"So you are telling me that you had a secret confusum up your sleeve and got them to take each other out?" Helia regarded my story with due skepticism.

Confusum stood as a midtier magic, but it wasn't a totally reliable spell. It's status as midtier meant that without a vocari I couldn't have drawn it from any sources. I would have had to receive it from another person. Like Helia, I didn't have any family left, so it's not like I would have received it for free.

If I wanted to maintain my secret about my recently acquired vocari (and thus non-important status), confusum was the lowest tier spell with an effect that could have helped me out in the Fire Jack situation. It had about a 50/50 chance to inflict the confused status on a target. While confused, it would attack it's allies. While even that would be questionable, it wouldn't be unplausible. What made it hard to buy was the fact that once a confused target got hit by anyone, there was a 50/50 chance it would stop being confused.

In short, I would have had to flip something like 20 coins and get 20 heads in a row. It's not impossible, but it isn't really likely either.

"Haha, yeah... That's why I said my play was risky! If that status had dropped-"

"You'd be dead." Oberon admonished me. I stared daggers at him as Helia looked down at Oberon. The bastard was resting his head on her lap. If there hadn't been a Fire Jack attack and scorch marks on Oberon's clothing, you would have thought these two were on a date.

He was probably flirting with Helia while I theoretically had my life on the line! What a rat bastard-!

"Ahem." Helia coughed to break the tension. She knew me well and could tell that I was about to go to war. "I'm really relieved to see you are okay."

Her smile, however bright, betrayed the fact that she would probably grill me about the confusum thing later. Namely -- where I would have acquired the spell since I wasn't stupid enough to buy even one.

For now, at least, I was off the hook.

Phew.

Eventually, we made our way back to Rose Academy. At the entrance, we split up. Helia told me she would escort Oberon to the infirmary, despite Oberon's protestations. I waved the two of them off, while wishing my friend luck.

As long as Oberon can still play his role in the story, go for your dreams bestie! I don't know what you see in him besides how tall, dark, and handsome he is, but you do you!

If Oberon is truly able to romance even those random side characters, then this was probably fine. Helia was clearly into Oberon, so I wanted her to have her shot at him. He might have the personality of an angst-filled middle schooler, but it was her life to live.

We split our ways near the large intersection at the center of the school. The school was oval shaped and each direction had its own special area. The academy had a dormitory, an infirmary, a training hall, a cafeteria -- stuff like that. The school had two more floors, the next floor had all the classrooms, and each wing was divided by year. Finally, the last floor had all the staff living quarters and offices. Students didn't usually have access to that floor unless they were already Thorn cadets, since that was usually where they got briefed about missions and the like.

I was about to head straight to the dormitory until something caught my eye. Near the signage directing students to the various areas of the school, there was a floating and glowing white rose. Petals slowly peeled and fell to nothingness, but no matter how many petals fell the rose did not seem to lose any volume.

Staring at this white rose, I knew exactly what it was, but it's appearance was a recent development. It literally hadn't appeared until today. I bit my lip as I approached it. Why is this here now? It's... The Rose Academy save point.

It probably goes without saying, but most games from the previous world and previous generations required the player to manually save. RR8 was one of those games. I personally had the habit of saving three times in a row just to be sure it actually saved.

But what was this doing here?

I glanced around. No one else seemed to notice it. How... Odd. If school admin caught wind of this, there would be caution tape and school investigators on the scene, but that wasn't the case.

I reached out to the white rose, curious about it. If this was a save point... Was I technically immortal? If I die, I'll just return here... Right?

My finger touched the petals, but I didn't feel different. I traced my finger down from the petal to the stem. A sharp, sudden pain caused me to recoil and draw my hand back to me after pricking my finger on a thorn. I looked down at my finger and saw a droplet of blood forming at the tip. The white rose before me started to shift too, like an invisible artist filled the white rose in with watercolor red.

As I witnessed this, I felt something inside me change. My chest felt tight, then it relaxed. A breath hitched in my throat, then released. This meant that I managed to save my game, I think.

Whatever that means in this world? Unlike what I've read in isekai stories, this world doesn't have floating menus, stat screens, or other EPG interfaces. My inventory was my backpack and if my pants had pockets! I had no way of knowing if my game saved, short of...

Ugh, well, it's not like I'm going to go try to get myself killed to test it out. This is merely an insurance policy. I assured myself.

In truth, right now, I really wanted to study this vocari. The best way to do that, unfortunately, was to fight and win battles with it bonded to me. I let out a frustrated sigh and marched to the Rose Dungeon.

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The Rose Dungeon was an artificial biome created by the staff at the academy and by Thorn employees. The place was completely full of wild monsters. The ultimate goal of this area was to provide students and Thorn cadets a way to practice their fighting techniques and spellcasting. If you were lucky, you could even pull some magic from the rarer creatures that could be found there.

That being said, the dungeon could be incredibly dangerous. Soloing the dungeon was considered a suicidal activity and strongly discouraged. Despite that, no less than a dozen students every year nearly die due to wounds gained from monsters.

And here I was... Alone... About to fight those very same monsters.

I wandered around inside, cautiously. If I could, it would be better to get the first strike in. If I could get my vocari to land a hit first, I'd be able to gauge it's strength. I wanted to make sure I picked fights with enemies I knew the relative strength of. Enemies that I knew I could finish off if Vulpitas, the vocari in my pocket, couldn't down it in one strike.

Around a tree in the forest biome, I found the perfect prey. A red colored tart-like monster, known as a strawberry flan. In many RPGs, there was always a monster that was gelatinous and slime-like and in RR8 the flans were the species that covered that archetype. Strawberry flans were imbued with fire magic. It would take me at least three uses of my five terris left to down one, but I was still pretty close to the entrance, so if things went south after this fight I could still run away.

I slowly approached the flan, which wobbled unaware of me. Flans had cute little faces on them, so you could always tell where they were facing. Before it could notice me, I called out, "Attack, Vulpitas!"

Specs of shining diamond dust swirled around me, coalescing into the form of the blue vocari, Vulpitas. It had a small, slender body like a fox, but its eyes and ears were reminiscent of a rabbit. On its forehead, a diamond rested and glinted under the artificial sunlight.

Without waiting for me, it hopped toward the flan, it's feet growing diamond spikes and landed atop the flan. If I had to guess, this attack was not elemental at all, but was instead just your typical bludgeoning damage. As it landed atop the flan, the creature wobbled and Vulpitas used that momentum to fly off and land right back in front of me. Suddenly, the flan wobbled frantically and erratically until it finally popped!

Killed in one shot.

"Wow!" I beamed down at Vulpitas. I hadn't had an opportunity to speak with it yet. The small rabbit-like monster gazed at me with it's big eyes before dissolving into diamond dust and blowing away. Hmm... How do people talk with vocari again? In the game, you just kind of opened the menu and sometimes they would linger on the menu screens with random sayings about the current story... This, of course, was not a game, so I didn't have a menu to open.

I sighed. I wanted to speak with the vocari and I knew people in this world were capable of it. Yet...

My thoughts were interrupted by the thudding of the ground. Thump. Thump. Thump. I looked around and saw behind me that the forest trees were toppling over as a large lizard monster approached. I gulped as I froze in place.

[https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/966772585310335056/1038488384974364672/Emerald_dragon_spewing_poison_gas_in_a_forest_s-2648707793.png]

This was a dragon. A green dragon. The rarest monster in this training area. In the game, it was treated as the boss of this zone, though you could encounter it several times. If you managed to beat it early on, you would get a lot of experience points and loot. However...

The green dragon locked eyes with me and roared, green gas spewing from its mouth as it did. The gas this type of dragon breathed was poisonous and on someone like me, it would wipe me out.

Of course, my first turn of action, "Vulpitas, attack!" I commanded.

The gem didn't even glimmer.

I sighed as I remembered... right, in the game you could only use vocari on a timer. A generous timer in game, but in real life, I have no idea what that equates to... In the game, you had to wait something like 3 turns before you could summon a vocari to use an attack or ability. It was probably some effort to balance the encounters in the game since vocari were really strong. Essentially, they were the equivalent of casting the highest tier of elemental spells.

The emerald dragon charged in my direction. Without another moment of hesitation, I ran in the opposite direction. As I ran, I encountered various other monsters. They started to give chase until they were unceremoniously crushed under the emerald dragon's heel. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Despite its name, the emerald dragon couldn't fly. It had a large body and head, shaped like a komodo dragon, but itty bitty wings. In a way, it was sort of adorable -- in game!

I swear... if this freaking thing... kills me, I'll be so... so pissed! I could barely keep my thoughts straight. I focused as much as I could on running away. However, as a bookworm, a homebody, and someone who hates physical activity, I started to lose my breath. It didn't help that I had pretty much pushed my stamina to the brink earlier dealing with Oberon and his incredibly heavy muscles!

While I mentally cursed Oberon and his hotness, the emerald dragon closed in on me. Its footsteps felt like the rumble of an earthquake. Finally, I heard it take a deep breath... Oh... that sound is so close... I turned my head back just in time to witness it exhale is poisonous breath. The fumes poured out and flowed directly toward me. I didn't even have time to scream before everything suddenly went black.

That white rose was in front of me again. The save point located in Rose Academy's central hub. A cold sweat broke out over my body as I stared at it. I died... and I came back, right? The rose definitely turned red when I touched it before, but now it returned to its white hue. I looked around, curious to see if anyone noticed something was off.

Yet no one seemed to notice anything. In fact, I could still see Helia and Oberon's backs as they headed to the infirmary. So not only did I get to not die, but the save point also rewound time.

The rose was white again, though, which hasn't happened in the game when you loaded back to a save point for any reason. It instead stayed red. Looking through my previous world memories, the save point was never white at any point. I pondered about how this could be the world's attempt to add this save point, but make it work for real life.

The white rose turning red had to just be this world's way of showing me I saved the game, but that once I came back to life, I probably needed to save again?

Without hesitation this time, I pressed my finger to the thorn and felt that same heavy feeling on my chest as the rose turned red again. No doubt about it... This was my saved game.

Still no one noticed this red rose either.

Either way, I couldn't help but grin and adjust my glasses.

With this, I'm basically immortal! Not only can I live my cozy life, but I can also correct any fatal, idiotic mistakes!

I balled my hand into a fist and my smile turned dark as that fist shuttered. It isn't like I forgot why I was here again learning all this! Some onlookers did end up noticing me and giving me a wide berth, but I didn't care.

I'm going to go find that damn emerald dragon and give it a piece of my mind! Cozy life or not, I just can't forgive it for having the audacity to kill me.

... And it didn't hurt that I couldn't die. Maybe just a little bit, I wanted to really let loose and see what would happen if I sicced Vulpitas on it.

A tiny cute monster versus a big, landlocked dragon, who will win? I thought as I entered the Rose Dungeon yet again for more testing... And revenge!