"Ahh, Rose... I seriously messed up," Jennie said as she repositioned herself behind a tall classmate to hide from Atlas Castor, who she stupidly decided to play a game of no blinking with.

Rose turned her head sideways to her friend who seemed to have gone pale. "What's wrong with you?"

Jennie shook her head. "Nurse's office. Now."

Blinking in confusion, but obedient to Jennie's words, Rose made an excuse to the PE teacher and helped Jennie get to the nurse's office.

"What's going on?" Rose asked as she stared at Jennie who looked like an embalmed corpse laying on the bed.

"I..." Jennie began, before getting up abruptly, slightly shocking Rose to attention. "I think we should try to live our best in this world."

Rose let out a disgruntled sound. "You scared me for no reason. And what? That's random."

Jennie shook her head. "I'm serious. It's not like we were happy back in our world."

"We weren't unhappy either," Rose chimed in.

A small self-deprecating smile made its way onto Jennie's lips, but she made sure to control herself so Rose couldn't see. "Yeah... but there's no clue how to get back and there hasn't been any information on what we're supposed to be doing here either."

Rose tilted her head to the side, a habit she developed when thinking since beginning her career. "I guess... I mean that's easy to say but I have no idea how to even begin."

Jennie quickly clasped Rose's hands, beaming with excitement. "That's the beauty of this situation. We're freshmen..."

Trailing off, Rose looked at her like an alien species, of which Jennie squinted her eyes in annoyance, "As long as we study hard, do the things we need to do as extra credit, we can be whatever we want to be. We have the advantage of living as true adults before!"

Rose's eyes showed a slight interest in Jennie's sales pitch, before turning gloomy again. "You say that as if we're both good at studying."

Jennie slapped Rose on her hand. "We are smart. Otherwise how could you make it into medical school and how could I end up working in intelligence?"

Rose laughed bitterly. "I didn't manage to go in the end though..."

Jennie felt herself freeze and almost smacked her face a thousand times for hitting Rose's sore spot. "I didn't mean to bring that up..."

Shaking her head, Rose smiled at Jennie sincerely. "It's all in the past. We work well in intelligence together anyway."

Jennie felt a sad smile make its way to her face before she consciously controlled it and her brain worked at full speed. "You know, we're both daughters of rich parents in this world. If you wanted, you could try... I mean, it wouldn't be a problem this time... round..."

Jennie felt her voice getting smaller, unsure of how Rose would take her suggestion. She could only look down at her intertwined fingers, worry clouding over her mind.

"Holy crap..." Jennie heard Rose say, making her meet eyes with Rose again. "You brilliant girl. So, I could really..."

Jennie could see Rose's mind working a mile a minute, probably from thinking about the application process or fantasizing about being a doctor, she wasn't sure. It was most likely the application process though. Rose was a realist after all.

Giggling softly before pinching Rose's left cheek, Jennie smiled warmly at her best friend and co-worker of 8 years. "If it's you, you'll be the best doctor there is in this world."

Rose smiled softly and felt warmth for the first time since coming to this world. She didn't believe it at first but quickly got into the hustle and bustle of a long forgotten time of her life. She just wanted to end the school days with Jennie and find a way to get back but Jennie suddenly said how their lives back there weren't anything special.

Rose wanted to refute it but she couldn't. It wasn't special but it was still her life and rejecting it meant rejecting a near three decades of hard work and doing her best. But now... how could she go back when this was placed on a platter in front of her.

A doctor.

Her long forgotten dream that she buried deep in her heart. A dream that could only stay a dream because her single mother couldn't afford the tuition and Rose herself couldn't scrounge up enough money from her part time jobs to make it there. It was so close but it was shut right in front of her face. The bitter feeling of that never left her.

Rose looked at Jennie who had anticipation in her eyes and Rose couldn't help but chuckle at how enthusiastic she looked, but a small part of her was curious as to why Jennie was suddenly on board with being in this world. It was suspicious.

"You... why do you suddenly want to do our best in this world?" Rose asked, suspicion obvious on her face.

Jennie laughed softly before flicking Rose's forehead. "You being suspicious makes me remember how diligent you were in writing those research papers."

Sighing while walking down memory lane, Jennie stared up to the ceiling. "I just don't want to go back. After what happened with..."

Jennie shook her head as she felt her eyes water. Rose quickly got up and hugged her, silently comforting her and signaling her not to say anything anymore. "I got it."

Jennie felt herself feel better from that short phrase. She really loved Rose's silent kindness and her ability to understand her at times like these. Jennie pulled away from the hug and smiled at Rose, her sullen feeling disappearing. "Let's do well here. I want us to live our lives in the way we couldn't. I want to love myself the most this time."

Rose smiled in understanding. "Alright. Let's do that, then."

Jennie nodded vigorously, before remembering a certain pair of emerald eyes. "Ah, ."

"What now?" Rose asked, bewildered by Jennie's mood swings.

Jennie shook her head, before staring seriously at Rose. "Let's keep a low profile until we graduate. I don't want to get involved with the five pillars of destruction."

"Ah?" Rose quipped in confusion.

"The five pillars of destruction. Celestia, Zenith, Janus, Phoenix and Atlas. Don't you remember all those crazy shenanigans surrounding those people? It sends shivers down my spine when I remember it," Jennie said, a frantic look on her face.

Rose furrowed her brows before realizing what Jennie was saying. Kidnappings, gun fights, poisoning... were just the tip of the iceberg.

"You're right..." Rose responded in alarm. "We wouldn't get involved with them, right? I mean, our names weren't even mentioned in this novel."

Jennie nodded reluctantly. "True, but just in case. Let's lay some rules. Firstly, if we ever encounter any event in the novel, let's do our best to avoid it and ignore it. The plot will move by itself without our intervention anyway."

Rose nodded in agreement.

"Secondly, we should never get close to Celestia and the sub-characters, Ariel and Pandora. They attract trouble everywhere they go. Even if we seem like complete jerks, we must never, EVER, be within their existence radius. We must be scarce. We must be..."

"Grey," Rose chimed in, gaining an active nod of approval and thumbs up from Jennie.

"Lastly. This is the most important one. We must absolutely never get involved with the male leads. They exclusively belong to Celestia, so we would just be hacked off if we get involved with them," Jennie said desperately.

Rose nodded vigorously. "So avoid and ignore them too."

"No!" Jennie yelled out. "That's the worst thing you could do!"

"Eh? Why?" Rose asked, confused.

Jennie clicked her tongue. "Haven't you read novels where the male lead suddenly becomes interested in the isekai'd girl because she acts indifferent? We absolutely must not go down that path."

Rose felt a lightbulb in her mind. "Ah! I see!"

Jennie nodded proudly. "So what we must do is..."

Rose listened attentively, awaiting her comrade's instructions.

"We have to act stupid and ogle at them like all the other girls."

Rose felt her stomach flip. "...what?"

"Think about it," Jennie began, arms folded like a teacher giving a lesson. "Have they ever paid attention to the girls who ogle at them and look at them with a billion hearts in their eyes?"

Rose thought carefully. "Hmm, no..."

"Exactly!" Jennie exclaimed. "Then, we just have to follow along those squid girls and act like they're the only males in our eyes. They'll either be creeped out or think it's like their normal everyday life but they'll ignore us. We'll be average, typical, normal!"

"Normal by this novel's standards, you mean," Rose stated, a bit peeved that this was in the list of rules.

"Eh~ come on, Rose. It's not like I want to act like that either," Jennie explained unconvincingly, earning her a smack from Rose on her backside.

"You're living for this. I know you're looking forward to acting like a mindless little girl who loves handsome men the most. I haven't forgotten how your office talent was acting like a pure and innocent female lead from romance novels," Rose mentioned, annoyance on her face.

Jennie fake laughed cutely, sending goosebumps on Rose's arms. "Eh~ Rose. I'll only do that in emergencies. I'm also good at acting like a R-rated y female lead character, you know~"

"Ugh, stop talking like that. No wonder everyone always laughs when you do this," Rose said, half disgusted and half amused at Jennie’s ability to be both cute and foxy at the same time.

Jennie laughed normally and stretched herself, before getting off the bed.

"But I really do look like the pure, innocent type with these new looks of mine," Jennie said as she studied herself in the mirror near the bed. Foxy, slanted brown eyes, dark brown hair that went past her shoulders, cute plump lips and a sweet aura. A very pretty yet normal young girl. Jennie smiled at how perfect this character set up was.

"Tell me about it. It's weird being so young," Rose agreed, before looking at herself in the mirror. Long blonde hair that fell to the middle of her back and big grey-black eyes that seemed to have a dull shimmer when hit by sunlight. Rose felt weird being in this body but she was getting used to it.

"Tch. You can't complain. You'd be a model with your looks if we followed our world's standards," Jennie complained, slightly jealous of Rose's cool, beautiful looks.

Rose laughed. "What about you? Aren't you the typical cute girl that all guys fall for in web novels? I guess the standards for squid girls here are this high level."

Jennie couldn't help but sigh in agreement. "If we're this narcissistic about ourselves, imagine how out of this world Celestia Oberon is."

Jennie and Rose sighed in unison, thinking about the description in the novel of Celestia Oberon's looks.

Light pink hair that floated with every step she took, fluttery lashes mysteriously cover the pale turquoise eyes that could reflect anything in front of it, a lithe body that made every man's heart tremble in attraction from just seeing a sway.

"Ugh, even the description is overpowering," Rose complained.

Jennie patted Rose's back. "What can we plebeians do but just accept the highest ranking creature on the female food chain."

Rubbing her forehead, Rose felt a headache coming from this novel's characters and set up.

"That reminds me," Rose began as she collected herself. "What are you aiming to do?"

Jennie placed a forefinger on her chin in contemplation. "I haven't really thought of it. I just wanted to try getting good grades for now. At the very least, I have more choices if my grades are good even if I don't have an idea now."

Rose nodded at the logic, when an idea came to her.

"Hey Jennie..."

"Hmm?" Jennie responded half-heartedly, as she started looking around a novel's nurse's office set up in admiration.

"Let's go to med school together."