Draekon's eyes followed the two figures walking together across the plaza—a short young man in an academy uniform and a tall, strikingly beautiful woman with jet-black hair.

He watched for a moment longer.

Then his gaze shifted back to the orientation program pamphlet in his hands.

Agni.

Prince Agni of the Sun Empire.

Alive.

Here.

Walking. Breathing. Talking to Lyralei Valen like it's the most normal thing in the world.

Draekon's expression remained perfectly stoic—the calm, confident smile of a Hero greeting his first day at the legendary Aethermoor Academy.

Inside, his mind was racing.

This is the first butterfly effect.

The first real deviation from the plot.

In all eighteen years since I came into this world... this is the first time something has gone completely off-script.

He'd died on Earth.

Stupid, meaningless death. A truck. Of all things, a truck. The universe's favorite method of involuntary isekai transportation.

One moment, Draekon—or rather, the ordinary 24-year-old office worker he'd been on Earth—was crossing the street while checking his phone. The next, there was the screech of brakes, a moment of terrifying impact, and then... nothing.

The next moment—pain, darkness, and then...

Light.

A baby's cry.

His own cry.

He'd been reborn in the world of Aethermoor—a gacha RPG game he'd spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours playing back on Earth. A fantasy world filled with magic, monsters, political intrigue, and—most importantly—heroines.

Beautiful, powerful, complex heroines with branching storylines, affection meters, and unlockable romance routes.

It was, in every sense of the word, a harem game.

And he'd been reincarnated as the protagonist.

The Hero.

Draekon of Dragon Valley.

Blessed with legendary power. Destined to save the world. Fated to gather allies (mostly attractive female allies) and forge bonds (romantic bonds, ideally) that would turn the tide against the encroaching darkness threatening all Nine Realms.

A perfect life, he'd thought at first.

Power. Adventure. A harem of heroines who actually like me. What more could I want?

But of course, it didn't go that way.

It never went that way.

Draekon's fingers tightened slightly on the pamphlet.

His expression didn't change. The soft, charismatic smile remained fixed in place. But his thoughts churned beneath the surface like a stormy sea.

Aethermoor Academy: Rise of Heroes. The game.

An RPG-gacha hybrid centered around the Hero saving the world.

It starts with entering the academy—also known as Chapter One.

He'd memorized every route. Every branching path. Every hidden quest and secret ending. He knew which dialogue choices increased affection. Which gifts each heroine preferred. Which side quests unlocked special scenes.

And one of the main heroines—one of the most important heroines—was Lyralei Valen.

SSR-rank.

The highest rarity.

A powerhouse mage-knight with ambition sharp enough to cut steel and beauty that could stop armies in their tracks. Her route was notoriously difficult—high-risk, high-reward. She was hard to seduce, harder to keep, and demanded constant attention and strategic choices.

But if you managed it?

If you helped her through the mid-game events and supported her ambitions?

By the end of the story, she became the Queen of the Human Realm—uniting both the Sun Empire and the Moon Empire under her banner. With her backing, the Hero would have the entire human race as an ally in the final battle.

In the original game, Lyralei's storyline had a specific starting condition:

Prince Agni dies before reaching the academy.

At first, the game just mentioned it in passing. "Prince Agni abandoned his royal duties and ventured into his own life," the early dialogue explained. Lyralei would mention him occasionally—always with disdain, always with relief that he was gone.

She didn't like him. Not one bit.

And honestly? The game made it pretty clear he was useless. A lazy, incompetent prince who'd rather sleep than rule.

But later—much later, in the mid-to-late game—the truth came out.

Agni hadn't abandoned anything.

He'd been assassinated.

Killed by a guild operating out of the Moon Empire. And that guild? Run by Prince Cassius himself.

The revelation triggered a massive war between the Sun and Moon Empires, and Lyralei used the chaos to consolidate power and eventually claim the throne.

Everything is different now.

With Agni alive, Lyralei won't have the same motivations. She won't be free to pursue power on her own terms. She'll be bound to him—politically, legally, socially.

She'll hover around him instead of around me.

Which means...

I lose access to an SSR-rank heroine.

I lose a critical ally for the endgame.

And who knows what other butterfly effects this will cause.

His jaw tightened imperceptibly.

This is going to make the game so much harder to clear.

═══════════════════════════════ 

STATUS WINDOW 

═══════════════════════════════

 Name: Draekon Ardent 

Race: Human 

Rank: SSR 

Level: 29 /100 

Mana Circuits: Level 5/9 

─────────────────────────────── 

CORE ATTRIBUTES 

─────────────────────────────── 

Physical Power: 72/100 [S]

Agility: 78/100 [S]

Intelligence: 94/100 [S]

Endurance: 75/100 [S]

Mana Capacity: 6/9 [SR]

Healing Factor: 5/9[A]

Charm: 98/100 [SSR]

Luck: 68/100 [B↓]

 ───────────────────────────────

 SKILLS & ABILITIES 

─────────────────────────────── 

????

????

⚔ Dragon's Bracelet [Rank: SSR] [Lv 7/9] 

⚔ Hero's Charisma [Rank: SSR] [Lv 8/9]

????

????

[ QUEST LOG ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Main: Survive the Academy Arc
Side: Build Harem [0/7] (FAILING)
Hidden: ???

Current Threat Level: UNKNOWN

Draekon sighed quietly and leaned back in his chair, trying to look casual rather than deeply concerned about the fundamental breakdown of everything he'd been planning for eighteen years.

Beside him, a young woman with light blue hair and striking black eyes sat with perfect posture, her attention focused on Professor Thornfield's opening remarks. Serina Frostwind—an SR-rank heroine a Genius of a Mage/Researcher.

"About time she showed up," Draekon thought with some relief. "At least not everything has gone completely off track."

Serina was supposed to be one of the earlier heroines the player could recruit, known for her brilliant theoretical work on magical acceleration techniques. In the game, she was shy but passionate about her research, and relatively easy to befriend if you showed genuine interest in her work.

"Well, let's do our best, I suppose," Draekon told himself. "I'll probably have to team up with Agni somehow. Work with what I've got instead of what I expected.

Draekon's gaze drifted across the hall toward where Prince Cassius sat with his entourage. The white-haired prince looked composed but irritated,.

The moment Draekon's eyes landed on Cassius's section, the woman sitting beside the prince suddenly stiffened. She had lustrous blue hair and piercing red eyes..

Draekon immediately looked away, refocusing on the stage.

"So snappy!" he thought. "I was barely looking in that direction, and she picked it up instantly."

The woman was Aria, Cassius's most trusted vassal and bodyguard—an SR-rank character in the game with incredible perception abilities. Her reaction made sense given her skillset, but it was still impressive.

"For an SR-grade character, she's extremely sensitive to observation," Draekon mused. "But then again, she's not an ordinary guardian but a vassal…

The murmur of student conversations around him provided useful information. Draekon had learned long ago that gossip was often more revealing than official statements.

"Did you see Prince Agni when he arrived?" a female student whispered to her friend two rows back.

"Compared to the Hero and Prince Cassius—compared to anyone, really—it was... bad? No, worse than bad. It was just trash," her friend replied with poorly concealed disgust. "I heard he arrived at the academy in rags and stinking like he hadn't bathed in weeks."

"I saw him too! I was shocked he'd show up looking like that. I thought it had to be someone else until I saw Lady Lyralei greet him personally."

"His entrance was remarkable in its own way, I suppose," another student chimed in with dark humor. "Remarkably terrible."

"Well, who's gonna say anything? He's still a prince. Even if people look down on him personally, they can't look down on whose shoulders he stands.


He glanced at Serina, who sat beside him with the same neutral, focused expression she'd maintained since sitting down. She clearly heard the gossip but chose not to engage with it—a wise choice in an environment where every word could be scrutinized.

"Lady Serina," Draekon said quietly, keeping his voice warm and friendly.

She startled slightly, turning to face him with wide eyes. "Y-yes?"

"I really enjoyed your theory on Thermal Acceleration Dynamics that you presented at the magic tower of light.. last year," he continued smoothly. "The idea of increasing spell casting speed through controlled heat manipulation was fascinating."

Serina's face went through several expressions in rapid succession—surprise, confusion, and then a touch of pink in her cheeks.

"How... how do you know about that?" she asked hesitantly. The presentation had been at a small academic gathering, not widely publicized.

"I live amongst dragons, remember?" Draekon smiled and demonstrated by releasing a small puff of fire from between his lips…

Serina's eyes went huge with alarm. "A-are you a dragon?!"

Draekon chuckled, the sound warm and reassuring. "Of course not. Just someone who's spent a lot of time in Dragon Valley learning from the best teachers available. Your work caught my attention because it challenges conventional assumptions about magical efficiency."

The blush on Serina's face deepened considerably. "T-thank you, Hero Draekon. That means a lot coming from someone of your caliber..."

[ RELATIONSHIP AFFINITY SYSTEM ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Serina Frostwind]
[💙] [■■■■■□□□□□] 50/100 - [Warming]
Status: [Heroine - SR Rank]
Last Interaction: [Praised her magical research]
Trend: [▲ Increasing]
Note: "He remembered my work... nobody important ever pays attention to my theoretical research."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"She's too kind-hearted," Draekon thought with satisfaction. "Easy to please if you show genuine interest. Getting her to maximum affinity will require following her personal storyline later chain strikes and what not, but this is a solid start. Keep your focus on me, genius researcher."

His internal monologue continued as he turned his attention back to the stage. "I'll find a way to work with the Lyralei situation later. For now, I need to focus on increasing affinity with all the other available heroines. Adapt to the changed timeline. Make new plans."

The Hero's face remained calm and confident, betraying none of the anxiety churning beneath the surface.

Meanwhile, across the hall...

A young woman with lustrous blue hair and sharp red eyes leaned in slightly toward the white-haired young man sitting beside her.

Her voice was barely a whisper.

"The Hero was staring at you, Prince."