"Ugh, my head hurts..."

I glared at the paper filled with tightly packed text. It didn't change anything; it just made my head hurt more, so I sighed and crumpled up the paper.

Honestly, I thought helping the students wouldn't be that difficult. But now, all I could think was that I had completely misjudged the situation. I never imagined things would get so tangled...

I know the backstories, the settings, and the upcoming events for all the playable characters. In fact, I might even know them better than the students themselves.

But there were aspects I hadn't considered, and they turned out to be bigger than I expected.

"Hmm, at this point, Orca should be... handled. Should be fine, right? And the princess shouldn't be an issue either...?"

I hadn’t accounted for the timing.

In most games, you don’t have to worry about this kind of thing. There's usually only one main character to focus on.

You know how in those web novels where the protagonist falls into a game, they usually only focus on the main character?

Maybe I could have done that too.

But here, in this world, there are not one, but five main characters.

And it's not like they’re in different worlds doing their own things... They're all in the same place, sharing the same time frame.

In the game, the story focused on the character the player chose, so the other characters, while more important than NPCs, were still not fully explored.

What am I getting at?

...Let's take an example.

There’s an episode early on where five students who hate the demon-possessed character, Orca, band together to attack her.

It's a tough episode that happens fairly early in the game.

The problem is, even while that episode is going on, the other playable characters are also moving around.

While Orca is caught up in that attack, there might be another character just going about their day as if nothing's wrong. Or perhaps there’s a crucial plot point happening for another character at the same time.

In some cases, two events even unfold simultaneously.

That’s just the nature of a game with multiple protagonists.

But now that the game has become reality, that very feature has become my biggest headache.

"I can't predict when any of these events will happen!"

The timing is too vague.

Most games aren’t extreme in their depiction of time—unless it's a mystery or time loop game, or something like that.

Usually, it’s described in a vague manner, like “one afternoon in spring when the flowers are starting to bloom.”

Because of that, I can't predict the future accurately.

I know roughly what events are coming and how the students will handle or fail them without me.

But when?

There are already too many variables. The impact I’ve had just by being here is already significant.

...Like the example I just gave about the attack on Orca. The time when that event should have happened has already passed.

Orca mentioned to me this morning, while I was trying to clear my head after the complicated situation with the Overseer, that lately, strange people have been picking fights with her one after another, and she has no idea why.

Orca brushed it off with a brief complaint, but...

I was certain then. It was those same attackers from the original event.

The number of students she mentioned was five, and their appearances matched what I remembered.

...But why hadn’t they attacked? Why had they only complained?

It’s because Orca wasn’t seen as weak.

In the prologue, Orca loses a fight to Leo.

No matter what happens, Orca is programmed to lose. She can't win.

The entire story assumes Orca has lost that fight.

But what happened here?

Leo lost. And there was even some buzz among the students about how he seemed to have been beaten up quite badly.

In other words...

In the prologue, five students who underestimated Orca because she lost to Leo should have attacked her.

But they didn’t. Why?

Because, unlike in the prologue, Leo didn’t win against Orca.

Instead of being seen as weak, Orca ended up with a more intimidating reputation.

So even though they had grievances, they didn't dare to attack her.

The title of "demon-possessed" was already feared, and now it wasn’t tarnished in the slightest.

So they didn't think, "Maybe we can take her down." That spark of bravado never ignited. The opportunity vanished.

...I can understand that much.

It's a shame that Orca has lost a potential source of growth, but it’s not something that can’t be compensated for.

It wasn’t something that would lead to significant mental growth for her anyway. It was just an episode that would have left emotional scars.

Now, here’s a question:

If the timeline is already shaky and full of holes, what happens if episodes start disappearing or getting twisted beyond recognition?

Ta-da! I have no idea!

I can’t figure out when any event might occur.

Sigh...

I give up.

Let's just... not do this.

Trying to be too perfect is exhausting. Yeah.

Let’s just go with the flow, judge things based on the situation and atmosphere.

Given everything that’s happened, it feels like there’s no point in relying on the game’s timeline anymore.

After what happened yesterday, I tried to list out the timelines to prepare, but it only made things more confusing.

If you button the first button wrong, all the others will be wrong too.

And I’ve already buttoned the first one wrong—or even backward.

It’s starting to feel like that one incident of putting Orca to sleep will snowball into something much bigger.

"My head hurts... I just want to play a game..."

Maybe because I tried to do something I’m not used to, and it didn’t yield any results, my entire body felt like it was weighed down by fatigue, as if I were wearing clothes soaked in water.

It’s true what they say—you shouldn’t try to do things you’ve never done before.

Trying to plan when I’ve never planned anything before... My brain feels like it’s going to explode.

Alright, let’s take the day off.

I’ll put up a sign on the counseling room door that says I’m off for the day.

Since I’m almost caught up to where I was in that game before Heize broke my laptop and erased my progress...

I think I’ll just relax and enjoy myself today.

It was so heartbreaking to have the game crash just when I was about to uncover the long-hidden secrets about the protagonist’s father…

Orca is sound asleep in the counseling room, so I even have my headset ready.

Now all I need to do is—

"Hello, Sensei."

"Ahhh?!"

Just as I was starting to feel good about playing a game, a voice suddenly whispered in my ear, making me jump up and nearly fall over.

"Oh dear, I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you like that..."

The silver-haired girl with her eyes covered by a blindfold looked down at me.

Anastasia... Why is she here?

I couldn’t see her eyes, but I had a feeling she was looking at me with concern.

"W-w-when did you—?!"

"Right around when you said, 'My head hurts... I just want to play a game...'."

"You should have knocked before coming in!"

"I did. There was no response, so I thought no one was there. But when I tried the door, it was open."

Thankfully, I wasn’t badly hurt, but I rubbed my head, which had turned red from the fall.

It hurt a lot, and honestly, I felt like rolling around on the floor in pain, but there was something more important on my mind.

...Surely, she hadn’t seen it, right?

I wanted to believe she hadn’t seen the paper I had crumpled up as I was standing up, but this is a world with mana, demons, and hypnosis.

I couldn’t be sure, so I asked her in a trembling voice.

"D-did you see anything...?"

"Don’t worry, Sensei. I won’t tell anyone that you like playing games."

"...Thanks."

Thank goodness.

It seemed she hadn’t seen the contents of the paper.

I couldn’t use hypnosis on Anastasia just yet.

...Not that it was impossible, but I needed to gain her trust first, so it wasn’t feasible at the moment.

Of course, the fact that she caught me planning to play a game at work was a bit awkward.

And she caught me at the exact moment I was planning to slack off.

It was a little damaging to my image, but she wasn’t the type to lie.

If she said she wouldn’t tell anyone, she probably meant it... Right?

"So, what brings you here? It’s class time right now, isn’t it?"

"I skipped. I told them there was an urgent matter at the church, and they let me go."

Canceled.

Now I was even more anxious.

I couldn’t believe she used the church as an excuse to skip class.

It felt like I was seeing a side of her I didn’t know existed.

"I wanted to have a counseling session."

"..."

I froze.

...The paper I wrote might not have been very useful, but one thing was clear.

She didn’t have any problems that warranted a counseling session with me.

At least, not at this point in time.