January 1st, 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 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.

As 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.

I had the entire day for myself as the heroine went shopping with her attendants today. Thus, I began preparing anything necessary for me to sneak out of the mansion after the ceremony.

Well, going so far as to call it 'preparations' was a bit of a stretch. It took me only 5 minutes to secure the route out. It was the garden.

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

The next problem I was going 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 to the patch of land, collect them and hand them back to the blacksmiths for melting.

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 everyday.

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

I found a good weapon rather easily, it was a short sword. No, it was an unusually long dagger. As the quality was good enough and I didn't want to risk someone seeing me stealing the dagger, I went back to my room.

Thankfully, I met no one on my way there. I hid the dagger under my bed, and went back to sleep as I needed all the energy I could. After all, I was going to spend the whole day with the heroine tomorrow.

January 2nd, year 781 of the Imperial calendar

It was the day of the coming-of-age ceremony.

I woke up to the loud shout of the heroine. To be honest, I've gotten quite used to it, not that I wanted to since she has been doing it everyday for the last 2 months.

I wanted to depart for the ceremony immediately, but viscount Nightshade told me that I had to dress up. It was understandable since this was the most important day of my life, or so the viscount said.

I complied to her words and dressed up. Well, not really, as all I did was put a gray sweater over the white shirt that I always wore.

It was time to go. I got on a carriage with the viscount and the heroine.

The one-hour trip was uneventful, which I was really thankful for. Well, the heroine didn't like it that much though. She kept complaining about how no bandits jumped out to attack us. I doubt she knew that no sane bandits would go and attack a carriage with viscount Nightshade's emblems on it.

Abruptly, the carriage abrupted stopped. I looked outside confusedly.

As it turned out, we have just arrived at our destination, Stocrean city - the fief capital, and were confirming our identities with the guards.

Well, my gaze was on the city though, not the sweaty guards. The city of Stocrean could be best described as a mix between French's and Japanese's culture.

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.

Well, I snapped out of it pretty quickly though as I noticed the heroine grinning at me, teasing me for being a country bumpkin.

We got out of our carriage as we got close to a church of Light - the venue for the coming-of-age ceremony. As viscount Nightshade's territory's was predominantly occupied by humans, the ceremony would use Holy orbs as a medium.

We got there pretty quickly since everyone was either staying at home or waiting on one of the churches' grounds.

As I turned my gaze towards the church, I was surprised. To be blunt, the state of the church was... horrible. Its design resembled the many Catholic churches on earth. However, it wasn't well maintained. There were mosses everywhere, with even trees growing out of the cracked walls. It looked exactly like how you would imagine an abandoned church would be.

Well, we had to thank viscount Nightshade for this sorry excuse of a church.

Apparently, the higher-ups of the Church of Light cut the funding to churches in the Nightshade territory since the viscount was a powerful Void mage. Originally, Irene Nightshade was going to be titled Countess. However, due to the interference of some influential priests, she was only eligible to be a viscount. Their actions stemmed from a mix of discrimination and fear of reduced political power. It would not be beneficial to them if a Void mage held too much influences.

Viscount Nightshade left us to do our own things as she had to go inside the church to prepare for the ceremony with priests from the Church of Darkness. As it turned out, those priests at the Church of Light was so hell-bent on keeping away from the viscount that they swallowed their disgust and asked the Church of Darkness to hold the ceremony in their stead.

***

I was napping under a tree near the church, waiting for the ceremony to begin. Interrupting my relaxing times, however, was the sight of the heroine running up to me and hiding behind my back.

'I'm pretty sure she was socializing with all those kids moments ago, why would she do this?'

"Hey commoner, you're her fiancé, right? Annul your engagement so that I can make her my concubine!" A haughty and arrogant voice called out to me. It belonged to fat and sweaty boy.

He was fat, too fat for a 10-year-old in fact. I guessed that he was a noble, though he couldn't have been anyone important since other than viscount Nightshade, only barons from nearby territories come to this city to undergo the coming of age ceremony.

Well, not wanting to deal with the fat noble, 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 spoke from behind me.

"Then how did you want it to go?" I asked her.

"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."

"Are you out of your mind?" I said as I wondered whether she was too engrossed in that one Marcos' novel she had.

"Nuh uh, you're the crazy one for being so readily to throw this cute lady away."

"STOP TALKI—"

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

"Says the one 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 noble suddenly shouted at me, spewing saliva everywhere.

Disgusted, I pulled down my sunglasses and glared at the noble. He started trembling, falling to the ground and wetting his pants.

Since when did I get so easily agitated, I thought.

"Wh-hat, st-ay aw- way" He said as he tried to crawl away from me.

I put on my sunglasses again and turned around just to see the heroine laughing uncontrollably.

Looks like I fell for her schemes again.

***

Finally, it was time for the ceremony.

The Dark priest in charge of the ceremony assaulted everyone present with a long and boring speech about how we were the future of the Empire or something like that.

His attack worked splendidly though since more than half of the people in the church had fallen asleep by the time he was done with the speech.

Waking everyone up from their naps was a loud voice, announcing that the main event of the ceremony - the awakening was starting.

Kids from all over the venue 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 face, Raun. He seemed to have noticed me too as he began to run towards me with a wide smile.

"THEO, 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"

"Well, it's good that you're fine now. So who's this lady, your girlfriend? I can't believe you got one now. My little boy has grown so much" He grinned teasingly as he noticed me sitting beside the heroine who was 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, aiming to stop this situation from developing any further.

Raun, surprised by the information, spoke respectfully as he mistook the heroine's look of surprise as being 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 the viscount's daughter 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 orc-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" He said while raising his left arm, showing off the 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. After all, it's a very common name'

"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 Helotte

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. 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-

=====

While everyone in the venue was in an uproar, overjoyed for witnessing the birth of a new saintess, I was panicking.

'She's definitely that Amelia', I grimaced.

Amelia was, in fact, another heroine.

What's worse though, is that Raun will 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.

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 talents... 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 he didn't sacrifice himself for the Saintess, he was surely going to die in the multiple massacres that would happen in the academy.

Despite having talents much more superior to Raun's, the saintess of life still congratulated him. After all, his stats was good enough to enroll into any of the two academies.

Well, I had to admit, it was pretty funny seeing Raun receiving death glares from boys who wanted to make a connection with the saintess.

***

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, he would have already been picked up by the Holy knight Captain of the Church of Light for training by now, probably.

My turn to awaken came immediately after the heroine's.

I walked up to the long desk, and put both my hands on the 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. Heck, 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 6 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 viscount's daughter asked me.

"I'm not going to tell you" I replied. After all, 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.

***

'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.

My suspicion was right. 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.

'FUCK!'