"New Dawn Academy" starts off with a prologue detailing the final semester of Wendy's high school career, going into detail about her family and friends, but mostly focusing on her eventual admission to the academy.
The series of events leading to Wendy coming to the testing grounds I currently stood upon was what most would expect out of the otome game genre. Living a frugal and average life, the main character is bullied for her appearance and popularity by her peers, their jealousy leads her to live in solitude, save for her best friend who always supported her.
Despite her sorrow though, she hides her pain from her father, a widower who has raised Wendy alone since she was at the age of 3, not wanting to burden him with her troubles.
But suddenly, tragedy strikes! Her bullies go too far and her best friend, trying to protect Wendy, is struck by magic!!!
In anger and rage, Wendy felt a surge of power! It turned out Wendy secretly had a broken trait, which she used to defeat her bullies, save her friend and get her revenge!!!
Of course, the entirety of those events were viewed by a scout from the academy, who promptly offered Wendy a scholarship to New Dawn Academy, starting the true start of the game.
Taking the once-in-a-lifetime chance, Wendy came to the testing grounds of the academy to change her fate and make a better future for herself and her father.
That is when she met Damien Belmond, a prince of the very kingdom she was a citizen of, the inciting incident of NDA that would lead to a series of triumphs, failures, battles and tragedies for the young girl.
I walked around and saw the various youths waiting in a long line leading to a large medieval building, some excited, others hopeful, but most anxious. There was only one chance for a person to join New Dawn Academy, and that was at the age of 18, any older and the balance of one's mind, body and soul stats would already be solidified. Any younger and it would simply be too early to tell if a student had talent, a large majority of traits didn't show until someone was 18.
So, as these students were met with their only chance to make something of their future, not to live the average life of a commoner but perhaps become a graduate of the academy and maybe join the nobility of the world, many prayed, they knelt on the ground, pressing their hands together as tight as possible and stared into the sky.
But sadly, I knew that many of their prayers would be met with silence. And that few if any would realize their dreams. It was just that admission rates for commoners to any academy, not just New Dawn, were low. Even calling them low was a compliment, of the hundreds joining the academy every year, the number of commoners amounted to just 10 per cent. But this wasn't without reason.
Nobility in this world was not just a class system, but a symbol of strength. There was a reason why a civilisation so advanced was still a monarchy. Each class a person could attain is categorised into the separate rankings of nobility.
From Commoner to Duke, the more powerful a person's class, the higher level their ranking in the kingdom was. My current class "Peon" would definitely be categorised as a Commoner-Ranking class, while the "Divine Swordsman" class I used for my last playthrough was a Duke-ranking class.
And in this world, Blood was much thicker than water, the stronger a person was, the stronger their children would be. Of course, there were exceptions, William being a good example, despite being the son of a duke, he started the game off with a Commoner ranked class.
So knowing everything I did, I could only feel pity for many of the teens in front of me, I knew none of them would likely fulfil their goal of joining the academy. Save for 3 people I spotted on sight when I arrived.
The first was Sam Rund, he was a side character who could be recruited in the game, there wasn't anything of note about him other than maybe that he was a commoner. He had good traits but was limited by his poor stats. I felt sorry to say that he was the least important of the 3 people I recognised
The second was Ava Dustin, the best friend of Wendy Heartseeker and the person I had paid the most attention to when I noticed her. I scanned her surroundings hoping for a bush of purple hair to pop out behind her, after a good 10 minutes I had to admit, Wendy hadn't come.
"Damn, Is she really taking that oath of solitude seriously?"
In the original setting of the game, Wendy should have come here with Ava to take the admission test with the recommendation she received from the scout. Instead, Ava sat on a bench alone, staring at her phone, seeming slightly lost. It looked as though Wendy might've not even told Ava where she had gone.
I scratched the back of my neck with a sigh, of the 3 possible places Wendy could've been, I had to admit this was the most unlikely.
There was never a guarantee that Damien was her lover before she regressed and even if she still wanted to meet him, she could easily do so in the future at the academy, there was still a month before admissions closed after all, today wasn't her only chance.
But the fact that she hadn't come created a few issues I didn't know how to deal with. While Ava was mainly just a side character for the latter half of the game, she was fairly important during its early chapters. She was Wendy's support both in the story and in combat, having high charisma and faith stats.
She was a good character with high combat value, but she never initially intended to join the Academy, only taking the admission test with Wendy so she wouldn't be alone only to be surprised to find out she passed the test also.
There was a chance she would still take the test later when Wendy did, but knowing that Wendy had taken an oath of solitude I doubted she would bring her along during that time.
What to do? I snapped my fingers as I thought to myself, a small habit of mine.
Ava's admission wasn't necessary to the story but her addition to the story was one I welcomed.
I paced my steps and made my way to the bench she sat on, fixing my hair in an attempt to look my best. Before long, I had come in front of a short girl with green eyes and a brown ponytail, Ava had an annoyed expression as she tabbed impatiently on her phone.
"Excuse me, Is it alright if I take this seat?"
Ava moved her eyes upward to look at me, the tiny crease in her eyebrows becoming slightly bigger.
"Not Interested."
...
Huh?