Chapter 1: Long Dream

Friends.

"Hey!! Wanna hang out?"

"Um, I am sorry, who are you again?"

Lovers.

"U-uhm... I really like you..."

"Um, I am sorry, who are you again?"

Family.

"Big Brother! We're going out for the movies~"

"Um, I am sorry, who are you again?"

"AAH! I hate you!!"

I couldn't have anything.

After all, remembering people's faces was impossible for me.

How one looked, how their eyes were shaped, how their nose bent or how their lips crook. I couldn't remember any of it. Despite seeing it all, I couldn't register it. It was all a hopeless dream. No matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I focused, my brain just couldn't understand any of it.

"Prosopagnosia..."

That was the name of the condition that plagued me all my life.

When young kids speak out 'papa' or 'mama' as their first words, mine were 'excuse me, who?'

When nursery children fight about their favorite teachers, I never recognized even one of them.

When kids start making friends and form cliques, I was the only one excluded from them all because I couldn't find the people I was talking with just minutes back.

When love blossoms and spring arrives for the youth and people gain in interest beyond friendship in each other, I, who was approached by men and women alike... didn't even know the most popular girl in school who asked me out. To be fair, her face was plain. Just like everyone else's.

Friends, Family, Love, Mentors, in the end, I found none of them.

.

.

.

And very fucking honestly dudes, I didn't care!

"Hey, Yujin, are you even listening—Holy fuck?"

Back at the public gym in the academy, I started stacking up some weights on the linoleum when such a voice entered my ears. Yujin, that was my name, but I ignored the voice saying it. It had been going on for a while now. Without paying it any heed, I stacked up all the weights and laid down on the floor. Then, I picked up the weights and placed them on my back.

"T-three hundred kilos...?"

Three hundred kilos of weight discs. They added up to 650 pounds, the conversion was a pain in the ass. I wondered why the weights didn't use the SI units as I slowly started raising my body up with my hands in push ups. Locks of my red hair came dripping down my nape and stuck to my cheeks, annoying.

"Light..." I muttered.

"Yujin, for someone as thin and pretty as you, you sure are a muscle freak."

Calling me a muscle freak was offensive. I turned to the side to look at the person while still performing my perfect push-ups. Sure enough, it was a face I didn't recognize again, but I had already gotten used to this person and his voice annoying me at every step of the way.

"It's light," I complained again. "If you're going to blabber, then get me more weights."

"I can't lift that shit."

I saw the man's face, but I couldn't register it. I had practiced a lot, though, so I knew he was smiling right now. Or was he? I couldn't tell after all.

"In that case, should I just sit on your back?"

"Sure."

With that said, Albert, the blabbermouth, jumped up the pile of weights on my back and added his own to my work-out. I started going down on the push ups again, satisfied at the slightly increased weight.

"So, anyway," Albert continued blabbering again. "In the game, you are next supposed to save the princess of the academy. The academy is pretty much based on our own. To see knights and wizards being raised in the Pantheon like hunters, ahahaha! Doesn't the school princess remind you of something too, Yujin?"

"Tsk."

I clicked my tongue and focused on the work out.

"Anyway, after you save her from the followers of Agares... you get to have a pretty steamy cutscene with her!" Albert started giggling manically as he recited the nasty details of the steamy cutscene with the princess.

It was a few months ago when I met this guy. He was being bullied by some people who I didn't recognize. Honestly, I didn't recognize him either and am suspicious of the fact that he even is the one who I helped, but he recites it every other day so I have no choice but to remember it.

I simply went to the bullies and flicked their heads, it wasn't because I wanted to save him, but rather because I thought they were the ones who always got to the lunch line before me. They weren't. I was put on a list for 'dangerously flicking' students shortly after since I went after anyone who could have been the ones at the lunch line. Those fuckers always escaped me though.

Why did I want to be the first at the lunch line?

That was my motivation. My true goal and aspiration! The reason I was doing whatever I was doing despite being a magic type awakened!

My dream. Was to be the strongest person in the world! Can a world's strongest person ever be second in the lunch line? NO! That was obvious! I bunked classes, staked outside the cafeteria but all of it was to no results after being caught or sleeping in, but I didn't give up. I could have kicked their ass while in the line, but that went against my pride as the one to be the strongest in the world.

That said, I didn't know why Albert was so persistent.

"Do you get it now, Yujin? This is just the 23rd scene in the game though."

"998... 999..."

This guy was just coming up to me everyday and reciting the scenes from the game. He was a slow player though and he enjoyed critically scrutinizing every erotic scene in the game, so he wasn't even a quarter through the game yet.

"1007... 1008..."

—Rumble!

"Hm!?"

"Yujin, did you hear that!?"

At Albert's words, my head snapped up and I looked around. The air in front of me cracked open...

"A-A.... Dragon..."

"ALBERT! RUN!"

The dragon's claw reached out from the crack, and impaled my chest. I punched it back whilst injured and broke its palm.

"GWAAAAH!"

A breath attack.

It was the end.

—

"—AAAH!"

I woke up screaming in my bed. I panted while touching the luxurious white sheets and ran my hand through my white hair. At that time, the wooden door carved with intricate patterns was smacked open and in came a young maid with a slightly disgusted look on her face.

"Young master Eugene, are you ok?"

"Huh?"

Eugene... yes... I didn't recognize the maid, as usual, but the name was familiar to me. Eugene, that was my name. Why did it feel so estranged?

"Young master Eugene?"

"Yes. I am alright... I just feel like I woke up from a long dream..."