“Hey… You think this is a bit much too?”
At the voice that suddenly came from behind, I flinched, my shoulders trembling, and turned around.
She was dressed neatly, with her buttons done up to the top of her collar. A single female student stood there, her black hair tied neatly in a ponytail.
She was frowning slightly, as though unhappy with the situation inside the auditorium.
‘Baek Hayeon!’
I remembered her immediately without even trying to recall.
A sub-character who appeared as one of the protagonist’s assistants within the game.
Thanks to her high mana sensitivity, she could somewhat resist the hypnosis, but because she was born and raised in this city, she was affected by the hypnosis far more than I was.
If she had just enrolled in the Academy… I wondered if she was sort of halfway between normal and hypnotized.
‘If I free her from the hypnosis earlier than in the original timeline, it’ll help!’
I schooled my expression, pretending to know nothing.
“Ah, um. It is a bit bewildering. I didn’t expect them to suddenly put on such a… lewd performance at the entrance ceremony.”
“Right? I mean, they say they value instinct, but kissing in front of the entire student body? I think that was a bit of an excessive performance.”
Hayeon nodded and approached my side. She looked pleased to have found someone who agreed with her.
But there was a strange sense of disconnect in her words.
A sticky kiss in front of the entire student body. She considered it merely an excessive performance.
It meant she had already been pickled to some extent by this city’s twisted common sense.
I decided not to miss this opportunity. The more students who could resist the hypnosis, the better.
“No, it’s not just excessive—it’s insane, isn’t it? Doing something like that in a public place!”
“Hmm, isn’t it because instinct is the value the Academy holds most important? They say Resonance is actually efficient for raising mana, too.”
‘Huh?’
This won’t do.
This girl was in worse shape than I thought.
It seemed she was far deeper under the hypnosis than I’d believed.
For some reason, her gaze toward me felt a bit colder. I floundered and hurriedly added:
“Ah, but even if Resonance is good, wouldn’t it backfire if the person doing it can’t accept it? When it comes to instinct, the heart ultimately matters most!”
“That’s true, too. *Sigh*… Resonance is definitely a good thing, but I just feel some kind of aversion. I guess I’m the weird one.”
Hayeon was an upright and polite person by nature.
Such a model personality was treated like a delinquent student here instead.
Of course, there was nothing wrong with having a healthy and normal way of thinking.
I gave Hayeon more confidence in her correct way of thinking.
“You’re not the weird one. If anything, you’re perfectly normal.”
Hayeon’s eyes went wide in surprise at my words.
“Normal? But everyone says that’s only natural. The professors, the senior Awakeners too… They say being faithful to instinct is an Awakener’s defining quality.”
“Those people are the weird ones. Instinct is important, but humans have reason too.”
At my firm attitude, Hayeon’s expression gradually brightened.
“What a relief. So I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.”
“Well, if there are people like that, there are also people like us. It’s not like we’re harming anyone, right?”
I probably couldn’t break the hypnosis with just this level of conversation, but I could at least prevent her from falling deeper into it.
I boldly took Hayeon’s hand.
“Don’t ever change that mindset. I’ll help you.”
Hayeon’s face flushed slightly at my sudden skinship.
“Yeah… I’m not really sure what you mean you’ll help with, but thanks anyway.”
She fanned her heated face and cleared her throat.
“Ahem… I’m Baek Hayeon. Special Department—I think I’ll major in Alchemy.”
“I’m Seo Eunha, Combat Department. Too bad we’re not in the same department.”
“That’s true. But we might be able to take basic classes together. And since the Alchemy Department works with the Combat Department a lot, we’ll probably see each other often?”
“At least that’s a relief! Then I’ll be counting on you later. You’ll have to sell me potions cheap, okay?”
I brightened at Hayeon’s words and nodded.
Once she broke free from the hypnosis later, she would make essential items like libido suppressants and mental barrier strengthening potions.
They were unnecessary for me since I had no chance of falling under hypnosis, but it never hurt to have them.
Earning points with her in advance was a strategically perfect choice right now.
It was absolutely not because Hayeon was pretty and I wanted to get close to her.
Really.
“Yeah. I can do that much anytime.”
Perhaps embarrassed, Hayeon let go of my hand and tucked her hair behind her ear.
I found myself captivated by that pure image before I knew it.
‘As expected, the true heroine is Baek Hayeon.’
Hypnosis Academy was fundamentally a game of violation, but several sub-characters existed.
The muscle-bound phys-ed teacher, Geum Taeyang, the erotic brat, even a pet slime.
There were many gentlemen of varying tastes, but I was a conventional Baek Hayeon devotee.
‘Ah, but I’m Seo Eunha now. This is a bit problematic.’
With such useless thoughts, we strolled around the Academy grounds.
“Ah, the Special Department building starts over there. I think I need to head that way.”
The Combat Department building was in the exact opposite direction of Hayeon’s Special Department building.
It was a shame, but it was time to part ways.
“Hey, Eunha.”
Hayeon hesitated, then spoke first.
She took out her smartphone and looked at me with a slightly reddened face.
“Um… If it’s okay, could we exchange numbers? There’s the potion thing you mentioned earlier… and, I just want to keep in touch with you.”
My heart skipped a beat.
Did Baek Hayeon just ask for my number? No, did she give me hers?
“Huh? Y-yeah! Of course! I’m totally welcome to it!”
I fumbled around, pulled my phone from my pocket, and handed it to Hayeon.
We exchanged and saved each other’s phone numbers.
The contact ‘Baek Hayeon’ was saved in my previously empty address book.
“I saved yours too. I’ll text you later.”
Hayeon waved brightly with a smile.
“Yeah! I’ll reply right away. Have a good class, Hayeon!”
“You too. See you later.”
Hayeon’s ponytail swayed as she walked away.
I alternated my gaze between the address book on my smartphone and her retreating figure.
[New Contact: Baek Hayeon]
“Heh heh heh…”
My luck was good from the very first day.
Grinning like an idiot, I went off to my morning classes in high spirits.
###
That smile vanished the moment morning classes began.
What was written on the blackboard was definitely ordinary material like language or math, but the scenery inside the classroom was anything but ordinary.
Inside the lecture hall, twenty of the thirty students were pressed up against each other as if they were already couples, and the guy in front of me was groping the thigh of the girl next to him while solving a problem.
Even more absurd was the teacher looking at that and praising him, saying, “You have good concentration,” as she walked past.
While outright obscene acts weren’t happening openly, a strange pink current flowed through the air.
‘Insane. I can’t breathe.’
Unable to adapt to that atmosphere, I was completely ostracized at the Academy.
“That concludes today’s class.”
The moment the teacher finished speaking, I shot up from my seat and fled the classroom.
But as I headed to the cafeteria to escape the suffocating air, I had no choice but to turn my steps away.
The cafeteria was already packed to the brim with students feeding each other or sitting on each other’s laps to eat.
I’d definitely choke trying to eat in that crowd.
I bought a sandwich roughly at the school store and settled onto a quiet bench in a secluded spot.
“*Sigh*. Now I can actually breathe.”
I took a bite of the sandwich and fell into thought.
The first week at the Academy was an integrated education period, a tutorial section.
Mornings were for boring theory, and afternoons were spent rotating through basic practical training of each department to find one’s aptitude.
Thanks to my [Insight] trait, I didn’t really need to learn, but attendance was mandatory if I didn’t want to get demerit points.
Despite being a university-like system, this aspect was oddly similar to high school.
‘So first is the Martial Arts Department practical, huh. Using my body is the most comfortable kind, after all.’
I stuffed the rest of the sandwich into my mouth and got up from my seat.
The large hall, which served as the training room, was already filled with heat.
The outfits focused more on exposure than mobility. Tight tops and short hot pants swarmed within the hall.
And me… I was still in my short-skirted uniform.
‘Ah, right. Gym clothes.’
The Academy was similar to a university. So I had momentarily forgotten the common sense of changing into gym clothes for physical education.
To make matters worse, I had no friend to tell me I needed to wear gym clothes.
Hayeon had already left for her own department’s training room since our departments were different.
As I stood awkwardly in the back row, the gym door burst open roughly and a man entered.
“Greetings, brats. I am Park Dusik, the practical combat instructor who will be guiding your real combat training from now on.”
A muscular, bulging physique and a sinister gaze.
The phys-ed instructor, Park Dusik.
In the original work, he was a trash instructor who used “posture correction” as an excuse to grope female students’ bodies indiscriminately.
His gaze swept across the students and locked onto me, standing awkwardly in my uniform.
“You there, silver-hair. Why are you dressed like that? Step forward.”
I had hoped he might let it slide, but no such luck.
I swallowed a curse internally and walked to the front of the platform.
“I’m sorry. I forgot to bring my gym clothes today.”
I bowed my head as politely as possible. Getting out of this situation was my first priority.
It was clearly my mistake to begin with.
But Park Dusik didn’t seem to care about my apology at all, looking my body up and down with an explicit gaze.
‘Where is he looking right now… No way, he can’t be.’
A sinister premonition flashed through my mind one second later.
I thought, no way, no way… but his massive hand shot forward in an instant.
‘This crazy bastard is really…!’
My mind thought, ‘I have to endure it.’ Causing a scene here would only make me stand out.
But my body moved before my reason could.
*Whoosh, smack!*
“…Huh?”
It was instantaneous. Just before Park Dusik’s hand touched my chest, my hand moved like lightning and snatched his wrist.
I didn’t just grab it. I gripped his joints and vital points with uncanny precision and pressed his arm straight down.
“A-aagh?! U-ugh…!”
Park Dusik’s body crumpled straight toward the floor.
Perhaps he hadn’t expected to be countered like this, but Park Dusik—whose frame was twice as large—swallowed a scream and fell to his knees.
“…….”
Silence descended upon the gym.
Park Dusik broke out in a cold sweat, clutching his wrist, while the watching students stood frozen like statues, mouths agape.
I was the most flustered of all.
‘Crazy, why did my arm move on its own?!’
That just now hadn’t been my will.
My body had automatically defended itself using the optimal means the moment it detected a threat.
Startled, I quickly released his wrist.
“I-I’m sorry! My body just moved on its own…!”
“Y-you bitch…! What do you think you’re doing to an instructor right now!”
Park Dusik shouted at me with a demonic expression. Both humiliation and fear were etched in his pupils.
But if he backed down like this, his dignity as an instructor would be ruined in front of the students.
“How dare you reject a legitimate instructor’s guidance with force!”
“I really didn’t do it on purpose! It was, um… my mana! My mana was acting up on its own!”
“Shut up! Even if it wasn’t intentional, your actions are grounds for punishment!”
Park Dusik shouted with his face turning red and blue.
To hide the fact that he had been subdued by a freshman, he screamed even louder.
“No wonder you can’t control your mana when you’re all wrapped up like that! Take off that bra and hand it over right now! This is both a punishment and a mandatory measure to make you control your mana!”
…I didn’t know how he’d arrived at the conclusion that I should take off my bra and submit it, but I couldn’t defy his words.
If something like what just happened occurred again, a disciplinary committee might actually convene.
And the disciplinary committee was full of people far more dangerous than the muscle pig before my eyes.
‘Fuck. Should I have just snapped his wrist while pretending I didn’t know what I was doing?’
It might have been easier to just send him straight to the infirmary.
But there were too many eyes around me.
In the end, I pretended to tremble with shame and slowly moved my hand to the buttons of my blouse.
‘……Wait. This isn’t an act—I’m actually embarrassed.’
Until just now, my blood had been up and I hadn’t realized, but thinking about it calmly, the situation had become something tremendous.
Taking Park Dusik to task had been fine and all, but…
The outcome was not good.
No, it was very strange.
The feeling of hundreds of gazes focused on my fingertips.
Park Dusik’s disgusting breathing as he openly gulped.
Even the shivers that ran down my spine each time the cold gym air seeped through the gaps between the opened buttons.
“Hah, ugh….”
The groan that escaped between my lips was definitely not an act.
‘Am I really taking it off? In front of all these people?’
But I couldn’t stop.
Park Dusik was already drooling, intoxicated by his sense of victory, and the students were staring only at my chest as if bewitched.
This was the world of an eroge.
The overwhelming coercion that came from a place where common sense was twisted.
I fumbled with the buttons with trembling hands.