They followed behind the guide to a room.
This time, there were people lying in pods while others gathered around a screen.
The screen displayed the game in real time, and the audience could send bullet texts using a smartwatch.
"Are people going to watch ours too?" Ming Jun asked nervously.
"Not unless you wish it," the guide assured him.
Then the guide pointed out four empty pods in a secluded corner specially prepared for them.
Ming Jun lay on the cold metal pod and listened to the words from the guide.
The guide explained that the five of them were about to enter a large-scale virtual reality game.
The game would have all the sensory experiences, and they could choose to customize their characters.
Plus, the tasks they would perform would depend on the genre they liked—
with Ming Jun as the main hero and team leader.
The other people seen in the game were just very advanced AIs made to talk like real people.
Lastly, each person would have their status displayed and only three lives.
"I wish you a good game," the guide said, clapping.
Ming Jun took in a huge breath and pressed the button on the phone.
He felt his consciousness sink and found himself in a blue space.
Before him was a screen filled with character customization options—
from gender, hair color, eye color, to even species and height.
Ming Jun looked at the numerous options,
his fingers swiping across the screen and his eyes twitching once he reached the anime section—
where your game character could be any anime character you wished to be.
Ming Jun looked at all his options silently.
Then he looked at his floating chubby figure and pinched the flesh.
This was a huge temptation for him—
a place where he could finally be someone else.
He could be a tall, handsome man.
Or he could be a bodybuilder rippling with impressive muscles.
Or he could just be a skinnier version of himself.
Heck, he could even be Gojo Satoru if he wanted to.
But he… didn't want to.
Ming Jun was surprised by this thought himself.
He couldn't believe it—really couldn't.
This was the opportunity of a lifetime, and the five of them always knew their lives were shorter than other people's.
I mean, Noi Karn's death was a rude awakening.
So this opportunity and this moment were very precious.
Maybe that's why everyone was starting to open up and enjoy it.
I mean, when else are we going to come across our earnest desires?
Not ever again—that's the answer.
So why is it that the me who thought he was always fat trash decisively chose this option?
Ming Jun looked at his finger pressing "decline" on the screen.
His mouth twitched, and his mind pushed the major reason to him.
If he was finally going to have a chance to do something amazing,
then he wanted to do it as Ming Jun.
Not because of pride or a sudden growth of confidence.
Neither was it to prove that he was amazing in his own right.
No—Ming Jun felt like he could never think of himself like that.
The real reason was because he knew Shae Harris was going to be there.
So he wanted to show her an amazing side of himself.
He wanted her to see his shortcomings and the bad parts—
because trust me, there are a lot of bad parts.
But he felt like she was probably the only person who could see the good part.
Ming Jun couldn't find anything good about himself, but he hoped she would.
And maybe then… just maybe, she would actually consider liking him.
He honestly didn't know how he ended up liking her.
"Hey, you okay?" He saw her waving a hand in his face.
She didn't change her appearance at all, except for looking more muscular.
Beside her were Wei Zhi and Mori Aoi.
Wei Zhi wasn't interested in his appearance, plus he was scared to change his features because it would feel weird.
Mori Aoi wanted to change her eye color to something normal, but she was too shy.
"Yeah, I would be if you can move back," Ming Jun said, taking a step back.
Shae Harris rolled her eyes.
Really, how on earth did it happen? Ming Jun thought silently, feeling his erratic heartbeat.
"Where are we?" Wei Zhi asked, looking around.
"There should be a backstory introduction," Shae Harris said.
Then a ding was heard as the backstory played out directly in their minds.
They finally knew where they were and why there were so many young people in uniforms around them.
It wasn't like the real world but a world of magic and monsters mixed with dungeons and dragons.
Aside from humans, there were four other species—
elves, dwarves, dragons, and beastmen.
There was also a subspecies of humans and other races,
like half-dwarves, half-elves, and half-dragons.
Their game characters and identities even had a backstory.
They were childhood friends from a slightly low-class family.
They had gone to normal schools most of their lives until a certain incident happened.
Then they were sent to this school as students in their last year.
As such, their game characters were set as new transfer students in the most prestigious school for magic.
They were actually normal people with F-rank talent who would normally not even dare to dream of coming here.
And the "here" in question was the capital—
where the most prominent magic noble families and the royal family resided.
The reason they could enter this school and even transfer directly into the last year was because of a special reason.
The four of them had entered a low-rank dungeon in need of money
but ended up contacting an evil entity that had invaded this world.
They were fortunate to survive due to a certain special physique they possessed,
but unfortunately, they had been cursed by that evil thing.
The authorities found them at the dungeon entrance and questioned them.
After realizing the seriousness of the problem,
the kingdom hatched a plan.
They sent them to this school to investigate the origin of the entity.
In fact, "sent" is putting it nicely—
it was more like threatening them with two choices:
Either they die at that moment due to being contaminated,
or they go to investigate the source of that contamination.
Of course, if they died in the process, it wasn't the kingdom's problem.
They were just given the most basic set of expensive potions and a single weapon of their choice,
then ruthlessly forced to say goodbye to their family and lives.
Although they did compensate their parents with a lot of money,
so the goodbye wasn't all that bad.
Now here they stood, at the doors of the school, waiting for the head of the student committee to direct them.
The organization had already gotten in touch with the school and told them the plan.
They were cannon fodder whose only job was to detect the source of contamination.
The actual heavy work was handled by the experts.
Ming Jun let out a "wow" and felt that the title "cannon fodder" was quite fitting.
He checked his status and was dumbfounded at once.
The status was in the same format as all the ones he'd read about—
Name, Age, Health, Stamina, Mana, Physique.
Then obviously, Skill List, Items, and Inventory.
But what surprised him wasn't the curse affliction he had,
but that he had a title.
He actually had a title—
Cannon Fodder.
And the effect was that the probability of encountering danger and evil was increased by 50%.
The second effect was that the probability of escaping danger at the last minute was max.
Ming Jun was annoyed and thought, What type of ridiculous title is this?
He received his first task, which was to find the main characters.
Ming Jun rubbed his chin and already had a few ideas about the task.
Normally, in this type of school, there would be many main characters—
the original main character that the author created but failed to save the world,
the transmigrated one who read the whole novel,
the regressor who died due to betrayal or being too weak,
and the reborn mercenary hero who went back in time as a baby to a noble family.
"Did you guys also receive a task?" Shae Harris asked.
"I don't like this curse state; it makes me feel uncomfortable," Wei Zhi frowned.
"And these tasks look weird," Mori Aoi said.
"Huh, what's yours?" Ming Jun asked in surprise.
Finding main characters didn't sound as bad as she made it.
"It says that I have to find all the heroines and their love interests," she said, blushing.
"Mine says I should find all the main characters," Ming Jun said in surprise.
"My task said that I have to find all the hidden dungeons in the school," Shae Harris said, looking at the two of them in surprise.
"Why does mine sound the hardest?" Wei Zhi pouted.
"Oh, what is it then?" Shae Harris asked excitedly, trying to lean in to see his screen.
"I have to find the traces of the source of contamination and infiltrate the hidden cult," Wei Zhi sighed even more after saying it out loud.
Why did it sound so hard and dangerous?
Wasn't that practically throwing him into danger?
"Don't worry, with that title you wouldn't die," Ming Jun patted his shoulder.
Wei Zhi glared at him and slapped his arm away.
"I can still live while being paralyzed," he retorted, his head low.
"How did they determine the tasks in the first place?" Mori Aoi asked, distressed, her worried eyes on Wei Zhi.
"It's probably set according to our interests," Shae Harris deduced.
"Yeah, since I'm an otaku, then finding main characters should be easy," Ming Jun said proudly.
"And I've played a few dungeon games, so finding one should be easier," Shae Harris said, smirking in pride.
"I guess my task is like that because I like to read romance novels," Mori Aoi clapped her hands and smiled.
"Yeah, but I have no interest in dying or being put in any form of danger," Wei Zhi wanted to cry but had no tears.
"I guess it's because of the fact that you like mystery," Ming Jun said.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Wei Zhi retorted.
"Relax, mystery isn't about fighting. It's mainly about tricks, deep thinking, and psychology," Ming Jun explained.
"But it's not like I'm obsessed with it.
I don't read books all that much or watch movies,
so it's not entirely true that I like it," Wei Zhi thought about it, then spoke those words.
"Excuses," Shae Harris said sharply and glared at him.
"Well, I'll try my best then," Wei Zhi could only accept after that.
But he was still glum.
Mori Aoi looked at his anxious appearance and offered comfort.
She poked him in the side, then stretched out a palm once he turned to her.
She used a finger from her other hand to write the character for "fighting" in Chinese.
She wasn't fluent, as she had only learned a little because her sister wanted to take an extra course.
So Mori Aoi chose languages as the extra course—
where she learned Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.
The students were free to choose what language to study.
Her sister's aesthetic for a boyfriend was that he had to be Asian,
so she made her learn those three.
Then she would brag about it to her other friends who liked to watch Asian dramas.
Anyway, the knowledge was enough to clumsily write "fighting."
"Thank you," Wei Zhi, who hadn't seen Chinese characters in a long time, smiled.
He rubbed her soft head while she blushed and said "you're welcome" in a squeaky voice.
"So now what?" Shae Harris asked.
"Hello and welcome to the Academy for Young Heroes," a stern female voice said.
They all turned to the front door, which was now occupied by a beautiful girl.
She was wearing the black and red uniform, which, by the way, matched the uniform of their high school in the real world.
The girl was tall, and her posture was stiff.
Her long straight black hair swayed, and her red eyes looked at them coldly.
The four of them were used to cold, disdainful, and disgusted looks from people,
but it didn't stop them from being nervous in front of a person who had such a strong aura.
"Wow, what a beauty," said everyone except Shae Harris.
She didn't care about the black-haired girl who was glaring at her.
Shae Harris looked her up and down, then whistled.
"I kinda feel bad for her at this point," Ming Jun stopped being scared and looked at her in pity.
"Can you show some restraint?" Wei Zhi rolled his eyes.
"She's like a warrior princess," Mori Aoi said with bright eyes.
Her gaze was even hotter than Shae Harris's because the girl also had red eyes.
"Sister, what's your name?" Shae Harris walked over to her and asked.
"Princess Iris Midgar," the cold beauty spoke, giving Shae Harris a warning look.
"Standard name," Ming Jun said, studying her with awe.
"Jeez, you really couldn't hold back, huh? She's 17, you beast," Shae Harris gasped and gave Ming Jun a disgusted look.
"I should be telling you that! And how do you know she's 17?
She might be 18 already," Ming Jun glared at her.
"So you admit that you are waiting for her to be 18 like a pervert," Shae Harris eyed him.
"Stop twisting my words!" Ming Jun blushed, peeking at Princess Iris.
"Wow, a princess—I knew it," Mori Aoi said to Wei Zhi excitedly.
"Doesn't that mean we shouldn't mess with her? What if she gets us executed?" Wei Zhi said, clutching his throat and looking at Princess Iris nervously.
"Relax, the game can't kill us off yet," Shae Harris told him.
"I don't have time to deal with trash like you. This is your timetable and room registration," Princess Iris said coldly.
She glanced at them in impatience and tossed them some papers.
Then she swiftly turned around and left, with the students inside whispering about her.
"Are they all like that?" Shae Harris asked Ming Jun, waving a fist at the departing princess.
"Usually they don't respond to trash like us, but I guess we pissed her off," Ming Jun shrugged.
"She's so pretentious," Shae Harris said, sticking out her tongue at her.
"I never noticed while reading it, but I can see it a little bit," Ming Jun responded awkwardly.
"But she's still pretty though," Mori Aoi chuckled awkwardly.
"I guess we should head to class first," Wei Zhi spoke.
They walked in and saw the empty corridor.
Then they hurried off to their class, already late.