January 1^st, year 782 of the Imperial calendar

In the last 2 months, I have been getting along with the chefs and servants pretty well as they seemed to have developed a tolerance for my Eyes. As for the heroine, well, I still found her annoying, not as much as before though. She haven't done anything too outrageous since that day 2 months ago.

Much to my delight, cooking lessons were cancelled today. Since this was the day before the coming-of-age ceremony.

Unlike 'Earth', people of this world don't celebrate the start of a year. Instead, they have the coming-of-age ceremony which is held on the second day of each year.

The ceremony was not unique to human, as every races held it for children at least 10 years of age, albeit with slight variations. Dragons with their Altar of origins, Phoenixes with their Baptism, and so on.

For humans though, they do it with special orbs which the Goddess of Light Lumaria bestowed upon them. The orb, known as the Holy orb, serves as a medium to awakening one's status interface, or Status as most people like to call it.

The interface, however, only displays your skills, stats, elemental affinities and battle arts. You cannot distribute stat points like a game. Your stats will naturally increase as you get stronger.

There are 5 types of stats. Strength, Agility, Stamina, Mana Capacity and Intelligence. The first 4 of the stats did exactly what you thought they would do. Intelligence, however, does not determine how smart you are. Instead, it represent how fast you can process information and notice details in your surroundings.

Since I was not going to find out about my elemental affinities until I awakened, I didn't even try to sneak out of the mansion in the last 2 months. It would be utterly pointless to do so since I have no idea what worked for me and what didn't.

"The heroine's going shopping with her attendants today..." I muttered as I finally found the motivation to get out of bed. 

To be honest, I found waking up alone in my room strange since I've gotten quite used to her shouting in my ears, not that I wanted to since she has been doing it everyday for the last 2 months whether I wanted it or not.

'No no, what am I thinking? I'm merely thinking like this because I got conditioned to waking up to a shout every morning. Yes, that's right.'

Pausing my thoughts there, I hurriedly got out of my room and skipped breakfast. 

After all, with the clingy heroine now out of the mansion and viscount Nightshade rarely meeting me for the past 2 months, this was the perfect chance for me to make preparations for when I inevitably snuck out of the mansion after the ceremony.

First, I had to secure a route of the mansion.

"Well that was easier than I thought", I muttered as I looked out at the garden.

Due to the fact that there were multiple tall trees next to the garden walls, I could easily get out by just climbing them and then jumping over the walls.

The next problem I had to solve was weapons. Although I would be able to feel mana as soon as I awaken the status interface, I wouldn't go as far as to swing my fists at monsters whose skins are harder than steel. Thus, securing a weapon was a must.

Luckily, the solution to that problem was the mansion's smithy. No, I was not going to order a blacksmith to make me a weapon. Instead, I went to the patch of land behind the smithy.

Blacksmith apprentices often made products which didn't satisfy their masters. Thus, the fate of such weapons was to be thrown away to this patch of land, waiting for the end of each month when soldiers would come and collect them to hand them back to the blacksmiths.

'What a smart system. The knights can train their physical abilities and at the same time blacksmiths can melt them back to save material costs. It seems that viscount Nightshade didn't gain the viscount title for nothing.'

However, there was one flaw with this system; Mainly, the quality of the swords that were thrown away.

Although the master blacksmiths considered those weapons to be failures, their quality was top-notch, at least compared to the mass-produced swords that were sold on the streets.

The weapon standards of the viscount Nightshade's knights were absurdly high compared to other nobles of the same title. That was to be expected though since the territory often suffered attacks from Void beasts.

Pausing my thoughts there, I scanned the area around the patch of land again.

'No one's watching... good.'

I rushed into the pile of weapons and dug through it. And after a few seconds, I found a good weapon rather easily.

It was a shortsword. 

'Hm... no, not a shortsword...'

Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was an unusually long dagger inside of a shortsword.

'That explains the light weight.'

Since the quality of the dagger was good enough and I didn't want to risk someone seeing me stealing it, I immediately went back to my room.

Thankfully, I met no one on my way there. Hiding the dagger under my bed, I went to sleep immediately to save up as much energy as possible for tomorrow. After all—

'To spend an entire day in a cramp carriage with that brat of a heroine... kill me already...'

---

January 2^nd, year 781 of the Imperial calendar

It was the day of the coming-of-age ceremony, and I woke up to the loud shout of the heroine as usual.

Although I wanted to just depart for the ceremony immediately and get it over with, viscount Nightshade had other plans.

"Theodore, dress up. Today's an important day." 

'What are you, my mom?'

To be honest, she was legally my mom now but that wasn't what I was getting at!

Eventually, I had to comply and her words and dress up... by myself of course. Unfortunately, or rather, very fortunately, I wasn't a cute little girl like the heroine so no maids wanted to make me their dress-up dolls.

"Help meeeeeeeee!" The heroine screamed as she got dragged into her room by, you guessed it, maids with excited glints in their eyes.

Staring at the heroine, whose hand was extended out to me, I similarly extended my hand to try and grab it.

Just as my hand was mere inches away from hers, however, I pulled it back and smirked evilly as despair clouded the hope that the heroine had in her eyes when she saw me reaching out.

"NOOOOOOOOOO—"

I didn't get to hear the rest of her scream as the door of her room had now closed.

Chuckling, I went back to my room and simply put a gray sweater over the white shirt that I always wore.

After about an hour, the heroine was done with dressing up, and we were ready for the ceremony.

Ignoring the heroine's pouty face, I stepped into the carriage and fell asleep almost immediately after.

---

...

The one-hour trip was uneventful, which I was really thankful for.

However, the heroine was less than satisfied with the trip. 

"How boring! Why aren't bandits attacking us like they always do in novels?"

Although I wanted to say that no sane bandits would dare to attack a carriage with viscount Nightshade's emblems on it in her own territory, I eventually decided not to for fear of her using my words to start yet another useless conversation.

Pausing my thoughts there, I poked my head out of the carriage's window.

What appeared before my eyes was our destination, Stocrean city - the fief capital. The city of Stocrean could be best described as a mix between French and Japanese architecture.

My eyes sparkled at the sight of the city as I have never been to a place this big before. Now, I've seen a fair share of massive cities thanks to Marcos' memories. Even then, directly experiencing it was an exciting experience, enough to make my eyes widen at the sight of anything new.

It was then that I noticed the heroine's grin. Just as she was about to open her mouth to tease me for being a country bumpkin, the door of our carriage was suddenly opened, revealing viscount Nightshade.

"Come down now, we have to walk from here."

I hurriedly got out of the carriage, not wanting to spend a single more second alone with the brat behind me. I then followed the viscount as she walked toward the city's church of Light - the venue for the coming-of-age ceremony.

Upon arriving at the church, I widened my eyes in surprise.

'H- How can a church devoted to Goddess Lumaria be left in this state?'

Now, to be completely blunt here, the state of the church was horrible. Its design that resembled the many Catholic churches on Earth didn't go well with the mosses and trees growing out of its cracked walls.

Noticing my surprise face, viscount Nightshade patted my head and sighed.

"You have to thank me for the current sorry state of the church."

"Why?"

In response, the viscount gnashed her teeth in anger as she recalled certain memories.

"Originally, I was going to be titled countess. However, those bastards at the Church of Light didn't want a Half-void like me to hold too much power so they tried to ruin my reputation. But thanks to duke Ecertold, I was able to gain the title of viscount."

"...What does that have to do with the current state of the church though?"

"It has everything to do with it, little Theodore. Those bastard got mad that I still get to hold some political power, so they retaliated in every way possible. Including cutting funds to the church in my fief capital here."

"...Then why don't you just demolish the church to, you know, build something more beneficial?"

"I can't..." She sighed. "...If I ordered to destroy the church, those zealots at the Church of Light would definitely accuse me of heresy."

And with those words, viscount Nightshade removed her hand and walked toward the entrances of the church, where priests donning dark robes were waiting for her.

'Priest of Darkness?' I widened my eyes in surprise.

However, I soon calmed down as I remembered what the viscount had just told me.

'Right, if the viscount was hated by the Church of Light then surely she would be welcomed by the Church of Darkness.'

Pausing my thoughts there, I observed the church's grounds.

'It seems that we got here a bit too early', I frowned as I realized that this place was devoid of children my age... at least for now.

This was bad for me. More time spent waiting meant more chances for the heroine to mess with me.

As if to prove my concerns right, the heroine, whose existence I had forgotten about until now, suddenly ran up to me and hid behind my back.

Before I could question what she was doing, a haughty voice suddenly came from in front of me.

"Hey commoner, you're her fiancé, right? Annul your engagement so that I can make her my concubine!" Says a fat and sweaty boy.

He was fat, too fat for a 10-year-old in fact. It was almost as if some cannibals were fattening him since birth to enjoy feasting on his flesh when the time was right.

'As if that's ever going to happen.'

Pushing aside such silly thoughts, I came to a more reasonable conclusion.

'He's a noble, definitely a noble. Yep. He even called me a commoner... what did I even expect?'

However, he couldn't have been anyone important since other than viscount Nightshade, only children of barons from nearby territories come to this city to undergo the coming of age ceremony. 

But... I really didn't want to go through the troubles of confronting a noble. Thus, I didn't even bother to correct his misunderstanding and just did whatever he wanted me to do.

"My lord, sorry for offending you! I will dump her immediately. You two look really good together!"

"Hey, that isn't how it's supposed to go!" The heroine suddenly spoke up from behind me.

Frowning, I turned around to meet her face. "Then how else is it supposed to go? Do you want me to go against a noble when I'm a mere honorary one?"

"You're supposed to be mad and refuse to do as he says. After that, he will challenge you to a duel, which you will win with ease, causing him to come up with several schemes aiming for your life!"

Pinching the bridge of my nose in frustration, I sighed. "You do realize how stupid it sounds, right? This is real life, not some sort of novels."

'To be honest, this world is a novel, but she doesn't need to know about it.'

Unaware of my thoughts, the heroine spoke up again with her arms crossed. "Nuh uh, you're the one who sounds stupid! Who would be so ready to throw this cute lady away?"

-"STOP TALKI—"

"Well, sorry, my 'cute lady'," I spoke, sarcastically. "I don't want any troubles with any nobles so I'll have to respectfully give you to him."

"That sure sounds reliable coming from someone who dumped water on a viscount." She retorted.

"Hey, you're the one that made me do it in the first plac—"

"STOP IGNORING ME YOU FILTHY COMMONER!" The fat noble suddenly shouted at me, spewing saliva everywhere.

Disgusted, I pulled down my sunglasses and glared at the noble.

Almost immediately after, he started trembling and fell to the ground. Oh, and he wetted his pants in the process I guess.

It was only then that I finally calmed down.

'Since when did I get so easily agitated?'

My thoughts were once again interrupted by the disgusting sound of the noble kid.

"Wh-hat, st-ay aw- way!" He stuttered as he crawled on the ground pathetically, trying to get away from me.

Sighing, I put my sunglasses back on again and turned around, only to see the heroine laughing uncontrollably at the scene.

'Dammit... looks like I fell for her schemes again.'

---

Finally, it was time for the ceremony.

Sitting in a random seat, I yawned as I looked around the venue, which was now full of children my age.

'To be able to fall asleep in a place like this... how nice.'

In fact, half of the people present in the venue had already fallen asleep during the Dark priest in charge of the ceremony's boring speech about how we were the future of the Empire or something like that.

I, however, didn't have such luxuries, mainly because of the fact that the heroine was fast asleep with her head resting on my shoulder... and her drool staining my sweater. I didn't dare to sleep here for fear of her suddenly waking up as soon as I lost consciousness and pulling me in yet another one of her pranks without me even knowing it.

It was then that a loud voice could be heard booming throughout the venue.

"ALRIGHT, SPEECH'S OVER, WAKE UP! THE CEREMONY'S STARTING!"

The voice was so loud that the heroine fell to the ground in surprise. 

'So she wasn't asleep all this time! I knew I made the right choice not sleeping!'

Pausing my thoughts there, I turned toward the source of the loud voice, only to see that it was viscount Nightshade now standing where the Priest of Darkness was.

'Huh, guess she was also too bored of the speech.'

After a few more seconds, kids from all over the venue realized what had just happened and scurried into a messy line as everyone was trying to have their talents and affinities measured first.

Not me though, I didn't want to get anywhere close to that crowd of little brats.

As I was waiting for everyone to have their turn, I spotted a familiar brown-haired, brown-eyed boy, Raun.

He seemed to have noticed me too as he began to run towards me with a wide smile.

"THEODORE, WHERE WERE YOU?" He asked, practically screaming into my ears. 

"You are as loud as ever, Raun." I chuckled.

"I thought you were dead or something, why haven't you contacted me in the last 2 months?" he continued, ignoring my earlier statement.

"Sorry, something suddenly came up and I couldn't really move freely until now." 

Raun nodded his head in understanding. "Well, it's good that you're fine now."

His gaze then drifted toward the heroine sitting beside me. "Who's this lady, your girlfriend? I can't believe you got one now. My little boy has grown so much!"

'Raun, you poor boy, you have no idea who is it that you're referring to.'

I then briefly glanced at the heroine.

Unlike what some might have expected, she didn't blush in embarrassment of even swing her arm around my neck to play along with the joke. Instead, she just stood there, motionless, baffled by the fact that I, indeed, had a friend.

'It hurts me that you thought I was so pathetic that I didn't have any friends, you know?'

"No, she's Krista Nightshade, daughter of viscount Nightshade." I bluntly told him.

Raun, surprised by the information, spoke respectfully as he mistook the heroine's lack of motion as her way of telling him that she was offended by his joke.

"Forgive me for my earlier tardiness, my lady." 

'Why is he so timid? I guess the bad reputation of nobles could tame even Raun.' I chuckled inwardly.

Sensing the uncomfortable atmosphere, the heroine hugged my arm and started talking.

"It's fine, I don't mind it. I'm just surprised that my darling was so shy that he wouldn't disclose our relationship to his ONLY friend!"

"Stop, you're going to make him misunderstand." I told her as I jerked her off my arm.

"Tch, you're no fun" she said before sticking her tongue out playfully, pinching my sides.

"What was that for?" 

"Your punishment for even considering to leave this lady to that pig-like noble earlier." 

Seeing our interaction, Raun couldn't help but laugh refreshingly. He seemed glad that I managed to make another friend.

I had to admit, the heroine was really good at easing tension.

"Well, too bad for you, Theodore. I could have asked Amelia to make you guys matching bracelets just like the one I have if you guys were a couple." Raun said while raising his left arm, showing off the really badly made bracelet. 

While the heroine's eyes were sparkling at the prospect of matching accessories, I couldn't help but to furrow my brows and fall into deep thought.

'His name is Raun and his girlfriend is Amelia, it couldn't be, right?' As I was contemplating on what to do if Amelia was indeed her, Raun called out to me.

"Look Theodore, it's Amelia! She must have finished with her Status awakening!"

I turned my head to see a brown haired girl with jade-colored eyes and facial features no less stunning than the heroine's, running towards Raun while waving her hands.

'I'm probably overreacting, she must be another Amelia. It's a common name after all.'

"Look at my status Raun!" Amelia said proudly while showing off her status to not only Raun but also everyone else in the venue.

=====

Name: Amelia Helot

Race: Human

Rank: G

Strength: G-

Agility: G-

Stamina: G-

Intelligence: G+

Mana capacity: G+

Profession: Healer (Lv.1)

--

Affinities:

[Perfect - Life magic]

[Intermediate - Light magic]

--

Skills:

[SS - Saintess of life] 

The skill that is granted to one chosen by the Goddess of Life Livida. This skill amplifies the effect of any healing-type magic by a factor of five. The owner of this skill is also blessed by the Goddess of Life, raising his or her Life magic affinity to Perfect rating. The user can also sacrifice their life force to further raise the potency of healing magic up to a factor of fifty.

--

Battle arts:

-NONE-

=====

-"A- A Saintess?"

-"OH MY GOD IT'S A SAINTESS OF LIFE!"

-"A naturally chosen one at that! She's blessed by the Goddess of Life Livida!"

While everyone in the venue was in an uproar, overjoyed for being able to bear witness the birth of a new Saintess, I was panicking.

'S- So she's indeed that Amelia...'

Amelia was, in fact, another heroine.

What's worse though, was that Raun would die because of her.

The protagonist, despite being made fun of in the academy for being a commoner, made a good friend - Raun. However, 2 months into the academy, an incident occurred in which Raun had to sacrifice himself to save Amelia.

Horrified by the sudden death of her long-time boyfriend, Amelia froze on the spot and almost got herself killed by the same monster that had just killed Raun.

And of course the main character, with his utterly dogshit timing, saved Amelia at the last second.

After a series of consolations and sweet words from the protagonist, Amelia started to develop feelings for him before eventually confessing to him and joining his harem.

I grimaced at the prospect of Raun, my first friend, dying. However, I would definitely want the saintess of Life to be my party member. After all, she was going to be the best healer in the Empire. She was so good at healing that she even brought the protagonist back from death that one time in the novel.

As I was struggling to find a way to entice the Saintess of Life without sacrificing my closest friend, Raun tapped me on the shoulder and showed me a translucent blue screen.

'Oh, he must have had his turn already.'

=====

Name: Raun Serus

Race: Human

Rank: G

Strength: G

Agility: G-

Stamina: G

Intelligence: G-

Mana capacity: G-

Profession: Tanker (Lv.1)

--

Affinities:

[High - Earth magic]

--

Skills:

-NONE-

--

Battle arts Manual:

-NONE-

=====

His talent... it was extremely average.

Looking at Marcos' memories again, I decided to let the story go as it is. Considering his mediocre talents, even if Raun didn't sacrifice himself for the Saintess, he was surely going to die in the multiple massacres that would happen in the academy.

---

...

It took a while but finally, it was the heroine's turn to awaken.

After placing her hands on the orb, the heroine excitedly came to me and showed her Status to only me, not repeating the saintess of Life's mistake of showing it to everyone.

=====

Name: Krista Nightshade

Race: Human (Part-void)

Rank: G+

Strength: G

Agility: G+

Stamina: G+

Intelligence: G-

Mana capacity: G+

Profession: Dark mage (Lv.1) --> Void mage (Lv.1)

--

Affinities:

[Perfect - Void manipulation]

[Extreme - Dark magic]

[High - Metal magic]

--

Skills:

[S - Shallows of the abyss] 

A skill developed by the Void mage Krista Nightshade. This skill allows the user to store object within his or her shadow. Living organisms can also hide within the shadow provided that the wielder of the skill permits them.

[A - Nocturnal] 

The skill granted to only the most elite of Dark mages by the Goddess of Darkness. Boosts the user's stats up to 2 minor ranks in the absence of light.

--

Battle arts Manual:

[V - Nightshade style]

A dagger art developed by Void mage Irene Nightshade. The art focuses on fast and lethal dagger strikes, coupled with hard-to-detect Void spells. Upon mastery, the practitioner can even assassinate anyone in broad daylight without being detected.

[III - Horesh style]

A string art created by master hunter Horesh Agyuist. The art utilizes thin but sturdy metal wires to create hard-to-detect and lethal traps.

=====

As expected of a heroine, her talent was extremely high. She might even be stronger than the current protagonist.

'Speaking of the protagonist... that pushover would probably have been picked up my Holy knight captain Marx of the Church of Light by now... probably.'

Pausing my thoughts there, I walked up to the long desk and put both my hands on the Holy orb. After a few moments, a translucent blue screen appeared before my eyes. I looked at the contents and...

=====

Name: Theodore Gray

Race: Human

Rank: G-

Strength: G-

Agility: G-

Stamina: G-

Intelligence: G+

Mana capacity: G

Profession: Swordsman (Lv.1)

--

Affinities:

[High - Lightning magic]

[High - Space manipulation]

[Intermediate - Time manipulation]

[Low - Wind magic]

--

Skills:

[C - Magic eyes of fear] 

The innate skill of Theodore Gray. Upon making visual contact with the user's eyes, people with lower rank than his will experience great fear. However, its effects greatly diminishes if used on people higher ranked than the user. 

[F - Mana blood]

A degraded version of the innate skill [A - Fertilus' Blood] that every pure-blooded vampires has. Due to the user's barely sufficient concentration of vampiric blood in his system, he is granted the inferior version of the skill. The skill enables the user to recover Mana quicker than the average person, as well as control the Mana present within blood.

--

Battle arts Manual:

-NONE-

=====

'I knew it, I had the making of a protagonist!'

Although I was still at G- rank, there was nothing some cheat items couldn't fix.

Besides, owning 4 affinities really surprised me.

Having multiple affinities wasn't really uncommon. Hell, having affinities with all 4 basic elements was not considered that special. It was the level of the affinity that was important.

Affinities were measured in 5 grades: Low, Intermediate, High, Extreme and Perfect, in ascending order. Therefore, having a good affinity was considered much better than having multiple badly rated ones.

"Hey Theodore, what did you get?" The heroine suddenly asked me.

"I'm not going to tell you" I replied, knowing that it wouldn't be wise to reveal my Status to just anyone.

"But I showed you mine!" She tried to guilt-trip me into showing her my Status.

"I didn't ask you to do it."

"Tch, fine then, keep your secret." She pouted as she crossed her arms and turned her head away from me.

And with that, the ceremony was over, and we began heading back to the Nightshade mansion.

---

...

'Well, maybe I should have shown her a little bit of my stats.' I thought as I sat in my room.

Ever since the ceremony, the heroine had been all sulky whenever she sees me. Normally, I would have rejoiced at the fact the she had finally left me alone. However, I had the sneaking suspicion that she was planning to do something very troublesome under the mask of constant sulking.

And I was right on point. On the morning only 3 days after the ceremony, I woke up, not to a loud shout, but to the heroine lying next to me on my bed. 

'What the fuck...?'