At this point, there was no point in overthinking where things had gone wrong.

   I’d done my best, and this was the result. Honestly, if I were told to go back a few days and try to fix everything, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off. Even if I knew the steps, repeating the same events over and over was mentally exhausting.

   One thing was certain—I didn’t want to step onto a battlefield again anytime soon. The smells, the dampness, the overwhelming noise—it was all something I’d rather avoid for a while.

   So, after parting ways with Lucas, I just returned to my room and collapsed onto the bed.

   And I slept deeply.

   My mind was so overheated that I couldn’t think of anything else I’d rather do than just shut it down for a few hours.

   *

   When I woke up, my body felt unbelievably light.

   And with that, I confirmed a few things.

   While meditation helped to alleviate some of the fatigue, actual sleep was still superior. Meditation helped to maintain physical and mental condition, but it didn’t eliminate tiredness entirely.

   To keep up with meditation, you still needed proper breaks in between, and it seemed you had to be in reasonably good shape, physically.

   Until now, I hadn’t been too fond of exercise.

   Partly because I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but mostly because I never knew when or how far I’d have to rewind time, which made keeping up a physical routine challenging.

   Any progress in strength could be reset by an unexpected event that forced me to turn back time, erasing all that effort.

   Skills that could be ingrained as habits, I practiced repeatedly, and the same went for knowledge.

   I did keep up with the protagonist’s group, maintaining minimal training levels, but I never aimed to match the inhuman abilities of the main characters.

   …Still, considering that I’d gone through that battlefield yesterday, then completed missions with the group without collapsing, it seemed that both meditation and minimal training had paid off.

   If I hadn’t learned meditation, I probably would have passed out on my bed and not woken up until the next morning.

   Being able to push through even a few more hours was thanks to my teacher.

   Had Leo and the others returned? It occurred to me they might not be back yet.

   Their training with the Sword Saint wasn’t likely to be short. Even if they’d trained all night, they would have barely scratched the surface.

   After all, the point of this event was simply meeting the Sword Saint.

   My stomach rumbled.

   I’d skipped dinner last night, falling asleep right away, so naturally, I was hungry.

   It was nine in the morning.

   Maybe I should clean up and go eat.

   *

   No matter how much people live by routines, most will relax those routines the moment they have the chance—unless they’re the rare, exceptionally diligent type.

   In the Academy dorms, students were expected to wake up, get ready, and have breakfast by 7:30 a.m. to arrive in class by 9:00.

   But Jennifer, who was in charge of overseeing us here, wasn’t the type to enforce that strictness.

   If you wanted to sleep in, that was fine by her. As long as students maintained their grades, Jennifer didn’t care how late they slept or how much they played and rested.

   So the students likely spent yesterday running around with that in mind. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have put in such effort.

   Maybe that’s why Winterfield Castle’s dining hall seemed almost empty. There were hardly any students around.

   In a game, this might have been due to technical limitations, but seeing only three students in Academy uniforms made me realize this effect was real.

   Two of them were students I recognized. They were fellow nobles from Class A. I’d seen them in the game and read about them in the lore books. We weren’t particularly close, and they weren’t prominent named characters in the story.

   The girl and the boy were sitting across from each other, eating, and given their different family names, they weren’t siblings. They didn’t seem like they were dating either… Maybe their friends were still back at the dorm, sleeping in.

   And then there was one other person…

   …Uh.

   Who?

   She had short, deep brown hair, and even with the short cut, her beauty stood out clearly. Her hair was longer than most boys’ cuts, even if it was short for a girl.

   Not only was her hair noticeably shorter, but her uniform was also clearly the women’s version.

   She had taken off her coat and draped it neatly over the empty seat beside her, making it clear she was wearing the female uniform. Nobody would mistake her for a boy.

   Did we have a noble student like this?

   As I’d mentioned before, in the game, all the noble students had unique models, even if they were minor characters. After multiple playthroughs and poring over lore and guidebooks, I had a mental list of them all.

   And she wasn’t on that list.

   I doubted she was from the commoner class either; they were off at a different location for practical training. She could have come from somewhere nearby, but if there had been information important enough to warrant sending someone, they wouldn’t have sent a student.

   It might have been prejudice, but… she gave off a distinctly noble aura.

   "..."

   I had a bad feeling about this.

   Wouldn’t it be troublesome to get involved?

   After everything I’d gone through yesterday, I just wanted a peaceful day, so I purposefully sat far from her.

   This wasn’t a place where you could order food from a menu. This was more of a dining hall than a restaurant.

   If you waited at your seat, a server would approach, tell you the meal options, and you could request any additions or omissions. If you weren’t up for a full breakfast, you could just ask for a coffee.

   As I sat there, waiting idly for the server, I heard footsteps.

   The sound was remarkably clean and even, unlike the sharp clacks of the server’s shoes. Academy students wore shoes too, but they were far softer and more flexible than the formal shoes worn by faculty.

   So even in the Academy, you could easily distinguish a teacher’s footsteps from a student’s.

   The sound reaching my ears now was the sound of a “student.”

   "..."

   I felt uneasy.

   I had a bad feeling that something unexpected was about to happen.

   “Your Highness.”

   And my intuition was spot on.

   Thankfully, I managed not to flinch. After the chaos of the previous day, hearing the sounds of bombs and gunfire nonstop, it took more than this to startle me.

   I slowly turned to face the person addressing me.

   In front of me stood a strikingly dignified young girl.

   I hadn’t noticed it from afar, but up close, her face looked rather youthful. Compared to the many young faces I saw at the Academy, she seemed even younger—probably at least a year younger than me.

   She was taller than I’d expected, and her physique was well-developed, but the youthfulness in her face was unmistakable.

   Snap.

   This young, handsome girl gave me a sharp salute. It wasn’t just a casual gesture; I even heard the snap of her heels as they came together.

   The salute wasn’t in the Empire’s style.

   "..."

   "..."

   As I continued to look at her without responding, she held her salute, frozen in place.

   …Oh, is this her way of greeting me?

   “At ease,” I said finally.

   Only then did she lower her hand with a precise movement. Again, I heard the crisp sound of her uniform settling. I hadn’t realized those sounds were possible outside of movies.

   “May I ask your purpose here?”

   “Yes, ma’am!”

   "..."

   Her formal reply nearly made me pinch my temples in exasperation, but I held back.

   “My name is Rena Meyer!”

   Okay, but… who’s that?

   I almost blurted out the question.

   “Are you a student at the Academy?”

   “Yes.”

   Rena Meyer answered.

   “I’ve recently transferred in and came to introduce myself.”

   "..."

   I was at a loss for words.