Reunion? (1)

There was always a reason why practice exams were difficult.

Though they were called practice exams, their question style actually differed from the real entrance exams, and their difficulty was rarely 'moderate.' The balance of difficulty itself wasn't precise, so some questions were far too easy while others were far too hard. Overall, the difficulty was generally high, of course.

This wasn't limited to the academy entrance exams. Even in the world where I used to live, most practice exams were somewhat, or excessively, more difficult than the real thing.

The reason was simple. It was good for the companies administering the practice exams to hear that students who had taken their tests passed the entrance exams.

No matter how much a practice exam was a fake problem modeled after the real ones, and no matter how well everyone knew it lacked almost any official credibility, students still swung between joy and sorrow as they worked through them. The animal called "human" inherently possessed a reward psychology. Once people judged they had already achieved a goal, they simply relaxed their tension afterward.

So it was better to make the practice exams extremely difficult, creating a built-in excuse for when the real exam problems became excessively hard, while simultaneously preventing the studying students from relaxing their tension.

And Alice and I had already taken such exams countless times.

Alice, with her brilliant mind, studied hard and always achieved high scores—

—and I, using the shortcuts my ability afforded, repeatedly reviewed the materials, memorized the contents whole, and moved on with my understanding.

Honestly, it was immensely boring. No matter how much my mind followed my body, and regardless of how my physical state reset to its original condition when I turned back time, my memory recognized it not as 'rewinding time,' but as experiences accumulating.

In other words, no matter how much I turned back time, to my eyes it just looked like the same events repeating several times over.

...... Was that the right way to put it?

Well, anyway.

So, I simply made time to sleep soundly or rest thoroughly during some of those numerous opportunities.

I skipped classes to stroll outside the imperial palace, or locked my door and just slept soundly.

I didn't care about others' gazes. In the first place, the time I acted like that was simply discarded time. I would minimize only my mental fatigue and turn back time to return to normal.

Though human memory had its limits, what I had seen over and over like that, I inevitably ended up remembering. I didn't know if this body's brain capacity was particularly large, or if the original me had always possessed such a talent and I'd simply lived without utilizing it.

Thinking back to playing games, making separate save files and loading them repeatedly to play...... well, imagining what kind of talent ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the original me might have had was now a meaningless act. After all, the current me was a character named Sylvia Fangriffon, one never seen even once in the original story's world.

"How was the exam?"

Even with the status of an imperial princess, the entrance exam had to be taken at a designated location.

The empire was vast. No matter how fast the latest-model trains ran, traveling from the provinces to Rondarium took at least several hours as a baseline, and cases requiring half a day or a full day were numerous. And exerting oneself like that the previous day inevitably influenced one's condition during the exam.

Setting aside the commoners living in the provinces, if this happened every time, discontent arose even among the nobility. Throughout history and across all nations, a child's education had always been a critical matter. Excluding, of course, those who struggled to make ends meet day to day.

Therefore, there were designated test sites even in the provinces. Though there would certainly be some who couldn't even reach those...... honestly, in such circumstances, they were likely people who didn't even know if they possessed such talents. They would be living in places without even the opportunity to learn, after all.

Anyway, so we took the exam at the Imperial Rondarium Academy on the capital island.

Honestly, if someone living on the capital island got to take the academy exam, that was a stroke of luck. It also meant they had a reason to visit the academy in person. Pass or fail, just entering that well-built building once was not a bad experience. Since the school wasn't open to the public except during festival periods, most ordinary people never saw the atmosphere created during its study-focused times.

"It was less difficult than the practice exams."

"I knew it."

Of course, no matter how much we'd taken the exam directly at the academy, we couldn't be treated exactly the same as the other students.

There were security escort issues, and above all, the students in the classroom ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠we entered would become excessively conscious of us. That could eventually connect to their grades too.

And among the nobility, many parents were extremely sensitive about their children's grades. If they'd simply directed their anger at their own children, the empire wouldn't have paid much attention, but people who tried to shift all the blame onto the testing site always existed.

The emperor, of course, lightly disregarded such talk. Such trivial matters never reached the emperor in the first place.

But the academy's faculty couldn't do so. And the same went for the high-ranking officials running the nation's ministry of education. When people from the counts' and dukes' houses began to move, those officials had no choice but to tear their hair out in anguish.

So, to prevent such a thing from the start, this time we specifically took the exam in a different classroom.

As we exited, I glanced at Alice's face, and her expression wasn't too bad. It seemed it was, as expected, an easy exam for Alice.

And it was the same for me. It was material I'd seen to the point of utter disgust. If anything, my score probably turned out better than it had on the practice exams, not worse.

Of course, there were a few questions I had intentionally missed.

"Let's hurry and try grading ourselves. No need to check everything perfectly. You remember a few of the ambiguous problems too, right? Just checking roughly that much should let us estimate our scores."

I nodded.

Alice was already confident of her admission to the academy.

That was only natural. In the original game, Alice appeared as an academy student, after all.

For now, since the building was full of unvetted individuals, we took the exam separately and had escorts trailing us, but by the time the semester began, any suspicious elements among the successful candidates would have been filtered out. Regardless of outside the academy, inside we would all be equal beings, so we would even speak casually.

Though it was a rule in name only, so classes still ended up dividing over time. Alice was far too famous, anyway; she was a face everyone knew without anyone having to point it out.

As we walked, a murmur of voices sounded from up ahead.

Children were pouring out of a classroom. The exam hadn't ended just for us.

We paused our steps for a moment.

There was a way to clear out all the students before we passed, but we weren't in any particular rush.

The knight guarding in front of us stepped forward and smoothly took up a position.

Some students looked our way. But typically, the knights in front of us kept them from approaching. In the first place, Alice was a child who had never formed close personal ties with anyone from an early age, so even children from famous noble houses would have found it quite awkward to just start a conversation. They didn't know her.

Alice didn't merely end at being an imperial princess; she was a child who aimed to become the emperor. She was the type to read one more page or practice swordsmanship if she had time rather than attend a ball, so it was only natural she knew no one among the nobility.

"How many of those kids will pass the academy?"

"Probably only a very small number."

In the original game, the established setting was a quota of 30 nobles and 60 commoners per year.

The characters actually appearing were far fewer than that.

Compared to the multitude of students passing before us now, it was practically a handful.

We stood a distance away ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the corridor like that for a while, vacantly waiting for the children to all pass by.

"......."

Then suddenly, I almost let out an "Ah" sound.

Far off, a child with blue hair passed by.

It wasn't the appearance I knew. Not the one I'd seen in the game, and definitely not the grubby look I'd last seen.

The child, who had grown much more, had her lush blue hair pulled back into a classic ponytail. She wore none of the bold makeup from the game, nor were her clothes modified to be revealing.

Just the appearance of a very, very proper student. Honestly, she would have fit the role of class president immensely well. Though she wasn't wearing glasses.

It was Claire.

Claire was cheerfully chatting with a handsome boy walking beside her.

Then that boy must have been the son of the Grace family.

The protagonist of this game.

"......."

"What's wrong? Do you know someone?"

"Yes. I see several children of the nobility."

"...... Hmm."

I figured it was better to deflect with a similar but different statement than to needlessly deny it. So I replied like that, and Alice gave a thoughtful hum.

"Is there anyone I should be wary of?"

"There is, but this isn't the place to talk about it."

This wasn't referring to Claire either.

It would be better if Claire was framed as not knowing me, after all.

But that didn't mean there wasn't anyone to be wary of.

...... The daughter of the Crowfield Count I killed was also slated to attend this school. She was one of the heroines in the original game, after all.

"...... Alright. Then tell me when we return. There won't be any downside to me being careful."

"Understood."

To Alice, whose expression instantly turned grave upon hearing my words, I answered that.

In the original game, Alice and Claire were on very bad terms, so Alice would never have received this information.

But now, well, I wasn't that Claire. And Claire herself seemed to have changed her image quite a bit from the original.

So I thought sharing this much information wouldn't hurt.

*

"...... Huh?"

As Claire, mid-conversation, suddenly halted and looked back, Leo, who was walking with her, asked:

"Why? Did you see something?"

"Ah, well......."

Claire stared blankly behind her for a moment. There were people standing at the bend up ahead, and Leo thought she might have seen them. One was a shining blonde, the other had short black hair. He thought he knew who the blonde was. It was said the imperial princess was also planning to enroll this year, and thinking that, the presence of the two knights in front of those two made sense. He didn't know who the other one was, though.

"Was it someone you know? Should we go meet them?"

Leo said that and moved to retrace their steps, but he stopped awkwardly when met with the dissatisfied glares from other students pushing past.

"Ah, no, it's nothing like that."

And only then did Claire, properly having come to her senses, speak up.

"Probably...... I probably saw wrong. Might've just been someone who looked like her."

"...... Really?"

Claire's behavior was strange, but Leo decided to just let it go.

He knew Claire had an older sister she was searching for. He'd heard the story several times since childhood.

However, even if that sister existed, she couldn't possibly be here. To take the exam here, one's identity had to be verified first and foremost.

Regrettably, according to Claire's story, though Claire herself would never think so, the possibility of that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sister, a young child who had been separated from the group alone, having survived normally, grown up, and now taking the entrance exam for the empire's top academy was extremely low. Moreover, there was even less chance of her taking that exam next to the imperial princess. The figure didn't look like a lady-in-waiting at a glance either. If she were a real lady-in-waiting, she would have taken the test mixed in with the other students, much like Leo or Claire.

Plus, Claire had seemed almost resigned to it recently. She would know the odds of running into her here, while perhaps not zero, were extremely slim.

"Yeah. It's fine. It's just...... just a feeling, probably. This time too."

Since she was a child, Claire would go up to anyone with long black hair to check their face. Rather, because she had grown up confirming it was never the one several times over, she had probably learned by now to curb her expectations.

In the first place, even among the people passing by here, there were plenty of female students with straight black hair.

"...... Let's go."

Leo watched a little bitterly as Claire said that and started walking, then followed behind her.