Hm.

Hmmmmmmm.

Oh. It's this one.

I swiftly placed the correct ingredient into the boiling pot in front of me. Or at least I thought it was correct. The pot immediately starts smoking and shaking wildly, spilling its contents onto the wooden surface underneath. Then just as swiftly, a flash of magic appeared and the contents of the pot vanish. I hear a soft sigh right in front of me.

Sheepishly, I look up to find a beautiful woman staring at me, her eyes complicated and soft. Professor Grace Gentielle is the teacher for the Potions class at the Academy. She has gentle purple eyes, her hair a cascade of brown locks curling at her back. Her body is slender and her chest bountiful. I can already feel blood rushing to my face, no doubt dyeing my face red with embarrassment.

"Mr. Steelight, you're supposed to add the mandrake flower before, not after the sugar berries."

We are currently in the process of making an F-grade healing potion. Or should I say I am the only one doing it right now? The others have already left at the bell, but I wanted to finish my potion.

But for the life of me, I can't remember shit about how to brew the potion.

My memorization skills have always been terrible. The professor had warned us about today's assignment and told us to memorize the process of making the simple potion. I tried really hard to remember it, too. That was another reason why I stayed up late last night.

But the moment I tried to make it as if my entire memory of it was erased, scattered to winds of Engil.

"I'm sorry, professor. I'll try harder next time," I said. My shame is so thick I wish the ground would swallow me up.

"It's fine. You just need to submit a paper on how to properly gather mandrake flowers, and I'll take that as your score for this assignment." the professor reassured

I teared up in appreciation "Thank you, professor."

She really helped me there. I can't memorize information when I have to read them from books. Words just can't seem to hold onto my brains. But I can remember if I had hands-on experience. Mandrake flower is a strong enough coagulant, so Knights and Adventurers tend to memorize the way to pick them to use in a pinch. I was also taught how to use it by my father. She knows that my dad is a knight who has a high chance to teach his son how to pick it.

Ah, she really is nice. And pretty too.

I slapped myself with both hands to end my delusion.

Professor Grace seeing me slap myself responded with a flustered expression.

"Alean, please don't hurt yourself! This assignment is small anyway, how about I just let you have a passing grade ?!"

I shake my head. "No professor, I was just hyping myself up to do the assignment. Please let me do it!"

The professor once again sighs, but this time in relief. "Oh, I guess that's fine." But then her expression hardens again. "But you mustn't hurt yourself anymore."

Professor Grace was the only professor who knows about me hurting myself. Well, it was more of a coincidence than anything. When I had my near-death experience, she was the only professor nearby. She was collecting some herbs on that hill that day and saw Yermen dragging my bleeding body out of the woods.

She thought that Yermen was trying to kill me and hide the body at first.

I mean I looked quite dead, and Yermen had a lot of my blood on his clothes. But then she heard him yelling for help, she ran to me and feed me her potions. She also saved my life that day. Even if that was a coincidence, I still feel indebted to her. I also vow to save her from The End.

Hmm. Maybe I should have picked a better name for the end of the world? Ah, who cares. The End is good enough.

Anyway, the professor is someone from the Earl rank house Gentielle. What I know about the house, is that they are supposed to be the Crown Watch Dog. Essentially, they are Spies and Assassins.

But since professor Gentielle awaken to become a Mage, she was sent to the Academy where she studied and stayed after graduation to become a professor. She has a similar past to me, so she seems to sympathize with me a lot.

Well, what matters is that she is of higher rank than me, even if she and her family are estranged. So any delusion of me being with her must be purged from my mind so I can focus on saving her.

I bow to the professor "Thanks for the class, miss. I'll promise one day I'll repay all my debts to you!!"

Yelling out loud the last part, I immediately ran out of the class before she can react.

After all, I still get flustered when I interact with her. Damn this hormonal body! Even if I regain the memories of my past life, technically making me older, I'm still me after all. I still have all the feelings and memories of this life as well, making it harder for me to control myself. The memory of a past life. I don't know how I got it.

Maybe because I almost died somehow, or maybe it was always there.

At first, it confused me. Why did I get this useless information about a different life that doesn't matter to me? But at the end of what I could remember, it all became clear.

===

There was a game in that world. A game so popular it took the world by storm.

'Heroes in Magic Land - Saviors of Planes' was its name. I know, it sounds ridiculous. A lot of people thought it too. But when they started playing, they really got playing.

It was designed by one Aesir Entertainment, a no-name company with no background in games at all, yet somehow they published the most wildly acclaimed 'Game of the Century'. The game was a combination of style and ideas. On the surface, it was advertised to be a dating sim/ gacha game of sorts. You roll to collect characters that are called 'Heroes', then you can raise their affection meter by doing quests and going on dates, unlocking their CGs and unique dialogues.

But that alone wasn't what made it popular. The game also features a deep overall story, and challenging turn-based strategy combat played on a game board ( like F*nal F*ntasy). Each character has a distinct skill set and abilities, allowing players to mix and match and discover new synergy. This ensured that all characters have a place in the 'meta'. A new, 'strong' character might not work best in an already established team; and an old, 'weak' character might have a spotlight in a new type of team instead.

The game's art also looks extremely well done and professional. All types of waifus and husbandos are available for players to freely 'pick up'. Well, not 'free' as in money. Even though it is free to play, you need to recharge with real money to roll for characters and unlock them. This caused a lot of people grief, because certain characters can only be unlocked when the main story progressed to a certain point and became unobtainable later on. There is also a leaderboard that encourages players to compete in challenges and timed events, igniting the fighting spirits of hardcore players.

But that is not important.

What I only care about is the story.

At the moment of my death in my past life, the story was at its climax. Magic had gone wild across the world, causing disasters and diseases to wreak havoc upon the population. People young and old, Awakened or not die without much fanfare, as the world descends into madness and chaos.

I don't know if the protagonist saved the world or not, because I died before it happened. But even if they saved the world, what I'm more interested in is protecting my friend(s) and family. I'm mature enough to admit that I'm no Hero. Heck, I, Alean Steelight, wasn't mentioned once in the game. I was a nobody. A mob character. And mob characters die the most in any story.

So what can I, a mob character, can do to protect myself and the people I love? Well, it is to cheat, of course. Since I have memories of the game's various cheat items, my goal is to obtain them before the main character gets them. Not all of them of course. They need to save the world, after all, so my goal is to find something not too important but powerful enough to protect those I want to protect.

===

I walk out of the Potions classroom with such thoughts in my mind.

Making my way towards my next destination, I stop to gaze up at the sky. The afternoon sun casts its fading light, dyeing the world in hues of gold and red. The Potion classroom is on the 3rd floor of the Academics block, so I have a good view of the courtyard below. The rows of low hedges woven together in geometric patterns decorate the space, accented by bushes trimmed to look like tasteful sculptures.

It's such a different sight from my home, which was built to be as defensible as possible. The sight never fails to remind me how far I am from home.

But I know in the future, a person whose home is so far from this place that it's in another world will appear. The protagonist. That person came to this place due to some accident that occur, leaving them stranded. Seeking a way to go home, that is their purpose to explore this world.

Eventually, they will be found by the Kingdom's forces, and are then sent to study at the Royal Academy due to various reasons.

I know they'll come sometime during my 3rd year because the game started in the year 793-4, and this year is 792-4. The last number is to represent the 4th Epoch that we are in right now. Each Epoch would end in some cataclysm, and the end of the 4th would start the moment the protagonist enters this world. I only have at most a year to prepare.

Shivering, not knowing if it's from the lingering chill of early spring or from anxiety, I steel my resolve to move forward once again.