I Know the Future

X recovered his body with the last remaining potion. It was potent enough to restore him even after his entire body had been reduced to a ruin. Using a potion like this just for an interrogation... It wasn't a true elixir, but its restorative power was close enough to leave him speechless — and Darius's sheer gall, burning something like ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this on a mere interrogation, left him equally so.

"Feeling wasteful about it?"

The thought had barely crossed his mind when Darius, seated in his chair, tossed the words out with complete indifference. He was wiping the blood from his hands with a handkerchief.

"That settles what I owed you for the Demon Mansion incident and the 1.2 billion El."

"1.2 billion El...?"

"The duel with Sir Gripork."

Those words identified the culprit behind that infuriating affair.

"Don't tell me... the one who bet two hundred million El on me back then was...?"

"It was me. Got a problem with that?"

"No, none at all.... Um, why would you place two hundred million El on me...?"

"Nobody challenges someone to a duel they have no chance of winning."

"A most reasonable observation...."

He had plenty to say. If he wanted to stay alive, he had nothing to say. There wasn't a single potion left, after all. He shelved the uncomfortable topic and moved on quickly.

"The credit for the Demon Mansion incident.... So you knew after all."

"Watching you scramble so desperately to erase every trace was rather amusing. Am I that frightening?"

"Ah, no. How could I possibly dare..."

"For your information, this room contains forty-two different types of truth-detecting artifacts. They're making quite a racket."

"To be honest, you are quite frightening."

Darius's words confirmed it. Even using Ten Thousand Lies, lying to Darius had been impossible from the start. Watching X reverse course without missing a beat, Darius snorted.

"The only reason I've kept you alive this long is because you resolved that incident. The cleanup wasn't exactly easy, mind you."

X confirmed it once more. Darius had a thoroughly rotten personality. That completely unnecessary little jab proved it.

After wiping every last trace of blood from his hands, Darius spoke.

"Then talk. You know information that's classified even within the imperial family. Start with how you knew it."

It was a critically important question. Whether Darius would cooperate or not would be decided by this answer. Lying was impossible anyway. Which meant there was only one thing to say.

A frontal assault.

"I'll take my leave now...."

The state X was in as he left the office was beyond words. He'd been beaten just enough to still pass as human. Spouting nonsense about "the future" in front of the Crown Prince — of course he had. He'd survived only because Darius recognized his usefulness. Otherwise, what left that office would have been a corpse.

"Hmph. The future, of all things..."

Having heard X's story, Darius sank into thought.

He'd suspected for a long time that Princess Beatrice had become a demon five years ago. But this was Beatrice, who had always been so devoted to him. He couldn't bring himself to accept that she had become a demon.

His father wasn't ill. He was cursed. The Empress had already passed into eternal rest, and the Emperor remained unconscious. Without the Princess as well, the loneliness would surely drive him mad. So he had refused to acknowledge it, and simply left things as they were.

His sister Beatrice's soul was still intact. The conditions to restore her were demanding and complicated. But for now, knowing it was possible was enough. That alone lightened the weight that had been crushing his shoulders all this time.

The incident five years ago had been planned by a demon. Rage surged up so violently that his molars ground together. Unfortunately, even X didn't know how it had been planned. He wanted to slaughter every last one of them — but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the time wasn't right.

X's words came back to him. A moment will come when everything is reversed. He hadn't said what that moment would be. I'll make it happen. But there hadn't been a shred of falsehood in those words.

"A story like a dream..."

Darius smiled, one corner of his mouth lifting. Milia, standing beside him, wore an expression overflowing with distrust and discontent. Sensing her mood, Darius asked offhandedly.

"You don't care for him, I take it."

"...I still cannot bring myself to believe him."

From beginning to end, Milia had disliked everything about X.

"He is nothing more than a commoner of unknown origin. And yet he dares claim he will lift His Majesty the Emperor's curse...! As if he has any idea what Your Highness has endured these past five years...!"

"That's enough."

At Darius's rebuke, Milia bowed her head. He knew why she flared up like that. She had seen, up close, the hell Darius had been living in.

"I don't believe everything either. Who would, if someone suddenly claimed they'd seen the future?"

"Then why...?"

"I'm tired."

Darius spoke from the heart for the first time in a long while. The first time since he'd become unable to trust anyone.

"It's been five years. I can't live like this anymore — constantly doubting everything."

"Your Highness..."

"Everyone seems to have forgotten, but I'm only seventeen. I still lack the ability and the resolve to govern the nation the way His Majesty did. Coming to the Academy was as good as running away from the palace."

"That's not true! No one doubts Your Highness's abilities..."

"Listen. The artifacts are making a racket again."

"Nh..."

The truth-detecting artifacts, audible only to Darius's ears, blared their warning. Caught in her true feelings, Milia turned her head and shut her mouth.

Darius let out a long sigh. He thought of X, desperately trying to explain himself.

"Something interesting started happening the moment he said he'd seen the future."

"Something interesting, Your Highness?"

"Yes."

Darius savored a brief silence before speaking.

"They went quiet. Truly quiet, for the first time in a long while. For all the talking he did, it might as well have been silence."

X's words came back to him. That he would lift His Majesty the Emperor's curse. That he would restore Princess Beatrice to who she was. That he could stop the destruction of the Empire and the world.

X had not told a single lie.

The confrontation with Darius had been half a success. Which meant it had also been half a failure.

I'm fucked.

The Probability Penalties had exploded. Of course they had. He'd divulged knowledge that couldn't be explained. If simply saying "I know the future" could have solved everything, he wouldn't have had to struggle this hard. Each penalty was so ominous he couldn't even begin to guess what would happen next. A simple stat reduction would have been preferable.

I should probably just be grateful it ended here...

Even so, he'd achieved a success that outweighed even these penalties. A new contact had been added to his Mana Phone. Crown Prince Darius's direct line. In other words, the card he'd obtained was Imperial Support.

Of course, he hadn't secured that support for certain yet. He still had to fulfill the condition Darius had set. Namely: remove the Emperor's curse.

Time's going to be tight.

X looked at the calendar hanging on one wall of his room. The Grand Feast Day was two weeks away, and the tournament three weeks away. If he wanted to lift the Emperor's curse, he needed to move fast.

Stealing the necklace from Andras would be faster, but...

He had no intention of using that method right now. He was going to use a method no one would see coming.

"Seri, open Setting Editor."

It was finally time to dump every last Editing Point he'd been saving.

"Add the Holy Relic of Purification to the Ancient Ruins' final reward."

This was the third cheat.

He decided to go to the Ancient Ruins on Saturday, five days from now. Before that, he needed to prepare everything the expedition would require.

"You want me to buy this?"

"Yes, Master."

The next morning, X handed Roxwell a paper covered in a long list, there in the faculty office. Roxwell slowly read through it.

"Ten kilos of blasting explosives, a helmet-mounted magic lamp, fifty meters of exploration rope, ten types of fixed anchors, and so on. What, you going on some infiltration job?"

It was a shopping list with a staggering price tag at a glance. Even a rough calculation put it well over twenty million El.

"So you want me to buy this. With my money?"

"Yes, Master. You made a killing on that bet, didn't you?"

"Did I leave my money with you? Hell no."

He'd expected that response, of course. X handed over a document.

"Master, if you'd take a look at this."

"What now."

"It's the Ancient Ruins Expedition project I've planned."

He cleared his throat once and launched into the briefing.

"We're in a situation where we need to prove we're first in academics. Obviously, that's impossible with base credits alone. So we were aiming for the bonus credits from winning the tournament."

"So?"

"But it's still too risky. If we don't take first, it's over. We need a backup. Fortunately, the bonus credit rules include this."

The document listed the bonus credit regulations. X emphasized the section on Academy External Activities.

"In other words, if we do something honorable in the Academy's name, we get corresponding bonus points. Quite a lot of them, actually."

In the original novel, the Hero's party had earned bonus credits this way. They didn't need the credits anyway, so X would simply take them for himself.

"The Ancient Ruins still haven't been fully explored. It's a place where indecipherable artifacts still turn up from time to time. So I'll go explore it."

Roxwell's response to the briefing was concise.

"You think that'll work?"

A rejection, of course.

"There's a mountain of problems, but let's go through them one by one."

Roxwell folded his fingers one at a time as he laid out each point.

"First, the Academy has a complete ban on going outside. Second, there's no way you can explore a place even experts couldn't. Third — and this is the most important one — why the hell does it have to be my money?"

"So the third one is the most important to you."

"You already figured out the first two, I'm sure."

There was trust in the strangest of places. X lowered his voice, his expression serious.

"Master, this is an investment. I'm not asking you to give it to me for free. I'm offering you a chance to get a share of the treasure discovered in the Ancient Ruins expedition."

"You know you sound like a complete swindler right now, right?"

"A swindler doesn't deliver. I do."

"That's an even more swindler-like line..."

Roxwell let out a heavy sigh.

"To start with.... Nine to one."

"Wow, you put up twenty million El and only take ten percent? This unworthy disciple is moved by his master's boundless grace..."

"I'm the nine."

"Why would you do that, Professor? Let's make it fifty-fifty."

"You little..."

After a lengthy back-and-forth that was about to turn into an actual beating, X finally backed down.

"Six to four.... This is highway robbery...!"

"You think twenty million El just grows out of the ground?"

"This from a man who tripled his money on a single bet...!"

"The hell did you just say?"

After the peculiar negotiation between master and disciple came to an end, Roxwell — in his capacity as homeroom professor — called X over with a serious look.

"How are Elia and Lola. You three were close, weren't you."

Now that was a question X had a hard time answering. What had happened between the three of them yesterday had already spread throughout the entire Academy. It had happened to X, who was already the eye of the storm lately, so the rumor had traveled fast.

"Elia and Lola and I are.... well. That's how things are now."

When he'd seen Elia that morning, she hadn't sat next to him. She'd gone and sat somewhere else, as if ignoring X and Lola entirely. She was putting yesterday's declaration into practice, exactly as she'd said.

"Lola's having a pretty hard time."

Lola had grown depressed seeing Elia's change in attitude. Her shoulders had slumped under the weight of guilt and self-loathing. No matter how much X tried to comfort her, it didn't get better.

Hearing that explanation, Roxwell sighed and asked.

"And you?"

"Me? Same as always..."

"You have no idea, do you."

"Pardon?"

"Look."

Roxwell handed X a mirror. The X in the mirror had a rather fierce look in his eyes — the look of someone forcing himself to endure something he couldn't handle.

"You're one of the few I've ever acknowledged. So I'll say this out of an old man's worry."

Roxwell snatched the mirror back and sighed.

"If it gets too hard to bear, tell me. You're not a hero. You're not a champion. You're sure as hell not a superhuman. At best, you're a student with a nasty temper."

"..."

"Whenever I look at you, you always look like something's chasing you. Like you'll die if you stop running. If you keep sprinting like your life depends on it, you'll break someday. And by then, it'll be too late."

Hearing that, X's expression grew complicated. It somehow felt like the words were also ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meant for his previous life.

"This is the same thing. How long's it even been since you last blew something up, and you're already bringing me this? How hard do you have to drive yourself before you're satisfied? When are you planning to rest? After you're dead?"

"...Haha. I wonder when."

A self-deprecating laugh slipped out before he could stop it.

"I've tried it, actually. Even dying doesn't let you rest."

"...What the hell does that mean?"

Rest. He'd never thought about it. Never wanted it. More precisely, he'd never even had the time. Ironically, it was the same in both his previous life and this one. In his previous life, he'd only stopped after losing everything — and even that hadn't been his choice. That was why X didn't know how to stop himself.

"Master, aren't you curious?"

So he decided on a different approach. If he couldn't stop, then he'd just run faster. Harder.

"About every truth in this world."

Until he smashed into something and shattered to pieces.