Chapter 5: This Novice Village Is More Than a Little Bit Wrong

Lynn looked at the sweet yet eerie smile on Alicia’s face, and his stomach churned.

“The soil here has always been very nutritious.”

That sentence was more hair-raising than any direct threat.

He averted his eyes, not daring to look at the rose garden again.

He was terrified that he would see familiar yet strange faces staring back from the dirt.

The servants who had disappeared, the meddlers who had been “purified”—all of them had apparently become fertilizer for this garden.

“Let us go back,” Lynn said.

His voice was steady, betraying no extra emotion.

He knew that expressing any horror now would be interpreted by Alicia as a “rejection of filth.”

Then, her Blackening Value would happily drop by a few points.

But he could not keep up the act.

He only wanted to leave this beautiful tomb immediately.

Alicia nodded in satisfaction. Holding the Platinum Chain, she led Lynn back to that magnificent cage.

Upon returning to the room, the chain on his ankle was removed, only to be replaced by a thicker one around his wrist.

Alicia resumed her constant, inseparable surveillance mode.

Lynn lay on the bed with his eyes closed, but his mind was racing.

‘I must escape.’

‘I have to get out of here.’

But this was the heart of the Shrine, Alicia’s private palace.

It was heavily guarded and filled with barriers.

A direct breakout would be a death sentence.

The only breakthrough point was Alicia herself.

He had to give her a reason to let him leave—a reason she could not refuse.

Something that fit her twisted logic.

Lynn recalled a setting he had casually written to flesh out the game’s world: the growth path of the “God-chosen.”

In the game, the protagonist needed to perform a “Sacred Pilgrimage” at several important “Holy Sees” to unlock their full potential.

The first Holy See was the place where he had originally awakened—the Royal Magic Academy.

‘That’s it.’

“Alicia,” Lynn said, opening his eyes to look at the Saintess guarding the bedside.

“What are your instructions?”

“I feel… a calling.”

Lynn’s expression became solemn and grave as he mimicked the tone of those religious NPC fanatics from the game.

“My power is incomplete. A portion of it… was left behind at the place where I woke up.”

The smile on Alicia’s face vanished.

**[Blackening Value: 89%]**

“What did you say?”

Her voice tightened.

“You are perfect—a treasure bestowed by the Gods. How could you be incomplete?”

“It is not that I am incomplete, but that I have not yet fully awakened,” Lynn began his performance.

“The Royal Magic Academy—that is my starting point and a holy site on my Path of Divinity. I must return there to complete a belated ritual so I can reclaim the full glory that belongs to me.”

He repackaged the idea of “going back to school” as a “Sacred Pilgrimage.”

To a fanatic like Alicia, this was a strike that hit her very soul.

Sure enough, the look in Alicia’s eyes changed.

Suspicion, struggle, and religious fervor flashed alternately within her blue eyes.

Letting him leave her side to go to a place full of mortals?

“No!”

But if it would make her “God” more perfect…

**[Blackening Value: 92%]**

**[Blackening Value: 85%]**

**[Blackening Value: 90%]**

The violent fluctuations of the value showed the heaven-and-earth battle occurring within her heart.

Lynn knew he had to add more fuel to the fire.

“This is the guidance of the Gods, a fate that cannot be resisted,” he said in a compassionate tone.

“If this opportunity is missed, my Divinity will be forever clouded. At that time, what you protect will no longer be the complete me.”

“No!”

Alicia blurted out.

She could not accept that possibility.

She stared fixedly at Lynn, her chest heaving.

After a long time, the struggle in her eyes faded, replaced by a sense of resolve.

“I understand.”

She stood up and looked down at Lynn.

“Since it is the guidance of the Gods, I shall naturally obey.”

She took a key from her bosom and unlocked the chain on Lynn’s wrist.

“Clink.”

He was free once more.

Lynn felt a surge of joy, but his face remained solemn and holy.

“I will personally escort you to the academy,” Alicia said in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Before you complete the ‘ritual,’ I will shield you from all impure gazes and dust.”

Lynn’s heart sank again.

He knew it would not be that simple.

This was not an escort; it was mobile imprisonment.

He was moving from a fixed cage to a cage on wheels.

But regardless, this was his only chance to leave the Shrine.

***

The next day, a magnificent carriage decorated with the emblem of the Holy See, escorted by a squad of Temple Knights, slowly rolled out of the Shrine.

Lynn sat on a soft velvet cushion, with Alicia sitting directly across from him.

Today, she had changed out of her complex Saintess robes and into a relatively simple white priestess dress, yet her air of sanctity and nobility was not diminished in the slightest.

She no longer used chains, but her gaze was an invisible shackle.

From the moment they boarded the carriage, she had not looked away from Lynn’s face.

The noise outside was blocked by the thick carriage walls.

Lynn could only see the street scenery receding rapidly through the window.

He was finally out.

Even though he was sitting next to a nuclear bomb that could go off at any moment, breathing the air of freedom leaking through the window gaps made him feel as if an entire lifetime had passed.

The carriage traveled without hindrance and soon reached its destination: the Royal Magic Academy.

When the carriage stopped before the grand iron gates engraved with the school’s crest, Lynn’s heart skipped a beat.

‘Novice Village, I’m back!’

The carriage door was opened by an attendant.

Alicia was the first to step out.

The moment she appeared, she immediately drew the attention of everyone at the gate.

The arrival of the Saintess was massive news.

But then, when Lynn stepped out of the carriage, the atmosphere changed.

The looks of awe and admiration originally cast toward Alicia froze the instant they made contact with Lynn.

Then, an unspeakable sense of eeriness permeated the air.

The students entering and exiting the academy gates seemed to have their pause buttons pressed; they all stopped in their tracks.

Their gazes were like iron filings drawn to a magnet, converging uncontrollably on Lynn.

It was not mere admiration or curiosity.

It was a type of… hungry, naked possessiveness, as if they wanted to swallow him whole.

A chill ran down Lynn’s spine.

He remembered now.

To save himself some trouble and for a bit of fun, when he was modifying the character data, he had not just maxed out the possessiveness of the female protagonists.

He had also used a global script.

**[All (Female) Base Possessiveness: +30%]**

**[Protagonist Charm Value locked to “Radiance of Divinity”; Attraction toward the opposite sex corrected to MAX]**

At the time, he thought it would be very interesting if the protagonist walked into a Shura Field wherever he went.

Now, he was that protagonist.

“Interesting?”

‘This is freaking hell!’