A Brand-New Spectator Sport
Until now, there had been only one trigger for my regressions: my own death.
Even when the world began to collapse into ruin, as long as I clung to life, I could hold out for quite a long time. Granted, holding out always ended in death anyway, but the point remained—the apocalypse itself was never the reset button. Yet this time, the clock had wound back to zero even though I hadn't died. The only variable that had changed was the punk whose throat I'd just slit.
A throbbing ache bloomed behind my temples. If his death acted as a trigger as well, that spelled disaster for my retirement plans. What if I spent years setting everything up for a quiet twelve-year slumber, rented a cozy little room, and curled up under the blanket—only to be snapped right back to square one the instant my head hit the pillow? What if he kept ruining my peace with his impeccably terrible timing, over and over again?
What was I supposed to do? Lock him up in some impenetrable bunker every single cycle? But if he was a regressor too, he could easily off himself and force a restart whenever he pleased. Should I just foil tonight's assassination and let him roam like free-range cattle? No, leaving him to his own devices in a city teeming with cutthroats—especially when his reputation was already six feet under—made a long lifespan practically impossible.
Explaining everything I knew and teaming up to prevent the end of the world wasn't even a consideration. I'd abandoned that delusion ages ago. Over thirty iterations had thoroughly conditioned me into profound learned helplessness. For now, I just needed to gauge his reaction. It was hopelessly optimistic, sure, but there was always the slim chance he didn't retain his memories of the previous loop.
That fragile hope vanished the moment I laid eyes on him.
He was slouched stiffly in his chair, wearing an expression of pure, bewildered panic. Seeing it myself settled any lingering doubt: he definitely remembered the last loop.
"Leave it over there."
He tried not to give himself away when he saw me, doing his best impression of the original Arthur Croft. His acting had improved somewhat since morning, but it still didn't quite capture the unhinged decadence of the genuine scoundrel. Besides, the tremor of shock lingering in his voice was a dead giveaway.
Still, I managed to set down his tray and slip away to grab my own lunch without further incident. I ate alongside a chattering Sally and a few other servants. Not long after resuming my afternoon duties, I spotted him trudging up the stairs toward the library.
Feigning an urge to sweep the hallway, I peeked through the cracked library door. Unlike the previous run, he was diligently gathering volumes focused entirely on the fundamentals of magic. Was he seriously trying to teach himself? Good luck with that.
Then again, in my first cycle, I'd lacked the clearance to browse ducal bookshelves and was too busy scraping by just to stay alive, so I accomplished nothing of the sort. Had I possessed the body of a highborn heir, I probably would have rushed to study magic first, too. The chance to wield a mysterious, supernatural force nonexistent in the modern world, paired with that intoxicating rush of feeling like the chosen protagonist of a fantasy novel—it was an understandable urge.
What Is Magic?, Magic from the Ground Up, Circle Theory, Intermediate Magical Theory, and Fundamentals of Fire Magic. Those were the five titles stacked in his arms. As his senior in the excruciating school of self-taught wizardry, I would grade his selection a generous forty out of a hundred.
Magic from the Ground Up was a book I'd bought from a street vendor back in my second cycle thinking it was an introductory primer, only to tear it to shreds in a fit of rage because the author's explanations were hopelessly convoluted and pedantic. Even now, the memory of wasting my hard-earned coin still stung. Circle Theory was an advanced treatise that I only truly grasped after systematically working my way up to the 5th Circle at the Magic Tower. And Intermediate Magical Theory? For a guy whose magical comprehension was on par with a newborn infant, picking up an intermediate text displayed an astonishing level of unearned confidence.
Having finished his library shopping spree, he hummed a little tune in eager anticipation as he hauled the five hefty tomes. For someone who'd had his throat slit just a couple hours ago, his mental resilience was something to behold.
"Ahem..."
Flinging the library door wide with grand swagger, he abruptly choked off his humming the instant he saw me cleaning just outside, coughing into his fist to compose himself.
"Are you heading back to your quarters, Young Master? May I carry those for you?"
"Er... no. It's fine."
"Very well, Young Master."
Rebuffing my polite offer, he grunted and staggered down the stairs under the sheer weight of paper and leather.
Once I wrapped up my perfunctory cleaning, I slipped back into the servants' quarters. During this brief window of rest before afternoon chores, I needed to assemble at least one circle. Having a foundation was essential if I wanted options—whether that meant dealing with tonight's impending event or rushing straight to the 3rd Circle later on.
I drew ambient mana from the surrounding air.
I gathered the mana dormant within my flesh.
Then, with practiced finesse, I gave it a steady spin.
Spin it too fast, and the core turns volatile; spin it too slow, and the gathered energy dissipates into nothing. Mastering the precise momentum required to sustain that centrifugal force was the very first hurdle that broke aspiring self-taught mages. A decent master could guide a disciple by manually circulating their internal mana at the correct velocity until the student caught the rhythm, essentially spoon-feeding them the sensation. But hiring such a mentor or paying for mana-attunement procedures cost a fortune.
By the time my legs started growing numb from sitting cross-legged, my first ring was humming smoothly in place. Now, all that was left was to pop out and purchase some mana herb.
Personally, I was curious to see how the guy planned to handle the assassin. The attempt hadn't happened yet in this timeline, and the estate guards were an unyielding bunch who refused to budge from their assigned posts. In fairness, calling them stubborn was a bit harsh—they were simply meticulous about protocol—but for Arthur, that rigidity was dreadful news. I'd just have to bide my time until nightfall and watch the show unfold. At this point, my only real wish was that he'd prove to be a coward like me, abandoning grand delusions of saving the world to accept harsh reality instead.
"That comes to ten silver coins in total."
"Here you go."
Once again, I bought a batch of mana herb. By now, the sorrowful, pitying looks I received whenever I purchased this noxious weed didn't even faze me. The apothecary always looked at me with deep concern whenever I asked for Chervil.
I did feel a tiny pang of guilt toward our newly transmigrated friend, though. If he managed to survive tonight, his sterling reputation was about to take another nosedive. People in this district already recognized me as a maid from the Croft ducal estate. And Chervil's universally known application was as a compounding ingredient used by slavers to suppress captured mages' spellcasting. Virtually nobody burned away their own lifespan to use it as a catalyst like I did. Add to that the fact that Arthur Croft was infamous across the city as a depraved lecher, and what did that yield? A completely plausible rumor that our young master had recently purchased a captive mage slave to play with.
His fiancée, Lady Olivia, would undoubtedly fly into another rage. Well, not that it mattered, seeing as she'd already snapped and dispatched an assassin anyway. Truth be told, Lady Olivia Winter was a name I held in rather fond regard. Whenever I paid her a quiet visit and promised not to reveal her role in hiring the assassin, she always proved to be a wonderfully generous sponsor of my living expenses.
Clutching the paper bag of dried herb, I strolled back toward the estate. But the moment I entered the servants' quarters, a commotion met me at the door. Standing amidst a circle of murmuring maids and footmen was Sally, weeping her eyes out. As soon as she caught sight of me, her tear-filled eyes widened, and she threw herself into my arms.
"W-What do I do, Aria...? Sniffle... Young Master Arthur told me to stay in his room tonight..."
"Breathe, Sally. Calm down. What did he actually say?"
According to her disjointed sobs, when she brought up his meal, he'd begged her to stay by his side tonight because he was certain an assassin was coming for his life.
"Guards are posted at every gate, and he expects us to believe an assassin is coming? If he's going to make excuses to drag a girl into his bed, he could at least make them believable. Tsk!"
"I know, right? Despicable..."
The surrounding servants clicked their tongues in disgust, murmuring words of comfort to Sally.
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to suppress a smirk. Was your reputation really that completely in the gutter? Suddenly, casually buying that Chervil in Croft livery felt a little mean.
"If I refuse, what if I get fired...? I have to send money home for my sibling's tuition at the Medical Academy..."
"I'll go talk to him in your place. Stay here."
"B-But if you go, Aria, then you'll..."
"I'll be fine."
I guided Sally into a chair to help her settle down, grabbed my wooden smoking pipe and a measure of Chervil, and set off toward the scion's quarters. Along the way, I made sure to stash a crushed leaf in a secluded nook to dry as an emergency reserve. Gazing idly out the corridor window on my way to his room, I caught my own reflection in the glass: a faint, genuine smirk playing at the corners of my lips. In this endlessly repeating, suffocatingly monotonous city, how long had it been since I'd genuinely smiled?
By pure reflex, I had initially treated him as nothing more than an obstacle to my retirement—a nuisance to be quietly eliminated. But my mind was changing. Now that the boy had become a second reset switch, simply ignoring him was tricky anyway. Watching him flail and struggle like the star of some drawn-out soap opera might actually provide decent entertainment. Having spent the last three cycles living as an utter shut-in without a shred of amusement, I supposed I was starved for a distraction.
To me, after more than thirty iterations, the people here—even Sally—hardly felt human anymore. They felt like scripted NPCs going through the motions. But him? He was the sole being who shared my memories across cycles. For a diligent, earnest regressor, an unpredictable variable in every loop would be a nightmare, but in my current burned-out state, I couldn't care less.
I had zero intention of warning him about upcoming hazards or backstabbing traitors. Part of that was admittedly the petty thrill of watching a clueless newbie roll in the mud. Judging from his muttering, his situation was an exact mirror of mine. Maybe my twisted, cynical nature—forged through endless failures—was speaking, but one thought kept bubbling up:
Why should I be the only one who suffered?
Of course, I didn't actually believe he could stop the apocalypse and shatter this loop. I'd bashed my head against the brick wall of reality far too many times to entertain such rosy fantasies. And honestly, if he was going to transmigrate, why couldn't he have landed in someone formidable like the Magic Tower Master instead of this pathetic excuse of an aristocrat? Still, until I got bored, I might as well linger by his side and enjoy the show.