Vain - Chapter 61 Unforeseen Changes

After missing the first day of classes, Aileene had to quickly catch up with learning her new schedule. It was fortunate that she didn’t actually miss important lessons. And even with the schedule learning, she had Lucian, who had transferred to have the same schedule as her. So if she was really lost, she could just follow him. They were practically inseparable these days and her heart was warm. As she thought of her new academy life, she subconsciously smiled, as she propped her chin onto her hand. It was the first class of the day which was Literature. It was a basic class and it just built on the foundations that she had already learned through her tutors all her life. So she was free to ignore it.

Well, she was free to ignore any class. She was created by the world system after all, and she was knowledgeable in all aspects. She had been knowledgeable since she was little. But to be discreet, she could only pretend to have to learn everything again. It wasn’t too bad for her though, the lessons weren’t too boring. The only one she really hated was the etiquette lessons, there were just too many constraints. She could perform perfect etiquette, but she would rather not. This was another reason why she was envious of the real world outside of the game. From what she knows, the world was modern and people were free to do as they wished. There wasn’t even much of a hierarchy.

But that was a hopeless cause that she didn’t even want to pursue. Aileene would rather stay here for as long as she could. She shifted her head slightly to catch Lucian’s in her eyes. She watched him take quick and detailed notes whenever the professor made a point. His hair would fall over his face every time he bent down and when he raised his head he would have an unbreakable concentration in his eyes.

Lucian felt eyes on him and turned to see Aileene closely watching his movements. He smiled and made eye contact with her. She blushed and turn away, to continue taking her notes. Her page wasn’t even as detailed as his. Since she had been too busy day-dreaming. She couldn’t help but sigh at herself. These days she had really been too dazed, there was part of her that didn’t believe that she could still be so happy and there was a part of her that berated herself for being too selfish.

A small noise of surprise escaped her lips, Lucian had subtly pulled her to his side by holding her waist. Aileene sighed internally this time, how could she berate herself when even this little move could make her so happy.

❅

A week of the school year has passed by and its unforeseen changes caught her off guard. It wasn’t very major things in the beginning. It was just something little, something that she wouldn’t even normally notice if she wasn’t paying close attention.

The Vain that she was showed and the Vain that she thought she knew was nowhere as calm as it was now. The academy school year was calm and the students mostly kept to themselves. There were cliques and there were some that vied for attention from the capture targets. But most students were busy with their own school life. So it wasn’t like in the game, where there seemed to always be tension between the heroine and the rest of the school. Since she had stolen away their capture targets. But this was something that she should have noticed in the beginning.

After all, she was one of those girls that stole a capture target from the rest of the school. Lucian was always with her and spent the most time with her. She hadn’t even seen him around another person the whole week they had been together. Which was strange.

Wasn’t the heroine supposed to attract all the capture targets to her? Even though the players were able to choose the target that they wanted to go after, the heroine would still be in a friend group surrounded by all the other targets. That had even been the basis for her previous plan. She was going to infiltrate the group and use their connection to further her goals. But even if her plans had to change the friendship that the heroine would be able to make wouldn’t change?

At least, if Lucian was an anomaly because of her. Then all the other targets should still be in the room. But every class she had with Cielo, she could only see Edmund around her. That was a given though, the two of them were childhood friends. So they were always together. The ones missing from the group was Francis and Seti. All of them were supposed to have met during the month before school started. But it seemed that they were all separated.

This was a bit beyond reason, but she could top it up to some malfunction in the code of the world. Except that wasn’t the end of it, some stranger things started happening.

She had told herself to ignore the ongoing plot of Vain, though the world system was no longer here. The world was programmed a certain way and it wasn’t easy for it to change. The characters would remain the same out of her scope of influence. The game events would remain the same. And the more central a character, the harder for them to change. It was even a surprise to her that her little interaction with Lucian could break him out of his mold in being a capture target.

There was no need for her to be surprised though, it wasn’t difficult for things to change at all. Characters she hadn’t said more than a line too changed so much. That every bit of knowledge that the system had fed her was useless.

Each and every character in Vain was with someone that they weren’t supposed to be with.

Cielo and Edmund, Aileene and Lucian.

Xi and Francis, Kira and Seti.

Even their personalities changed unreasonably.

Cielo was still Cielo, but she seemed to display open affection to Edmund. Something she had never done before.

Edmund was still Edmund, but due to Cielo’s teasing was becoming more tsun by the day.

Francis wasn’t cold, rather he was shameless. With no prompt and straight refusal, he dared follow Xi around and stick himself to her.

Xi, a bully, and an intolerable person was actually dignified. She just wanted some peace and time alone, but she constantly has to face Francis.

Seti was still a workaholic, but he wasn’t supposed to have an interest in anyone. But Kira was an exception.

Kira, a shy and nervous girl was actually very expressive and self-assured.

Aileene had felt somewhat that she and Lucian were out of character. But it seemed that they were the tamest out of everyone else.

This was only the little bit of information that she was able to gather, she hadn’t even interacted with any of the characters—any of them yet. There might still be a greater surprise for her. But at that point, Aileene wasn’t sure if she would still be surprised. She’d just welcome these changes, they were for the better. In her opinion, if they were able to finally achieve some sort of peace, after all this time, it would be for the best.

Maybe these changes were meant to so in the beginning.

Maybe the system was the outliner that changed everything.