As Matthew reached his room, he spotted a small package resting in front of his door.
He picked up the package and stepped into his room.
"Hmm... let's see what's inside," he murmured to himself.
Carefully, he unwrapped the package to reveal a dark black book adorned with a skull motif.
Without hesitation, he flipped open the cover.
His eyes widened in surprise as he realized the text wasn't in any ordinary language, but rather the same language spoken by the mysterious woman.
The passive skill [All-Rounder] is taking effect...
In an instant, he found himself understanding the ancient Greek text without any difficulty.
"Ancient Greek...?" Matthew exclaimed.
"Mhm... maybe those constellations have something to do with the ancient Greek civilization?" Matthew wondered.
After all, there are thousands of novels where people do indeed use the ancient Greek culture as constellations.
Especially in Korean novels.
Looking at the book in his hands, Matthew started reading it...
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"...What am I doing here?"
Currently, Matthew found himself in the middle of a trip to another country.
He fell asleep during the first class after returning to Class A, and then he found himself on a bus.
"Oh... You're finally awake...!" A familiar voice reached his ears.
He turned to his right and found Stacy looking at him with a faint smile on her delicate face.
He blinked twice before asking, "Where are we?"
"Oh, right. You were sleeping through class. Haaaaaa... you should stop doing that, you are missing a ton of materials that are going to fall on the midterms!" Stacy scolded him.
"...Who was ranked first on the entrance exam?"
"First...? I think it was a student called Matthe—Still, that isn't a reason to be sleeping during class!"
"Yeah, yeah... why do you even care?" Matthew sleepily inquired.
He didn't notice the way he was talking to Stacy, but they were surely having a friendly exchange...
"T-that... that's... none of your concern!" She looked away from him.
"Oh, yeah? Then, why are you even talking to me?"
"A-ah... uhm... haa... eh..." Stacy was speechless and didn't know what to say after Matthew spoke.
'...Alright, let's just... create a reason!' She said inwardly.
"The church told me to watch over you! So, during this trip and the rest of the academy's years, I'll be watching over you!" She exclaimed.
Hearing her words, Matthew sighed.
"Does that mean you're basically going to hang out with me during all the academy's years?" He poised.
"Exactly...Wait! Not... really? Nevermind, I only need to keep you under my eyes." She shook her head before speaking.
"Ohh... cool, cool..." Matthew yawned before looking through the window.
He could see a really tall building and then frowned upon seeing a huge building saying, "Hero Association.".
And that made him remember the prologue of the novel.
Three thousand years ago...
The world was peaceful; there were no wars, and nobody wanted to rule over the others. It was simple yet peaceful.
But all of that changed when a strange panel appeared before everyone.
When that same panel started, a few portals started appearing over the entire world, and people got curious and entered them.
As they entered, a few people also kept waiting for them to come back; and as they came back, they were all very happy.
They told the other how they got very strong and had strange powers, and then, as all the portals were closed, another panel appeared in the sky.
[Deus is watching over the world.]
With that same phrase, people started driving themselves crazy to get more power, because, they knew that this power was granted to them.
And if the power giver was watching over them, they all had a single thought on their minds.
If I can make Deus happy or excited, will they give me more powers and make me stronger?
All of them had the same thought.
And because of that, that same peaceful yet simple world turned into huge chaos.
From that chaos, heroes and villains were born, diving the entire world into two factions, the "Hero Association" and the Villains.
Here, something like a "Villain Association" doesn't exist; if they want to become a villain or a hero, that just depends on that same person's goals or thoughts.
And that's the reason the church's focus is now on Matthew.
He's got a class that is directly related to "Evil", but whether Matthew will become a Villain or not, it entirely depends on himself.
'But... why would they send Stacy, the apostle of light, to watch over me? That's quite fishy...'
'They wouldn't send a newbie, and the strongest position on church is someone to watch over other people.'
'Do they think that Stacy can actually overpower me?' Matthew chuckled inwardly.
There was no way that Stacy could actually defeat him...
...right?
'Well... she's still the protagonist, and the person who holds the "fate" of the entire world.'
'So... yeah. If she suddenly gets stronger than me, that wouldn't be a surprise.' Matthew thought.
He was just being realistic, but of course, he wouldn't let Stacy become stronger than him.
But, Stacy is literally a 'singularity' that nobody will be able to control. So, there's a pretty high chance.
And just to make it worse, Matthew now has reached a "chapter" he didn't read, or just the rest of the chapters that he didn't read.
Now, his knowledge is very limited, and he can't interfere with more opportunities for the system to give him rewards.
And speaking about the system; Matthew doesn't exactly know what he does.
There's only a modified status window that he can see, and random quests that suddenly appear.
'Oh... I should check my status...' Matthew opened his status window.
He didn't check it after receiving his class.
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[Status Info]
Name: Matthew (18)
Class: [Prince of Darkness]
Student Rank: 1000th
~~~Attributes~~~
Spades's Paradox—E+ Rank
Magic—F+ Rank (2nd-Circle)
Physique—F Rank
Intelligence: 17.82
Charisma: 29.99
~~~Traits/Skills/Equipment~~~
Traits:
— [Real Genius], [Swordmanship Intermediate], [Mana Genius]
Skills:
— [Desperation—Lv2]
Equipment:
— [Goddess Of Luck's Necklace (Rank: ???)], [Nameless Sword (Rank: F)]
[End]
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'Mhn... It seems that my awakening was a bit strong and I could even reach the later stage of F Rank on my Magic.'
'Probably due to my two mana circles... and talking about it, I should be able to condense my third one...'
'If I'm not wrong... the classes should go from F- to S rank. Strangely, there's no such thing as SS rank or anything like that.'
'There's only S-, S, S+ and S++, which is quite weird since normally, you would go to SS and then SSS, and that should be epitome where, after you break the last barrier, you become a constellation.'
'And that's even more weird! Especially, since there's SS and SSS rank on the grade of people's class.'
'Maybe... if they break the S++ barrier, they become a constellation directly?'
'Well whatever...Finally... it seems that the true name of that red energy was "Spades' Paradox"...'
'On the book that Roxanne gave me, I actually gathered a lot of information. And the origin of this energy.'
'It comes from the constellation named "Goddess of Night", and it's the most destructive power between all the constellations.'
"So... the Goddess of Night is one of the constellations that should be watching over me... and the other one, I don't know..." Matthew unconsciously mumbled.
"Maybe... her husband or something?"
⋘ The Goddess of Night shooks her head upon hearing your words. ⋙
"Huh!?" Matthew exclaimed as he saw a strange panel, completely different from his system, appear in front of his eyes.
"Did something happen?" Stacy asked as she saw Matthew strangely looking forward.
'His pupils are contracting and expanding... that's weird. There isn't anything in front of him, how come it appears that he's reading something?' Stacy frowned lightly.
Matthew was literally looking at thin air, and from his expression, it appeared that he was reading something.
But, there wasn't anything in front of him, and that made Stacy quite confused.
"Ah... it's nothing." Matthew instantly shrugged her away.
"I didn't know that constellation could actually talk with humans..." Matthew mumbled.
⋘ The Goddess of Night says, "We can, but most of us aren't interested in interaction with weak ants such as your people". ⋙
"My people...?"
⋘ The Goddess of Night replies, "All the mortals in the entire human world, except you.". ⋙
"Oh... thanks, I guess?"
⋘ The Goddess of Night says, "No problem, my child. You should quickly get stronger so I can finally meet you face-to-face..." ⋙
"I'm already doing my best." Matthew sighed deeply.
Honestly, the moment Matthew saw the novel, it had only about 65 chapters or so, but the comments had already said that Stacy was already a B-Rank Hero.
So, Matthew should be able to get stronger fast.
Or not... because, Stacy probably got strong so fast because of the countless opportunies that appear in front of her.
⋘ The Goddess of Night smiles, "By the way, did you like my gift? It currently doesn't have many functions, but I think it helped you a lot!". ⋙
"Gift... functions...?" Matthew's eyes widened upon realizing.
"The system came from you...?"
⋘ The Goddess of Night replies, "Exactly! Unfortunately, I won't be able to grant you more functions because my power is quite limited in the human world. But! I'll keep giving you quests that contain rewards! There's only one problem... To trigger a quest, you should be in a place where there's an immense aura of 'Luck', so it's going to be a bit rare...". ⋙
"So... if I found a place that contains a lot of luck, you'll be able to give me quests?" Matthew asked to confirm.
⋘ The Goddess of Night replies, "Basically.". ⋙
Hearing the constellations' words, Matthew smiled deeply as he looked at Stacy who was currently looking at the landscape.
However... something hitted him deeply as he frowned deeply.
"Wait... Doesn't that mean... that you know that this world is a mere nove—!"
Pop!
[⋘ The Goddess of Night smiles at you. ⋙]
[⋘ "I know everything about you Matthew. I've witnessed everything you went through, past or current life." ⋙]
[⋘ "My child, I'll be always watching over you... Awaiting for the time that I can finally meet you, talk to you, feel you... ⋙]
[⋘ "I'll be always waiting... So, do me a favor and quickly get stronger, okay? I think I've already waited a ton of time." ⋙]
Looking at the panel in front of him, time seemed to have frozen for him...
Matthew was silent as he looked at the panel.
"Does that mean that you brought me here?"