The auditorium was packed. Rows upon rows of freshly Awakened eighteen year olds, all of them buzzing with that particular cocktail of ambition and terror that comes from knowing your entire life is about to be decided by a rank on a screen.
"Yo, did you hear? Some second year cleared a D rank Gate solo last month," a broad shouldered guy was telling his friend two rows ahead of me.
"D rank solo? That's insane. My brother's been stuck at E+ for two years. He cries about it at dinner."
"I heard the Kang kid is enrolling today. The Kang kid. Sophia Kang's son."
"No way. The strongest human's son? Here?"
"Bro, if I can even get into the same class as him, my future is set. Connections are everything in this place. This is literally the last time in our lives we can just... talk to people before we start dying in Gates for a living."
"Man, don't say it like that."
"Say what like what? We're all going to die in holes in the ground, Kevin."
"Wow. Thanks. Great orientation energy."
And there, at the far end of the back row, sat an otherworldly beauty. Jet black hair spilling over one shoulder, golden eyes half lidded, fist propped against her chin, legs crossed with aristocratic elegance, gazing at the stage with an expression of profound, glacial boredom. Detached. Untouchable. Cold.
That was the outside.
The inside was a different building entirely.
Fuck. Fuck! Why are they ALL looking at me?! I can FEEL it! Eyes! Everywhere! Left, right, behind that guy three rows down has checked me out four times in five minutes, I COUNTED, Kevin's friend, I COUNTED!
I am an introvert! An INTROVERT! In my past life I once hid in a bathroom stall for forty minutes to avoid a group project meeting! Leave me alone! Get out! Get OUT of my general vicinity!
My face, of course, displayed none of this. It displayed the serene disinterest of a statue carved by someone who hated statues. Through sheer will by the way, so a little bit of respect would be welcome.
And why WHY is my lower belly doing that thing?! That tremor! That warm, squirmy tremor! It's the glances, isn't it?! The LEWD ones! I can feel people's eyeballs on my body like physical contact and this stupid Third Rate Sensitivity trait is interpreting VISUAL PERCEPTION as FOREPLAY!
It's not even real touch! It's eye contact with my chest! My chest is being TOUCHED by PHOTONS and my body is going 'oh hehe' about it! TRAITOR! You're a TRAITOR, body!
I was sweating. Cold sweat. Actual, physical, visible to no one but felt by me sweat. And it had been barely five minutes since I sat down! Five minutes of sitting still and my nervous system was already filing a complaint!
What was that line they keep saying? 'Socializing'? The last place to make friends before throwing yourself at Gates?
HELL NO!
There is no socializing! There is only a room containing two hundred teenagers, at least half of whom want to either befriend, rival, or UNDRESS me, and I have to sit here with my fist on my chin looking like I'm above human needs while internally running a full panic marathon!
Do you know what happens if someone comes over here and tries to talk to me?! I have to RESPOND! With WORDS! In a VOICE that makes people look at my LIPS! And then my heart rate goes up, and my skin gets warm, and the trait starts whispering things, and and
Okay. Okay. Deep breath. You're the Ice Beauty. Second ranked. You've stared down monsters in training simulations. You can stare down a room of horny teenagers.
...I stared down exactly zero monsters. I've been in this world for four hours. I'm a fraud. I'm a beautiful, terrified fraud sitting in the back row pretending to be a final boss.
On stage, the Dean walked up to the podium. Tall, silver haired, carrying himself with the kind of authority that made the entire auditorium quiet down in seconds.
Finally. Distraction. Talk, old man. Talk for three hours. Tell me about gates and ranks and safety protocols. ANYTHING but the fact that the guy in row four just turned around for a fifth look.
I counted, buddy. I COUNTED.
I need that Expression Suppression skill. Fast. Like, yesterday. I need it like a drowning person needs an oxygen tank. Or more like a virgin needs a restraining order against her own nervous system.
I frantically pulled up the shop interface in my mind, scrolling past the combat gear and the ridiculous 'endless core' nonsense. I found it. Tier Three. The one that would turn me into a genuine living statue. The one that would save me from melting into a puddle of lewdness every time someone sneezed in my direction.
[Expression Suppression Tier 3 Cost: 3,000 SP]
"THREE THOUSAND?!" I screamed internally, the sound echoing in my skull like a banshee with a migraine. "Three thousand?! Are you fucking kidding me?! Do you know how many heroines I'd have to orchestrate getting corrupted to afford that?! That's like... half a semester of full scale NTR production!"
I need a job. A terrible, morally questionable job.
"Welcome, cadets, to Ertenaria Academy," the Dean's voice boomed through the speakers, cutting through my financial crisis.
I forced myself to take a breath, shoving the panic into a small box in the corner of my mind. I leaned back, letting my face settle into its default mode: icy, bored, untouchable. I stared at the old man on stage. He was an S+ ranked hero, a legend in his own right, and one of the most dangerous Conquerors in the world. His own 'corruption' arc was a major plot point later in the game, involving the Student Council.
My eyes drifted behind him, where five students stood in perfect formation. They were all women, all breathtakingly beautiful, each one clearly a high ranking Awakened. At their center stood a girl with long blonde hair and piercing green eyes. She stood with a posture that screamed authority spine straight as an arrow, chin tilted just enough to look down on the world without being overtly rude.
Seraphina Valerius. The Student Council President. The strongest second year. And one of the game's primary heroines.
As my gaze locked onto her, a new window flickered to life in my peripheral vision.
[Inspector Eye Activated!]
[Council President: Seraphina Valerius]
[Beauty: S | Rank Limit: SS | Fetish: Domination / Control (Inverted)]
Ohhh, so that's what this does? I thought, a genuine smirk threatening to break through my icy facade. Not bad, System. This saves me a lot of tedious guesswork. No need to test out a thousand different psychological schemes to see what makes these girls break when I know their deepest, darkest kinks right off the bat.
Seraphina's arc was one of the most fascinating and tragic in the game. Around mid year, after seeing Jin Kang's insane capabilities firsthand, she would recruit him to the Student Council, pushing for marriage with the kind of pragmatic ferocity only a top tier Awakened could muster. Her logic was flawless: the strongest should unite. Jin was the strongest male of the generation; she was the strongest female. It was destiny.
Except, of course, destiny in this game was a twisted joke. Her entire worldview would shatter when she realized that 'strength' wasn't just about mana output and that the Dean was exceptionally good at demonstrating 'power' through his dick and other... anatomical means.
The Dean's motivation for dismantling the Student Council was as petty as it was devastating. He had been rejected by Jin's mother, Sophia Kang, years ago a rejection so cold it had calcified into a lifelong vendetta. His goal wasn't just to rule; it was to humiliate the Kang family by systematically taking everything they held dear. He wanted Jin's reputation, Jin's influence, and most importantly, Jin's women.
The Council President was his crown jewel. He would take her, then her subordinates, one by one, turning the Academy's pinnacle of order into a den of orchestrated debauchery.
Nasty stuff, I thought, watching Seraphina stand there with her noble, unshakeable confidence. Absolutely disgusting. Completely depraved. Utterly shameless.
As a player, obviously. As a character? Yeah, that sounds like a fucking nightmare.
I watched Seraphina's green eyes scan the crowd with regal indifference. She had no idea that her fate was already written, and that the girl in the back row was already calculating how to profit from her fall.
Welcome to the game, Madam President, I thought dryly. Try not to get too attached to that dignity. It's worth less than you think.