Chapter 3: Golden Dawn Academy [1]

I opened my eyes to the gossamer curtains that fluttered in the sunlit silence.

For a few moments I just stared.

Frozen.

Waiting.

Waiting to shake the restlessness out of my limbs. Waiting for the world to fall back into a familiar dream.

Nothing happened.

I suppose last night wasn’t a dream after all...

A little smile came to my lips as I reached up for the sky. I moved. Completely.

No warning bells going off in my consciousness.

No feeling like I was trapped behind glass.

My memories were starting to settle now. Not intruding. Existing.

As my own, alongside.

My life as Samuel as lucidly as I could remember those nights with Lorenzo in the high life clubs of Milan.

It was odd.

Two lives in one mind.

But no conflict between them.

Not yet, at any rate.

I swung my legs out of bed and looked around the bedroom for the first time.

The room was opulent but not over the top gaudy. Everything had been selected with an expensive eye. Paintings lined the walls, and through the open doorway behind the bed, I could see a marble bathroom.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and got up.

Then I looked down at my body.

Lean muscle showed beneath his skin, with barely a scar to be seen.

Either Lorenzo had been extremely cautious throughout his life, or he simply hadn’t gotten into many fights.

That’s going to change soon enough. For the moment, though, I had to start thinking about the game ditails. When the portals first appeared, humanity had been driven to the edge of extinction.

To guarantee our survival, The World-the fragile global government that emerged from the ruins of the old nations-lowered the age of majority to seventeen.

Humanity eventually managed to regain control of Earth and stabilize society,

But that wasn’t peace for humanity.

From time to time a new portal would open at random around the world, bringing death and destruction if left unchecked.

After children became seventeen, they would have to attend an entrance exam for any awakened academy they wanted to enter.

Those with the requisite skill would be brought into the fold and trained as new weapons in our war against existence.

And now, it was Lorenzo’s turn.

’Don’t get yourself all worked up about it. The entrance exam is just a few hours away...’

Golden Dawn Academy.

The number one academy in the world founded one of the first Awakeners.

City of Overlords was an open-world game, and I think I’d gone through the academy route about seven times now.

Lorenzo, I had met few times over those playthroughs.

He was always a second-rate villainNPC who loved to pick on the player. He trusted no one but his father and the organization that supported him.

Anytime anybody played the game, as a PC or whatever, you could count on Lorenzo to do something to get them mad.

And eventually, he would die.

I would have shot him on a playthrough of mine.

Then, during my third time playing, I was murdered by the Mafia boss on the way in.

The father of Lorenzo, Don Aldric Riina was also a playable villain in the game.

He was a monster to deal with.

I had to learn his patterns dozens of times before I finally defeated him, especially against the Mafia route where his power and influence made him one of the most dangerous opponents in the game.

And now...

That NPC was my father.

And I was the next step in line to take over and the shield of that father and his organization.

When your power and authority in a game was judged by your strength and the faction supporting you that was a huge advantage.

Lorenzo should have been one of the top-tier characters on paper.

But in reality...

"I’m just some trashy person."

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Still, I wasn’t complaining.

I should check my stats.

I couldn’t check anything properly last night. I was too excited.

"Status Window."

A translucent screen appeared in front of my eyes.

A list of my information appeared across it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Name: Lorenzo Riina

Age: 17

Gender: Male

[Occupation: Heir to the Underworld]

[Bloodline Ability: Locked]

[Traits:- Perfectionist]

Rank: F-

Talent: C→ S

Strength: E-

Agility: F-

Stamina: E-

Intelligence: F+→A-

Mana Capacity: D-

Luck: E+

Charm: A+

Skills: —

Shooting: B+

Hand Combat: B

Weapon Arts: —

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

I stared at the translucent screen, slowly taking in the information.

The stats were... interesting.

"Talent: C→ S. Rank: F-."

I couldn’t help but smile at the irony.

Anyone who had played City of Overlords knew how important the Talent stat was. The higher someone’s Talent, the greater their potential for growth.

Rank, on the other hand, represented their current strength.

Having a large gap between the two wasn’t unusual. Someone could have incredible potential and still be weak simply because they lacked experience or proper training.

That seemed to be exactly what had happened with Lorenzo.

He’d lived a life of luxury until the age of seventeen, with most of his combat training coming from his father’s men.

Lorenzo’s skills weren’t bad, either.

Shooting was B+. Hand Combat was B. Still, those were more or less the skills you’d expect from a well-trained petty criminal.

What interested me more were the other stats.

Charm: A+. Intelligence: A-. Luck: E+.

"Of course," I muttered, running a hand through Lorenzo’s messy black hair. "The heir to a Mafia family would have high charisma."

I glanced back at the screen. "And Intelligence... yeah, that makes sense."

Then my eyes settled on Luck. "But this is just terrible."

That had always been Lorenzo’s biggest problem in the game. He had everything going for him, yet his terrible luck always seemed to find a way to screw him over whenever he crossed paths with the player.