The morning air was cold.
Feeling the chill bite into her legs, Yeon Haneul shivered.
“Ugh….”
It was cold. Too cold.
Her brow furrowed of its own accord from the chill, and her consciousness slowly began to surface.
Even so, worn down by the fatigue of the previous night, Yeon Haneul didn’t want to wake up.
‘Just a little longer….’
The alarm hadn’t gone off yet.
That meant she could sleep a little more.
So instead of opening her eyes, Yeon Haneul kept them shut and groped around for the blanket.
She meant to pull it up over herself.
“Mm?”
But what on earth was going on?
The blanket showed no sign of moving.
It was as if something were weighing it down.
‘…What is it?’
A faint irritation rose in her.
Yeon Haneul’s eyebrow twitched.
But the desire to sleep more was stronger than her instincts had expected.
Giving up on covering her legs with the blanket, she curled her body into a ball.
Then, following her instincts, she moved toward the source of warmth.
‘Ah, it’s warm.’
Something that radiated warmth.
Even though her body had only barely brushed against it, warmth spread through her, and she felt at ease.
A smile drifted across Yeon Haneul’s face.
Wriggle, wriggle.
She wanted to feel more of this warmth.
Yeon Haneul pressed herself close.
Her fingertips touched something broad and firm, like a wall.
She burrowed toward it.
“Ah….”
It felt as though her body was being pleasantly heated.
Above all, the heavy, low, steady thudding sound, without being the least bit grating, seemed to soothe both her body and mind.
Wriggle, wriggle.
Meanwhile, the leg that had slipped out from under the blanket also found someplace warm.
There was an empty space in something even firmer than what her fingertips were touching.
Yeon Haneul quickly slipped her leg into that space.
Unfortunately, since the space wasn’t wide, there wasn’t enough room for both legs.
It was a shame, but it couldn’t be helped.
Instead, as a compromise, she casually draped her remaining leg over something.
With so much bare skin exposed, her leg could feel the warmth even more directly.
‘Ah, this is so nice.’
The corners of Yeon Haneul’s lips rose.
She decided to fall back asleep like this, held in something’s arms.
It was then that the thought reached her.
‘…Wait.’
Held in something’s arms?
At that moment.
Her sinking consciousness snapped wide awake.
“……”
She blinked again and again.
But no matter how hard she tried to deny reality, the being before her eyes did not disappear.
Soft, steady breaths.
At a distance close enough for her to hear his breathing by her ear,
Do Gyeonu was sleeping soundly.
From up close, his sleeping face filled her vision.
Only then did she grasp the situation.
‘I’m crazy, crazy, crazy…!’
She was in Do Gyeonu’s arms!
Startled, she didn’t know what to do.
If there was one fortunate thing, it was that he was asleep and hadn’t realized the situation.
“……”
At that, her agitation subsided.
Unlike a moment before, Yeon Haneul calmly looked at Do Gyeonu’s face.
His eyelashes were truly long.
She had seen him from the side often enough, but this was the first time she had seen him this close from the front.
‘His skin really is nice.’
His face was so clean and bright-toned that not a single blemish could be seen.
He looked like makeup would suit him well.
She had thought this before, but it seemed he had inherited his skin from his mother.
‘And with a face like this, he wants to get a tan….’
It was a pity to burn such good skin.
He was a childhood friend she had known for five years, yet Do Gyeonu was still someone she couldn’t quite figure out.
Soon, her gaze moved to his lips.
‘…They’re pretty.’
Was it because his complexion was so bright?
His lips looked especially red.
The more she stared at those lips, the more it felt as though her consciousness would be drawn in.
Without thinking, Yeon Haneul reached out a finger to touch his lips….
“……”
“……”
Just then, her eyes met Do Gyeonu’s.
With her hand frozen awkwardly in midair, Yeon Haneul’s mind went blank.
Immediately after.
“Kyaaaak!”
“Wh-what!? What’s wrong!?”
Yeon Haneul let out a shrill scream.
Her startled rabbit ears shot straight up and swayed in time with her movements.
As a result, her rabbit ears accidentally smacked Do Gyeonu.
Meanwhile.
“Haneul, that way—! Ah….”
Thud!
After shoving Do Gyeonu in the chest and rolling away, Yeon Haneul fell off the bed.
“Ow, ow….”
“Hey, are you okay?”
“I-I’m okay….”
Yeon Haneul couldn’t lift her head.
It wasn’t because the fall hurt more than anything else, but because she was so embarrassed and mortified that she didn’t have the courage to look up at Do Gyeonu.
* * *
I hadn’t slept properly last night.
Because of that, I had only barely managed to fall asleep when it was already late.
It wasn’t because I’d been nervous about sleeping with Yeon Haneul.
I couldn’t say there was none of that at all, but there was a more fundamental reason.
It was because of the environment unique to Academy City.
‘As if I could sleep with all that noise.’
In places with many people, the mana they unconsciously shed naturally drifts through the surroundings.
Mana imbued with will, emotion, thought, lingering impressions, and the like wanders that way, then mixes with the pure mana dissolved in the atmosphere, mana with no intent whatsoever, causing cracks in the dimension.
Monsters appear from those cracks.
But this place was Academy City.
Academy City, where the vast majority of people knew how to use mana.
The mana they unconsciously shed was more stimulating than the mana ordinary people released.
That residual mana was disturbing the atmospheric mana of Academy City, where the dimension was already unstable, and since yesterday, people coming to take the exam had begun entering the city.
With their mana added on top, the frequency and scale of the cracks appearing could only increase.
As a result.
Kieeeek!
I couldn’t get any proper sleep.
The presence of the monsters that appeared in the middle of the night, and the sounds they made, were far too distracting.
‘Still, at least I didn’t have to wake up in the middle of sleeping and go subjugate them….’
Since that sort of thing happened so frequently, Academy City had people who responded to emergencies.
And the hotel we were staying in also had protective magic cast on it so that it could handle most situations.
Thanks to that, I didn’t have to worry about being attacked by monsters.
It was just noisy outside.
‘If I end up living in this city from now on, am I going to have to live hearing monster cries every day…?’
I sincerely hoped the dormitories at Geumgang Academy had good soundproofing.
Sighing, I changed my clothes and pinned on my exam admission ticket.
Then I called Yeon Haneul.
“Haneul, you can come out now. I’m done changing.”
“O-okay….”
Soon, Yeon Haneul, who had changed before me, awkwardly walked out of the bathroom.
Having fallen off the bed and landed on her backside, she was still embarrassed.
She couldn’t meet my eyes.
“How long are you going to be like that?”
“Just give me a little time….”
“I’ll give you ten seconds, so pull yourself together.”
“…All right. Can you count ten seconds for me?”
“Ten, nine, eight….”
“Phew….”
“…Three, two, one. Done.”
“What, why did you skip the middle?”
“Looking at you, I figured I didn’t need to count it. Let’s go have breakfast.”
I had been startled by what happened in the morning too, but I decided to act as if it was nothing as much as possible.
Only if I treated it like no big deal would Yeon Haneul do the same.
I decided to consider it a minor happening.
A very minor happening….
To turn my thoughts elsewhere, I went to eat breakfast with Yeon Haneul.
As we did, we decided to discuss our schedule.
“We’re not solving the same problems anyway, so let’s move separately.”
“Time-wise, that would be better… But how about we still have dinner together? Lunch too, if we can.”
“That’s not bad. Then shall we do that? We’ll decide lunch depending on the situation, and have dinner together.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
After talking like that,
Yeon Haneul and I infused mana into our exam admission tickets to check the problem.
Then, unlike the problem we had solved yesterday, a bunch of dots appeared in midair.
‘What are we supposed to do with these dots?’
Similar dots had appeared above her exam admission ticket as well, where she sat across from me.
But the number of black dots and the way they were distributed were different.
That was when she spoke.
“Gyeonu, look at them with mana vision.”
“So it’s a problem similar to yesterday’s.”
Catching on from her words, I manifested the mana inside my body and examined the dots again.
Only then was I able to find the black dots that had been disguised as white ones.
[⠻⠍⠶⠊⠮⠺⠀⠘⠂⠨⠰⠍⠗⠫⠀⠑⠥⠕⠉⠵⠀⠈⠥⠄⠲⠀]
[⠫⠨⠶⠀⠈⠍⠗⠚⠒⠀⠘⠥⠠⠹⠺⠀⠠⠞⠐⠕⠃⠨⠲]
[⠘⠯⠘⠡⠚⠉⠵⠀⠻⠈⠧⠶⠺⠀⠘⠂⠣⠐⠗⠲]
“This is…. Haneul, do you have paper?”
“Here.”
In the game, to let players feel as though they had truly entered the game world, they often had them solve cipher problems using various writing systems.
Recalling my memories of my previous life, I immediately copied the dots onto the paper.
‘…It’s braille.’
There was no doubt.
By then, she seemed to have reached a similar conclusion.
“Haneul, can you look up a dictionary on the internet….”
“I’m looking for a braille dictionary right now. Ah, found one. I’ll send you the link.”
“Thanks.”
She saved me the trouble of finding a dictionary.
Using the link Yeon Haneul sent me, I decoded the braille.
The result was as follows.
[The place where the footsteps of heroes gather]
[The founder of the most precious jewel]
[Beneath the feet of immutable glory]
They were extremely abstract phrases.
Apparently, decoding them wasn’t the end of it.
But the first sentence was familiar.
As an old hand at Brave Hearts, there was no way I wouldn’t know what that sentence pointed to.
I recalled a brief mention that had passed by in the game.
「Hall of Fame Curator」
—Welcome, students. Come in, to the place where the footsteps of heroes gather, the Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame, which in the game was known as content where you looked back on your play records.
Naturally, the Hall of Fame existed in this world as well.
Having thought that far, I quickly told Yeon Haneul.
“It looks like this is telling us to go to a specific place and solve the problem there.”
“A specific place? You decoded it?”
“For now, only the first sentence. I think I can roughly infer the rest too. If I connect it to the first one….”
“Could you look at mine too? Mine says, the oldest social venue of rough stones.”
“Rough stones probably refers to the students of Geumgang Academy. And the latter part is… probably Brilliant Café inside Geumgang Academy.”
After that, it wasn’t hard to determine the exact location.
Yeon Haneul and I rose from our seats.
From here on, we had to move separately.
“I’ll go to the Hall of Fame.”
“Okay, I’ll go too. Contact me later.”
* * *
The Hall of Fame, located in District 23.
I headed there without hesitation.
‘I’m probably right.’
The most precious jewel was subjective.
However, considering the examiner’s intent, the most precious jewel could only lead to diamond.
Diamond was a metaphorical way to refer to Geumgang Academy.
Therefore, the founder of the most precious jewel must mean the founder of Geumgang Academy.
Connecting the first and second sentences, it meant to find the founder of Geumgang Academy in the Hall of Fame.
‘Where in here….’
Naturally, the founder was dead and gone.
In this case, it likely meant to find the founder’s traces in the Hall of Fame.
Meanwhile, the clue to those traces continued into the third sentence.
‘Beneath the feet of immutable glory….’
In the Hall of Fame, glory meant achievements.
Or perhaps the person who had achieved them.
In other words, glory pointed to the founder.
The fact that the founder was immutable meant….
‘It must be telling me to find a trace that doesn’t change even as time passes.’
There were many things one could infer from that.
It probably wasn’t a painting or photograph, which would fade over time.
There was a high chance it was a monument, statue, or something of the sort.
At this point, I had to focus on “beneath the feet.”
‘If I take beneath the feet literally, it can’t be a monument that only shows the face.’
By the same logic, busts and half-length statues that only showed the upper part of the body were excluded as well.
For the feet to be included, it had to be a full-body statue.
And coincidentally, there was only one full-body statue of the founder here.
“…Is this it?”
I stood before that full-body statue.
If my guess was right, there had to be a clue related to the problem somewhere here.
It was then.
‘…A sticker?’
My gaze went beneath the feet of the full-body statue.
As though someone had played a prank, a sticker was attached beneath its feet.
‘No, that’s not it.’
There was mana imbued in the sticker.
It was a type of artifact.
When I poured the mana inside my body into it to activate the artifact, words appeared on the sticker.
[Verifying examinee number….]
[Examinee number verified.]
[Geumgang 1532]
[Clear!]
[Color: White(2)]
“…So that’s what it was.”
It seemed to be a problem where you had to solve the cipher, find the designated location, and authenticate your admission ticket.
There didn’t seem to be a separate problem to solve.
To confirm that, I decided to display the problem through my admission ticket.
If I really had solved the problem just now, a new one would appear.
‘…The problem changed.’
It was different from before.
The third problem had appeared.
In other words, the admission ticket had properly reflected that I had solved the second problem.
Then there was no need to remain here any longer.
Having finished my business, I decided to move on to solve the next problem.
“This should be done like this.”
The third problem was to remove unnecessary parts from a magic formula called Strength, which reinforced muscular power.
The fourth problem was to find an error in the formula and revise it so it could activate correctly.
The fifth problem was a coordinate problem.
However, unlike the second problem, at the coordinates I found, I also had to perform an additional task that required physical ability.
And when I finished up to the fifth problem like that—
[Verifying examinee number….]
[Examinee number verified.]
[Geumgang 1532]
[Clear!]
[Color: White(4) → Gray(5)]
The admission ticket turned gray.
I had acquired bonus points.
‘So I have to solve twenty-five more to dye the admission ticket black.’
There was still a long way to go.
With a bitter smile, I decided to continue solving the problems.
Meanwhile, starting from that point—
‘…The number following me has increased.’
People began tailing me.
Hyena-like bastards.
In their eyes, I, carrying an admission ticket, must have looked like a tasty rabbit.
The more the color of my admission ticket changed, and the more days passed, the more gazes targeting me increased.
“…”
Perfect timing.
I had wanted to loosen up anyway.
I hadn’t had many chances to swing my sword, so I couldn’t even say how lacking I felt.
I should swing my sword a bit while I’m at it.
‘More, more, more. Keep increasing.’
Just as hyenas waited for a rabbit to fatten up plump and juicy—
I decided to wiggle my hips for them so they’d be unable to hold back their drool and pounce.
Several days passed after that.
[Verifying examinee number….]
[Examinee number verified.]
[Geumgang 1532]
[Clear!]
[Color: Red(24) → Blue(25)]
The admission ticket changed to blue.
The hyenas were about to set out on the hunt, and I decided to take off the rabbit mask.
“Roar! No, should it be grrr?”
[Would you like to replace the alias ‘Rabbit’ with the alias ‘Lion Cub’?]
[Yes(Selected) / No]
I Became the Childhood Friend of the Mid-Boss