“Is this about it?”
After coming out of the hot spring bath, I headed straight for the dormitory administration building.
There, after using alteration to get assigned temporary lodging, I entered the room and immediately began experimenting to see exactly how far my ability could go, and I was able to grasp it to some extent.
“First, common sense alteration is one of the abilities under alteration.”
Alteration felt, literally, like it encompassed everything.
Common sense alteration was more like a subcategory of that alteration, I guess?
“Second, alterations excluding common sense alteration are not permanent.”
I confirmed that common sense alteration was applied permanently, but other alterations were not permanent and only lasted temporarily.
For example, when an alteration was executed through the lie that my fist could even break stone, its duration was about five minutes.
“I can just pay for that later, right?”
Thanks to that, there was a slight(?) hole in the wall, but I figured I could just compensate them for it later.
“Fourth, this is only a hypothesis, but dispositions changed through common sense alteration cannot be changed back.”
I hypothesized that while perceptions could be changed again through common sense alteration, a disposition that had been changed once could not be changed again.
This wasn’t some baseless hypothesis, but one I formed based on my understanding of this game and after conducting experiments myself.
Changes in disposition have a vertical structure.
Take Eldina as an example: her disposition was originally misandry, but through my lie it changed into yandere (hard).
A disposition that hated men changed into a blindly devoted disposition toward someone.
Normally, a structural change like this does not exist.
This was only possible because it was a change brought about through my alteration, but what I mean is that, normally, a disposition’s intensity may move up or down, but the structure of the disposition itself does not change.
And at this point, I did think once again that maybe I could just change it through common sense alteration, but that idea was discarded because of an experiment I had done.
“Damn spider bastard.”
I looked at the spider lying unconscious in the corner of the room and cursed.
Of course, that spider had done nothing wrong.
It was a grateful little guy that had served as my test subject, but the fact that it lunged at me was a bit much.
Toward the spider that had been on the ceiling of the temporary lodging, I used the lie that I was its enemy to change the spider’s disposition from “frightening human” to “enemy that must be eliminated.”
Then, although spiders normally fear people and are prone to running away, through alteration its hostility toward me was amplified.
After that, I lied to the spider once again.
I tested whether its disposition would change again with the lie, “Actually, I’m your family.”
[Alteration has failed.]
A notification window appeared, and it failed.
I tried once more, but only the notification window saying it had failed kept appearing.
So, since I felt bad killing the spider that was trying to attack me, I had smacked it like that and knocked it unconscious.
“In other words, changing A to B is possible, but changing B back to A is impossible.”
Since it failed in an animal experiment, there was a high chance it would fail in a clinical experiment as well.
And experimenting on Eldina was simply dangerous for me.
If it failed, my chastity would be destroyed once again, and even if it succeeded, that would be a problem in its own way.
“If it succeeds, she’ll go back to misandry.”
I could alter away the memories of her trying to assault me, but the original Eldina simply loathes any male student she sees to an extreme degree.
Normally she ignores them, but if they come within a five-meter radius, she’s a crazy bitch who just hurls fireballs at them without hesitation.
“For now, I’ll have to avoid Eldina as much as possible.”
I don’t plan on being in the same class as her anyway, so there shouldn’t be that many chances to run into her.
“And lastly, alterations related to life have considerable restrictions.”
The last point was that there were quite a lot of restrictions on alterations related to life.
For example, in the case of a resurrection alteration toward a dead target, this is only a hypothesis, but I might have to completely consume my own life.
After all, even with a recovery alteration right now, I felt as if my life force was being sucked dry.
That spider had actually once fallen into a near-death state.
There, I told the lie that the spider was actually perfectly fine, and the alteration activated.
But at that moment, weakness flooded my body, and I collapsed to the floor.
“Just returning a spider like that to a healthy state caused that much weakness. If I tried to resurrect something, I’d probably just die.”
And the next restriction was that I couldn’t execute recovery alteration on myself.
“I shouldn’t have experimented for no reason.”
I could tell just by looking at this hand, which was currently wrapped tightly in cloth to stop the bleeding.
After injuring my hand, I had told the lie that my hand was actually fine.
[Alteration has failed.]
[Life alteration targeting oneself is impossible.]
But a notification window appeared saying that the alteration had failed and that life alteration targeting oneself was impossible.
I tried again, but it was the same, so I simply gave up and stopped the bleeding on my hand.
“I don’t know if there are more, but for now, is this the limit of what I can figure out?”
I’d only know by using it more and observing it from now on.
***
Through the lie that special transfer students had the privilege of choosing their class, I was able to decide on a class.
And since there was already a class I had in mind, I chose it and was now stepping into that classroom.
Class F.
The class names at this academy were not simply arranged alphabetically.
The academy judged students’ skill and talent, then placed them where they belonged.
However, among them, Class F and Class S were different.
They were the only two classes without grade distinctions, but their evaluations were complete opposites.
If Class S was a class composed of the greatest talents, those who could one day stand at the summit, then Class F was, in every sense of the word, a gathering place for problem children.
To avoid any misunderstanding, Class F was a gathering place for problem children, not a class composed of people without talent.
It meant it was a class composed of people who had talent but also had flaws.
Slide—!
When I opened the door to the first-year Class F classroom and stepped inside, the students’ gazes all turned toward me at once.
“Who’s that?”
“Never seen his face before.”
“Didn’t they say a special transfer student was coming this time?”
“Ah, that special transfer student? The parachute case people said had the dean backing him?”
And they began talking about me.
‘Let’s see... there he is.’
Among the gazes directed at me, there was a male student with silver hair and black eyes, openly looking down on me.
Eugene Keruspal.
He was the protagonist of Elando Symphonia.
As for why the protagonist was in Class F, like I said earlier, the protagonist had a major personality flaw.
A complete bastard of a protagonist who liked looking down on and crushing those weaker than himself.
After meeting the main heroine, that bastardly disposition of his gradually faded away, but at this point in time, we were basically at the very beginning of the early part.
In short, the current Eugene was truly a piece of trash.
‘He must be looking down on me that blatantly because I look weak.’
But it was true that I was weak.
After all, before coming here, I had undergone a stat measurement.
[Han Ijun’s Stat Information]
Strength: G
Stamina: G
Agility: G
Mana Affinity: G
Action Power: ???
Aside from Action Power, which couldn’t be displayed, the rest of my stats were G.
The professor in charge of the measurement said, “It seems the magic tool must be malfunctioning,” and measured me again, but the result was exactly the same: G.
In Elando Symphonia, stats originally only ranged from a maximum of EX to a minimum of F.
But my stats were G, below even F, so inwardly, I had no choice but to keep shouting, What the hell is this bullshit?
I tried to entertain the hopeful thought that maybe the G stood for Great, but when the professor personally measured me without the magic tool and nailed it down by saying, “This is definitely trash,” that hope shattered to pieces.
‘Isn’t it too much for a professor to call a student trash?’
Under the students’ stinging gazes, I sat down.
And as soon as I sat, someone walked over and stood in front of me.
“Hey, transfer student.”
“What is it?”
“No matter how I look at you, you’re trash.”
“What?”
I knew he was a bastard, but he just came up out of nowhere and called me trash?
Seeing it directly instead of on a screen really makes it hit home.
“Are you the dean’s kept man or something?”
“What are you talking about? Kept man, my ass...”
I had no idea what kind of bullshit he was spouting about me being the dean’s kept man.
“I hear you’re an orphan who doesn’t even know your parents’ faces. Did they come all the way from the east to this continent, shit out a kid, and abandon him? Or did they die after giving birth to you? Either way, since they gave birth to trash like you, your parents must have been trash too.”
Snap—!
At that moment, I heard the sound of the last thread of my reason breaking.
Insulting me was one thing, but how dare he insult my parents?
No matter how much of a bastard someone was, there was a line they had to keep.
But this Eugene bastard had crossed that line properly.
I took a glove out from my breast pocket.
Since the setting was medieval in style, the method of challenging someone to a duel was simple.
Academy students had the right to challenge someone ranked higher than themselves through Glove Throwing.
I threw the glove I had taken out at Eugene’s face and said this.
“Follow me to the rooftop... no, to the sparring arena! You son of a bitch!”