A lot of things happened.
No, really. A lot of things happened.
It felt even more so because every time I woke up after falling asleep, time had passed in the blink of an eye.
Even in the original world, it felt like events kept happening one after another. But now, I only retained concrete memories and my own will during significant moments, which made it feel even more relentless.
Here’s a list of everything that’s happened so far.
“Is this what you were looking for?”
Uninvited and entirely out of the blue, the Sword Saint suddenly showed up at the Grace estate, handed me a relic, and asked this.
...Excuse me?
I mean, sure, I did ask for help in finding the relics. I knew there were ruins on the border between the autonomous state and the Empire, which was why that place had been reduced to rubble through bombardment in the first place.
But I had asked without expecting anyone would actually find it. Yet here the Sword Saint was, confidently presenting a piece of the relic.
The fragment, still incomplete, wasn’t glowing or anything. Well, it made sense—Alice or Claire wasn’t here, so there was no reason for it to light up like in the previous world.
As I stared at the Sword Saint and the relic sitting confidently before me, my mind spun furiously.
If the goddess was trying to thwart me by manipulating the world without my involvement, then why was the flow of time still intact for “others”? Strictly speaking, even if the Sword Saint was capable of finding something like this, couldn’t the goddess have simply made sure such events never occurred in the first place?
Could it be because I had stopped the goddess’s power with Claire and the relic?
Maybe it was because the goddess was obsessed with “order.” I might be an anomaly created by the goddess, but everything else seemed to be operating according to its original order.
Even if I was frozen, the rest of the world kept moving according to its own schedules and rhythms. Perhaps the goddess couldn’t stop that. Considering how the Emperor had been lured into traps and ultimately forced to reverse his own power, this reasoning seemed plausible.
But—
“How exactly did you find this?”
“The North is my homeland. Besides, I might not look it, but I roamed the battlefields quite a bit in my younger days. Did I ever mention that I have some history with the Emperor?”
“...”
Oh, right.
Now that I think about it, the Emperor did plunder one of the ruins all on his own. He’d been waiting for us at the relic site, after all.
If the Sword Saint had skills comparable to the Emperor and knew the location of the ruins, it wasn’t entirely impossible for him to retrieve a relic fragment.
I blankly stared at the broken stone tablet—a fragment that, at first glance, seemed impossible to recognize as part of the “brass gear” relic it was supposed to form.
“But to locate the ruins, wouldn’t you have needed another relic?”
“Is that so?”
The Sword Saint crossed his arms and stared at me intently.
Indeed. For ruins that openly appeared as “ruins” yet somehow avoided detection, there was always a reason. If such ruins were obvious to everyone, they’d have been looted ages ago. Even if they were shrouded by magic only a relic could dispel, people would have still sensed something.
The only reason we were able to access the ruins in Northwood was thanks to Claire, who had seized the goddess’s power. Fortunately, the Emperor had assumed we had merely followed him there.
“I saw a red-haired fellow loitering around the battlefield. I figured he was the one you mentioned, so I tailed him. Turns out that helped.”
“...”
Lucas had been the lead?
Now that I think about it, when I was at Crowfield, Lucas hadn’t come to spy on me. That must mean he was busy doing something else during that time.
If he was searching for ruins in the North, I couldn’t really complain. It wasn’t unreasonable for a slightly more cautious Emperor to send someone covertly instead of razing the North with Jayden.
...Wait a second.
“Does that mean you fought Lucas?”
“Haha.”
The Sword Saint merely laughed in response to my question, his expression as calm as ever.
“How are you even still alive...?”
Thwack!
Before I could finish, I felt a sharp flick against my forehead. I didn’t know why it sounded more like a thud than a flick, but it hurt all the same.
“He’s definitely a remarkable one.”
When I finally looked up, clutching my forehead, the Sword Saint spoke, curling one side of his mouth into a faint smirk.
“He seemed stronger than I was at my prime. But our ‘objectives’ were different, and that made all the difference.”
“Objectives?”
“My goal was to retrieve the relic and bring it to you. His goal was simply to defeat me. Do you think someone °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° who can’t distinguish between his mission and his desires can achieve his goals?”
Uh... hearing this from a guy who retreated to the mountains because he didn’t want to be a soldier was giving me some cognitive dissonance.
“My goal is to witness your fight against that goddess firsthand. There’s no way I’d let some kid who’s slightly stronger than me ruin the chance to see that. Fighting him would be much more dramatic as the final act, don’t you think?”
“...”
I had no words.
“Still, while I’m grateful you confronted Lucas and brought this relic, are you saying you came directly here afterward?”
“Indeed.”
I raised my hands to my head and cradled it again.
This was the first incident I encountered after waking up.
*
The incidents involving Jake and Lottie unfolded similarly here, though the situation was far more urgent, making it easier to persuade Duke Lindborough.
“We might lose the colonies in this war.”
The duke, who had maintained a degree of formality when I was a princess, spoke much more casually this time. Still, it didn’t feel like he was speaking down to me—more like he was addressing a promising young noblewoman.
“Using the colonists as a shield sounds good in theory, but it could become a serious liability after the war. No matter how desperate they are, they won’t work without reward. Right now, they’re working simply to survive, but there’s a big difference between making them adapt to a meager wage and arming them to kill and defend us.”
“And it’s also part of the Emperor’s strategy to weaken his influence after the war, isn’t it?”
I lied through my teeth without hesitation.
“Losing the colonies might be painful, but it’s something to consider for the future. Positioning the Lindborough family as the villain responsible for exploitation, then having the imperial family come in as saviors who bring hope to the colonies, could ‘relatively’ reduce friction.”
“And if the colonists who went to war are treated as heroes afterward? It seems His Majesty doesn’t care much about the purity of this nation’s bloodline.”
It’s amusing how we’re basically discussing rebellion, yet he still uses the honorific “His Majesty.”
“Caring about it won’t magically secure victory.”
The duke stared at me blankly after my comment.
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“So, wouldn’t it be wise to permit the relationship between your son and Lottie? Their bond could serve as a minimal safeguard for what’s to come.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be perfect. Lottie herself could end up labeled a “traitor,” for all I knew.
Even so, Duke Lindborough didn’t look entirely convinced. Compared to when I was a “princess” and openly declared Lottie as my close ally, even elevating her to knighthood, I was now just a slightly clever baron’s daughter offering her personal deductions.
Nothing I said felt “certain” to him.
That meant I needed to secure some insurance here as well—something “definite.”
“Duke, perhaps you’re curious about the Dreadnought Fleet?”
I lowered my voice slightly as I spoke to him.
Yes.
Betrayal works best when it’s layered two or three times, ensuring the other side doesn’t notice.
This was the second incident I faced in this chain of events.
*
And then—
“You’re asking me to abandon the warships.”
I made the exact same argument to the Emperor.
“After the war, when Your Majesty’s plans come to fruition...”
I took a step closer to him.
“Whether or not warships exist, the world will flow according to Your Majesty’s design. If those who sought to harm Your Majesty are undone by their own schemes, wouldn’t it make the final stages of Your Majesty’s plan unfold more smoothly?”
“...”
The Emperor stared at me in silence as I looked up at him with reverence in my eyes.
Before me, lying neatly wrapped in fine cloth, was another fragment of the relic.
Alice and Claire weren’t here with me this time.
Yes.
Betrayal works best when it’s layered three or four times to ensure the target doesn’t see it coming.
And the timing to set it all off is just as critical.
This was the third incident in my busy life.