The Glory Cael Magic Academy Dungeon.
A rushing underground river flowed along the rocky bank, while flickering firelight painted the surrounding stone walls a warm orange.
[Due to your willing degradation and the disgrace you have brought upon the family’s honor, the House of Sass has decided to expel you from our ranks effective immediately. Reflect on your worthlessness and repent, you good-for-nothing!]
“Damn it, disowned just because I skipped a few days of class? Guess I really am universally despised.”
Had this been the original Greg Sass, reading such a letter would have plunged him into utter despair, stripping him of his greatest pillar of support.
But the current Greg was different—he was a transmigrator.
After finishing the letter, Greg carelessly crumpled the envelope into a ball and tossed it into the nearby underground river. Then he washed the bloodstains from his hands, leftover from hunting magical beasts near the camp.
“Whatever. This family is destined to be wiped out by the mid-game anyway, so it doesn't matter whether they acknowledge me or not. Besides... whether I can even survive until the mid-game is a huge question mark!”
Internally, Greg was breaking down.
He couldn't fathom why, while playing through his eighty-first run of 《Do You Like a World Where You Can Happily Party Up Even as a Girl?》—a game built around cute girls being affectionate with each other—he had suddenly transmigrated into it.
Worse, he had ended up in the body of Greg Sass, the only male character in the original game with his own character sprites.
Lest there be any misunderstanding: the developers hadn't given him a character sprite out of favoritism. Quite the opposite—it was dripping with pure malice!
Handsome though he was, the developers had seemingly programmed a bizarre rule into the setting: the moment any significant female character laid eyes on him, she wouldn't be charmed in the slightest; instead, she would feel an inexplicable, deep-seated repulsion.
Consequently, despite being the only male character with a sprite, it was completely impossible for him to win any of the heroines' hearts.
And the developers' malice didn't stop there.
In a world overflowing with countless branching possibilities, Greg Sass alone was a doomed villain.
He possessed the single highest number of CGs in the game—a staggering 1,386—and 1,380 of them were of his gruesome, varied death CGs. Players aiming for a 100% completion rate had suffered endless agony back in the day.
If a newcomer had transmigrated into his shoes, they would have likely bought the farm in some bizarre way by now.
Fortunately, Greg was a seasoned veteran.
Having played through the original game eighty-one times, he knew there was only one place where Greg Sass didn't have a single death CG.
The dungeon.
In this world, dungeons were perilous domains. While they contained gems and items capable of strengthening magic, very few people ventured into them voluntarily.
As for Greg Sass, the classic villainous noble, he was even less inclined to set foot in one. Across every single route and every point in time, he had never entered a dungeon. Thus, the dungeon was the only place where no death CG awaited him.
The instant he realized he had transmigrated as Greg Sass, he sprinted straight out of the classroom mid-lecture, not stopping until he plunged deep into the dungeon.
“Thankfully, as a transmigrator, I come equipped with cheats. Otherwise, the moment I stepped onto the first layer, I’d have become his 1,387th death CG.”
After dumping the inedible magical beast carcasses into the river, Greg brought up his status panel for a look:
[Name: Greg Sass]
[Race: Human]
[Level: LV15]
[Constitution: 2 → 3]
[Agility: 2 → 3]
[Intelligence: 1 → 7]
[Charisma: 10 (?)]
[Willpower: 1 → 6]
[Luck: 10 (Black)]
“Yeah, no surprise there. Aside from Charisma, my base stats are purely small fry tier—and my Luck is even worse than a small fry's.”
What gave Greg relief were the talents listed below:
[Dungeon Explorer (Upgradable): When inside a dungeon, damage dealt to any entity is increased by 20%.]
[Praise the Dungeon (Upgradable): When inside a dungeon, your effective Luck value cannot drop below 0.]
[Dungeon's Charity (Upgradable): When inside a dungeon, experience gained is slightly increased.]
[Digestive Bacteria (Fixed): When killing an enemy inside a dungeon, there is a chance to acquire a random skill or skill fragment from that enemy.]
[? (Pending Activation)]
“The debt of gratitude I owe to Lord Dungeon can never be repaid!”
Greg couldn't help but sigh in appreciation once more.
Excluding the question mark, the other four active talents were not only absurdly overpowered in his eyes, but they also catered perfectly to his current needs!
Especially that fourth talent. Thanks to it, hunting magical beasts while surviving in the dungeon had granted him quite a few decent skills along the way:
[Acquired Skills: Whimpering LV3, Blunt Resistance LV2, Burrow LV1, Earth Magic Resistance LV2, Earth Magic Affinity LV1, Underwater Adaptation LV3, Water Magic Resistance LV2, Water Magic Affinity LV1, Freeze Resistance LV1]
These skills bolstered Greg's confidence in his ability to survive in the dungeon.
Admittedly, living conditions down here were brutally harsh.
However, as long as he held out until the heroine cleared the final boss and reached the grand finale, he could return to the surface without having to worry about any more death CGs, free to live his life however he pleased!
Thus, his primary objective right now was simple: figure out how to keep surviving down here.
“Still, I have no idea how far the plot has progressed.”
Because he had been in such a rush to evade death, aside from confirming that he had become Greg Sass, he knew next to nothing about the current storyline's timeline.
The only thing he was sure of was that the main plot had definitely begun. When he bolted from the lecture hall, he had caught a glimpse of the sign indicating it was a second-year classroom, meaning the story had already kicked off.
“Though I have to hand it to my family—tracking me down to the dungeon and even having a letter delivered here. As expected of villainous bosses who survive until the mid-game, their methods are genuinely impressive.”
After tidying up the camp, Greg stood up and walked over to the fire. While waiting for the meat to roast, he resumed jotting down notes in his Academy Dungeon Survival Guide (Diary).
His eyes scanned the previous entries:
Day 1: Starving, pitch-black, and my entire body aches terribly. Thankfully, with my cheats active, I can barely manage to hold on in the shallow layers of the dungeon's first layer. I have to keep working hard to survive, hehe.
Day 2: Found a natural cave today—an absolute godsend of a campsite! Monsters don't spawn here, the ground is solid rock, and I don't have to worry about Horned Rabbits ambushing me from underground. The only thing I need to watch out for is whatever monsters lurk in the adjacent underground river. I'll make this my permanent base.
Day 3: Gingerly scouted the Devil Flower territory. Just as recorded in the original game, once you figure out their weaknesses, even someone like me can take them down with ease. Better yet, I found chunks of rock salt in their nest, and their buds actually secrete a powder reminiscent of Sichuan peppercorn! My odds of survival just went up significantly!
Day 4: While clearing out magical beasts around camp, I noticed a party of three upperclassmen passing along the main road. I overheard them gloating about me. It seems news of my sudden disappearance has already spread across the academy, but judging from their conversation, whoever started those rumors is harboring nothing but ill intent.
“Time flies. Today's already the fifth day.”
Greg let out a soft sigh, setting pen to paper to chronicle today’s events.
Day 5: Received a letter expelling me from the family today, though for me, that's hardly bad news. More importantly, I spotted a pack of Goblins near the entrance connecting the shallow layers to the middle layers. Normally, they never appear in the shallow zone, making this exceptionally unusual. I wonder if it has anything to do with that upperclassman party that passed by earlier. Either way, to avoid unnecessary risks, it's best to steer completely clear of that area for the time being.
Having finished writing, he picked up a skewer of nearly roasted Horned Rabbit meat. Just as he was about to take a bite, a vaguely familiar female voice rang out from nearby:
“Silvia! Grab my hand, quick!”
“Pffft—?!”
Greg choked on his breath and whipped his head around, two beautiful figures instantly entering his line of sight.
Along a narrow ledge, a girl with long gray hair was lying flat on the stone, frantically reaching her hand toward the rushing underground river.
Down in the turbulent water, another girl with pink hair seemed to have had her leg ensnared by something. She was being pulled away from the riverbank, sinking deeper by the second.
“...Huh?!”
Greg's mind went blank for an instant.
If his memory served him right, the gray-haired girl just ahead was none other than the game's protagonist, Victoria.
And the pink-haired girl was Silvia, the Secondary Heroine.
What on earth were they doing here?
And what was this scene where Silvia looked like she was about to die on the spot?!
There was never anything like this in the game!!
Rate on N.U.
