Clara.
She had been an S-rank limited character in Abyss City. At the time of her release, she had achieved the highest sales ranking at number one in the store.
When Rohan last checked, her character PV views had already surpassed 2.7 million.
Compared to Ichinose Yui and Noah Frozenheart, the duration Clara spent in Rohan’s party had been relatively short.
Still, as the third S-rank character he had fully limit broken, he had poured as much affection on her as he had on the other two.
Because of that, he clearly remembered all the revealed backstory.
Clara’s place of origin was Xeno.
Xeno was a small, poor country in the west with a closed-off demeanor that shunned outside exchange.
Meanwhile, unlike the southern region recorded as Rohan’s homeland, Xeno was also a country walking the path of downfall due to internal strife.
From what he had recently learned, the constant deaths of their leaders had left them virtually without a leader, causing surrounding countries to interfere under various pretexts.
He assumed Clara was probably aware of this, too.
In any case, despite Xeno’s hostile stance toward foreign countries,
It had poured all its efforts internally into training undercover agents for tasks like assassinating key figures, gathering foreign intelligence, and extracting technology.
Clara had been one of the vagrants educated and raised in that program.
The name she was called there wasn’t Clara but Number 11.
As one could see, she had a naturally timid disposition. Like other homeless children who came only because someone promised them food, she could have been expelled at any time, and it wouldn’t have been strange.
However, her talent in combat skills alone had overwhelmed everyone else in training, and word had it that Xeno’s internal expectations for her had been immense.
Truly a tragic fate.
But they always said that the ebb and flow of destiny arrived in the most unexpected ways.
One day, Clara had been tasked with tracking down the group that smuggled foreign goods into Xeno for profit and seizing their assets while eliminating them…
No need to drag out that story too long.
Unaware of what was truly happening, the girl lived under the heavy phrase “sacrifice for the greater good,” but that day, she got a glimpse of foreign artifacts and faintly learned about the outside world.
Piles of unsold smartphones and laptops without owners, stacks of books in dazzling colors, external hard drives loaded with anime and movies.
At first, she had tried to deny all of it as a despicable propaganda scheme meant to sow confusion among Xeno’s citizens.
Yet Clara, though timid in social situations, was not stupid. She secretively set aside part of the goods and handed over the rest to Xeno.
The person in charge of teaching Clara made two major mistakes.
First, they assumed from her passive behavior that she lacked the guts to run away.
Second, without giving her proper mental conditioning based on that assumption, they sent her out on the mission.
That was how the time of enduring began.
Perhaps even the heavens felt pity for the girl who had been quietly amassing knowledge and waiting for a chance to escape.
A series of events shook the foundation of the country and created cracks as if telling her to leave.
Farmers in that poor society, so poor that other countries mocked it as a backwater rather than Xeno, rose in revolt and formed military groups or gangs of bandits.
Because there was no overwhelmingly powerful ruler among the leadership, endless clashes of opinion caused fractures to form throughout the tiny country.
On the day one of the top leaders dispatched the undercover agents, who were originally meant to spy on foreign entities, to suppress the uprising at home,
Clara took that chance to flee without so much as a backward glance.
“……”
Rohan looked at the girl sitting before him.
It really feels different seeing in person someone who had gone through what I’d only read about in the game.
He also understood why Clara clung to her unique sense of fashion.
She used to wear only black bodysuit-like outfits every day; then, after stealing a fashion magazine, she had immediately fallen in love at first sight.
I heard she also fell in love with games while learning about the outside world.
Even though Rohan possessed all this information about Clara, there was still something he didn’t know.
That was her “present”.
He only knew what had happened up until she escaped Xeno, and then there was a gap before she met the protagonist in her second year.
Hence, Rohan wanted to know Clara’s current situation.
And because it seemed like she would willingly open up about her personal life, he was glad.
“Still… you really haven’t asked me anything, have you? Why I’m always there every day…?”
When Clara brought up the subject, Rohan answered carefully,
“To be honest, I was curious, but I was worried it might come across as prying.”
“You were curious…!”
Her eyes sparkled wide.
He almost imagined her twin pigtails swaying like wagging tails.
That must have made her happy.
Wondering what part of her personal story Clara would share, Rohan decided to probe gently.
It seemed fine, given that she herself had brought up the topic.
“Would you tell me?”
“Um… well, it might not be very interesting.”
Rohan silently observed Clara as she stirred her drink with the straw for no real reason. Then he reached out,
He lightly tapped his fingers on the back of her pale hand.
“!!!”
The startled girl finally met his gaze, which she had been avoiding.
Only then did Rohan smile and speak.
“Is having fun really what’s important in our relationship? Isn’t it more important that we understand each other?”
“……!”
They met almost every day, shared the same hobby, belonged to the same guild, and hung out after work.
He couldn’t think of a closer friend than that.
“While we’re at it, wouldn’t it be nice if we also spoke more casually? What do you think?”
“Ah! Eh? Uh, wh-what…?”
Clara made strange sounds as she struggled to focus her gaze.
She looked flustered; more than just a little, in fact. But Rohan who felt she wouldn’t run away simply watched with quiet amusement.
Clack!
Melted ice in the cup collided and made a noise.
“Our relationship… our relationship…”
After mulling over his words for quite some time, the girl seemed to make up her mind.
She straightened her back, placed her hands on her knees in a formal pose, and nodded firmly.
“O-Okay! Let’s speak casually…!”
“Then it’s all right if I just call you Clara?”
The girl gave a small nod in agreement, and…
She awkwardly asked in a semi-casual speech how she should speak to him, still remembering her own age.
“I… no, I had to wait until next year to enter the Academy…”
(TN: She used an informal tone in the first I. In English, it’s just I. She keeps doing that from here on out.)
“What’s one year of difference? It’s fine to call me by my name, so call me whatever you want.”
Even if it was just a one-year difference, to Clara, Rohan felt so much older.
In the end, there was only one way to address him.
“Th-Then… Rohan oppa…?”
“I like it. It’s a treat to my ears just hearing it.”
Clara, who still found it awkward to speak casually, twitched the corners of her lips.
Rohan enjoyed their playful conversation, but he wanted to get to the main point, so he changed the subject.
“Now you’re going to tell me about yourself too, Clara?”
“…Mhmm.”
Under the premise that it wouldn’t be everything, Clara began to talk about her personal circumstances.
“I came from somewhere a bit far away… I mean, I came from far away.”
“I see.”
It meant her homeland did not belong to the three major powers that run Academy City.
There was no need to mention Xeno specifically.
“Well, for now I’m at the bookstore because there really wasn’t anywhere else I could work until I got my papers… and also, I just like the bookstore…”
“Papers?”
“When I went to the Public Safety Department, they said that in my situation, I was basically a refugee, so I had to apply for immigration and have my status recognized first. That’s why I went to a government office… I mean, I went there.”
“Ah.”
“That’s where I ran into the bookstore manager, who was there on other business…”
By now, Rohan already had a clear picture in his head.
So that’s when the manager asked her to come to the bookstore.
With that, he accepted it and listened intently to Clara’s voice.
“It’s hard to explain in detail, but… in my case, the procedure to issue my status was, uh, incredibly complicated and time-consuming…”
“You need that first before you can look for any kind of work, right?”
She nodded her head.
Clara, who indicated that was correct, told Rohan in more detail about what she had heard at the government office, at his request.
Rohan absorbed every single piece of information without missing a word.
On the surface, the requirements for obtaining legal status seemed simple.
First, one had to enter the Academy, which was practically the symbol of the Academy City of Elysium.
Second, one had to be a citizen of the Three Nations Alliance, Tigrova, or the Sepia Archipelago; these were the three Major Powers running the academy city. Or you could be recognized as an honorary citizen by one of them.
Third, one had to pass a screening to officially become part of the Academy City itself.
Clara said she fell under the third scenario.
There were also ways for companies or individuals planning to do business to get through the process, but that had nothing to do with Clara.
That third option sounded too vague and wide-ranging… open it up, and it’s bound to be complicated.
Even by playing Abyss City, one couldn’t get all the detailed information on such institutional matters.
This was new information to Rohan as well.
In conclusion,
For some people, getting the legal status to live in the Academy City was extremely easy, while for others, it was so difficult they couldn’t even attempt it.
“So how are you managing right now?”
“Until… until the paperwork review is over, the Academy City gave me food and a place to sleep… and for my phone bill, once I followed what the manager told me, the subsidy fit just right…”
“Hmm.”
Rohan’s expression grew serious.
It wasn’t a pleasant story for him to hear, considering it was happening to a character he cared about.
No matter how grand the Academy City was, how good could the provided food and shelter be for someone like Clara who was stuck waiting?
Could it be she went on living like that without getting her status until she enrolled in Orion Academy?
It was hard to say for sure.
But recalling Clara’s appearance from Abyss City, it certainly seemed possible.
In terms of ability alone, she wasn’t lacking for admission.
“Is the room they gave you warm? Do you get hot water?”
“I-I don’t really need warm water for bathing. Ah, um, it wasn’t… there? And I don’t get cold that easily…”
She answered in casual speech that was still far from fluent.
In the end, it meant she washed in cold water even in the middle of winter and slept in a room without heat.
“Hmm.”
Rohan’s concern only deepened.
Leave a Reply