The Nameless Extra: I Proofread This World

The [Character Sheet] unfolded in his vision.

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{}---『RUNEHEART』---{}

◇ Name: Corwin Dunley

◇ Age: 17

◇ Spellcore: Tier 1

◇ Rank: Fifth-Class Magus

◇ Magic Affinity: None

[Mana Resonance: (1/100)]

==[General Attributes]==

Strength: F+

Agility: E-

Endurance: F+

Vitality: F+

Perception: E-

==[Mage Attributes]==

Mana Control: F+

Casting Speed: F+

Magic Power: F+

Mental Strength: E

Mana Sensitivity: F+

Mana Essence: [150/150]

==[Innate Blessings]==

- [Blessing of Calzeron’s Touch]

==[Affinity Mastery]==

- [Pure Mana (Basic)]

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Ruvian’s eyes grew wide as he read Corwin’s [Character Sheet].

No, honestly, his stats were even more abysmal than what Ruvian originally had in the beginning, but that was not what surprised him.

Not the fact that he was the Unaffined either.

No, it was actually because he had an innate blessing!

’Calzeron’s Touch...’

Ruvian inspected his blessing in more detail.

It was then that Ruvian learned how valuable his blessing was.

’This is...’

The blessing did not merely improve his ability to learn alchemy; it reshaped the very relationship between his hands and matter itself.

When handling reagents, his fingers would instinctively sense their purity, density, and hidden flaws. Imperfections that would escape veteran alchemists revealed themselves to him as clear as daylight.

Even without formal training, he could feel when a mixture was approaching instability, or when it was on the verge of transcendent success.

More frightening still, the blessing did not remain static.

The more time he spent studying alchemy, the more responsive it became. Complex formulas that should have taken months to grasp began to disclose themselves before him in days.

’Corwin... he’s...’

In that flash of understanding, Ruvian managed to connect the dots...

There was no doubt about it.

Corwin Dunley was the unknown scholar who had once helped Zian Herga by crafting a quick healing potion that saved his life!

’Haha. So it was you.’

And right now, that boy was walking towards the front.

There was something brittle in the way he moved, as though he was cradling a dream too delicate for reality. As if he had clung to it, nurturing his very being around it, only to stand now on the precipice of its collapse.

The device beat faintly under his touch. But then, nothing remained. The glow had faded. Later, a silence deeper than mere quiet filled the room.

It was in that hollow silence that Edvoss spoke, his tone polished smooth by years of repetition, practiced neutrality that sanding away any trace of sympathy.

”No affinity. Next!”

However, Corwin, for what reason he couldn’t know, his fingers doesn’t want to move away from the device.

And his breath somehow halted for a moment.

’No... affinity. I have no affinity?’

It was as if Edvoss’s words had broken a life within him. His lips parted slightly as if to protest, but no sound came.

”Mr. Dunley, please go back to your seat. Don’t waste my time here.”

”...Y-yes. Sorry.”

Corwin slowly turned his back and walked back to his seat.

But on his way, the world around him blurred at the edges, the murmurs of his peers dissolving into a distant.

He couldn’t hear them anymore, as he was deep inside his own world now. His steps were stiff, hollow like a marionette with its strings half-severed.

Even the light in his eyes had gone out, snuffed.

Corwin sank into the chair beside Ruvian.

Ruvian barely spared him a glance. He had seen this before, people who had poured their entire being and efforts into a singular dream, only to learn that the world had no place for them in it.

’Well, it is foolish... to think that magic was the only path. To think one rejection meant the end of everything...’

’But I guess it makes sense for him.’

The thought wasn’t just meant for Corwin, but also for himself—for Yuzuki when he was young. For a version of his young self when he was sculpted by pressure and expectations, that success was identity and failure was death.

That pathetic past self...

Ruvian loathed himself more than anyone.

And now, sitting beside him, Corwin wore the same teary, helpless expression that didn’t know how to grieve the future that was not meant for them.

Ruvian turned away.

Although he despised that kind of person, he also understood them better than anyone.

That talent is never given to those who deserve it.

It is given to those who take it.

And Corwin...

He had yet to realize what his talent was.

*****

[Corwin’s POV]

Corwin sat alone on the stone staircase, his back pressed against the cold wall behind him, the chill seeping through the fabric of his uniform.

He was tired emotionally. Most of it was because he was disappointed with how the evaluation turned out to be.

Beyond the stairwell, past the high-arched hallway and thick academy doors, laughter echoed from the dining hall: bright, distant, and untouched by his presence.

It sounded like a world he could see but never quite enter.

And perhaps, he preferred it this way. When no one was around to glance at him, it became easier to pretend he belonged here.

In his hands rested a single piece of stale bread, rough at the edges, slightly hardened.

But it was enough to dull the ache in his stomach, at least for a little while. It was all he could afford, and all he ever had.

Bread for lunch, soup for dinner.

That was his pattern.

His family had sacrificed everything, scraped together coins, skipped meals, sold heirlooms they couldn’t afford to lose, just to give him this chance of enrolling into this academy.

It had been his choice.

Corwin didn’t come here to escape the life he was born into, but to repay it, because while he had known hardship, it was his mother and his father who bore the weight of it every day, who had swallowed pride and poverty, and traded their last coin for Corwin’s future...

For their future.

And then there were his younger siblings, who still went to sleep hungry some nights so he could chase something better.

Recalling that, Corwin closed his eyes and smiled wanly.

”Sorry... your brother is nothing but a disappointment.”

His gaze dropped to the floor, fixed there, as he bit the inside of his cheek and held the tears back.

Back then, the day his Spellcore awakened had been a miracle. He remembered the way his father had laughed—a rare, rumbling sound so full of joy it almost didn’t feel real, and the way his mother had wept, holding his hands with such trembling relief.

And for that single moment, all of them had believed the impossible: that maybe, this was the start of a different life for them.

But belief, he would come to learn, was fragile.

Being awakened wasn’t enough.

Because while others arrived with family tutors and bloodlines, with polished spells and guidance passed down through generations, he had come with nothing but hope and borrowed robes.

He had no mentor.

Who would want to take him as a disciple?

He had no ancestral teachings, either.

Just a determination to learn, a quiet desperation to prove he wasn’t just a lucky peasant with a spark of mana.

But was determination and desperation alone enough?

He read alone, stayed up late, listened at the edges of information not meant for ears like his.

He tried to mimic their gestures, their chants, the way their mana moved, but imitation could only carry him so far when he didn’t even understand the language they were using.

He has done everything he can to pass the admission test.

And thankfully, he did.

But then came the affinity test.

He had dreaded it long before that day arrived, and had felt the heaviness of it in every heartbeat. He had prayed, pleaded, bargained with gods he didn’t even know if he believed in, for just one affinity.

Just one. It didn’t have to be powerful. It didn’t have to be impressive. It just had to be something useful for him.

Any affinity was fine!

But when Instructor Edvoss had called his name, standing at the center of the ritual chamber with eyes cold as glass, the words that followed were like frost cracking across his chest.

—”No affinity. Next!”

Those three words had shattered the floor beneath his feet and let the whole world fall through.

Tears finally began to fall from his eyes.

’Why am I not born talented?’

’Why am I born as a commoner?’

’And why am I so useless...?’

The question itself is pitiful.

Some people open their eyes into a world already marked by brilliance. Their hands curve naturally toward the sword’s hilt, their lips to incantations smoother than butter.

They do not wonder whether they belong, because belonging was their birthright.

Why not me? Why am I the one who must claw upward from mud, while others have the easy way? Why?

All sorts of questions filled his mind.

His voice slips into the silence, hoarse and cracked, speaking to no one but the walls:

”Is this what fairness looks like?’

He rubbed his eyes with his sleeve, swallowing hard.

”I... I also want a better life.”

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[Chapter 49: What The World Won’t Give (1)]