The Second Day One
Last loop, I met Meheris, the sheep-folk graduate student, and let her walk me through the school's facilities. It ate up no small amount of time.
Meeting a guide and hearing the explanation had been the whole point of the tutorial quest, and I'd been dropped into this body knowing absolutely nothing—I had to clutch at whatever straw I could find. Meheris really had been a tremendous help. Thanks to her, I'd even unlocked the Journal, hadn't I?
But looking back now, with Loop Two underway, the whole situation struck me as a rather elegantly built trap—one you had no choice but to step in.
Why? Because when I entered the dorm, one of the seniors had definitely said something to that effect. The luggage had just been delivered, so I ought to go up and check.
Which meant that if I skipped the meeting with Meheris and headed straight for the dorm, I could take receipt of the parcel in person. Didn't it?
All of it had been the developers' design, laid out for players who had tanked Loop One and stumbled into Loop Two. Vicious bastards.
Enlightenment!
In a video game, a tutorial is the stretch where players learn the controls, the interactions, and the mechanics unique to that game. Maybe this game's tutorial was those three days of Loop One—or, push it one step further, the black magic tome incident in its entirety. The Souls series does the same thing, doesn't it? A whole region, the Northern Asylum or some nameless cemetery, serving as the tutorial stage. Just as a tutorial packs traps, ambushes, every cheap rigged pattern, and even the lesson of dying and reviving at a bonfire into your skull until you've learned them, this game had been built so that a single loop would teach you, naturally, that failure sends you looping back—and that when a loop begins, you can allocate your stats in the carriage.
Can you feel the philosophy baked into this game?
So this loop, the Meheris encounter gets a nice clean skip!
The moment I stepped off the carriage, I opened the minimap in the Journal and bolted for the dorm.
And immediately regretted it.
"Hah… hah… hah, ahh……."
This body… its stamina is pathetic……!
And those two lumps of fat, heaving mercilessly up and down with every step and stirring up a dull, lingering ache—what was I supposed to do about them?
"Hah… hahh… nngh…."
At this rate my Cooper's ligaments might just snap clean through. The thought was horrifying enough to rise all on its own. I had no choice but to ease off and settle for something closer to a hurried trot.
I shoved through the dorm door before I could even catch my breath, and there they were, same as last loop: the seniors, still seated around the dining table.
"Hello! I'm Anastacia, the new student joining you this term!"
"Oh, yeah, yeah, good to— wait. Why are you sweating like that? Did you run here? What's the big rush?"
I fired off the greeting, and one senior welcomed me brightly only to recoil in shock. Thick dark circles lay under their eyes—the very person I'd traded greetings with last loop.
I did my best to ignore the seniors' bewildered stares and pressed on.
"Ah, well, I heard the luggage would be delivered this afternoon, so I came early to take care of it……. It hasn't arrived yet, has it?"
"Delivery? Yeah. Should still be a while. Usually shows up around five. It's only three."
"Oh, really? Thank goodness……."
Comfortably safe!
Only then could I finally let go of the tension that had been drawn tight to its limit.
"Whew……."
Ha!
I did it!
Everything after that unfolded much as it had last loop.
"We'll let you know when the delivery gets here, so hurry on up. There's a dorm orientation tomorrow night, all right? Come down to the first floor after dinner. We'll do all the introductions then, so don't forget. Got it?"
"Yes!"
I bowed and headed straight up the stairs.
"Heh… heh… ahh……."
Climbing all the way to the fourth floor was still no easy feat.
"Whoa……."
And the moment I stepped into the fourth-floor common room, Olivia's beauty was exactly as I remembered it.
At the sound of me coming in, Olivia lifted her head and looked my way. Our eyes met.
Before she could even open her mouth, I beat her to it with a warm greeting.
"Hello! Are you a new student too? Looks like we're roommates—let's get along."
From last time, I knew Olivia was timid and introverted. She had been convinced the black magic tome in the bag was mine (it wasn't) and come at me from behind in that clammy, underhanded way. Still, the fact that I'd been assassinated within two days flat made one thing clear: black magic was a serious social problem. If I had a perfectly reasonable, god-tier suspicion that my dorm roommate was a drug offender, I'd report them to the police on the spot too.
Anyway. When you're dealing with someone as timid and withdrawn as Olivia, the best approach is to come on like a bright, outgoing social butterfly. The way INFPs moldering in a corner, perfectly content to be left alone, get chosen by their extroverted friends.
"Ah, hello…… I… I'm in your care as well. Um, uh……"
"Ah, I'm Anastacia. What's your name?"
"I, I'm…… Olivia, of… of Count Claudel's house… Olivia Claudel……. At school, p-please just call me O-Olivia……."
"All right, I'll call you Olivia. Please just call me Anastacia too, okay?"
"Y-yes…! I will. A-Anastacia……."
Names, exchanged.
"……So you moved into the dorm today as well, Olivia?"
"Ah, yes…… I arrived in Oxenbridge the day before yesterday, but… n-new students can only move in starting today……. So until then I was… staying at an official residence."
"An official residence?"
"W-well, n-nobles… when we're away from our lands, it's proper manners to lodge at… another noble's estate, or… an official residence……."
"Aha. I've lived inside a convent since I was little, so I'm a bit ignorant of how the world works. If I don't know things everyone else takes for common sense, I'd appreciate a little patience."
"O-of course…!"
Recent circumstances and backstory, exchanged.
"……So we're the same age? I'm twenty-one too. How about we just drop the formalities? What do you think?"
"Ah, sh-shall we…? I-I'd like that too……."
"Then we're dropping them right now."
"……!!!"
And while we were at it, casual-speech mode: activated.
But this girl, Olivia…… she was way too easy! If she got friend-captured this fast, I was starting to feel a little guilty.
My aggressive approach had been entirely calculated. Get close. Get friendly. Figure out what kind of person Olivia actually was. Learn whether she'd really been killed for reporting the black magic tome to the school. And in the end, stop that death.
Why? Because otherwise I'd be sent back to the stagecoach to start over from the beginning. Because only then could I get past this End of the Loop, or whatever it was, and move on to the next stage.
But if she acted like this, it made me feel awful……! Glancing around all nervous, starting every sentence in that timid little voice, lighting up whenever I talked to her, carrying on as if she'd never made a single friend in her life—that was a problem.
"……Th-then, later, at the student dining hall… w-want to have dinner together……?"
"Yeah, let's. I'd like that!"
"……!!!"
At this point, she was just plain kind. The reason she'd grilled me so relentlessly last loop? Maybe it had come from a good heart, hoping her roommate wasn't some heretical mage. The reason she'd been killed? Handing the black magic tome over to the school must have put her on the wrong side of the bastards who practiced black magic.
Which meant the right read was that someone I couldn't identify had put the tome in my bag—on purpose or by chance. From here on, I just had to live school life and find out who, and why!
Hoo…… I, Anastacia, had made up my mind.
Effective immediately, I withdraw my support for Olivia Claudel.
I hereby declare that I have left behind a mere relationship of endorsement and become one with her—a single body.
Any attack upon Olivia Claudel shall be regarded as an attack upon me.
……I'll try not to let you die.
"Oh, but didn't they say three of us share this dorm? Have you met the other roommate?"
"Ah, not yet……. There seemed to be a… n-nameplate on the bedroom door… but I don't think they've arrived……."
Right. I remembered checking the nameplates in Loop One, too. The name had been…… extremely ordinary. No family name, either.
Anyway. The third roommate could wait until they showed up.
After that I spent quite a long while trading this and that with Olivia, building rapport. What I focused on was basic common sense about this world, and magic. Maybe because I'd already laid the groundwork with a cheerful I've lived in a convent my whole life and don't know anything~, Olivia didn't find those questions strange at all, and explained things kindly.
"Mm, well, A-Anastacia, you're an Ecclesial Scholarship Student, right…? M-magic probably isn't familiar to you, so……."
According to Olivia's kind, made-to-measure explanation, the Church and the world of magic had always kept each other at arm's length. On one side, the religious establishment: Magic? That was bestowed on us by the God of Magic too, wasn't it? So we ought to worship Him, right? On the other, the mages: Huh? What kind of logic is that, lol. We developed all of it because we're brilliant—what god?
The two powers had only begun even a little exchange because of "that incident," a few hundred years ago……. Going on and on about what "that incident" actually was would make me sound like an insufferable lore nerd, so I decided to save it for next time.
Ting-a-ling~
Just then a bell rang from a corner of the common-room wall, and both of us looked up at once. A bell, out of nowhere?
"Th-the seniors… use it to call us. That sort of thing……."
Aha. So the delivery was here?
Sure enough, when I went down to the first floor, five or six large leather bags of similarly modest make sat in a row beside the entrance.
"Those are all yours, so just take them right up!"
The dark-circles senior, still shouting from the dining table.
Huh? All of these were ours?
When I stared, Olivia flinched and slightly averted her eyes.
"Um…… I have… kind of a lot of luggage……."
Now I understood why she'd popped my bag open without a second thought. She'd assumed they were all hers, huh?
But when was I supposed to carry all of this? It looked like several trips.
"I'll help you carry them."
I offered, but Olivia only shook her head. Then, looking rather pleased with herself, she raised both hands, cleared her throat lightly, and opened her mouth.
"Ahem, ahem… M-Multa Omnia……!"
⟨ Multa Omnia ⟩
The moment Olivia recited the spell, the weight of the bags lightened as if by magic—literally.
"Whoa! Magic!"
So you know Wingardium Leviosa! A specialty of fantasy magic: every last incantation is Latin-based.
"A-Anastacia, you'll… be able to learn it soon too, in Enchantment class… it's a basic spell……."
(Here, enchantment means the school of magic—not the ancient kingdom of Buyeo, up north of Goguryeo.)
Olivia, puffed up and giving a little shrug, and I split the bags three apiece and climbed back to the fourth floor.
You're lucky I think you're cute. That's why I'm letting this slide.
Anyway. I handed Olivia the bags I'd carried for her, took only my own luggage, and headed for the bedroom. (I checked the name tag several times over, just to be absolutely sure it was mine.)
And sure enough, when I undid the buckle and opened the mouth of the bag, the black magic tome was right there, shoving its face at me.
"Now what am I supposed to do with you……."
Anyway, I got experience out of it, so that was nice!