A Rolling Stone (1)
A Rolling Stone (1)
A week had passed since the start of the second semester.
Fortunately, nothing unusual had happened. The Masked Woman had vanished again somewhere, and my ability had returned to normal, so I hadn't encountered any major problems during class. As usual, I had turned back time to study and understand things...... The lesson material included a lot of essential knowledge for living in this world, so there was no downside to understanding it before moving on.
"So, turning back time is impossible, even for the goddess. This world is thoroughly physical. Sure, things like magic exist, but ultimately the results they produce don't escape the laws of physics."
This was the explanation from Ada, the physics and mechanics instructor.
I listened to the lecture with an indifferent heart. Well, I would have thought the same. Even if the physics in this world hadn't advanced as far as the 21st century I'd lived in, even if it was a world without the grounding or common sense to talk about turning back time splitting off into parallel worlds or whatever, that was still the natural way to think.
In this world or the other one, no one had ever been able to turn back time. Not a single person. Just as science had become widespread and the geocentric model had given way to the heliocentric model, if I couldn't scientifically prove my ability, there was no way to explain it to anyone else.
So I had no intention of quibbling with her statement.
But there was one person who didn't see it that way.
"Um, Instructor?"
Johannes.
In the original story, he hadn't been an important character. From what I could see in this world, it was the same. I'd never been entangled with him in the first place. He was the sort of figure I only remembered because we were in the same class and I'd memorized the names of the original game's Named NPCs.
But I still recalled his basic setup. He was a devout follower of the Church of the Goddess.
"I find it nonsensical that a divine being would be incapable of something."
"Is that so?"
But Ada, even after receiving the question, didn't seem to find it particularly interesting.
Hadn't she said she'd been working here for ten years? She'd started in her early twenties, married, become Baroness Strange, and still continued teaching, so she must have received questions like that countless times.
"Yes, that's correct. For instance, in the scriptures of the Church of the Goddess—"
"Because there's an example of turning back time? Like winding back a clockwork?"
Ada spoke indifferently, shutting the student's mouth before shrugging.
"Let me ask you something. Do you think winding a clockwork means turning back time too?"
"Er...... No, it's not exactly that, but......"
"I think so too. Even if the world is like a clockwork mechanism flowing in a fixed direction, even if the goddess rewinds it backwards, ultimately time itself still flows. The clock hands simply moved backwards. From the perspective of the goddess who wound the clock, time is ultimately just flowing in one direction. She reversed the situation, not traveling backwards along the axis of time."
"Uh......."
Johannes rolled his eyes around before speaking.
"But then, wouldn't that be no different from turning back time?"
"By our standards, yes. But by the goddess's standards, wouldn't it be different? The positions of the stars, the positions of the fallen sand, the positions of the flowing water would return to their original state. But absolute time itself would have no choice but to keep flowing. Because the goddess who rewound the clock would still be feeling the flow of time outside the clock."
Johannes tilted his head.
Honestly, I somewhat sympathized with Johannes' feelings.
*
I was gradually exchanging words with Mia Crowfield.
We hadn't originally been on particularly conversational terms, but leaving it that way felt a little off.
And I'd liked nearly all of the original heroines. Naturally, Mia Crowfield was included. Mia Crowfield's parents were the sort of people I could never like, but Mia herself was a character who never forgot what her family had done and strove to overcome it.
I liked Claire, Alice, Charlotte and Lottie too. Including one commoner heroine I still hadn't met properly.
The heroine I...... didn't particularly like was exactly one.
"My name is Sophia Bianchi. Starting this month, I'll be studying with all of you. Pleased to meet you."
A girl with straight violet hair, violet eyes, and a gentle gaze bent at the waist toward the children in the classroom and spoke those words.
Elegance radiated from her body, different from Alice's or Charlotte's and marked by humility rather than assertiveness.
To put it simply, it was an elegance closer to a clergy member than to royalty or imperial family, I suppose.
Indeed. The girl introducing herself in front of the class was none other than the heroine from the Holy State's side.
Who, in the original course of events, was supposed to appear starting next year.
I had to struggle fiercely to hide my horrified expression. If Alice had seen my face right then, she would have responded in one of two ways. Wearing an extremely grave expression, or being on the verge of bursting into laughter. She might even have managed both at once.
"Sophia is from the Kingdom of Belbur. She has received the Empire's approval and will be studying here with all of you."
Our homeroom instructor Carolyn, who was standing beside Sophia Bianchi, introduced her that way.
A lie.
Sophia Bianchi was from the Holy State. Except the Holy State's "citizens" were officially only the clergy.
Naturally, most were orphans brought from other countries.
Among those orphans, the ones with outstanding abilities or deep faith mostly became clergy, and even those who didn't nominally lived as monastics. Though in practical terms, they were just praying citizens and nothing more.
Sophia Bianchi had shown remarkable ability from a young age and had been able to become a clergywoman—
And she herself was someone who "enjoyed" that clergy position thoroughly.
A person who found cutting people so entertaining that she had settled down there permanently.
In other words......
Sophia's violet eyes turned toward me. The gaze that intersected with my own curved into crescent moons. Gentle eyes that put the other person off guard.
...... In other words, that character was the following sort of thing.
A character designed to target the chuunibyou demographic. The type who becomes soaked in blood and cackles in the middle of a battle.
The kind of concept I'd played around with when I was messing about with friends in middle school, bringing back dark past memories.
......I really hated her.
*
Even if you have the actual ability to back it up, you supposedly can't call it chuunibyou, but honestly, from my position of seeing it as a game, it wasn't a particularly sympathetic story. She wasn't even a character who existed in reality to begin with.
Besides, early in her appearance, this character had been pushed hard by the story-level narrative as being incredibly powerful.
There were even events where every character who'd appeared in the first game lost to her in a duel once each. And on top of that, she didn't win by fighting incredibly hard. It was more like, "Oh dear? Did I fail to control my strength?" which made it even more infuriating.
I knew the series didn't carry over stats between the first and second games, but still, wasn't that a bit much?
She did eventually feel a degree of remorse and join the party, but the terrible first impression she'd made lingered to the end, so I never liked her. If I had to categorize it, she was a character closer to being someone I outright disliked.
But then......
"Sylvia."
The way she kept talking to me like this, pretending we were close, was incredibly uncomfortable.
If she'd started out hostile like in the game, I would have been able to openly show that I didn't like her—
"Let's dine together."
"Do you have plans after class?"
"Oh my, are you going to a cafe? May I join you?"
When she came at me so brazenly like that, there was nothing I could do. At least with Mia Crowfield, she'd visibly been uncomfortable with me and shown her dislike openly early on, so I could act rudely too, but with this one, that wasn't the case.
"Sophia."
The saving grace was that I wasn't the only one feeling uncomfortable.
Alice, who had at some point found herself seated with us at the cafe, looked at Sophia and spoke.
"You...... said you were from Belbur, was it?"
"Yes, I'm from Lutetia."
"Really?"
Hearing that, Charlotte stared quietly at Sophia Bianchi.
"But I've never seen you before."
A student from another country had transferred mid-semester, and with the Empire's official authorization at that. Into the noble class, no less. That meant she had to be someone of some renown, and therefore Charlotte should have seen her before, but......
"I'm somewhat inexperienced in society. And my family holds only a single knightly title, so I've never had the opportunity to meet Princess Charlotte in person."
When she said that, Charlotte had no room left for suspicion either.
"...... Really?"
Even while tilting her head, Charlotte backed down for the moment.
"Lady Bianchi."
"Please, call me Sophia."
That reply came back at my address.
"...... Lady Bianchi, have we met before?"
Ignoring her words, I immediately asked that question.
Sophia Bianchi's eyes curved into crescents again at my question.
"No, never at all."
...... What a brazen answer that was.