The plane was plummeting toward the sea.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Naturally, I had never been aboard a crashing airplane before, so I was terrified of the tremendous impact that was surely about to come.
THUD—!
A dull sound followed, along with an impact.
Yet ironically, compared to what I had expected, the impact was almost laughably weak. How should I put it? It was mild enough that falling like this did not seem so bad. If I had to compare it to something, it felt about as painful as falling off a swing at a playground.
“Young Master, what exactly are you doing?”
At the unfamiliar voice, I cautiously opened the eyes I had squeezed shut.
The first thing I saw was a young man on a brown horse staring at me suspiciously. The next was a white horse standing beside me, gazing down at me as though I were pathetic.
“You suddenly fell while trying to mount your horse. I suggest you stop entertaining whatever foolish idea has entered your head. I do not know how you intend to deceive me this time, but it will not work.”
“Am I... alive right now? After falling from that height?”
“A person does not die from a fall like that. For what it is worth, your acting seems to have improved since before, but you already used the trick of falling while mounting a horse once in the past.”
“N-No, what in the world is going on?”
“What do you mean? We had stopped briefly to rest and were just about to set out again. At least, we were until you fell, Young Master.”
“...Set out again?”
“We are on our way to Arnia Academy so you can apply to return to school.”
Even though I had merely muttered to myself, the young man in front of me kindly answered every question. Stranger still, despite clearly being a foreigner, I could understand his language perfectly.
What in the world was going on?
I was certainly grateful that I had fallen from a horse rather than crashed in an airplane, but the mounting confusion only made my head spin.
Everything around me was utterly unfamiliar. The shabby clothes both the young man and I were wearing, the fact that we apparently had to ride horses somewhere after finishing our rest, and even the strange languages I could hear around us.
“Wait. Did you say Arnia Academy?”
There was, however, one thing that somehow sounded familiar.
Just before the plane had crashed, the portable game console in front of me had emitted a blinding light. And Arnia Academy was the primary setting of the game I had played and mastered countless times on that very console.
“Young Master. Do you remember the task the Count entrusted to me?”
“What task?”
“The task of serving you faithfully so that you can graduate from the academy.”
“Why are you suddenly bringing that up...?”
“The Count also instructed me that if you attempted any foolishness during that process, I was to take it as your intention to sever your relationship as father and son and cut off your head whenever necessary. Do you remember that as well?”
What kind of father ordered someone to cut off his own son’s head?
Just how much did his father have to hate him...?
“So please mount your horse again.”
“Hmm. I cannot ride a horse.”
“You were riding perfectly well until we stopped to rest, so why tell such a transparently obvious lie? Surely you are not foolish enough to expect me to fall for it again?”
“I mean it. Horses and I are not particularly close.”
“Then you can simply become close again.”
Should I not become acquainted with this world before worrying about becoming acquainted with a horse?
After thinking it over carefully, it seemed I had somehow entered the game I used to play.
***
The Duchy of Arnia.
It took roughly two weeks to reach the territory where the academy was located. Those two weeks also gave me enough time to gain a reasonable understanding of my present situation.
‘At least I survived without dying, but....’
The most important fact was that this place was inside a game.
I had possessed a character from Legend of the Seven Heroes, commonly abbreviated as LotSH, the game I had played countless times to pass the long hours on flights while traveling all over the world.
As proof, the status window I used to see through the game console now floated directly before my eyes.
It was the sort of status window that made me sigh just by looking at it.
[ Maxim Edwell ]
— Age/Gender: 19/Male
— Race: Human
— Occupation: Second-Year Student at Arnia Academy
— Achievements/Reputation: None
— Stamina: 3/ View Details >>
— Intelligence: 3/ View Details >>
— Mana: 3/ View Details >>
— Dexterity: 3/ View Details >>
— Traits: None/ View Details >>
Of all people, I had become the third son among the three sons and one daughter of House Edwell.
Judging from the status window, Maxim was the only member of House Edwell, a family of warriors and knights for generations, who had been born without talent. Being untalented was one thing, but this bastard’s conduct before I took over his body had been atrocious.
He lied as naturally as he breathed, spent his life drinking as a permanent fixture of high society, and, as though that were not enough, gambled away most of the fortune allotted to him. At the academy, his grades were barely above failing.
‘Even if people are considered adults at a younger age here than in the modern world, still... he certainly learned all the worst things early.’
Then again, if he had been diligent, he would not have earned himself a reputation as a wastrel. What could I do about it? If I wanted to blame someone, I would have to blame the developers for creating a character like this.
‘And on top of that, he is not even a main character in the scenario. He is barely a supporting character.’
Worst of all...
At the academy’s end-of-term party, he had pestered nearly every young noblewoman in attendance. And one of the seven protagonists of the game, the Second Princess herself, had been there.
‘Thank goodness he did not make advances toward the Second Princess. If he had, his head might already have been separated from his shoulders.’
I could only be grateful that the game’s scenario had been written that way. It was also an incredible stroke of luck that despite being a wastrel, this body belonged to House Edwell, a family of founding contributors to the kingdom.
Had Count Edwell not personally gone from family to family, his face red with humiliation as he apologized to every household whose daughters I had harassed....
‘Right. I can understand to some extent why Count Edwell told Isaac to cut off my head if I caused any more trouble.’
Isaac was my guard knight.
He was the young man who had spoken to me when I first opened my eyes in this world. Now that I understood the situation this well, I could also see why he had been so firm with me.
‘Someone who could ride perfectly well suddenly claiming he could not ride at all must have made him think I was plotting something again.’
Isaac had clearly found my claim that I could not handle a horse suspicious, but for the moment, he had quietly taken the reins and led my horse himself. Even now, he walked without complaint while leading both horses, though the occasional glance he cast my way still seemed filled with suspicion.
Surely he would not actually kill me, the Count’s son.
It probably just meant that the Count had finally reached the end of his patience. Still, even though I was a wastrel, he had assigned me a guard knight because I was his son. Perhaps that meant he had not completely given up on keeping me alive.
‘The key point is that the main episode has not even begun yet. I have tried to organize everything based on what Isaac told me and what I know about the scenario that will unfold from here, but....’
It was still frustrating.
I had learned the broad outline of what happened before the main episode began, but with even the first episode yet to start, this world was practically unknown territory to me.
Still, I had to find some way to make a living.
And no matter what it took, I had to survive here.
I could not die another meaningless death like I nearly had in that plane crash, could I?
“We are almost there. That is the Duchy of Arnia.”
Isaac stopped the horses before a towering cliff as he spoke.
I dismounted for a moment and looked down at the world spread out beneath the cliff.
“Wow...!”
A cry of admiration escaped me before I even realized it.
And understandably so. The world I had always admired through the screen of a game console had become reality before my eyes. Its sheer grandeur and splendor left me utterly captivated.
An academy building so enormous that it could have passed for the royal palace of a principality stood at the very center of the duchy, while a bustling commercial district formed a ring around it.
For the academy students who were supposed to devote themselves to their studies, stores selling every variety of food and merchandise were packed tightly around the academy. No matter how one looked at it, there was no doubt that this was the central city of the Duchy of Arnia.
Countless people of various races and species gathered there, filling the place with the constant energy of an enormous marketplace.
And at its heart stood Arnia Academy.
‘So that is where I am supposed to attend from now on? At my age, I have to go to that academy?’
Would I even be able to graduate?
As far as I knew, this body, already a failing student according to the scenario, was destined to be expelled soon. If I wanted to avoid expulsion, I needed enough ability to prevent it.
Unfortunately, when I checked this body’s status window again, it remained utterly dreadful.
‘Wow.... Even after looking at it again, these stats are unbelievably pathetic. It is almost impressive for every stat to be this miserably low. Seriously, if the stats are going to be this bad, should he not at least have one useful trait? If they were going to make such a garbage character, they should never have let him enter the academy in the first place!’
All I could do was sigh.
Since it had been a game, there had undoubtedly been reasons involving scenario progression, character settings, and the like, but this was still far too much. Worse, the role Maxim Edwell was supposed to occupy in the coming scenario made me uneasy as well.
Being born into House Edwell had spared him from the worst possible consequences, but even that protection was rapidly losing its influence.
What exactly could I accomplish at that academy?
‘Fine. If I look on the bright side, I suppose I could say I am fortunate if terrible stats are the only problem.’
But who was the owner of this body?
A candidate for the academy’s failing students and a notorious womanizer. Naturally, his personal relationships would be terrible as well.
In other words, there was no one I could even ask for help.
The only person who might be useful was...
Isaac, who stood right beside me, still staring at me with open suspicion.
“Do I really have to return to school? It seems pointless either way.”
“The Count was quite clear. He told you not to even think of setting foot on the family estate until you earned your diploma. And if you disobeyed his order—”
“My head would probably come off.”
“Oh? Fortunately, you seem to understand that perfectly well.”
I was almost certainly going to be expelled soon, so was graduating not asking too much?
Even if I died and came back to life again.
“Then I will escort you directly to the academy. Submitting your application for reinstatement should come first.”
“There is one thing I genuinely want to know. Will you answer me?”
“If it is within the bounds of common sense, I will.”
“Suppose I... just suppose that....”
“You are about to try something strange again, are you not?”
Isaac placed a hand on the sword at his waist.
This lunatic.
Even if his lord, the Count, had ordered him to do it, was he seriously prepared to cut down his own young master?
“W-Wait! Hear me out first! What I mean is, what would happen if I accomplished something beyond merely graduating from the academy?”
“I suggest you abandon whatever plan you have immediately if it is even more absurd than the time you declared that you would seduce Her Highness the Princess and become a member of the Imperial Family. Calling such a thing a delusion would be far too generous.”
“I-It is nothing like that. Why do you have so little faith in me? You are supposed to be my guard knight.”
“Would trusting you not be enough to disqualify me as a guard knight? Perhaps you should reflect on everything you have done until now.”
Instead of reflecting on my past behavior, I searched my memories.
That was when I remembered something.
Coffee existed in this world as well, though for now it was a luxury culture enjoyed exclusively by the nobility.
“I actually have a proper plan. Hear me out.”
“Hmm. What is it?”
“I was thinking of making some money.”
SHING—!
Isaac’s eyes sharpened menacingly as he drew his sword.
...Was this bastard actually insane?
“So who are you planning to extort money from, and how?”
“N-No, I am not going to extort anyone! I said I was going to earn it!”
“Ha? And what possible talent do you possess for that, Young Master?”
“Ahem! You would not know this, but I secretly studied coffee without telling you. Have you ever heard of the World Barista Champion? I happen to know quite a lot about that field....”
With a little exaggeration, I had even been the king of Korea’s coffee franchise industry.
I might be a garbage character in this world, but my own abilities had not disappeared.
If I truly set my mind to it, there was no reason I could not make something work.
‘It would hardly be my first time starting from nothing.’
That was how I had lived before, and in the end, I had achieved everything through coffee.
So this time as well, I would find a way to survive.