NOVEL NEXT Chapter 23
The phone rang with a jingle. I turned off the alarm and got up.
“Good morning, strong and cheerful!”
Fortunately, I didn’t have any nightmares the next morning. Thanks to that, I woke up feeling refreshed and pulled back the covers.
Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I noticed Unit 2 humming like a drunk person next to me.
“I’m attending Polaris Academy~ My life has changed~”
“Shut up, Unit 2. You’re the one going out today.”
“Wheee…”
After washing up, I headed to the First Year Dormitory cafeteria. I occasionally spotted male students with what seemed like bird nests perched on their heads. The male and female dorms were separated opposite each other but shared the same cafeteria.
However, a crowd gathered in front of the menu board. Curious, I went closer to see what was happening. Someone had scribbled a note below.
<Today’s Meal: Scrambled Eggs, Pancakes, Cereal, Chicken Salad, Fruits, etc.>
<↑ Notice: Attention! To ensure the health of First Year Freshmen, we have decided to regulate the greasy and unhealthy menu items.
<From the Freshman Management Board>
“What? Are they crazy?”
“That’s ridiculous!”
Students who had come down for breakfast were aghast at that bizarre announcement, without regard to gender.
“What the heck is this Freshman Management Board…?”
“I’m curious too…”
Looks like I’d have to eat some lousy food again in the morning. Am I going to face another British catastrophe?
「Unit 2, wasn’t the Second- and Third-Year Dormitory in the building right next door?」
「Yeah. Aha! There was that method!」
While talking with Unit 4, an interesting idea popped into my head.
“Wait a sec, I’ll be right back!”
“Where are you going?”
After telling Daphne to wait for a moment, I dashed out the door.
This academy has spacious grounds, with dormitories assigned by year. According to the notices, there are fancy dormitories only for the top students or those with special qualifications, but I have no idea where those are.
The Second-Year Dormitory was just ahead. I carefully slipped through the slightly open door and was greeted by the enticing aroma wafting from the cafeteria.
‘They won’t recognize me since I’m not wearing a uniform, right?’
I seamlessly joined the line of senior students. Just as I expected, they seems completely uninterested in who I was. Stacked on the trays ahead were various dishes resembling fried rice. This cafeteria was serving Eastern-style meals for breakfast today.
“They’ve been sneaking our food!”
“What a bunch of freeloaders! Waking up early just to steal from the juniors…”
On the opposite shelf, I noticed the food that should’ve been served in the First-Year cafeteria spread out in abundance. I grabbed two plates and discreetly helped myself to the food before heading to a corner table.
A few people looked at me oddly, but they quickly lost interest and looked away. It seems they didn’t expect a freshman to openly come here.
Seizing the moment when no one was watching, I transmitted the plates full of food to Unit 4, who was waiting back at the dorm.
I returned to the First Year Dormitory, glancing about cautiously.
“Where did you go, Ms. Rugilinn? You suddenly told me to wait…”
“I don’t have time to explain, just follow me!”
I dragged the still skeptical Daphne toward the dorm room.
“Look! Daphne, look! I brought delicious food!”
“Oh my gosh..! What’s all this?”
“I got it from the senior dorm next door!”
“Wait, from the senior’s cafeteria? What if we get caught? They seem really intimidating…”
“Don’t worry, there’s a method to my madness!”
I pointed at Unit 4, who was rolling about on the bed.
“A clone… It seems she utilized her unique ability. I really appreciate it, but please don’t do anything this risky next time. If you get caught, you could get in trouble, Ms. Rugilinn.”
“Thanks for worrying about me. But still, we need to eat a hearty breakfast!”
Ignoring Daphne’s concerned gaze, I picked up a fork.
「Delicious…!」
「Great!」
The Violets in my head cheered in delight.
「But, was there supposed to be this little?」
「Hehe… I might have eaten a bit.」
Oh no, Unit 4 had nibbled away some of the contents.
Still, seeing as I had eaten a hearty breakfast, I figured it was a good outcome. We finished our meal happily in the room.
***
Thanks to my full belly, the joy of starting the morning quickly shattered.
“Freshmen from the Frontline Combat Department! Everyone, dive in!”
“Aaah!”
“Eek!”
“Gyaaaah!”
As I walked through the campus, I spotted a group of students diving into the lake in their uniforms from a distance. It was an initiation ceremony.
That poor bunch was diving into the lake now known as ‘Blue Tooth Lake,’ but in-game, it’s named ‘The Blood-Soaked Silent Lake.’
From my memory, that’s where the underwater monsters lived…
“Kiiyaaah!”
“Urgh! It bit me! My finger!”
“Ahhh! Get it off! It hurts!”
The lake certainly lived up to its name. The freshmen emerged screaming, all the while dangling underwater monsters that resembled piranhas, wailing in terror.
Since they’re all Awakened Ones, none seemed to get torn apart, but it must hurt a lot.
Besides that, I had witnessed various bizarre scenes from yesterday till today. For example.
“Class of ‘25, Frontline Combat Department freshmen! We’re going to start a baptism ceremony filled with our friendship!”
“Eek! It’s hot!”
Some jerk lined up the students in front of the building and tossed weak fireballs at them, claiming it was ‘baptism’.
“Freshman, do you see this? This Skullcat has survived in the back mountain of this school for a whopping 10 years. That means it’s your esteemed senior. Now! Let’s greet our esteemed seniors! Kiss~”
“Grrr!”
“Gyaaaah! Help me!… Waaaah…!”
There was a nutjob dragging a growling Skullcat in front of a trembling female student. It was quite a spectacle.
-Is this a Marine Camp, or what?-
Of course, there were students who fought back as well.
“Fuck off! It’s not a big deal that I entered a year or two early! I paid to be here, so what’s with all the fuss?”
“Disrespecting your seniors…?”
「Feh!
“Gyaaaaah!”
Infuriated seniors surrounded one student and started beating him up. With one student as their punching bag, the terrified freshmen couldn’t move an inch.
「This really feels like an army camp. Next, they’ll start preaching about camaraderie.」
「That might be a bit dangerous.」
「Eek!」
I safely arrived at the classroom, having navigated through all the bizarre scenes. I started noticing students entering the classroom, some with their hair looking as if they had been coated in flour.
Pretending to pay attention to the lackluster orientation from the disinterested instructor, I chatted with my other clones.
“Do we also have to do some kind of initiation?”
“Don’t know! We haven’t received any contact about where to go yet.”
Fortunately, I hadn’t been subjected to any initiation rituals yet. The upperclassmen hadn’t contacted me.
“If they make us do something weird, we’ll jump out of the window.”
“Isn’t that strange? Other schools don’t do that. Why is it just here?”
I had no idea either. Who would’ve thought this failed academy would actually turn out to be this dump?
I took a moment to organize my thoughts.
The academies in Rust Room were established to systematically educate the Awakened Ones.
The definitions, curricula, and regulations regarding transfer studies of the ‘Awakened Academy’ are all governed by local regulations under the Central Education Committee of the Academy City.
However, since the academies are managed under the influence of various clans that autonomously govern the city’s districts, the detailed educational methods may differ.
“Even if it’s fantasy, isn’t it just too much to make kids do such things and spin their wheels for six years?”
“Which is why it’s doomed to fail! If it seems like a lost cause, we’ll just grab the items and run.”
The schooling period for the Awakened Academies is roughly 6 to 7 years.
It’s a hybrid system that manifests solely for the purpose of war and combat, merging high school and university courses into a distorted curriculum. So it’s unreasonable to compare it directly with real education.
Upon admission, you select a major, but first-year students undergo an integrated curriculum throughout both semesters. Specialization begins in the second year.
However, since there are so many students, even the same classes are divided into different time slots.
I wanted to attend classes with my roommate…
By the way, my major is ‘Dungeon Strategy Management.’ It’s a truly stinky name.
Suddenly, I felt Unit 4 rolling around on the dorm bed. Everyone chimed in.
“Unit 4! Aren’t you being a bit lazy, even as a standby?”
“I was just looking over some books.”
Currently, we had about seven clones summoned, splitting the tasks among us.
One clone attends classes day by day. While one person is marking attendance for school, the others are outside gathering intel and exploring.
The standby personnel in the dorm serves as a backup squad and also has the role of packing up and escaping quickly if needed.
“And stop munching on instant noodles! Those were brought by Daphne. If needed, you can receive the sensation of eating from us.”
“But you had some yesterday!”
“If you go hungry, you’ll just vanish. Yesterday, we all felt how hungry Unit 5 was, and it was rough on everyone.”
“Now, everyone calm down. The experiment proved yesterday, didn’t it? We’ll buy more instant noodles later.”
Unit 1, who had been heading toward the forest behind the academy, stopped two of them.
Instant noodles, huh, I should go to the store later.
I completely devoured everything during the experiments. Sorry, Daphne!
While we were in orientation yesterday, we had conducted an experiment to find out the limitations of our abilities.
How long could we maintain them compared to previous clone techniques? We needed to check how much the operational range had increased.
The status window was quite unfriendly and lacked proper explanations.
The results were unusual.
Any clone that consumed more than two cups of instant noodles in a day—also snack consumed—maintained itself even after 24 hours. And they remained maintained even now.
However, clones that hadn’t eaten at all or had only one bowl of instant noodles naturally faded away after 24 hours.
The calorie content of a single serving of the instant noodles we had was 500 calories. Calculating with the snacks included, we consumed roughly that much.
Therefore, it implied that consuming over 1,500 calories a day keeps the clone sustained.
Additionally, I had roamed around the university campus without any particular sensation of disconnection among the clones. Those were things we couldn’t have figured out in the small lab space we had.
Having cleared up all doubts, we swiftly moved to item collection.
This is the power of multitasking!
“I’m jealous… You’re all inside comfortably…”
“We have to be active outside!”
“Yeah, I know. We can feel how tough it is for you. Rest in between.”
While Unit 2 was attending classes, Units 7 headed to the library, and Units 1, 3, 5, and 6 went off to grab the extension and head to the rear of the school. It was sort of an auto-play.
Since it would be a strange sight if identical-looking students were seen outside, we wore masks, hats, or hoods when moving outdoors.
In the game [Polaris’ Wailing Ruins], this is an area accessible from the mid-point of Part 1.
Aside from specific gimmicks, it’s a place that mostly yields junk items like [Polaris Student Equipment Set]. However, there were needed herbs growing in the forest of this area right now.
The name of the herb was Blue Crystal Flower.
It permanently slightly increases the overall magical capacity and mana regeneration rate when used.
“Where the heck is it..? Is this the right place?”
“The areas in the game don’t always correspond to reality perfectly. We probably need to account for that while looking.”
“Maybe there’s nothing left from five years ago?”
We surveyed the map we had marked with the in-game locations, trying to jog our memories. After wandering around deep within the dense forest, we saw a flower emitting a faint blue glow under the shade of a large tree.
“Wait! Isn’t that it?”
“Yeah, that’s it. The Blue Crystal Flower!”
We zoomed over and plucked the flower.
“I had a feeling, but it was indeed here!”
“Now how do we use it? In the game, it was just a click away.”
We fell into a brief moment of thought. While pondering, Unit 6 picked up the flower.
“Let’s just eat it!”
“Sure. We have ten of these flowers, so even if we fail, it won’t be a big loss.”
As Unit 6 swallowed the flower, a peculiar sensation of ether spreading within their body followed immediately.
“Whoa? What is this…!”
“Check the status window! Check the status window!”
Upon examining the status window, we confirmed that the mana had surged from 3000 to a whopping 3500.
“Generating one clone costs roughly 500 mana, right? That means if we find and eat all ten…”
“Then the maximum number of clones we can create increases to a whopping 16!”
“The mana regeneration rate has also increased. It’ll be easier to mass produce clones now.”
I never expected such a monumental outcome! We were so excited that we all high-fived each other.
“Let’s go!”
The Violets cheered and eagerly continued our exploration of the forest.
“One! Two! One! Two!”