Evil Avalon - Volume 1 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Souta Narumi

I’d let the game give me a random character, and it had decided on Piggy.

Mere seconds ago, the prospect of my new school life in DEC’s world had looked like an opportunity to meet girls and be an all-around badass. Those hopes had been shattered into dust and scattered into the wind.

In the mirror was a scruffy-haired high school boy with a hunched back. He was severely obese, easily weighing over a hundred kilograms, and his fat obscured the dividing line between his head and neck. He was out of breath and sweating profusely, despite the mild temperature.

“Is that really me?”

The figure stared back at me with the same surprised expression, his movements a perfect replication of my own. The sight caused my brain to grind to a halt. I wished I could’ve pretended this wasn’t happening.

I’d always kept my weight under control in my old world, so becoming breathless after a short climb up some stairs was a new experience. I pulled a funny face and cycled through some poses, hoping I might catch the figure off guard and prove that this was all a ruse, but of course it wasn’t.

“Oh,” I wailed, dropping to my knees and cradling my head. As I did so, my stomach pressed against my elbows. “I wish I’d just made my own character.”

I’d thought that “random character” meant a new character with random stats and appearance, not that the system would choose an existing one. Of all the cool characters I could’ve become from Class E, my rotten luck had to spit me out as Piggy.

From what I remembered, Piggy had been a villain in one of the heroines’ romance storylines and had played pervy tricks on her. When the protagonist entered the picture and started getting close to her, Piggy tried to make his life miserable. The arc had a happy ending after the protagonist drove Piggy out of the school and he and the heroine became a couple.

Although Piggy was a villain, he wasn’t a rival to the protagonist. He was nothing more than a background character, too weak to be more than an annoyance or leave much of an impression. I couldn’t even remember his real name. He’d just been Piggy in the game.

“Oh yeah, now that I think about it, Piggy and the heroine—Kaoru Hayase—grew up together. I think they were engaged as well.”

I thought back to what I knew of Kaoru Hayase. She had slender arms and legs, long eyelashes, and almond-shaped eyes. Her light blue hair fell to her waist, and she tied it into a long braid behind her back. She dressed in traditional Japanese style. She was a skilled practitioner of kendo, a Japanese martial art that uses bamboo swords, and her prowess had earned her first place at a national competition for middle schoolers. On top of that, she’d mastered the pen as her academic record was spotless. Beauty, brains, brawn—she had it all.

She was honest and upright and treated everyone equally. Everyone except Piggy.

In her story, Kaoru Hayase became a powerful ally to the protagonist and eventually his lover. It must’ve been too much for Piggy, watching some charming pretty boy swoop in and run off with his fiancée, the girl he’d had feelings for throughout his childhood. Although my sympathy for him ended after he took to sexual harassment as retaliation.

The bad news for me was that the relationship between Piggy and Kaoru had already soured by the time they’d joined the school. It was impossible to know how closely my current situation in this world followed that of the game. I might already be in her bad graces, so I decided to keep my distance to avoid stirring anything up.

For some reason, I got riled up the more I thought of Kaoru. Did my brain still contain some of Piggy’s memories and feelings? I felt like there was something there, like I could remember if I tried hard enough. But I couldn’t dislodge the memory from wherever it had snagged, and I let out an irritated huff. As such, I gave up before the stress could drive me crazy and left to return to the classroom.

Still heaving, I walked into the classroom. As soon as I entered, I could feel someone glaring at me. It was Kaoru, but I pretended not to notice.

Guess she has it in for me already, I thought. Without access to Piggy’s memories, I had no clue what had driven a wedge between us or how to remove it. I could only hope that time would fix it for me.

I took a moment for my spirit to recover, then looked for my seat. Seats here were assigned from front to back based on academic merit. Mine just so happened to be at the back, the spot reserved for the kid with the lowest grades in the year group.

Hmm, I thought. What was the entrance exam like here?

Adventurers’ High School ran on the escalator system, where students from the middle school section progressed to classes A, B, C, or D. The government had handpicked these students based on their aptitude for dungeon exploration.

Class E, however, was for external candidates. There were certainly a hundred applicants for every place, so any student who made it through had to be remarkable. Piggy was a student here, so he must’ve beaten that abysmal admission rate. Maybe he had a special skill? Having the worst grades of the whole year group sounded bad, but getting in was already an accomplishment by itself, so I had reason to hope that I would do okay here.

A few of the students were chatting together, probably kids who already knew each other, but the overall mood in the room was tense. Everyone was a little nervous.

Aww, look at that, I thought. The protag and all the heroines are still so fresh-faced and shy.

A young man entered the room. I stopped observing my classmates and looked up at him instead. He was wearing a suit and appeared to be in his twenties.

“Everyone to your seats,” he said. “Homeroom is about to begin. I’ll start by telling you a little about myself and this school. Then we can talk about how grades work here and what options you’ll have after graduating.”

The teacher introduced himself as Hajime Murai, a graduate of Adventurers’ University. That meant he was likely also an alumnus of this high school and had graduated with top grades. Murai would manage our education for our first year here. He looked more like a soldier than a teacher, though. Despite his slender frame, his movements showed how he could handle himself.

After he finished introducing himself, he began writing bullet points on the whiteboard as he explained how the school worked.

“Strong academic performance at this school will make you a priority candidate for Adventurers’ University,” he explained, “and you will also receive preferential treatment if you become an adventurer. The top clans and private sector businesses like to scout our students. The more popular postgraduation placements tend to go to students with better grades first.”

The purpose of Adventurers’ University was to prepare students for enlistment into combat units that specialized in operations within the dungeon or admission into the Ministry of Dungeons as a public official. It seemed to work like the National Defense Academy and the Meteorological College back in Japan. According to Murai, most students chose to advance to Adventurers’ University and follow this path.

Enrollment at this school also had several privileges, like how civil servants got certain perks. Firstly, students could use the dungeon facilities at the Adventurers’ Guild at half the price or, in some cases, for free. It was similar to the discounts that students of public universities get in Japan. But in such cases, students needed to apply for the price reduction before they could take advantage of it.

Also, students would be able to start out with an adventurer rank of nine—there were ten ranks, with ten being the lowest and one the highest. They could jump straight into the dungeon if they filled out a few basic forms. Ordinary people had to complete more forms, background checks, written examinations, and on- and off-site training. Even after slogging through the administrative hurdles, they’d only start at rank ten.

The rank boost was significant because the Adventurers’ Guild set minimum rank requirements on their quests, and the government incentivized adventurers above a certain rank. There were no drawbacks to ranking up, so Murai urged us to keep it in mind and that we complete quests and written rank-up exams.

In addition, this school opened up a wide range of career paths after graduation.

The dungeon was all the rage as it had a booming industry built around it, with plenty of investment in research and development. For example, the energy sector relied on raw materials extracted from the dungeon, like magic gems that powered most of this world’s power stations. The generators using magical gems as fuel were cheaper to run than fossil fuel ones and produced no carbon dioxide emissions. There were even compact-size versions of them, so their use was widespread.

Moreover, the raw materials harvested from the dungeon spurred huge technological innovations. The arms industry and cyber industry, among others, saw the massive benefits in using these harvested commodities. Their new products generated copious amounts of wealth, leading to fierce worldwide competition as countries sought to invest in further research and development.

Because of this, public and private institutions were desperate to attract skilled dungeon crawlers. Their scouts stalked the grounds of Adventurers’ High to poach potential talent.

Of course, students also had the choice to apply to regular universities. Kids at Adventurers’ High usually scored several standard deviations above the national average. The universities that last year’s graduating class had gone on to included many of the most prestigious in the country.

Murai then explained the grading system, “For the most part, we will grade you on two things: your academic studies and dungeon raids. Your performance in matches and events held within the school will influence your grades, but I’ll let you know how that works some other time.”

Our performance in the dungeon wasn’t all that mattered, as grades would also factor into our studies. Studying was important because it would improve our ability to respond to unfamiliar situations in the dungeon and increase our intelligence stat. I felt that I’d have a slight advantage over my classmates when it came to studying because I’d already finished a degree in my old world, even if I hadn’t gone to a top university.

“Your classmates are the allies you’ll need to work with to raid the dungeon, but at the same time, they are the rivals you’ll contend against for the best grades. I expect the highest standard from you all.”

Dungeon raids in the game hadn’t been a solo endeavor either. It was generally most effective to enter as a group, with a good balance of combat and support character classes. The first few levels of the dungeon were the exception, and it had sometimes been better to go alone. I briefly wondered whether I should look for party members to form a group with or try creeping into the dungeon by myself. I figured the decision could wait a while.

“With all that said, I’ll now be handing out your terminals. Come to the front when you hear your name called.”

The terminals were high-tech devices, intended to be worn on the arm, that projected a visual display at eye level when you pressed a button. This was likely one of the technological innovations that exploring the dungeon had brought about. My old world had the technology to project text midair, but it had never produced a wearable terminal like this. I loved gadgets, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one.

Just as I received mine and pressed the button, a fifteen-inch virtual screen popped up. I could see other people’s screens too, so I could tell that the image was being projected into the air rather than directly into my eyes.

The top page listed my name and stats.

Name: Souta Narumi

Level: 1

Job & Job Level: Newbie, Level 1

Adventurer Class: Unregistered

Status

Maximum HP: 7

Maximum MP: 9

Strength: 3

Intelligence: 9

Vitality: 4

Agility: 5

Mind: 11

Skills (1/2)

Glutton

(Empty)

Hmm, I thought. So Piggy’s real name is Souta Narumi? The name sounded familiar now that I thought about it. One good thing had resulted from becoming Piggy, which was the second chance at youth and high school life. I’d been well on my way to middle age back in Japan.

My level and job level* were both one, probably because I hadn’t participated in combat yet. “Newbie” meant “beginner” or “novice,” and, barring a few exceptions, it was the job that most people started out with. Adventurers could learn certain skills and change jobs once they’d increased their job level by earning enough experience points.

*TIPS: For Level and Job Level, increasing a character’s level increases their status scores and allows them to receive certain benefits. The level cap in DEC is level 90. Job levels go up to level 10. Some skills become acquirable at certain job levels. Changing a character’s job resets their job level to level 1. Some jobs increase the character’s status scores.

The slot for Adventurer Class was probably showing as unregistered because I hadn’t signed up at the Adventurers’ Guild yet. I made a mental note to visit the guild soon so that I could enter the dungeon.

My stats are not so great...

Whenever I’d used the game’s character creation tool before, I’d run reset marathons* until I landed on a character with a rare skill and all base stats above ten.

*TIPS: Reset marathon is a term used to describe resetting a game and starting from scratch, then recreating a character over and over to obtain beneficial skills and stats.

The base stats would become more or less meaningless once the character had leveled up enough, but it was still annoying. Complaining wouldn’t fix it, so I’d have to live with it.

The figures on the terminal’s display came from the school’s database. Apparently, the school had measured my stats at the entrance exam and input those results. I’d have to consider that my stats wouldn’t update in real time.

I then glanced down at the next line.

Hang on... Glutton? I thought. I’ve never seen that skill before. Do I have this to blame for my weight?

Most people in this world obtained new skills by going to the dungeon and increasing either their regular level or job level. Only a few possessed innate skills from the outset. Having combat skills or healing magic made the first couple of dungeon raids smoother, so I’d always recreated my characters until I had a handy skill. Yet I couldn’t see how a skill called Glutton could be helpful.

From the name, I guessed that the skill involved devouring huge amounts of food. But if keeping it meant I’d have to spend the rest of my life in this overweight body, I’d be better off overwriting it with another skill and going on a diet. That would be a hell of a lot more practical than losing my breath every time I climbed a flight of stairs.

The terminal could also send and receive calls or text messages as well as take pictures. These features would allow me to communicate with my teammates while in the dungeon to supervise and relay strategic orders. There was also a function to submit reports.

But more importantly, I thought, what about the log out button? I don’t see it. There isn’t one. So I can’t log out?

This made it more likely that I’d been completely transported to this world rather than just my mind. The terminal’s log out button had been my best guess at how to get home, but there was nothing like that on the interface.

While I wasn’t desperate to get home, I wasn’t thrilled at turning into Piggy. I’d always dreamed about what it would be like to live in DEC’s world, but now that I was here, I felt depressed.