October was busy from the start.
It wasn’t the Academy schedule that kept me occupied. The reason I was so busy was mostly due to my personal goals.
My goal to prevent the war.
Whether it’s fortunate or not, the Academy is located near the Imperial Palace, which lies at the heart of the Empire. The distance was inconvenient for walking, but not impossible. Especially for someone like me, who has what feels like infinite time, that distance was hardly an issue.
In other words, I could sneak around the palace at night collecting information without much difficulty.
I didn’t even need to secure an escape route. Once I saw what I wanted, I could simply rewind time. I could even rewind to the moment I entered a location, minimizing my travel and securing more time for exploration.
Wars don’t erupt overnight.
Even though there were no major changes at the borders for now, the planning for a strike to catch the opponent off guard must have started long ago.
The problem was, no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find any evidence of such preparations.
The defense budget was not significantly different from previous years. While it had increased, most of the additional funds went toward the mass production of new weapons—hardly a direct sign of deploying them to the battlefield.
Several monitoring ships had been constructed, but after the northern border skirmish that wiped out the warlord factions, they had been relocated to satellite cities near the capital. Some ships, plagued by recoil issues due to their oversized frames, were undergoing repairs and inspections, leaving similar models on indefinite standby.
There were no plans for constructing additional warships. Even for the Empire, building new warships would take time. The absence of such plans, even in the palace, suggested...
...Could they be hiding the plans elsewhere? Had the Emperor caught on to my abilities and dispersed information to locations I couldn’t physically reach?
It seemed like a plausible explanation.
“Interesting.”
After failing to find concrete evidence despite my extensive investigations, I decided to take a direct approach: meeting the Emperor himself.
“So, you mean to tell me you’ve come to *me* to ask about the ‘hidden information’ that *I* might be concealing?”
The Emperor rephrased my words with a bemused expression, his voice tinged with amusement.
“That is correct.”
“Hmm.”
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The Emperor gazed at me for a moment before a sly smile crept onto his lips.
“Then let me ask you something. What would you do if someone capable of killing you was watching you closely?”
“...”
“Wouldn’t you naturally avoid doing anything to provoke such a being? Of course, this might require you to alter your lifelong ambitions. But that doesn’t mean life becomes meaningless, does it? After all, losing one goal simply means finding another.”
“...Are you saying, Your Majesty, that you abandoned the idea of war because you knew I didn’t want it to happen?”
“So, you think I was planning to wage war against the entire world?”
The Emperor’s face lit up with intrigue, as if he found my assumptions fascinating.
“If you believed that from the start, your hypothesis would’ve crumbled right after you assassinated the count. If you still think that way... well. Doesn’t that mean I’ve already accomplished something far beyond what you imagined?”
“...”
“It would be wonderful if the ‘me’ you meet after rewinding could also know this.”
The Emperor spoke as if he were a father humorously playing chess with his daughter. His expression rendered me speechless.
Once more.
---
I don’t trust him.
This is the Emperor we’re talking about. There’s a high chance he deliberately withheld accurate information from me. Although I hadn’t uncovered definitive evidence yet, I still needed to prepare for the worst.
Still, my efforts weren’t entirely fruitless. By roaming the palace corridors dozens, even hundreds of times, I memorized every pathway—even those not featured in the original game.
The same applied to the sewers beneath the capital. I now knew every potential connection to the palace and could estimate which sections would collapse if certain points were destroyed. If the worst happened, I was prepared to set explosives to bring down the whole system.
Of course, casualties would be inevitable in such a scenario—
...but that was a concern for the worst-case scenario only.
On a brighter note, my stealth abilities were improving day by day.
Sylvia Black’s body might be no different from an ordinary person in this world, but it was more than capable of performing tasks expected of regular soldiers. It couldn’t wield sword energy or swing a blade larger than my height, but standard maneuvers were well within reach. Although rewinding time reset my stamina, my body retained the memory of those movements, leaving me better equipped for future actions.
If I focused, I could even tail someone without being noticed.
And soon, an opportunity presented itself.
---
If there’s anyone I regarded with as much suspicion as the Emperor, it was the Holy Kingdom.
The "Goddess" subplot remained unresolved in the original work. The Holy Kingdom’s divine power wasn’t explored in detail, and whether the Goddess actually existed—and if so, whether she was truly benevolent—was a topic of rampant fan speculation. Some fans treated their theories as gospel, posting them everywhere until they got caught. But that’s ancient history.
In any case, it wasn’t surprising that I found Sophia, the "Cathedral Knight," lurking suspiciously near Leo, the male lead of the original work.
Claire and Leo, being siblings, often stayed together. However, as time passed and they made new friends, they occasionally spent time apart. Claire got along well with Alice and Charlotte and even trailed after me sometimes.
As her time with other girls increased, Leo began spending more time on his own.
Frankly, I didn’t know what Leo did during those times. I was often with the "girls’ group," so his activities outside that circle were a mystery.
“...”
That’s why I was startled to find him sitting alone on a park bench surrounded by bare trees, looking utterly lost.
Come to think of it, having few male friends despite being surrounded by friendly girls could be a bigger issue than it seemed. Leo’s position as a "pretty boy" among beautiful girls had made him a target of envy for his male classmates, and I hadn’t realized that envy had turned into isolation.
In typical harem manga, scenes of the male lead being ostracized by his peers are played for laughs. But depicting it seriously as outright bullying... that’s too heavy.
Seeing it in real life, though—
“...Huh?”
And then, I noticed something else.
Far off in the distance, at the corner of my vision, I saw purple hair fluttering in the breeze.
If it weren’t for the sudden gust of wind, I might not have noticed.
“...Sophia?”
My brow furrowed deeply.
Her appearance was quite different from how she was portrayed in the original, but it was unmistakably her. Perhaps the image she presented to me was a façade, or maybe she hadn’t yet fully developed into her original character. Still, as a Cathedral Knight, she seemed fully committed to her mission.
She probably thought there was something to gain from watching Leo. Maybe she believed he was connected to the Holy Kingdom in some way.
“...”
I had initially intended to approach Leo and strike up a conversation, but I quickly changed course and returned to my room.
I gathered my equipment and prepared to leave again.
Not to approach Leo directly, but to circle around the Academy grounds far enough that neither he nor Sophia would notice me.
From my new vantage point, I had a clear view of Sophia’s hiding spot.
As I suspected, she was watching Leo intently. Through my telescope, I confirmed that she hadn’t noticed me.
Adjusting the angle, I turned my focus back to Leo—
“...Sylvia?”
A soft, clear voice called out from behind me.
The fact that I didn’t scream is a testament to my restraint.
Instead, my shoulders jerked violently.
Cautiously turning my head, I saw none other than Charlotte.
Her face was pale as she stared at me.
She looked at me as though I were a stalker.
...
No, it’s not like that!