize the Sun?”

“The rumors are a bit too widespread, right?”

Walking up, I offered a handshake.

“I’m Korin Lork. A 3rd year student of the Academy.”

“Aren’t you missing a few titles in there?”

“I do have a lot of titles. Collecting titles is a hobby of mine.”

Grade 1 Justice of the Peace, Leader of the Korin Guardians Guild, a baron of the kingdom, Chairman of the Guardian Association and more… It reflected just how busy of a life mine had been.

“I didn’t hear about a mage being dispatched to this region. Are you a mercenary?” I asked.

“A fresh one. I haven’t been able to register at the Association yet.”

“No wonder. I would have remembered a beauty like you registering, after all.”

“…Can you say that again?”

“Hmm… Apologies if that put you in a bad mood.”

“No no no. That’s not what I mean. I just didn’t catch what you said.”

Really? Don’t mages have much better physical abilities than normal people? Well, since that’s what she was saying, I repeated my words again.

“I said, I would have remembered a beauty like you registering.”

“Really?”

Although she had an indifferent look on her face, the corners of her lips were slightly tilted up and there was a faint flush on her cheeks. She seemed to be in a good mood.

There was someone similar to her though… Who was it again?

“Oh right. I forgot to give my name.”

The mage lady said after, for some reason, tightly holding onto my hand that I was offering for a handshake.

“My name is Park Sirin.”

From the east, huh!