Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Zhao Youyue entered the Dimensional Gate this time after having learnt her earlier lessons. She was in no rush to define her character, nor was she eager to make herself unrivalled or anything like that. Instead, she was prepared to gain a clear understanding of the overall circumstances first.

Walking pass the Dimensional Gate, Zhao Youyue was able to obtain only several pieces of information, mainly the name of the manga, a brief synopsis of the manga as well as the names and settings of the female characters. From the number of settings, she was able to deduce which female characters are the main characters or important supporting characters; and which characters happen to be the side characters.

The name of the manga is “Pure Romance”. The name sounded innocent enough, but in reality it is known as a school harem manga. The story is basically about the hero, Yang Ming’s beginning of his high school life. He lived in his household with only a beautiful younger sister with whom he shared no blood ties. His sister looked after his day-to-day living and was also pretty good with all kinds of house chores. Yang Ming’s parents have gone traveling around the world. As a matter of course, his sister had developed some kind of “brother complex” for him. Besides his sister, the hero was also surrounded by numerous beautiful girls of different personalities during high school. These girls will eventually be involved to open rivalry and veiled strife among each other, which leads to a never-ending death match.

In brief, this was just a typical school harem manga. The hero could predictably attribute characteristics like being gentle, kind, obtuse and soft. From beginning till the end, his identity will remain as a cherry boy. However he will often encounter accidental incidents such as tripping over and having his face planted between girls’ breasts or roaming into female showers or changing rooms by accident and ended up seeing girls’ naked bodies. All in all, the mangakas of this kind of manga-s are familiar with the ways to skillfully deploy these tropes in order to provide fan service.

Once Zhao Youyue gained a rough understanding of this manga’s information, she eliminated the options to shift directly into the harem character such as Yang Ming’s sister or the other girls. She did not come to that decision as she could not accept herself becoming somebody’s harem – to her it is just a two dimensional world from the manga and the bodies she will occupy belonged to the female characters anyway. If the plot called for it, she is even willing to forcefully have sex with the hero as long as it could propel her character to become an icon. If by doing so she could consequently gain the power of such character in the real world, there is nothing she dared not perform.

If only she was able to enter the worlds of “Fate”, “A Certain Magical Index” or even “Fight Break Spheres”, she could have a choice to shift into characters like Saber, Misaka Mikoto or Xiao Xuner and that would be an effortless victory. In the case of these memorable heroines, there was not a need for her own intervention. She could follow the original plot and still emerge triumphant.

Unfortunately the odds of striking such a lottery is abysmal.

Zhao Youyue felt that the designs of the harem characters in “Pure Romance” are completely lacking of distinctive strengths and they are purely there for an aesthetic purpose. Similar to the “plain Jane-s” that are depicted in iconic harem novels, it is impossible for the readers to remember them, and so she would not embrace herself to shift into their characters.

As a matter of fact, in such a manga that seemed completely lacking in merits, Zhao Youyue felt that it would be too difficult to mold an iconic heroine where all readers will remember. Thus, she decided to try out her new perspective.

She chose to become a side-character – a girl who has made her appearance two to three times in this manga, named “Xu Jing”. She is the best friend of hero Yang Ming’s sister, Yang Xixi. She had a simple pony-tail and pretty features as her appearance.

It was at this very moment that Zhao Youyue suddenly realized the merit of this manga – that the artistic style and drawing skills of the mangaka were rather commendable. Each of the “plain Jane-s” in the harem looked extremely beautiful, even a side-character like “Xu Jing” who has appeared merely two to three times was a beauty. No wonder it was being said that ninety-nine percent of the girls in the two dimensional space are beautiful. So many otaku-s are addicted to this two dimensional space up to the point that they became totally indifferent to the real world…

Zhao Youyue added only one setting to Xu Jing – that is to be obsessed with learning. She was given the character as a very hardworking girl, but definitely not one of those super-intelligent, multi-skilled, multi-talented characters. Otherwise, back in the real world, it will surely raise the suspicion of the mangaka – Hmm, if such strong and special attributes have been assigned to Xu Jing, why is she still a side-character? It must have been a mistake. The mangaka will then rectify the abnormal setting which was placed by Zhao Youyue, rendering her effort pointless and causing her to waste this opportunity to enter the Dimensional Gate once again.

Without any doubt, the Dimensional Gate is not meant for anyone to enter and exit freely without limitations. The repercussions of the havoc wreaked by Zhao Youyue were still very much apparent. She initially began from a fantasy world where low level superpowers existed. In contrast, this current world was obviously just a mundane dimension without anyone who possessed superpowers. This was a drop in the energy level. If Zhao Youyue wished to enter a world of higher energy level, she would have to mold an iconic character without doubt. Well, this is the only way for her to receive the pledge of loyalty from her fellow readers. This will certainly enable her to pass through the Dimensional Gate to enter realms of higher energy level and allowing her to obtain stronger powers.

Upon making such a simple tweak to the character’s setting, Zhao Youyue figured that the mangaka will not notice anything extraordinary for sure. This type of side character who indulges herself in learning and striving for their best are way too common in manga-s.

Once Zhao Youyue became her preset version of Xu Jing, she suddenly had a strong urge and eagerness to learn. Meanwhile, countless stickers from the sticker pack were loaded onto her body –

“I love learning, learning makes me happy.jpg”

“There is only one thing in my heart, learning.jpg”

“I feel uneasy even if one second goes by without learning!.jpg”

“If I am not allowed to learn, I might as well die.jpg”

“It’s pointless even if you liked me, because I like learning instead.jpg”

“Addicted to learning, getting thinner day by day.jpg”

…

In the meantime, she could sense that the quality of “hard work” was seemingly strong. Although she was not considered lazy in real life, she definitely was not the kind of girl that seemed extra hardworking and motivated. Well, she cannot be blamed though, as she was born with a silver spoon. There was a saying that “poor people have weak wills”. In reality, many people believed in the saying of “poverty gives rise to the desire for change” and successfully turn their fate around. On the contrary, those who are born in rich families are lackadaisical about self-improvements. As a result, the family’s wealth and fortune are usually depleted within three generations. In everyone’s opinion, hard work is an element which portrays excellence.

Thereupon, Zhao Youyue completely forgot everything that she thought she knew and began to use Xu Jing’s body to learn rigorously in this realm. Coincidentally Xu Jing has entered ninth grade and was preparing for her junior high school examination. Through Xu Jing, Zhao Youyue began to relearn and remaster the knowledge gained in junior high, for she did not have a solid grasp of these knowledge to begin with.

Zhao Youyue developed a new perspective. Since she was not confident of her ability in molding an iconic character that will be remembered by every reader in order to inherit the character’s strengths, could she utilize the character to acquire knowledge within the Dimensional Gate instead? Can she retain the gained knowledge?

After waking up the next day, Zhao Youyue took out her pre-test mathematics examination paper with a strong sense of anticipation. Soon however, she helplessly found out: how come she still could not solve the tough questions?

Was it possible that the knowledge gained from her learnings could not be inherited?

Nope, she was sure that she had remembered all the knowledge in her head!

In a blink of an eye, she quickly understood…

Even if she carried the qualities of eagerness to learn and motivation for self-improvement, how much could she achieve overnight? Learning is a long-term process and only with determination, the outcome will gradually be noticeable through time.

Sure enough, knowledge which is gained through her own efforts can certainly be retained. However, if she had preset Xu Jing as a gifted genius or an elite scholar, these shallow settings could only allow her to rejoice in the manga world for a short period of time. As such, this will not develop any significant changes when she returned to the real world.

Zhao Youyue felt that she has earned her rights to convey such wise saying –

There is no such thing as a genius in this world. When others chose to sleep, I’d rather utilize these hours to gain knowledge.