The Saint Freya Academy was an educational institution with centuries of history to it. It was located at the heart of the Country of Scholars, Brolne.
The term ‘Freya’ came from the Ancient Austine Empire’s ‘Freyja’, who was known as the Goddess of Knowledge and Truth. She had many believers in the Ancient Austine Empire, and it was rumored that the Wisdom Origin Attribute actually originated from her. Back in the Second Epoch, all academies would have Freyja’s sculpture erected at their entrance, and interestingly, she assumed the image of a severe man back then.
This was similar to how the Goddess of Mercy transformed from a man to a woman over time in his previous life. Hardly anyone had seen the gods before, and the transmission of information tended to be slow and unreliable in this mostly unglobalized world. On top of that, far too many books and cultural information had been lost during the migration at the end of the Second Epoch, resulting in some discrepancies in information here and there.
There was a huge scholastic debate in the earlier years of the Third Epoch over whether gods had gender or not—in Roel’s view, the argument was really as useful as arguing whether gods had buttholes or not—but this detail did mean a lot to the believers back then.
After a long, long debate, old man Freyja was finally tossed into the rubbish bin, and in his place rose the beautiful Freya, the Goddess of Knowledge and Truth. At least that was how it was in the Country of Scholars.
To be frank, Roel had an inkling suspicion that those old scholars had been single for far too long, such that they didn’t even want to worship a man as their god anymore. Putting that aside, the fact that the Country of Scholars was willing to use the name of a god for the academy as a billboard showed how much they valued this educational institute.
Saint Freya Academy stood at very top of the pyramid, granting prestige and recognition to anyone who graduated from it. It was almost like Harvard or Oxford in his previous life.
Pratically all high nobles of major countries had graduated from this institution, such as Roel’s father, Carter. It was also in this place, where the most powerful and brilliant youths of the world were gathered at, that the curtains on Eyes of the Chronicler was drawn.
To date, Roel had done a pretty good job at plucking out his flags. The Ascart Fiefdom had been steadily growing under his care, and he should have managed to avert any bad endings that would have occurred with Alicia, Nora, and Charlotte, turning them into his allies even.
Of the four capture targets, three were already on his side, so the ‘lynching team’ who managed to bring about his downfall in the game had pretty much collapsed by now. Nevertheless, this didn’t meant that Roel’s guard was down yet.
Of the four capture targets, if Nora was the most aggressive one, Alicia was the most impactful one, and Charlotte was a milder, supportive one, then the final capture target, Lilian Ackermann, should be evaluated as the most troublesome one.
Indeed, the princess of the Austine Empire was the final culprit who brought about Roel’s death in Eyes of the Chroncler.
Roel’s knowledge about Lilian was severely lacking, losing out to even that of Charlotte’s. However, there was one aspect about her that had caught all of the players’ attention back then, and that was her identity.
Lilian was an Ackermann too, which made her the elder sister of the illegitimate son, Paul Ackermann. Half-siblings they might be, but that didn’t change the fact that they had direct blood relations. Such a character shouldn’t have become a capture target, or else it would have been incest.
Of course, games always had their ways to circumvent that issue.
In truth, the two of them weren’t of the same bloodline, and the one who was ‘fake’ here was likely to be Paul. There was simply no way the emperor would allow himself to be cuckolded by the empress, so it was impossible for Lilian to have falsified her identity as their daughter.
As a country whose values had been warped by the bloodline purists, they were extremely fastidious when it came to legitimacy.
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Whenever a prince or a princess was born, they would be put through a magic tool to have their bloodline checked. Even if a person somehow managed to fool the magic tool, they would still be exposed eventually when it was found that they couldn’t activate the many tools of the Ackermann Imperial Family that required the imperial bloodline as a medium. Considering that Lilian had already lived in the Austine Empire for more than a decade now, she would have already been exposed by now if she was a fake.
This meant that the one whose identity ought to be questioned was Paul Ackermann, who only stayed in the Austine Empire for a short moment before being sent to the Country of Scholars to study.
But again, it wasn’t right to say that Paul was a fake Ackermann either as several details in the plotline wouldn’t make sense. That was also why Roel, whose memories were mostly limited to the common route, was confused over this fiasco too. Most of these secrets would probably only be uncovered if the player unlocked Lilian’s route.
Putting aside the secret identities, there was another matter which Roel was particularly concerned about. For some reason, Lilian Ackermann was extremely hostile toward Roel Ascart right from the start of the game, even before he was revealed to be an evil cultist..
Even till now, Roel wasn’t sure what the reason behind that was. He thought that it could be because Lilian keenly noticed Roel’s anomaly but didn’t have enough evidence to work against him. That would be the most optimistic situation of all since there was no way Roel would join an evil cult now that he already had his own army.
“So… all’s fine, right?”
Roel blinked his eyes contemplatively before deciding to think positively. If his deduction was right, he wouldn’t even have to bother with Lilian’s flag at all.
In the first place, there was no way so many people in the world would be so deeply prejudiced toward him like Charlotte at the start. In fact, even in Charlotte’s case, her strong feeling mainly arose from the unexpected engagement contract between them, but Lilian was far away in the Austine Empire. It was impossible for there to be any connection between them.
“Ahh, I’m really thinking too much into it.”
Roel heaved a long sigh of relief before revealing a ‘what a wondrous world we live in’ expression.
As expected of me. I’ve fulfilled all my goals even before entering the academy.
With such thoughts in mind, Roel straightened his body and took a sip off the teacup gracefully.
While I have managed to overcome most of my death flags in the game by now, I still shouldn’t act carelessly. The events in the academy reflects only the problems faced by the former Roel; there are still more pressing issues I have to deal with, such as finding ‘Academic’.
Having decided on his goal, Roel put down his teacup and gazed out of the window to look at the sternfaced mercenaries marching in a formation outside the window. Then, he turned his attention back to the interiors of the carriage, where he was all alone without any maids or anyone else. All of a sudden, he felt a little uncomfortable.
“Is the loneliness of traveling alone? Ahh, I guess I should get used to this soon,” remarked Roel as he subconsciously rubbed his lips.