My Strategy Notebook Was Discovered
The worst sentence of my life turned out to be more ordinary than I expected.
“Senior Yurian.”
Third floor of the Academy Central Library.
In the long corridor between the restricted archives and the general reading room, a silver-haired girl called my name.
Her voice was beautiful.
The problem was the object she held in her hand.
A black leather cover.
Silver locking sigils I had carved myself on every corner.
And the crooked handwriting scrawled across the center.
The Forbidden Notebook That Will Get Me Killed the Moment It's Discovered
“This,” the girl said, her eyes curving into lovely arcs, “belongs to you, right, Senior?”
I seriously considered playing dead on the spot.
But playing dead only works while you’re still alive. My life had already received multiple death sentences inside that notebook.
I spoke as naturally as I could.
“It’s not mine. That’s not my handwriting.”
She glanced down at the cover. Small sentences were written near the bottom.
— Yurian Locke and all others prohibited from reading.
— Especially never let Leticia Arkan see this.
— If she does, my life is ruined.
Leticia Arkan slowly lifted her head.
Second-year top student at Crownfall Academy.
Only daughter of the Northern Arkan Duke family.
Highest grade in Ice-system magic aptitude.
And, according to the original story, the future disaster who would become the first vessel of the Black Constellation in seven days and freeze half this academy to death.
Of course, the only person who was supposed to know that was me.
“I can tell the handwriting isn’t yours. But the name written there is yours, Senior.”
“It could be someone with the same name.”
“Are there two Yurian Lockes at Crownfall Academy?”
“It would be nice if one more appeared starting today.”
The librarian assistant organizing books at the far end of the corridor glanced our way. I quickly pressed my lips shut.
It had to stay quiet.
This could not blow up.
Because that notebook contained every piece of information I had gathered over three years to survive in this world.
Weaknesses of key figures.
Future events.
Heroine death branches.
Hidden devices left by the villains.
Order for entering restricted zones.
And.
The list of women I must absolutely never approach.
Leticia’s name sat at the very top.
I calmly reached out my hand.
“Miss Leticia, that is my personal memorandum. Peeking at another person’s records violates noble etiquette and constitutes a school rule infraction warranting a ten-point deduction.”
“I didn’t peek.”
“Then?”
“I picked it up.”
“If you picked up someone else’s diary, you should return it.”
“I was going to.”
“Then please hand it over now.”
Leticia hugged the notebook a little tighter to her chest.
“Before that, there’s something I need to confirm.”
Bad premonitions are never wrong.
That was the first truth I learned after arriving in this world.
I was not originally from here.
When I opened my eyes, I had become an extra inside a trash game.
My name was Yurian Locke.
Family: ruined.
Talent: average.
Position: library assistant on scholarship.
The upside was that my death wouldn’t draw attention.
The downside was that no one would care when I died.
So I chose to survive.
I would not join the protagonist’s party.
I would not get entangled with any heroines.
I would keep my distance from constellations, demons, the imperial family, ducal houses, the student council, and the magic tower.
I would intercept records-room data before incidents began and nip tragedies in the bud with minimal intervention.
I had done well for three years.
I turned the entrance ceremony terror incident into a water-pipe explosion.
I buried the saintess assassination attempt as food poisoning.
I handled the demonic sword seal as “hazardous item discovered during cleaning.”
No one noticed any of it had been my handiwork.
I rather liked that fact.
Yet today, every record of my survival had fallen into the hands of a silver-haired duke’s daughter steeped in quiet madness.
“Here.”
Leticia opened the notebook.
I instinctively looked away.
There was no need to watch the executioner raise the axe.
But Leticia was kind.
Kind enough to read the last will to the condemned.
Leticia Arkan. Outwardly cold like ice. Inwardly, a bomb on the verge of exploding, festering layer by layer with insomnia, self-loathing, affection deficiency, and murderous intent.
Approach prohibited. Consolation prohibited. Praise prohibited. If you hold her hand for no reason, your life ends.
I cursed my past self inside my head.
Why did I write it so bluntly?
The me of that time had been painfully sincere in his records, never dreaming the future me would be cornered like this.
The corner of Leticia’s mouth rose slightly.
“Senior.”
“Yes.”
“Am I a bomb?”
“It’s a metaphor.”
“A delicately pickled one?”
“It’s a literary expression.”
“If you hold my hand, your life ends?”
“That is a warning drawn from practical experience.”
The moment the words left my mouth, I regretted them.
Leticia’s eyes narrowed.
“Practical experience?”
“No. Imaginary practical experience. I studied some writing techniques.”
“So Senior isn’t a library assistant scholarship student but an aspiring bard.”
“I’m ruined.”
“Yes. You seem very ruined right now.”
It was true, so I had no rebuttal.
The sound of Leticia turning pages sliced through the silence.
“Stop reading.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Miss Leticia.”
“This place is filled with my most secret stories.”
Her voice dropped ever so slightly.
“The fact that I tie my right hand every night before I sleep… no one knows that.”
The air shifted.
The afternoon sunlight carpeting the library corridor seemed to thin in an instant.
White frost bloomed on the leaf tips of the potted plant by the window.
I froze, steadying my breath.
Leticia’s right hand.
On its back slept the Brand of the Black Constellation, invisible for now.
First came the itching.
Then the nightmares.
Then the hand would begin moving against her will.
In seven days, beneath the brilliant lights of the festival eve, she would commit her first murder with that hand.
The girl named Leticia Arkan would vanish, and the Black Constellation would laugh through her body.
The original story’s first major catastrophe.
And an event I had not yet prevented.
“I learned it by coincidence.”
“Coincidence.”
“The library holds more records than you’d think. The old thesis of the duke family’s physician, reports on northern magic sickness, that sort of thing.”
It wasn’t a lie. Some of the information really had come from those records.
The problem was that the core knowledge came from my memories of the original work, and admitting that would make me sound insane.
Leticia stared straight at me.
“Senior, you’re bad at lying.”
“I’m quite good.”
“No. You’re not.”
“That’s only because Miss Leticia’s gaze is excessively sharp.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough that I could explain politely if you returned the notebook.”
For the first time, Leticia let out a small laugh.
It was a clear, ringing laugh. So beautiful it felt ominous instead.
“It’s strange.”
“What is?”
“You act like someone trying to stay far away from me, yet your notebook is packed with nothing but ways to save me.”
Leticia turned another page.
“List of herbs that delay rampage symptoms. Northern-style binding technique release method. Emergency treatment for right-hand magic reflux. Sample letters that must never be sent to the Arkan ducal house.”
Her fingertip stopped on one line.
“If Leticia kills someone, suspect the brand first, not her.”
Leticia tilted her head with an expression of genuine puzzlement.
“Senior.”
“Yes?”
“Why did you try to save me?”
The question sank deeper than I expected.
I couldn’t answer right away.
In the beginning it had truly been for my own sake.
If Leticia rampaged, half the academy would freeze and the library would collapse. If the library collapsed, the survival routes I had hidden in the underground records room would vanish with it.
So I saved her to save myself.
That should have been the end of it.
But three years was not a short time.
She who never relinquished the top spot despite suffering from insomnia.
She who scratched inside her glove until it bled whenever her right hand trembled.
She who pushed others away the moment they approached, then always remained behind alone.
People did not stay mere cold records. The more I watched, the more she became a living person with warmth, annoyingly so.
I shrugged roughly.
“Because if the bomb goes off, the library gets noisy.”
Leticia blinked.
“That’s your reason?”
“I prefer a quiet workplace.”
It would have been easier if she had shown murderous intent. At least then I could have drawn a weapon, run, or pretended to faint.
I took a step back at once.
“It’s a misunderstanding.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“I responded preemptively because I suspected whatever you were about to say would be a misunderstanding.”
“Then is this also a misunderstanding?”
Leticia opened the final page.
In that instant I learned that the phrase “my blood ran cold” was not a metaphor.
On that page was the entry I had written only last night.
— 7 days later, festival eve.
— Leticia Arkan becomes the vessel of the Black Constellation.
— Three ways to stop it.
— First, remove the brand.
— Second, cancel the festival.
— Third, kill Leticia.
The corridor fell silent.
The laughter of students outside the windows scattered into the air. Cold sweat broke out across my fingertips.
Leticia did not rage.
She simply looked at me.
Deep inside her blue eyes, a faint black gleam flickered.
The notebook’s locking sigil trembled faintly, as if responding to that light.
What I had engraved had been nothing more than a simple anti-theft spell.
Yet now it wagged its tail toward the tip of her fingers like a dog that had mistaken its master.
That reaction alone was enough. The incident had not even begun, yet my carefully plotted schedule was already quietly marching toward ruin like a funeral guestbook.
“Senior Yurian.”
The same voice as before.
A beautiful voice.
A calm voice cold enough to freeze a person to death.
“Did you plan to kill me, Senior?”
Leticia took one step closer.
“Or.”
She gently pressed the black leather notebook against my chest and smiled with chilling sweetness.
“Did you plan to save me even if it meant killing me?”
At that moment, one of the survival rules inside my head shattered without a sound.
Do not get involved with the heroines.