Who Are You?
Who Are You?
At this point, there wasn't much point in trying to figure out where things had started to go wrong.
I'd put in my own effort, and this was the result. Honestly, if someone told me to rewind time by several more days and fix everything, I wasn't confident I could pull it off. No matter how well I knew the sequence of events, the fact that I'd have to live through the same ordeal a few more times wasn't exactly good for my mental state.
Whatever else happened, I didn't want to set foot on a battlefield again for a good long while. The smell, that particular dampness, the terrible noise—none of it was anything I wanted to experience again.
So, right after parting ways with Lucas, I went straight back to my room and lay down on the bed.
And then I promptly fell into a deep sleep.
My head had overheated so badly that I genuinely didn't want to think about anything at all for at least the next few hours.
*
When I opened my eyes, my body felt incredibly light.
And from that fact alone, I could deduce a few things with certainty.
Even if I'd reached the point where I could ease fatigue through meditation, simply sleeping was still far better than meditating. Meditation itself helped maintain the body's condition, but it didn't make exhaustion itself disappear.
It seemed that maintaining mental awareness through meditation required mixing in proper rest from time to time, and my physical stamina had to stay above a certain threshold as well.
Up until now, I hadn't really been fond of exercising.
Partly because I personally didn't care for it, but more than that, it was because I never knew when or how far I might have to rewind time.
No matter how hard I worked on my physical conditioning, if a sudden accident forced me to turn back time, all that effort would simply vanish.
For things I could resolve through habit, I rewound time however many times it took to drill the habit into myself. The same went for knowledge.
Still, I had to keep up with the protagonist's party, so I reluctantly did the bare minimum of training. But I'd never intended to catch up with protagonists who operated on a superhuman level.
... Then again, considering that I hadn't collapsed even after raising hell on the battlefield yesterday and running around completing requests with the party afterward, that bare minimum of training and meditation seemed to have helped tremendously in many ways.
If I hadn't at least learned meditation, I probably would've sprawled across my bed the moment I got back and wouldn't have woken until the next morning.
I could credit my teacher for the fact that I'd managed to hold out for even a few hours longer.
Had Leo and his party returned? I had a feeling they might not be back yet.
There was no way the party's training session with the Sword Saint would end that quickly. Even if they'd spent the entire night learning, they probably would've only picked up a tiny fraction.
Well, the significance of this event lay in the fact that they'd established a connection with the Sword Saint.
Growl.
My stomach was already growling, probably because I'd fallen asleep without eating dinner the night before.
I checked the clock: it was nine in the morning.
Should I wash up and go get some food?
*
No matter how disciplined someone's usual routine was, the moment things loosened up, most people would instantly break free of that discipline, unless they belonged to the truly diligent few.
At the academy dormitory, students were expected to wake by seven-thirty in the morning, prepare for the day, eat, and be in the classroom by nine.
But Jennifer, who was in charge of this area, wasn't the type to keep the students on that tight a leash.
If they wanted to sleep in late, that was fine. As long as they could keep their grades up, Jennifer didn't care how long they slept or how much fun they had relaxing and playing around.
The students knew that, which was probably why they'd run around with such determination the day before. Otherwise they wouldn't even be able to earn the minimum score.
Maybe that was why the Winterfield Castle dining hall had felt so quiet. I hardly saw any students.
If this had been the game, I would've assumed it was because the developers simply couldn't handle that many resources. But seeing only about three students wearing academy uniforms made me think that sort of technical reason hadn't carried over into reality.
Two of them were students I recognized. They were in the same noble A-class as me. I'd seen them in the game, and I'd read about them in the Setting Guide. We weren't close enough for deep conversations. They weren't really Named NPCs who had much involvement in the story, either.
A girl and a boy were sitting across from each other, eating. Their last names were different, so they didn't seem to be siblings. The atmosphere didn't suggest they were a couple, either... Maybe there were a few more members of their group still sprawled in the dormitory.
And aside from those two, the other person was....
....
Huh.
Who was that?
Her dark brown hair was cropped into a short cut, yet even with short hair, the beauty of her face was fully on display. Though, even calling it "short," it was still longer than what most boys wore.
It wasn't just her hair. The uniform she wore was the female academy uniform.
She'd taken off her coat and draped it neatly over the back of the empty chair beside her, so the uniform underneath was clearly visible. Looking at her, I doubted anyone would've mistaken her for a boy.
Was there a student like that in the noble class?
As I'd mentioned before, in the game, every single student in the noble class, even the supporting cast, had their own unique character model. My head, which had played through the game over and over and devoured every kind of book from the Setting Guide to strategy guides, still contained a complete list of all of them.
And that girl wasn't on the list.
It was hard to think of her as someone from the commoner class, either. Those students should be off on field practicum in other locations by now. I could imagine one of them having come here from somewhere nearby, but if there were genuinely information that needed delivering, they wouldn't have entrusted it to a student.
Maybe this was just prejudice on my part... but she also carried herself with a somewhat aristocratic air.
"......."
Hm.
A very bad feeling rose up in me with a jolt.
If I got involved with her, wouldn't things get complicated?
After everything I'd been through yesterday, I wanted to spend at least today in peace. So I deliberately went and sat down as far away from her as I could.
This wasn't the sort of place where you could look at a menu and order this or that dish. It wasn't a restaurant run for money.
If you sat down and waited, a server would come by shortly. Once they told you the day's meal options, you could mention anything you wanted left out or added, and they'd bring it. If a full breakfast felt like too much, you could simply make do with a cup of coffee.
I sat there absently, staring ahead and waiting for the server to approach, when I heard footsteps.
They were very neat, very measured footsteps. And they were different from the click-clack of the servers' shoes. The shoes the servers wore were, literally, the sort of dress shoes an office worker might wear. The students' shoes were technically dress shoes too, but the material was far softer and easier to move around in than proper formal footwear.
That was why you didn't hear a sharp click-clack when they walked. Even on campus, the difference between the teachers' footsteps and the students' footsteps was surprisingly distinct.
The footsteps currently reaching my ears belonged to a "student."
"......."
I felt uneasy.
I had a vaguely unpleasant premonition that something I hadn't anticipated was about to happen yet again.
"Your Imperial Highness."
And my premonition turned out to be absolutely spot-on.
I was really glad I hadn't flinched. Probably because I'd witnessed every awful spectacle imaginable the previous day and had heard my fill of exploding bombs and gunfire until I was sick of them.
I slowly turned my gaze and looked up at the person who'd called out to me.
There stood the face of a gallant young beauty.
I hadn't noticed from a distance, but if you set aside her rigid, upright posture, her face looked a little youthful. The fact that it looked even younger than the countless fresh faces I always saw at the academy meant she was at least a year younger than me.
She was taller than I'd expected, and her overall physique was quite well-developed, but she couldn't completely erase the youthful air emanating from her face.
Swish.
That youthful, boyish beauty gave me a spectacularly crisp salute. She did not merely raise her hand; she clicked her heels together so sharply that I could have sworn I heard an actual snap!
Her salute wasn't in the imperial style.
"......."
"......."
As I looked up at her without saying a word, she held her salute, frozen in place.
... Oh. Was she waiting for me to acknowledge her salute?
"You may stand at ease."
Only after I said that did she lower her hand in a crisp, precise motion. Once again, I heard the swish! of fabric moving. So that sound really was possible in reality.
"May I ask what your business is?"
"Sir!"
"......."
At that clipped, rigid reply, I nearly brought my hand up to press against my forehead. But I held it in.
"My name is Lena Meyer!"
Which still didn't answer the question of who she was.
I almost blurted that out.
"Are you a student at our academy?"
"That is correct."
Lena Meyer answered my question.
"I've recently transferred in and have come to pay my respects."
"......."
I was at a loss for words.