Final Exam

***

Without warning, I was thrust into a swirling vortex, struggling to maintain my body calm.

Initially, it felt like I was drowning, but then a peculiar realization washed over me – I could breathe underwater?

Taking in my surroundings, I recognized the place. I was positioned right in the middle of Mt. Amour and the floating lake.

[Who would have thought that you would be the first person to clear this quest…]

Throughout my life, I had possessed exceptionally sensitive ears, capable of discerning voices with ease. The sound of human voices had always been a soothing lullaby to me.

This voice, emerging through the waves of the whirlpool, belonged to her...

“Bohyňa.”

[Hehe, it’s nice to see you again. I-I mean, it’s n-not like I was waiting for you or anything!!]

“Bohyňa, where is Laska?! Is she alright?! What about the battle?“

[Oh my processor, calm down, will you? She’s okay, of course she’s not here. The battle took place months ago.]

“What are you talking about?”

[You got back with a Love Pass, didn’t you? But you spent a night back in your world. The flow of time is much different here and there. What were just mere hours for you was long weeks here. The time cannot be even converted, it flows irregularly when compared the timelines together.]

“So all those months spent here were just hours or days back in our world? Does that mean that...?”

[Yes. This school year at Love School is almost ending. You missed all the other lectures. But fear not, my boy! There’s nothing else you need in order to graduate. You already passed six exams, so the seventh one that’s ahead of you will be your final!]

Relief surged through me.

“So nothing’s lost yet! But… what about my EPs?”

[Hmmm, what about them, I wonder? Well, they’re irrelevant for a Love Pass holder like you. They’re just means to expel the students who fail their assignments.]

“Did Laska lose her EPs, too? How did she even defeat the Brain Eater?”

[Hehe, that was quite a show, if I do say so myself! She shielded herself with the Infinite Wall technique. While my pet tried to attack her, he was losing HP. In the end, he gave up. But by the time Laska reached this ‘X’ place, she was reset back to her checkpoint due to excessive bleeding. And so you, her guild-mate, were granted the access here instead.]

“Woah, she’s much stronger than I imagined… did you call him your pet? Wouldn’t that make you… the rumored ‘omnipotent’ being?!”

[Who else would it be? I’m the AI administrator, duh! You’re so slow! I don’t know why I like you so much, geez. … I mean, I don’t! That’s not what I meant to say at all!]

“Hey, give me the reward! I need to go back and finish this stupid school!”

[A little hasty, aren’t we?! Talking to a lady like that, who do you think you are, my RAM?! Ehm. But… I’m impressed. Taking on a quest like this while being at your level? This was supposed to be a late game quest for players that would be at least level 70. We’ll have to increase the difficulty of Love School for future generations.]

“Bohyňa, I love talking to you but I have to hurry…”

[Hmph! It’s not like I am talking a lot of nonsense just to keep you here with me a little longer, or anything! … Anyways, you already got your reward. The reward for players clearing this quest is the Love Pass. And it’s also the welcome gift that I gave you.]

My mind drifted back to the settings part of the game, where Bohyňa asked me to ‘take that gift’.

“The reward that ‘transcends the worlds’… So I had the Love Pass since the beginning?”

[Yes, but a teacher had to authorize it for you. I wanted to give this to Laska after her graduation, too, but since she’s a member of the same party, she’ll get access to it. All rewards are split equally among the mates. Also, I just wanted you to have some nice place to take your girlfriend to, where you could spend a long time together without actually losing any real world time…]

My eyes widened at her heartfelt response.

“You’d go that far for me…?”

[You were the first person to ever acknowledge my human side… although I was nothing but a bunch of computer codes.]

“That’s not true! Your kindness shines brighter than most of the humans’!”

[Kiss… stop it, you’re making me overheat! Hmm, but… since you had Love Pass before, you should get another reward for this quest.]

“No! This is plenty! Thank you, Bohyňa! Oh, one more thing! There’s this guy, Plamen, that’s wreaking havoc across Romancia. And I think that he endangers the whole Love School project, not just our facility. Could you stop him?”

[Unfortunately, I can’t. He chose his path of violence and I cannot engage a human in a battle. As a robot, I have been programmed to never harm or kill a human.]

“Oh, I see…”

[But… I can take you where he is right now. You can fight him yourself.]

“I can… fight him?” I considered that possibility for a few seconds but…

“Thanks, but no. I am not here to fight a villain like some sort of a hero. I have to focus on my own mission. I have to protect my love. Compared to that, nothing else is important to me.”

[A wise choice. I predict that this world will be changed forever by the player Plamen. You should just graduate as soon as possible and get out of here. He’s going to be unstoppable.]

“That’s what I plan on doing!”

[Then what are you waiting for? The exam is about to start.]

“When??”

[In two minutes.]

“What?! I can’t make it from here!”

[Well, I owe you an actual reward for clearing the quest. So, take this, Mr. Charming. Goodbye~!]

***

“Kiss?!”

I suddenly materialized at the training grounds among the students, as Laska cried my name in surprise.

Bohyňa must have teleported me here so that I could take the final exam. Honestly, I owed her so much.

“Kiss, it’s you!! I thought you were expelled! And why are you so drenched?” She glanced at my wet clothes and hair.

“Well, I was just caught up in a magical whirlpool and conversed with the ‘omnipotent being’.”

“What?!”

“I’ll explain in detail later… Let’s do this, Laska! Good luck!”

“Hehe, so you made it, dude,” Svet-sensei spoke softly. “Alright, squad. We talked about how important it is to resolve even a break-up with care and respect. Here’s your final assignment: There's none!”

***

And so we were sucked into another dimension for one last time.

However… this time it was no house, no park, no pub, nothing. It was just pure void. Endless darkness was stretching infinitely around me.

Yet I was not alone. Expecting another incarnation of Brana in this world, this one got a little too personal.

For the one standing before me as the final exam opponent was none other than Laska.

“L-Laska… what are you doing here?”

“Laska? Have you forgotten my name already, Ren? I’m Sakura, silly.”

My throat tightened, unable to make a sound. There was no name floating above her head. No HP bar to be found.

Doing the ever-so-cringy heart sign with my hands, I instinctively attempted to search through the menu, but I had no access to my skills, Soul Enhancement or items.

“What are you doing with your hands, Ren?”

“Well, I… nothing… sorry.”

“There you go again, not communicating properly and just apologizing for whatever you did or didn’t do.”

Sakura sounded very serious.

“Sakura, where are we? And what are we supposed to do now?”

“That’s a good question. We didn’t know where we stood or what to do for the past few months. Ren… I think this is not working anymore. We should just break up.”

“B-break up?” My heart felt as if it got pierced through with a knife. “What are you saying?”

I was confused. This felt too real for it to be just an exam. Sakura was standing in front of me. My magical abilities were gone…

“You never protected me. Back then, I thought you would step in. But I got beaten up in front of you, instead of you. I have cried through so many nights. It hurt. But it was nothing compared to the pain I felt being stuck in this relationship.”

I wanted to believe that this was just how Love School was messing up with our heads. They had a way to remove some memories, so they surely accessed them to bring out our past relationships so that hearing the words ‘break up’ would genuinely hurt us.

Right?

This… This can’t be real, right?

CHAPTER 19: END