I Became the Protagonist's Best Friend in a Bishoujo Game

Once I started digging more about the relationships of the Frostguard family with Ahri’s help—I slowly started figuring out connections that Vael possesses from named characters in the game that I wasn’t aware of.

I sat at my desk with my laptop open that was provided by the academy, scrolling through various historical records, old nobility archives, and family lineage charts while cross-referencing everything with the information Ahri was giving me through text.

Starting with Cordelia... We’re not actually engaged.

I let out a soft sigh of relief as I read through the latest string of messages from Ahri, clearing up the misunderstanding that had been causing my head to spin.

Not officially, at least.

It turned out that there was no signed contract, no public decree, and no formal arrangement recognized by the high court or the other noble houses.

It was not made public, it’s just our parents deciding among themselves that we should be wedded to strengthen the relationship between our families.

Back when both households were on friendly terms and sharing resources, the adults had made informal promises over private dinners and casual gatherings.

It happened when Vael and Cordelia were both seven years old and they noticed how close they were to each other.

Whenever the two families hosted joint events or seasonal banquets, the young Vael and Cordelia would often end up playing together in the estate gardens while their parents discussed politics.

Vael and Cordelia meet from time to time because of events, or when their families visits each other. Those frequent childhood visits had built a close bond between them before everything collapsed into chaos and tragedy years later.

Cordelia and Vael were basically childhood friends.

They had spent a significant chunk of their early years growing up around each other, sharing memories that were completely omitted from the main game’s storyline.

The engagement was supposed to be solidified and announced to the public once Vael and Cordelia both reached twenty years old, but it looks like it wouldn’t happen now because of what happened to Vael’s family.

With the downfall of the Frostguard household and the internal political strife that followed, those old promises were left hanging in the air without any official backing.

"Fuuuh... This is going to be awkward."

I mumbled.

I leaned back in my chair, staring up at the plain ceiling of my dorm room while rubbing my temples to soothe an incoming headache.

Now I have to keep all of these in mind when interacting with Cordelia.

Every time she looks at me with that sad, remorseful expression, I have to remember that she isn’t just looking at a fellow schoolmate or a noble acquaintance—she’s looking at her childhood friend whose life fell apart.

While playing the game, players can only see and control the conversation Zion is having with the other characters.

The game’s narrative always followed the main protagonist’s perspective, focusing entirely on Zion’s choices, his interactions, his battles, and his growing harem of heroines.

But the players would never know if the characters talked to each other or whatever, if they are connected or not.

The background lore of minor side characters like Vael was never fully explored or shown in cutscenes unless it directly involved Zion’s main questline.

’I need to prepare myself for unexpected events like this one.’

I thought to myself.

I rested my chin on my hand, gazing at the glowing laptop screen as I realized how much deeper and more complex this reality actually was compared to the visual novel screen.

Now I have more things I need to consider as Vael now.

I wasn’t just navigating a predetermined plot line; I was living as a real person with a real past, a real family background, and pre-existing relationships that could pop up when I least expected them.

*****

Anyway, after doing all that—I returned to my original goal of preparing for the test at the end of the month.

I shut down my laptop, pushing the lingering thoughts about noble politics and childhood engagements to the back of my mind for the time being.

My ice powers and swordsmanship is satisfactory for now. Thanks to my intense daily workouts and constant practice, my physical attributes and elemental casting were already at a comfortable level for a freshman.

So the next thing I want to focus on is—my buffs and debuffs. It’s Vael’s secondary skills, and it’s the ones that helped the most during the test.

In the original game, players who used Vael in their team comps relied heavily on his ability to empower allies and weaken enemy waves during prolonged dungeon crawls.

I train these skills everyday as well, but I kind of set it aside for too long, focusing more on my ice powers and swordsmanship.

Because I was so obsessed with building up my direct combat strength to survive individual encounters, I had neglected the utility skills that made Vael such a valuable team asset.

And so, I sat down on the bed in a lotus formation. I crossed my legs on the firm mattress, resting my wrists on my knees and straightening my back to establish a clean flow of internal mana.

I tried my best forgetting what happened earlier with Cordelia and everything that I had just discovered.

I took a long, deep breath, exhaling all the stress and confusion while letting my mind settle into a quiet, meditative state.

The day is still long, I need to get better with my other skills before the test begins.

I closed my eyes, focusing all my concentration on the cold pool of energy sitting deep within my core and slowly guiding it throughout my body’s mana pathways.

... ... ...

... ... ...

... ... ...

I continuously used my buffing skills and debuffing skills onto myself back and forth—with my absurd mana reserve, I didn’t even feel tired even after doing it for hours.

A pale blue glow periodically wrapped around my arms and chest as I activated minor stat boosts, followed by a faint gray haze whenever I cast weakening spells on my own body to test their intensity.

Because of Vael’s naturally high mana pool, I didn’t experience the usual mental exhaustion or mana depletion that most students faced after repeated spellcasting.

But at the same time... I feel very little improvement.

Despite spending hours cycling through the spells over and over again, the actual output and effectiveness of the buffs and debuffs barely moved a fraction.

"..."

A frown appeared on my face. I wiped a thin layer of sweat from my forehead before reaching over to grab my phone from the nightstand to search for better training guides.

I went through the internet to find a good method to improve these kinds of skills—and this is when I came to the realization that such skills are rare.

"...?"

I spent nearly forty minutes clicking through various magic forums, academy library databases, and public research archives, only to find almost nothing useful.

There are very few articles or such about buffing and debuffing skills. Most of them are about artifacts and potions with similar effects.

In this world, direct stat manipulation through personal magic was extremely uncommon, as most mages focused strictly on offensive elemental spells or defensive barriers.

’Now that I think about it, there are hardly any characters in the game that can buff and debuff.’

Out of the dozens of playable units and named NPCs in the entire game, only a tiny handful possessed innate buffing or debuffing abilities in their base skill trees.

"Ugh..."

I groaned.

I let out a heavy sigh and tossed my phone onto the bedsheets, deeply frustrated by the complete lack of accessible information.

I really can’t find anything.

Without a proper training manual or an experienced teacher to guide the flow of mana, simply repeating the spells blindly was leading nowhere fast.

I don’t know what came to me after that, but I decided to message Ahri if she knows anything about this.

I picked up my phone again, unlocking the messaging screen and typing out a short query about how one goes about refining buffing and debiffing magic.

I was desperate, and she really knows a lot, to be honest.

Since she had lived in the high-noble sphere for so long and managed various household affairs, I figured she might at least know some general theoretical knowledge.

Ping!

I didn’t even have to wait long for her response.

The digital chime rang out instantly before I even had the chance to exit the app or set the screen down.

I blinked in surprise at how insanely fast her typing speed was, and then I tapped on the new notification to read what she had sent.

And when I read her message—

[Oh, are you training the skills I taught you when we were young, Vael?]

"...?"

My brows frowned a little in surprise.

I stared blankly at the screen, my mind instantly freezing as I read her question twice to make sure I wasn’t misinterpreting her words.

’What...? Ahri taught Vael how to use buffing and debuffing skills?’

I asked in my head.

The revelation hit me out of nowhere, completely blowing away my assumption that Vael had simply unlocked these skills through natural affinity or studying in his household library.

Then at that moment, as if she can read the question in my head—Ping! I received another message from Ahri.

Another chime echoed in the room just a few seconds later as she sent a follow-up text.

[As you know, our household specializes in buffing and debuffing; that’s the main reason why we became one of the main vassals of the Frostguard family after all. We assist the main family during dungeon diving and monster hunting with these skills.]

[If you want to improve on the skills I taught you, I can help you!]

The excitement in her tone was unmistakable even through a mobile phone screen, practically radiating off the glowing text as she offered to guide me through my training once again.

[Then please, I ask for your guidance.]

I replied to her.