The morning air was chilly.
Yeon Ha-neul, feeling the cold seep into her legs, trembled uncontrollably.
“Ugh….”
So cold, so unbearably cold.
Her brows furrowed involuntarily from the chill, and slowly, consciousness surfaced.
Yet, exhausted from the previous night, Yeon Ha-neul didn’t want to wake up.
“Just a little more….”
The alarm hadn’t rung yet.
That meant she could sleep a bit longer.
So, instead of opening her eyes, Yeon Ha-neul felt around for her blanket.
She tried to pull it over her.
“Ugh?”
For some reason, the blanket wouldn’t budge.
It felt like something was pinning it down.
“…What?”
A faint irritation stirred.
Yeon Ha-neul’s eyebrows twitched.
But the urge to sleep longer overrode her annoyance.
Abandoning her attempt to cover her legs, she curled up into a ball.
Instinctively, she moved toward a source of warmth.
“Ah, it’s warm.”
Something warm.
Even a slight touch made her body feel cozy and comfortable.
A smile crept onto Yeon Ha-neul’s face.
“Just a bit more….”
She pressed her body closer.
Her fingertips brushed against something firm and broad, like a wall.
She wriggled into it.
“Ah….”
Her body was pleasantly heated.
Most importantly, a steady, muffled thumping sound soothed her mind.
“Just a bit more….”
Her leg, sticking out from under the blanket, also sought warmth.
Where her fingertips touched, there was a gap.
Yeon Ha-neul quickly slipped her leg into the space.
Unfortunately, the gap was too small for both legs.
Disappointing, but no choice.
As a makeshift, she rested her remaining leg on top of it.
Her bare leg made direct contact, feeling the warmth more intensely.
“Ah, this is so nice.”
Yeon Ha-neul’s lips curled upward.
She decided to sleep nestled in this warmth.
Then, a thought struck her.
“Wait a minute.”
Nestled in someone’s embrace?
At that moment, her drowsy consciousness snapped awake.
“…”
She blinked repeatedly.
No matter how much she tried to deny reality, the figure before her didn’t vanish.
“…”
A breath away, she heard a snoring sound.
There, Do Kwon-woo was fast asleep.
His face, up close, was clearly visible.
Only then did she realize the situation.
“Crazy, crazy, crazy…!”
She was nestled in Do Kwon-woo’s arms!
Panicked, she didn’t know what to do.
Fortunately, he was still asleep and hadn’t noticed.
“…”
Then, her agitation subsided.
Yeon Ha-neul, calmer now, looked closely at Do Kwon-woo’s face.
His eyelashes were surprisingly long.
She’d seen him from the side before, but never this close.
“His skin is really nice.”
His face was spotless and bright, as if made for makeup.
As she’d thought before, he’d inherited his mother’s skin.
“To think he’d want to tan such nice skin….”
What a waste.
After five years as childhood friends, he still held surprises.
Her gaze then fell on his lips.
“…They’re pretty.”
Was it because his face was so fair?
His lips were unusually red.
Staring at them, she felt drawn in.
Without thinking, she reached a finger toward his lips…
“…”
“…”
At that moment, their eyes met.
Yeon Ha-neul’s hand froze mid-air.
Her mind went blank.
Immediately after.
“Aaaah!”
“What, what’s wrong!?”
Yeon Ha-neul let out a shrill scream.
Her rabbit ears shot up, twitching with her movements.
In the chaos, her ears accidentally slapped Do Kwon-woo.
Meanwhile.
“Ha-neul, watch out! Ah….”
Thud!
Yeon Ha-neul, pushed by the impact, tumbled off the bed.
“Ouch….”
“Hey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine….”
Yeon Ha-neul couldn’t raise her head.
Not from the fall, but from embarrassment—she lacked the courage to look at Do Kwon-woo.
I hadn’t slept properly the night before.
So exhausted that I could only drift off late into the night.
It wasn’t entirely because of the tension from sharing a bed with Yeon Ha-neul.
Well, not completely, but there was a more fundamental reason.
Academy City’s unique environment.
“It’s too noisy to sleep.”
In crowded places, people unconsciously emit mana that lingers around them.
Mana carrying will, emotion, thought, and lingering intent mixes with the pure mana in the air, causing dimensional rifts.
Monsters emerge from these rifts.
But this is Academy City.
A place where most residents wield mana.
The mana they unconsciously emit is more stimulating than that of ordinary people.
Even without their residual mana, the unstable atmospheric mana in Academy City is already a problem.
Yesterday, examinees started arriving for the test, adding their mana to the mix.
This increased the frequency and scale of rifts.
Result?
“Keeeeeek!”
I couldn’t sleep soundly.
The monsters’ movements and roars kept me on edge.
“At least I didn’t have to wake up to fight them….”
Such incidents were so common that Academy City had people ready to handle emergencies.
Our hotel was also protected by magic to guard against minor incidents.
So, I didn’t worry about monster attacks.
But the outside was still chaotic.
“Do I have to live in this city, listening to monsters every day…?”
I hoped Gangnam Academy’s dormitory had good soundproofing.
Sighing, I changed my clothes and attached my exam ticket.
Then, I called out to Yeon Ha-neul.
“Ha-neul, you can come out now. I’m fully dressed.”
“Uh, yeah….”
Soon, Yeon Ha-neul awkwardly emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed.
She was still embarrassed from falling off the bed and hitting her butt.
She couldn’t meet my gaze.
“How long are you going to stay like that?”
“Give me a little more time….”
“I’ll count to ten to change the mood.”
“…Okay. Count to ten.”
“Ten, nine, eight….”
“Phew….”
“…Three, two, one. Done.”
“What? Why didn’t you count the middle?”
“I figured you didn’t need it. Let’s go have breakfast.”
I was also surprised by the morning’s mishap but decided to act nonchalant.
If I treated it as no big deal, Yeon Ha-neul would too.
I’d consider it a trivial accident.
A very trivial accident…
To distract myself, I went to have breakfast with Yeon Ha-neul.
We discussed our plans.
“We’re not solving the same problem, so let’s act separately.”
“That’s better time-wise… But how about dinner together? Maybe lunch too.”
“Sounds good. Let’s decide lunch based on the situation and have dinner together.”
“Yeah, sure.”
With that, we checked our exam tickets by channeling mana into them.
Unlike yesterday’s puzzle, dots appeared in the air.
“What do these dots mean?”
The dots also hovered above her ticket, but the number and pattern of black dots differed.
That’s when she spoke.
“Kwon-woo, try viewing it with mana vision.”
“It’s a similar problem to yesterday.”
Realizing this, I activated my mana to see the dots again.
Only then could I spot the black dots disguised as white ones.
[⠻⠍⠶⠊⠮⠺⠀⠘⠂⠨⠰⠍⠗⠫⠀⠑⠥⠕⠉⠵⠀⠈⠥⠄⠲⠀]
[⠫⠨⠶⠀⠈⠍⠗⠚⠒⠀⠘⠥⠠⠹⠺⠀⠠⠞⠐⠕⠃⠨⠲]
[⠘⠯⠘⠡⠚⠉⠵⠀⠻⠈⠧⠶⠺⠀⠘⠂⠣⠐⠗⠲]
“This is… Ha-neul, do you have paper?”
“Here.”
In the game, players often felt immersed by solving cipher problems using various characters.
Recalling my past life, I immediately transcribed the dots onto paper.
“It’s Braille.”
No doubt about it.
She seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“Ha-neul, look up a Braille dictionary online….”
“I’m searching for a Braille dictionary now. Ah, found it. I’ll send you the link.”
“Thanks.”
She saved me the trouble of finding a dictionary.
Using the link she sent, I deciphered the Braille.
The translation read:
[Where the footsteps of heroes gather]
[The founder of the most precious gem]
[Under the unchanging glory]
The phrases were abstract.
Not quite making sense.
But the first sentence rang a bell.
As a veteran of Brave Hearts, I recognized it.
I recalled a brief mention in the game.
「Hall of Fame Curator」
“Welcome, students. Please come in—the Hall of Fame, where the footsteps of heroes gather.”
The Hall of Fame, a place to review player records in the game, existed in this world too.
Realizing this, I quickly told Yeon Ha-neul.
“This seems to be directing us to a specific location to solve the problem.”
“A specific location? Did you decipher it?”
“Just the first sentence. I can roughly infer the rest. If I connect it to the first…”
“Can you check mine too? It says ‘the oldest social hall of the originals.’”
“‘Originals’ refers to Gangnam Academy students. And the latter part… probably the Brilliant Café inside Gangnam Academy.”
After that, pinpointing the exact location was easy.
We both stood up.
Now, we needed to move separately.
“I’ll head to the Hall of Fame.”
“Yeah, me too. See you later.”
District 23’s Hall of Fame.
I strode forward without hesitation.
“My hunch must be right.”
The notion of the “most precious gem” is subjective. But considering the examiner’s intent, it must refer to diamond, symbolizing Gangnam Academy.
Thus, “the founder of the most precious gem” means Gangnam Academy’s founder.
Connecting the first two sentences: “In the Hall of Fame, seek Gangnam Academy’s founder.”
“But where here…?”
Obviously, the founder is deceased. So, it must mean finding traces of the founder in the Hall of Fame.
The third sentence provides a clue to that trace.
“Under the unchanging glory…”
In the Hall of Fame, “glory” refers to achievements. Or the person who made those achievements—the founder.
“Unchanging” implies…
“They want me to find a trace that doesn’t fade over time.”
Many possibilities come to mind.
Not something like paintings or photos that fade with time.
More likely, a monument or statue.
Here, “under” is key.
“If I take ‘under’ literally, it can’t be a bust or a face-only monument.”
Similarly, exclude statues showing only the upper body.
To show “under,” it must be a full-body statue.
Coincidentally, there’s only one full-body statue of the founder here.
“…Is this it?”
I stood before the full-body statue.
If my guess is right, there should be a clue related to the problem here.
Then,
“…A sticker?”
My gaze fell to the base of the statue.
Someone had placed a sticker there, seemingly as a prank.
“No, that’s not it.”
The sticker contained mana.
A type of artifact.
When I channeled mana into it, text appeared on the sticker.
[Exam Number Verification…]
[Exam Number Verified.]
[Gangnam 1532]
[Clear!]
[Color: White(2)]
“So that’s how it is.”
The problem involved deciphering clues to reach a designated location and verifying the exam ticket.
No separate problem to solve.
To confirm, I decided to check the exam ticket for a new problem.
“The problem has changed.”
A different problem appeared.
The third problem emerged.
Solving the second problem was properly reflected.
No need to stay here anymore.
Having finished my business, I decided to move on to solve the new problem.
“This is how it’s done.”
The third problem involved removing unnecessary parts from the Strength magic spell.
The fourth problem required identifying errors in a spell and modifying it to activate correctly.
The fifth problem was a coordinate puzzle.
Unlike the second problem, reaching the coordinate involved an additional physical task.
By the time I finished up to the fifth problem,
[Exam Number Verification…]
[Exam Number Verified.]
[Gangnam 1532]
[Clear!]
[Color: White(4) → Gray(5)]
The exam ticket turned gray.
I’d earned bonus points.
“To turn the ticket black, I need to solve 25 more problems.”
Still a long way to go.
With a wry smile, I decided to keep solving problems.
From then on,
“…The number of followers has increased.”
Hyena-like individuals began trailing me.
To them, I, with my exam ticket, seemed like a juicy rabbit.
As my exam ticket’s color changed and days passed, the covetous gazes targeting me grew.
“…”
Perfect timing.
I was already eager to stretch my muscles.
I hadn’t had many chances to swing my sword, and I felt the lack.
Time to unsheathe my sword.
“More, more, more.”
Like hyenas waiting for a rabbit to fatten up, I deliberately swayed my rear to entice them.
A few days later,
[Exam Number Verification…]
[Exam Number Verified.]
[Gangnam 1532]
[Clear!]
[Color: Red(24) → Blue(25)]
The exam ticket turned blue.
The hyenas were ready to hunt, and I was ready to shed the rabbit’s guise.
“Hmph! Or should I growl?”
[Change alias ‘Rabbit’ to ‘Lion Cub’?]
[Yes (Select) / No]
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