Chapter 8: Timeline Corruption

"So... how is he alive?"

Hero Draekon Ardent stared across the massive orientation hall at the two figures walking together toward their seats—Prince Agni, still looking half-asleep despite being cleaned up, and Lyralei Valen, who moved with the grace of a predator escorting particularly troublesome prey.

Draekon's brilliant blue eyes tracked them for a moment longer before deliberately shifting his gaze to the stage where Professor Marcus Thornfield was preparing his welcoming speech. To anyone watching, the Hero appeared politely attentive, his posture relaxed and confident.

Inside his mind, chaos reigned.

"Agni marks the first butterfly effect since the day I arrived in this world," he thought grimly. "Eighteen years. Eighteen years of living in this reality, and everything had followed the script perfectly. Until now."

It had been a truck, of all the cliché ways to die.

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.

Except it wasn't nothing.

He'd woken up as a newborn in a world that felt hauntingly familiar. It took years before he understood why—this was the world of "Aethermoor Academy: Rise of Heroes," the gacha RPG he'd been obsessively playing before his death.

His ordinary life had transformed overnight into something extraordinary. The power of a Hero, legendary abilities, and the potential to build a harem of beautiful and talented heroines while saving the world from the inevitable Demon King invasion. It was like every reincarnation fantasy made real.

But of course, nothing ever went exactly according to plan.

"Especially not now," Draekon thought, maintaining his stoic expression even as his mind raced.

Aethermoor Academy was the starting point—Chapter One of the game's storyline. The Hero arrives at the prestigious academy where all races gather to learn magic and combat, meets the various heroines, builds relationships through dialogue choices and gift-giving, and gradually forms the party that would eventually save the world.

It was supposed to be straightforward. Formulaic, even.

One of the main heroines was Lyralei Valen—an SSR-rank character, the highest rarity in the game's gacha system. In the original plot, she's supposed to be married to Prince Agni of the Luminous Empire.

Key word: supposed to be.

Because in the game's timeline, Prince Agni dies before ever reaching the academy.

"He gets killed by assassins sent by Prince Cassius of the Ivory Crown Empire," Draekon recalled the game's lore. "The player never actually witnesses it—the death is only mentioned through dialogue with Lyralei, who doesn't seem to like him very much. She's actually relieved by his death, which frees her from the marriage arrangement."

With Agni dead, Lyralei becomes available as a romance option. She joins the Hero's party, her incredible combat abilities proving invaluable throughout the mid-game content.

Lyralei's storyline was a high-risk, high-reward route. She was extremely difficult to seduce—her affinity requirements were brutal, and one wrong dialogue choice could lock you out of her route permanently. But if you managed to win her over and help her through the mid-game political arcs, then by the endgame, she would become the actual Queen of the Luminous Empire.

And having an SSR-rank heroine who ruled half the human territories as your ally? That basically let you smash through the final chapters without breaking a sweat.

Of course, that route also meant eventually facing down both the Luminous Empire and the Ivory Crown Empire as enemies before reconciling with them for the final battle. It was complicated, but worth it for the payoff.

It was a well-written character arc. Popular with players. Draekon had maxed out her affinity in three different playthroughs.

But now Agni was alive.

Sitting in this very hall.

Looking bored and half-asleep, but very much not dead.

"How does this change everything?" Draekon's thoughts spiraled. "With Agni alive, Lyralei will stay close to him out of obligation. She was supposed to be a main heroine and ally to me—the Hero. But now she'll be hovering around her fiancé instead."

The implications were staggering. Without one of the game's strongest SSR-rank characters, clearing the upcoming challenges would become exponentially harder. And this was just the first butterfly effect—who knew what other changes would cascade from this single divergence?

"It's gonna be painful," he admitted silently. "Trying to complete the game scenario without key heroines..."

Draekon discretely opened his status window—something only he could see, a remnant of the game system that had somehow carried over into this reality.

╔══════════════════════════════╗
║ HERO SYSTEM ║
╚══════════════════════════════╝

[ Player: DRAEKON ARDENT ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Race: Human (Dragon Lineage)
Class: Hero [Legendary]
Level: 29 | Rank: SSR
Mana Circuits: 5

[ ATTRIBUTES ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
STR: 87/100 [A+]
AGI: 82/100 [A]
INT: 95/100 [S]
END: 85/100 [A]
CHR: 98/100 [SSR]
LUK: 68/100 [B↓]

[ ACTIVE SKILLS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⚔ Stormflame Breath [S-Rank]
🛡 Dragon's Aegis Bracelet [SSR-Rank]
🌲 Dragon Valley Fieldcraft [A-Rank]
👑 Hero's Charisma [SSR-Rank]

[ PASSIVE ABILITIES ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📖 Game Knowledge [EX]
👑 The Hero [EX]

[ NOTIFICATIONS ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⚠ WARNING: Timeline Corruption
⚠ Unknown Factor Detected: "Agni"
⚠ Butterfly Effect: ACTIVE
⚠ Original Route: BLOCKED

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

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current Threat Level: UNKNOWN

╚══════════════════════════════╝

The red warnings pulsed at the bottom of his vision, impossible to ignore. Timeline Corruption. Butterfly Effect Active. Original Route Blocked.

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."

But the question still nagged at him: How the hell did Agni survive the assassination attempt? Or did Cassius not send the assassins in this timeline?

Draekon's gaze drifted across the hall toward where Prince Cassius of the Ivory Crown Empire sat with his entourage. The white-haired prince looked composed but irritated, probably still annoyed about being upstaged during their entrances.

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 that snapped toward Draekon's position with startling accuracy, as if she'd sensed his gaze from across the crowded hall.

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 vassal. If the rumors in the game were true, she's connected to something much darker..."

Still, no major incidents had occurred yet. If Aria or her organization had made any real moves, the entire academy would have been in an uproar by now.

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. The Luminous Empire isn't something you can just insult openly."

Draekon listened carefully while maintaining a neutral expression. "So they're talking about Agni's entrance in rags rather than death rumors," he noted. "That means the assassination either didn't happen, failed completely, or was covered up so well that even academy students haven't heard about it."

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 Dragon Valley symposium 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—a parlor trick he'd learned from Seraphina, but effective for making his point.

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 ]
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[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."

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"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.

On the opposite side of the grand hall, the blue-haired woman with red eyes leaned slightly toward Prince Cassius, her voice barely above a whisper.

"The Hero was staring at you, my prince," Aria reported quietly.

Cassius hummed thoughtfully, leaning closer to her so their conversation would remain private. His gray eyes flickered with irritation.

"It's fine, Aria. That piss-haired Hero is the least of my concerns right now." His voice carried an edge sharp enough to cut. "Actually, scratch that—that bastard ruined my entrance. I'll deal with him later."

But his glare wasn't directed at Draekon. Instead, his gaze locked onto Prince Agni across the hall, and the look in his eyes was pure, cold calculation mixed with frustration.

"How the hell did this bastard manage to survive?" Cassius muttered. "Three assassins from the Crimson Fang Squad, all at 5th rank in mana circuits. They should have torn him apart without breaking a sweat."

He sighed heavily, and some of the tension left his shoulders as his left hand moved to grasp Aria's right hand. The contact was casual but possessive, and Aria immediately blushed crimson at his touch.

"So annoying," Cassius groaned, more to himself than to her. "Did I receive false information? No, that's impossible—my intelligence network is too reliable."

His mind worked through the possibilities with the methodical precision of someone used to planning assassinations and political maneuvers.

"Then there's a high chance that a secret escort was sent—someone high-level that we didn't account for. Or..." He frowned. "The squad bailed out. But I haven't received any communication from them in days."

But that didn't make sense either. The Crimson Fang Squad was loyal—brutally so. Philip, their leader, wouldn't abandon a contract even if it meant his death. Cassius had chosen them specifically for their reliability and discretion.

"Such a mood killer," he muttered darkly. "Things going off-script from the very start. I'll have to rethink a lot of my plans now."

Aria said nothing, but her hand tightened slightly around his, offering silent support. She knew better than anyone how much Cassius hated when his carefully laid plans went awry.

At the very center of the student seating area, in a location that should have been prime real estate for networking and visibility, Prince Agni sat with his eyes closed.

And his mouth drooling.

He was very obviously asleep.

Lyralei stared at him with an expression somewhere between disgust and resigned acceptance. She reached over and touched his shoulder, giving him a gentle shake.

"Agni," she whispered urgently. "Get up."

No response. Just peaceful snoring and more drool.

From the stage, Professor Helena Brewmaster—the Academy's Alchemy instructor—shot a glare in their direction that could have melted stone. The stocky, no-nonsense woman clearly did not appreciate students sleeping through the orientation ceremony.

"Honestly, how he managed to survive his journey here alone is beyond me," Lyralei sighed, settling back into her seat and accepting defeat.

She looked around at the other students—all paying attention, all presenting themselves properly, all clearly understanding the importance of this moment. Then she looked back at her sleeping fiancé,

Her voice dropped to a whisper that he couldn't possibly hear in his unconscious state. "We have the Class Selection Exam next. Let's see how you handle actual combat when you can't just sleep through it."

The orientation continued around them, voices droning on about academy rules and expectations, while Prince Agni dreamed peacefully through it all.