'Why on earth did I agree to this?'
Less than an hour ago, Soren had been making it his goal to kill the trash in front of him.
What was he doing now?
Now he was eating lunch with him.
"Hahhh…"
"What's wrong, little hedgehog?"
"Just.. shut up, trash."
"Is that what you're going with?"
"Why? Don't like it? I think it fits a pervert like you perfectly."
"Me? A pervert?"
"..."
Felix scratched his head awkwardly in response to Soren's silence.
'Being around this guy really will taint my image even more. I need to be careful.'
'Speaking of my image though…'
"Why is everyone staring so hard today?"
Soren was already getting used to the glares of his peers, but today it felt different for some reason.
In Soren's mind, there was only one possible explanation for this.
The person sitting in front of him.
Human Trash.
Womaniser.
Scum.
Even though classes had only been going on for a few weeks, Felix had already attracted all sorts of awful rumours thanks to his womanising actions.
"…I knew having lunch with human trash was a mistake."
"You're being too harsh…"
Soren recoiled in disgust at Felix's attempt at faking sadness.
"But you know, Soren, doesn't it make sense that people are staring?"
"Not really?"
The look on Soren's face was that of genuine confusion.
Seeing this, Felix chuckled in disbelief.
"Well, you might not have heard, but Annie told me that—"
Soren quickly cut him off.
"—Wait, who's Annie?"
"The girl I was with the other day."
"..."
Soren looked at him with a face filled with contempt, but Felix just ignored it and continued.
"Anyways, she was telling me that during their tea party, they were talking about guys."
"And what does that have to do with me?"
Soren still had no clue where he was going with this.
"Apparently, our names came up quite a lot; you should be happy."
'But why?'
Soren tried to think about why his name might have come up in conversation, but no matter what, nothing came to mind.
"So why exactly was my name brought up?"
Felix looked at the guy in front of him with an expression that seemed to be asking, 'Are you stupid?'
Soren felt wronged by the look Felix was giving him.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"...No, it's nothing. Hmm… how do I put this…"
From Soren's perspective, Felix seemed to be genuinely struggling with how to choose his next words.
"Okay, so.. Soren, what reason would girls have to talk about guys at a girls-only event?"
"Uh…"
"...Of course it would be to talk about who they're interested in."
"Oh! Oh? Huh?"
Soren's face was filled with confusion.
He pointed to himself to double-check that Felix's words were correct, to which Felix just nodded.
Soren couldn't understand it, so he voiced his thoughts.
"But why?"
Felix sighed.
"Are you being serious?"
Soren nodded.
"...I hate to ask, but... when was the last time you looked in the mirror?"
'Uh…'
"...Never."
Not once since transmigrating had Soren looked in a mirror.
'Was I really that uninterested in how I looked?'
"I want to believe that isn't the case… but the look on your face is telling me it's somehow the truth."
"..."
"Just.. go look when you get the chance, you'll understand."
"..."
Soren couldn't help but nod his head in shame at Felix's words.
No matter how distracted he had been, it didn't make sense that Soren hadn't even looked at his own appearance since transmigrating.
'Something doesn't add up though..'
"But if that's true, why the hell does everyone avoid me?"
Shrug
"Why would I know?"
'I should've expected as much, all that goes through this guy's head is women.'
"Well, whatever, I'm going to the bathroom."
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
On his way to the bathroom, Soren was lost in thought.
The reason for this was that he was trying to figure out why people were so blatantly avoiding him.
It didn't make sense to him. If what Felix said was correct, then surely people would be more likely to approach him, especially in a world like this where nobility is such a big deal.
He was aware that if someone was attractive that there would be people who were too intimidated to approach and others who would be jealous, but there would still be some people outside of those two groups who would at least greet him.
But that has never happened.
Never.
Not once since transmigrating has Soren been greeted by his peers.
'But why..?'
"..."
"..."
"..."
'Wait… am I stupid?'
Soren's footsteps came to a sudden stop as he pieced together the likely answer.
'Could that be the answer?'
'That actually makes a lot of sense if it's true…'
"Freya Arden." He muttered her name under his breath.
That was the answer he had reached.
'How did it take me so long to figure that out?'
The second that name came into his head, it was like the final puzzle piece was finally found.
A few months before the entrance ceremony, Freya Arden had passed away in battle.
In Soren's room is Freya's personal weapon.
The original Soren must have been quite close to Freya; otherwise, the weapon would have been sent back to the main house.
Again, Freya died months before the academic year started.
That would mean Soren personally received her weapon, then lugged it all the way to the Academy with seemingly no other belongings.
Why else would you do that other than being close to that person?
Even the fact that the axe itself was very clean meant that up until the transmigration, the weapon was constantly being maintained.
This leads to the reason why Soren is being avoided.
A few months might be enough time for some people to move on, but for others, especially those so close to the person who died, it can vary hugely.
The most likely answer is that when the original Soren started attending Stellaris Academy, he was likely very gloomy due to grief and probably shut out anyone who tried to come close.
'...I can understand how he felt.
Soren understood how hard it can be to accept help when you're at your lowest.
But what must've happened was that the original Soren was unapproachable and refused to let his walls down at any point.
The students and staff probably realised that it was better to leave him alone for the time being and give him some space.
As such a famous person, Freya Arden's death was very public knowledge after all, so it was likely that many people knew exactly what was going on with Soren.
'Wait, then were some people seriously looking at a frail, grieving 18-year-old boy with envy just because he has decent looks?'
Soren clicked his tongue in disgust.
'Wow, people really are trash.'
'Well, at least that's been solved.'
It was a relief to him that he had finally figured out what was going on.
'The solution is pretty easy then.'
To fix his current situation, it would simply be enough to make it clear that he was okay now.
Soren knew it wouldn't be an instant fix, but he was convinced that it was the solution.
'But do I want to fix it?'
Thanks to the existence of Alex, he was able to live quite freely, but Soren was still worried that if he garnered too much attention, he might be dragged into the story, which was the last thing he wanted right now.
Sure, being in class F made that worry seem somewhat pointless, but after hearing what Felix had said, he couldn't just casually shake it off.
After all, in a world filled with narcissistic nobles who care way too much about vanity, there was a chance that even with his awful skills, Soren could still be roped into things depending on how good his appearance was.
"Ugh…"
Soren groaned in response to his own thoughts.
'It's all so tedious.'
All Soren wants is to live a happy, comfortable life in this world.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
When Soren walked into the bathroom, he felt a strange sense of anticipation.
'Why on earth had I never been curious about my appearance?'
It had been almost a fortnight since transmigrating, and Soren had yet to think about his appearance even once.
Reaching the mirror, Soren raised his head and immediately froze at the sight of the face reflected back at him.
'This isn't just an attractive face…'
He reached out and touched his face in disbelief.
He was once again reminded of the almost S-rank charm stat that he had been so annoyed about until this moment.
"This is fucking crazy…"
He couldn't help but curse.
The silky snow-white hair and porcelain skin gave an air of decadence.
Warm-looking, scarlet eyes painted by long, black eyelashes.
The soft, slightly red lips.
Beauty marks sit just under his eye on the left and his mouth on the right.
Not to mention the slender yet somewhat short body that was reflected back.
Everything together added up to make a beautiful yet delicate appearance.
'I take back what I said earlier, no wonder people were envious, I can't even call them trash anymore.'
There was only a single question Soren had with his current appearance.
'Is this really a guy?'
Back on earth, he had also had a fairly androgynous look, so he occasionally got confused for a woman, but the face reflected at him made his old face seem macho in comparison.
'I can already feel the future headaches…'
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
A week had passed since then.
Since discovering his appearance, he had been taking care of himself a lot better.
It may have sounded stupid after his worries that his appearance could lead to problems in the future, but Soren didn't care about that anymore.
With a face like this, he realised that it would be a waste if he didn't look after himself.
Thanks to that, the dark circles under his eyes had decreased slightly, making him look somewhat less frail than before.
Of course, that wasn't all that had happened in the last week.
He had also been thinking about the future thanks to the joint lesson he had with Felix.
More specifically, about the upcoming mock duel.
Each semester, there are two mock duel events, one before midterms and another before finals.
For the first mock duel, your opponent is chosen for you based on your rank, skills and other similar factors.
This usually means that the duels themself usually end up being pretty fair.
The second mock duel of each semester is different; instead, you're given a pair of duel tokens, then whoever you give that token to will have to fight you.
There are limitations; however, you can't challenge anybody lower-ranked than you, and you can only participate in a total of 3 duels. It's a first-come, first-served situation.
In ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱, the first mock duel was a pretty significant event since it was the event in which Alex revealed his [Divinity] to everyone, making it known that he was the hero.
Alex is the reason why this batch of first-year students is known as 'The Generation of Light' to the world.
According to TKS's lore, the Order of Aryn received a prophecy.
– 「When the Demon Lord of Darkness descends, the Hero of Light shall be born and bring about salvation to all.」
As far as fictional prophecies go, it's a pretty generic one, but the important thing was that it told everyone that the hero would be born at the same time the Demon Lord descended on the world.
This prophecy caused all eyes to be on The Generation of Light, and the second they noticed that the identity of the Hero had been revealed, the Order of Aryn instantly started getting to work on unsealing the holy sword [Clockwork].
It's also a key part in starting Amelia Einhardt's questline, because she begins to take an interest in Alex thanks to his golden [Divinity] that he shows off in the mock duel, which is important, even more so now that this is reality, as she is one of the 3 main heroines and almost necessary late game due to her top-tier tanking abilities.
Of course, none of this meant anything to Soren.
'I mean, I'm just a gigolo-like 1★ character with my only redeemable stat being A+ rank charm.'
Even if he wanted to take over the protagonist's role, which he doesn't, it would be impossible since he can't obtain [Divinity].
Even if he wanted to steal Amelia's questline, it would be nigh impossible since the way to start it is by making her interested in you, and the only way to do that is to be absurdly strong or be very unique, and currently, Soren is neither.
'…Plus, I'm not really interested in NTRing Alex.'
Even the thought of doing such a thing sent shivers down his spine.
Nevertheless, the real reason why Soren was thinking about all of this was for a completely different reason.
"I'm too weak."
Before the joint class with Felix, he had thought that the mock duels would be a cakewalk, hardly even a struggle, but after discovering how truly weak this body of his was, it made him somewhat anxious.
Since Soren was ranked 96th, his opponent was also likely to be weak, but he couldn't help but keep thinking about how embarrassing it would be if he ended up losing as a transmigrator.
"「Status」"
.
.
[Status Window]
Name: Soren Arden (1★)
◈ Stats
Stamina - 0.2 (F)
Strength - 0.3 (F)
Agility - 0.4 (F)
Mana - 0.4 (F) [Increased by 0.1]
Divine Power - 0.0 (F)
Charm - 8.4 (A+)
.
.
In the weeks since transmigrating, the only stat that's changed was his mana stat, and that was only by a single point.
With stats as low as these, the best he would be able to do in the mock duels is to tightly squeeze by.
'But I don't want that.'
Soren wanted to win.
Luckily, Soren had already come up with a plan to raise the garbage stats in front of him, even if only by a small amount.
In ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱, there are hidden pieces that you can only find if you are truly insane.
Some of these hidden pieces would require you to kill every enemy in a location to unlock a dungeon that you'd have to clear, then you'd get the reward.
One even required you to have a specific item, a specific character, fight a specific enemy, at a specific time, in a specific location.
'That one was awful…'
For the one he was currently eyeing up, though, you only had to map out the entirety of Rena Forest, located next to Stellaris Academy, then follow the marker you're given to a tiny cave hidden at the edge of the map.
Normally, something like this would be a long and tedious process, but now that TKS was his reality, he would be able to just go straight to the cave since he already knew the location.
The hidden item obtainable this way was [Stella's Apple].
As far as hidden pieces went, it was easily the worst, being only a 5★ item when most of the hidden pieces are 7★ or 8★ at minimum, but it was by far the easiest one to get for Soren at the moment.
[Stella's Apple] increases all stats by 0.3 points, and while that effect itself was good, the other part is what interested Soren the most.
After consuming [Stella's Apple], you gain the title [Stella's Secrets].
This title in-game was pretty mediocre; all it does is boost mana and health recovery rate by 200%, but in TKS, that was worthless since you pretty much always have Saintess Olivia as a fixed party member.
The other reason it wasn't great was the fact that there was always a stockpile of items sitting in your inventory to heal mana or health at any given time.
But in real life, this is a lot different.
Items?
They cost money.
Healers?
Not even a question.
They not only need to be paid an exorbitant amount, but they also need to be protected.
Then there was also the fact that mana takes a lot longer to recharge in real life.
During the joint lesson, Soren was able to figure something out about mana.
Using up his entire mana pool and waiting for it to completely recharge took roughly 15 minutes.
That was when his mana stat was 0.3, and ever since raising it to 0.4, it has taken around 25 minutes to recharge.
A mana stat of 0.3 is F-grade, and it only took him about 10 minutes of constantly firing low proficiency basic spells to suffer from mana exhaustion.
Even the worst magician characters had a mana grade of high D to low C, so waiting to recharge them would probably take hours.
But with the title [Stella's Secrets], he could reduce that 15-minute recharge time down to just 5 minutes.
And even if it wasn't nearly as important, being able to heal faster is nice, too.
There was an obvious dilemma with all of this, though: [Stella's Apple] is an item that Alex is meant to take.
But after careful deliberation, Soren concluded that this point was moot.
Why?
Because Alex is stupid.
Alex was the stereotypical happy-go-lucky academy protagonist.
His entire thought process was: Eat → Sleep → Train → Repeat
Even though ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱ was a game with harem elements, there wasn't an ounce of romance simply because the protagonist was too dense and didn't care about anything except getting stronger.
'I remember that pissing a lot of people off as well…'
'I mean, who makes a game with full systems around levelling a character's affinity level and even having the girls fall in love, then just never adding the ability to act on it?'
But over the past few weeks, there had been a few times where Soren had shared theory classes with Alex, and every time, he would just sleep or get answers comically wrong when asked by the professor.
For Soren, this was more than enough confirmation that Alex's personality remained unchanged.
This was because in TKS, it was a running gag that Alex would fail his theory exams with the lowest grades in the entire academy, even in his later years.
Because of this, Soren was convinced that Alex would never be able to find the hidden pieces alone without insane luck, no matter how hard he tried.
And for that reason, Soren had decided that he would hoard all of the hidden pieces for his goal of having an enjoyable life.
————「❤︎」————