"Forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight..."
"Fifty... Hah! Where did I lose count?" With his mind blank, Winnie was gasping for breath, lying flat on the ground. Sweat soaked his clothes, and his limp body felt like his bones were about to fall apart.
Given the poor physical condition of this body, Winnie decided to activate his self-discipline mode and try to train the body, which had been made so miserable by his past self, as much as possible.
Physical strength might not matter much for a wizard whose Soul Art is the key, but for someone like him, a player who grinded his life away, it was crucial.
Without enough stamina, he couldn’t even hold up his [Armor Form], let alone fight?
Since he had fought the apprentice retainer, Winnie had entered training mode.
How disciplined can a disciplined person be?
He woke up at 8 a.m. sharp, had breakfast, rested for a bit, then started training, running laps around the capital wearing [Armor Form], came back after two laps to eat lunch, and continued with various physical exercises in the afternoon.
Winnie filled his entire day, almost never resting except to sleep.
Of course, such relentless training without balance would eventually wear down his body, and over time, it could even cause injury.
That’s when Winnie’s advantage showed.
After five days of training, he had Winnie cast healing magic on him to recover from the damage caused by the training.
During this period, he also discovered something amazing: after turning into Winnie, his body would automatically cast a rank healing spell on itself, fully restoring all his stats.
Simply put, when he turned into Winnie, his stats would automatically be maxed out—full health, full magic, and full stamina.
This was very convenient. He didn’t have to worry about leaving any hidden injuries from training. After all, this was the Saintess’ healing magic, something that ordinary priests and nuns couldn’t even dream of.
The problem, however, was that after turning into Winnie, she didn’t need to train at all. Why? Because Winnie’s power was so extraordinary that she could easily uproot the withered old tree in the backyard.
She was a max-level character—what was there to train for? Apart from her low Soul Art level, low magic capacity, and lack of magical skills, she had no other shortcomings.
Actually, Winnie had considered living as Winnie from now on.
Completely abandoning his own identity would lower the difficulty of this hellish-world journey.
But it was just a thought. He knew he couldn’t do that.
First, abandoning Winnie’s identity would make her an unknown, illegal existence, and she would lose the right to enter Kareriman Academy, granted by the King of Camellia.
Second, just a few days ago, she had been associated with a goddess after having dinner with some strangers. What would happen if some high-ranking members of the Church saw this?
They weren’t so easily fooled. What if they were hostile toward her?
Winnie had become extremely wary of Dark, who had been sent to act as an eye on him. He knew there was a mysterious force that was always uneasy about his existence, even after the fall of the Aeciphysis family and their loss of divine favor, they were still being monitored.
Who this force was, however, remained unclear.
Though he had been marginalized, it was unlikely that any noble would be foolish enough to assign someone to monitor him, a worthless person with no magic talent. That would be a waste of resources.
A cockroach or a rat disgusts everyone, but who would be so bored as to go digging into a rat’s nest in the sewers?
Aeciphysis would never do this. It was well-known that Aeciphysis was a staunch green-eyed character. She absolutely wouldn’t waste time and energy focusing on any man, let alone monitoring him 24/7.
If they were to measure affinity, Aeciphysis’s affinity for him was probably close to -99, and just looking at him would make her feel disgusted. There was no way she’d assign people to watch him. It just didn’t match her style.
Having ruled out all possibilities, the answer seemed clear.
So, abandoning Winnie’s identity to turn this hellish journey into an easier one? Impossible. It could even trigger a hidden BAD END.
Apart from those two reasons, there was another, even more important one.
Winnie didn’t want to give up his male identity, even in this otome-game world where men had no rights. He didn’t want to become a plug or the one who gets used, the one who ends up like the mugwort.
Whew... Winnie sat on the floor. He had been avoiding showing himself these past few days, even going for morning runs in heavy armor.
To become stronger, a month was completely insufficient. However, there was a faster way to get stronger—accumulating Virtue.
But after unlocking the Virtue skill tree, it took hundreds of Virtue points to unlock just one skill. He couldn’t afford it. The previous daily routines didn’t give enough returns, and the time spent wasn’t worth it.
For these past few days, he had focused all his energy on physical training in preparation for the Kareriman Academy entrance exams. He couldn’t find any time to visit the orphanage. After training, he was too exhausted to even move his tongue, only wanting to lie in bed and sleep.
If only there were a method that took less time, required little effort, and could generate a lot of Virtue.
This wasn’t a fantasy—there was indeed a way: interacting with the game’s main female characters and gaining their emotional points.
But emotional points couldn’t be obtained recklessly. If something went wrong, no amount of Virtue would save him.
Given the tense relationship he had with those destined women, Winnie felt this approach couldn’t be forced, so he had put it off for now.
However, he soon had a new idea.
He remembered a minor plotline from the original story. The protagonist, Aeciphysis, discovered a group of demons in a remote forest in the Kingdom of Camellia.
The demons weren’t strong—just a few low-level red demons—who were easily taken down by Aeciphysis, becoming an experience bag for her holy sword.
That’s right, Winnie was eyeing those unfortunate demons.
According to the Virtue system’s rules, exterminating goblins earned Virtue, so exterminating demons would definitely yield Virtue.
This was the Aeciphysis family’s system—Saintesses and demons were sworn enemies. So, killing demons for Virtue should come easy, right?
But the problem was, could he defeat those low-level red demons?
Clearly, no.
Don’t look at how Aeciphysis handled them easily in the original story—it was just a short paragraph. She was the protagonist, the strongest destined woman in this story, with both the [Hero] and [Emperor] Soul Arts. Even a demon general would likely not be her match.
Him, Winnie? Defeating demons? Seriously?
Well, now, he could barely count on his own abilities.
A slight curve appeared on Winnie’s lips.
That’s right—Winnie couldn’t do it, but that didn’t mean another Winnie couldn’t.
She hadn’t even fought in her Holy Angel form yet, and now he had a perfect chance to try it out on some unlucky demons.
As for running into Aeciphysis, he just needed to leave a few days earlier to avoid crossing paths.
Since this plotline took place early in the game, Winnie had some recollection of it. He remembered that the low-level red demons that Aeciphysis had dealt with were straggling soldiers, and before that, they seemed to have been searching for something or someone in that forest.