I Need the True Ending to Graduate - Chapter 62

Jeran Ennessy gave this to me to suppress the rumors surrounding him and me.

More precisely, to create a reason they would accept.

And according to what Jeran Ennessy said, because he’d never taken a disciple before me, the rumors had grown bigger and more sensational. He simply hadn’t found a student he wanted to guide as a protégé.

‘If that’s the case, then the people spreading rumors don’t think Jeran Ennessy accepted Lucia because he acknowledged her abilities. Then what exactly do they think is between the two of us?’

I slowly went over the words Jeran Ennessy had spoken.

A misunderstanding heading in a direction that wasn’t good.

Huge, provocative rumors. Half accepted as facts.

A belief so solid and widespread that even if he explained the truth, no one would believe it.

And among the rumors about me, there was nothing positive.

In the past and now, nothing good ever came from the words thrown at me by thugs. It was always trash, like whether I bought my grades with my body or slept with my advisor.

‘Wait.’

I suddenly remembered something a man had thrown at me like a stone.

“Seemed like you gave it up to your last professor too. Think you can give it to me as well? They say you’re good in bed. I heard you spread your legs for your current professor too.”

I thought that was just a line thrown to insult me. Something he said simply to crush me in the way that would humiliate me the most.

But if that was based on rumors or a commonly accepted belief that I didn’t know about, then it changed everything.

‘No way… are the rumors about Jeran Ennessy and me like that? That I became his disciple because I slept with him?’

It was absurd and ridiculous, yet bizarrely, the overall situation and the inexplicable things Jeran Ennessy had said earlier started clicking together.

Looking at it from the outside, I had been under Karl Evenhart (even if that was thanks to Ruad), and as soon as he was dismissed, I suddenly ended up with Jeran Ennessy as my advisor.

And I had been exploited by him, and everyone in the academy already knew it.

Seen from a more provocative and trashy angle, it was more than enough for people to assume that I seduced Jeran Ennessy and used him to get rid of the useless Karl Evenhart. Whether that was true or not.

‘How does this even make sense?’

Even though I had reached a clear conclusion, I couldn’t believe it, so I questioned myself.

The one who completely got rid of Karl Evenhart wasn’t Jeran Ennessy. It was Ruad.

The Rochef family clearly had influence in the education and academic world, and other nobles seemed to know this well.

Considering the amount of havoc he caused while still attending the academy without issue, it was impossible without his family’s backing.

And even the Academy’s committee was firmly held by the Rochef family. Of course, anyone could easily guess that the Rochef family had influence over the ethics committee that decided Karl Evenhart’s punishment.

And the eldest son of the Rochef family, Ruad, was completely obsessed with me, acting like a dog.

That arrogant, proud, and violent man obeyed me like I was his master, considered insults against me the same as insults against himself, and even dirtied his own hands in my place.

‘For someone who’s that devoted to me, is it really so impossible to imagine that he would take care of Karl Evenhart, the man who tormented me?’

But judging from what Jeran Ennessy had said, it really did seem that way.

‘Well, I guess they wouldn’t think someone would go that far just for a mere commoner.’

I accepted it in an instant.

If they thought Ruad stuck to me because of a passing interest, then it wasn’t strange that they couldn’t understand the full picture.

‘Ruad wasn’t exactly someone with a perfectly normal mind to begin with.’

Thanks to that, people were now suspicious of my relationship with Jeran Ennessy, and I was the one suffering for it.

Once I understood the situation overall, the baffling things Jeran Ennessy had said in the lab started to make sense.

No matter how ridiculous it sounded, the rumors about me were mostly terrible, and everyone accepted them as casually and naturally as breathing.

Even if Jeran Ennessy personally stepped forward to explain, no one would listen.

‘Even though Ruad is always glued to my side, there’s still someone stupid enough to rush in without knowing better. There’s no way they’d listen to Jeran Ennessy. They’ll only believe what they want to believe.’

And that explanation would probably twist into something absurd, like me coaxing him into saying it. Even though I’d never even held Jeran Ennessy’s hand once, I’d become someone who had already slept with him.

From Jeran Ennessy’s perspective, since inappropriate rumors between a professor and his disciple were spreading, he must have felt the need to do something. And it seemed his thoughts had reached the point of using a sexual relationship as a tool.

Professors exploiting commoners was extremely common, so he must have thought that if he exploited me in any way, he could break my image as the wicked temptress who tossed aside her advisors as she pleased.

As in, he took a liking to me, removed Karl Evenhart, and accepted me as his disciple.

His own image might take a small hit, but overall, it wasn’t a bad method. People would find it easy to accept.

Still, I had one question.

‘Why not just talk about it? Why go this far?’

If we talked beforehand and loosely agreed that some improper things had happened in his lab, then simply letting that nuance leak out to people would be enough to reshape the rumors.

And because that would be a provocative and interesting tale, far more than a boring explanation saying nothing happened between us, it would spread even faster.

If he did that, he could create the same effect without actually giving me this survey or suggesting a real relationship.

But now, I felt like I understood why Jeran Ennessy had proposed a real relationship.

‘Because this world is a 19+ romance simulation game.’

That was it.

This was an R-rated world, a place where the game actively encouraged sexual relationships with the capture targets.

Just like Evan Bell, who made that disgusting offer, or Ruad, who wanted to ‘comfort’ me himself, this was another stepping stone the developers had created for progressing my relationship with Jeran Ennessy.

It might be forced and not completely logical, but considering Jeran Ennessy’s personality so far, it was obvious that without some kind of pretext, it would be extremely difficult to shift the atmosphere toward intimacy.

So this was an opportunity.

A perfect opportunity to legally sleep with Jeran Ennessy.

All I had to do was use that opportunity to my advantage.

‘Right. Whatever the reason is, all I need is to raise his affection.’

I was just beginning to accept the reasoning behind his proposal when a new question suddenly surfaced in my mind.

‘But is he himself okay with doing this?’

I pictured Jeran Ennessy’s neat, handsome, beautiful, and noble face.

His face was far too divine and pure to imagine him matching my strange tastes.

‘He’s not someone who hides a vicious nature like Ruad, and he’s not filthy by nature like Evan Bell either….’

I couldn’t picture someone so suffocatingly gentle, kind, and considerate swinging a whip, driving me into a corner with obscene words, and intimidating me.

But what I had to do was already decided.

‘Now that a quest has appeared, I have no choice but to do it.’

And even if the status window hadn’t appeared, it was something I had to do.

Jeran Ennessy was a capture target, and I had an obligation to sleep with him to raise his affection to 100%.

And that was just as important as writing my thesis.

‘Everything’s moving a bit suddenly, which is confusing, but let’s think of it positively.’

There was nothing bad about this for me. At the very least, it was much better than what I had feared, which was him losing affection for me because of my ignorance.

And even if Jeran Ennessy had brought it up first, it was something I would’ve had to do eventually, so in a way, he saved me the trouble of having to seduce him myself.

‘And I really had no idea how I was supposed to seduce a professor.’

It really was a good turn of events, but the fact that my tastes would be revealed so explicitly through this survey, to none other than Jeran Ennessy, was unbearably embarrassing.

‘But I can’t not do this either.’

If I wanted to return to my original world, write my thesis, and graduate, this was a process I absolutely had to go through. Otherwise, graduating would be impossible.

Unless I planned to live here for thousands of years, I had to overcome the embarrassment and shame and move forward….

“Haa.”

Letting out a pitiful sound, I collapsed onto the desk.

Having sex with a handsome man was great, but somehow, I felt like only humiliation kept piling up. I never thought a day would come when I’d reveal my kinks to my academic advisor….

And what would Jeran Ennessy think of me? If he learned that his quiet, competent disciple Lucia might get excited by the sight of him holding a whip….

‘No. It’s not like I’m going to live here with him forever. Once I see the true ending and leave, no one will ever know.’

Coming to my senses, I cut off my spiraling imagination and calmly faced reality.

Right. This was the world inside a game, not my real life.

I was only borrowing Lucia’s body and living here temporarily. My real life was elsewhere, paused with only a week left before my thesis defense.

‘And look at Jeran Ennessy’s face. Who would think he’s a professor?’

Before he was my advisor, he was a handsome man. A face that couldn’t possibly exist in reality.

When I slowly pictured that handsome, elegant, spotless man tying me up and striking me, whispering obscene things in that intelligent and calm tone, it wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.

‘I actually feel like we could have a good time. And since he gave me that survey, doesn’t that mean he’ll match everything to my tastes? Which means he’ll only do the things I like.’

Hmm… That’s nice?

As that thought settled in, my mood rose rapidly, and the embarrassment and shame I’d felt earlier evaporated completely.

I suddenly straightened up, grabbed a pen, and diligently filled out the survey Jeran Ennessy had given me.

A few hours later.

[Quest: Complete Jeran Ennessy’s survey form and submit it within the deadline. (Deadline: 6 days 20 hours) (1/1)]

A window announcing that the quest was complete flashed before me.