Roaaaaaaaaar!
The thunderous sound of people yelling was the first thing I heard. What the hell was going on? I felt the warm air on my body, and the shine of the sun hitting my skin.
My eyes flickered open, the light from the surroundings rushed in. I had to shut my eyes again, slowly opening them until I could see. What I saw blew my mind.
I sat in a colosseum so grand it shook me. My eyes scanned the hundreds of seats that went in a circle, filled with people dressed in a way that was new to me.
No, I had seen those clothes before. The fantasy-style dressing, the gowns the women wore, and the simple shirts and trousers of the men accompanied by their boots.
What was this fantasy setting I was looking at, and how had I come here? My mind raged with questions. I looked to my side and noticed that there were kids no more than fourteen seated beside me, all dressed in a similar uniform, a white suit-like coat with black trims.
I knew that design. I had seen it a thousand times, I could draw that design with my eyes closed. It was the uniform of the prestigious academy of magic and martial arts, the Lumeria Academy.
What was the Lumeria Academy? It was the freaking place where the majority of the game I loved happened, Tale of the Failed Heroines.
If this was the uniform, then I was currently sitting in the academy arena, and this was definitely the first day of the new session where all the students were welcomed.
Everything seemed so unreal to me. Had I started hallucinating because of playing the game a bit too much? That had to be it, right? No, it wasn't. I was living in reality, and I knew that because I could feel the air rushing down my lungs, I could see the arena, and I could smell some dude that had definitely eaten one too many cheese-related foods and was behind me.
Yet still I didn't want to believe that I was here. That wasn't possible. It was a game, nothing more than a game created by a team of developers somewhere.
I kept telling myself that until a man took the arena, dressed in a black coat that went down to his ankles. White hair and fancy silver glasses.
His name was Legion, a teacher in the academy. He was the one who handled the welcoming of students into the academy on the first day. That was exactly what the game had said.
Seeing him standing there solidified my belief that this was in no way a hallucination. I had somehow entered the game that I had played for two years.
I didn't know how to feel about it, but I knew I was confused. I needed air, space to breathe. I looked around, but there was no way to leave. The entire arena was filled with students from the academy, parents, and anyone who wanted to watch.
Trapped there, I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. One step at a time, I would get through all of this. I had somehow entered the game that I loved, so the next question that I should ask was which character I was.
I looked at my palm. I could tell that these weren't my hands from Earth. My hands were bigger than this for sure. This skin also looked all too pale. Had this body never been through hard work? Or suffered a paper cut?
It was like a baby's. It was kinda off-putting to see such clean and flawless skin. Still, I deduced that I was in a younger body. As for my face, I had no memory of it.
Yes, I didn't have a single memory of the body I was in. It made no sense at all, but even as I tried to find some information about this body, I found nothing. I couldn't even recall how I got to the academy, or who I was.
The only thing I could remember was a name. It kept ringing in my head on repeat.
"Leo," I muttered. Was it my name? It probably was.
That was the only information that I knew of myself currently. If I wanted to understand myself more, I needed to know more. I slowly dug through the pockets of the coat. My fingers felt a key. I pulled it out and there was a tag on it.
(Beta Hall room 12)
It was a room key, probably my room key. It wasn't much, but I took what I got. It was more information about who I was.
"Good day everyone and welcome to the entrance ceremony of the Lumeria Academy, one of Vermillion Kingdom's greatest academies.
Today, many young students with great potential will be starting their four-year journey to the top. They'll be aspiring to graduate and make the kingdom a better place."
Legion started speaking. His voice was amplified through some sort of magic. I looked at him with no particular thought in mind. Regardless of the fact that this was a real-life version, I had lived through this many times already. I knew what would happen every time, and now, he would be talking about the top students that scored the highest in the exam.
He was about to speak again and call the top students, but then a loud bell sound rang in my ear.
Ding.
[System synchronization complete]
[Core mission: Save the heroines]