Carmillia kept her smile even after they left the others behind, drawing the eyes of several mesmerized male students despite Xian walking just behind her.
He caught sight of that smile every so often and found himself admiring it. It was rare to see the villainess smile, after all.
The confrontation had already attracted more attention than he wanted, and even the occasional students they passed were doing a poor job of pretending they had not heard about what happened.
'It seemed Carmillia naturally liked conflicts. Just being a villainess as usual.'
"You've been quite impulsive just now, Butler." There was unmistakable amusement in Carmillia's tone and unabashed smile, to the point that it seemed what she wanted to say was, 'He'd been quite entertaining.'
"First, this morning you had quite the stare that could kill, and now you nearly strangle some red-haired commoner against a wall." Her smile widened faintly. "Your reactions have become rather interesting."
She did not sound particularly displeased by that fact. If anything, the entire affair seemed to have entertained her.
Carmillia briefly glanced toward the shallow cut across Xian's damaged uniform before looking ahead again.
"I wonder what sort of sanctions Rozenfall gives for attacking another student in the corridor." She wondered and tilted her head to the side as if to clearly show Xian that she couldn't wait to see. "At this rate, my butler will stain his mistress's reputation before the first week has even ended."
Normally, he might have defended himself or complained that she had been the one who asked whether Castreyja should simply be allowed to leave. Right now, however, Carmillia's teasing barely registered.
He had lost his cool again.
The realization bothered him more than whatever punishment Rozenfall might decide upon.
Only that morning, he had learned that he possessed a single regression remaining. A few hours later, all it had taken was one hostile girl standing too close to Carmillia for him to immediately choose violence.
Had that confrontation somehow ended with Carmillia crippled or killed, everything would have been over.
A single mistake or accident, and he would lose his one last chance to stay by Carmillia's side.
Xian clenched his hand.
'But I don't really have a choice. I don't want to fail.'
The scenarios could wait and even the events could wait. This was the game turned into reality; perhaps even if he didn't follow the scenarios, it was still possible to achieve his goal.
'I really want to go out and explore but... My level is too low and Carmillia might be in danger.'
Routes, heroine encounters, hidden opportunities, all the things he had spent years memorizing from the game: none of them mattered if Carmillia died before he understood what was happening around her, and it was not like Carmillia would willingly come with him on his travels.
Until he knew exactly how secure she was, anyone lingering too long near them deserved suspicion.
Elite Class, Common Class, Royal Class, and even the professors: it did not matter. If someone had a reason to approach Carmillia, Xian would assume they had another reason they were not telling him.
Better for everyone else to stay the hell away from him and Carmillia for now.
His thoughts immediately returned to the two people who should have been standing beside Carmillia in the first place.
'Serika and Lucinelle.' Xian missed those two at this moment.
'Where the hell are they? Why haven't they made contact?' He needed to reach them as soon as possible.
'Wait, she never told me what happened to those two...'
"Does Milady know where Serika and Lucinelle are?"
Carmillia looked at him, her smile slowly fading in puzzlement.
"Hm? Didn't you cause it yourself? Are we playing pretend right now, Butler?"
However, she quickly put on a smile again, though it was accompanied by a different, suspicious gaze this time.
"..."
"My father was gracious enough to reveal their identities to Rozenfall and have them admitted once again as students." Her sharp gaze was practically asking why he was bothering to ask when, as far as she was concerned, he was almost certainly behind the arrangement in the first place.
"Serika should've returned for her second year. Lucinelle, her third."
'Right, so that's how the duke separated Carmillia's limbs from her.'
That gave him another task after classes. He needed to reach Serika first, somewhere in the second-year grounds, though lunch was the only time those grounds opened to first-years. Unfortunately, that was also when he would normally be occupied serving Carmillia.
Fortunately, reaching the Second-Year grounds itself would not be particularly difficult. Rozenfall contained a few hidden passages and shortcuts the player could discover through events, exploration scenarios, and route-specific interactions. One of them provided access to the higher grounds where the Second Years resided.
Getting onto the grounds was the easy part, but the girls' dormitory was an entirely different matter. He could already imagine how well walking directly into a Second-Year women's residence would end for him, compared to the First-Year dorms that had a perverted runt for a guard.
So he had two realistic options.
Send a letter.
Or force his way in.
The second option became considerably less appealing when he remembered the difference between the First and Second Years.
The students around him now were still developing. Many had yet to awaken Aura properly, advance far in Mana, or build the statistics they would eventually possess. The Second Years were another matter. Their Levels were generally much closer to his own, with some already exceeding him, and their higher Potentials meant those Levels translated into considerably stronger statistics than most of the First Years could produce.
Trying to bulldoze through an entire dormitory filled with them would probably end with him being beaten unconscious before he even found Serika.
'Letter first.' Once it reached her and she gave a reply, he could find out what the hell Lucinelle was doing in Third Year.
By then, they had reached the Royal Class lecture hall.
Unlike the spectacle waiting for them earlier that morning, the room was considerably calmer. Conversations lowered almost immediately when Xian and Carmillia entered, though the silence lasted only long enough for the students to look at them before murmuring resumed beneath their breath.
Based on their conversations, it seemed news traveled quickly, but Xian ignored it. Carmillia appeared even less interested, still having a faint smile. The two proceeded toward their places as though nothing unusual had happened in the corridor at all.
Fahna entered not long after them, which drew another brief collection of glances.
The three Rose Holders had arrived within such a short span of one another that anyone unaware of what had happened outside might have assumed they had come together.
Rhykard certainly noticed. The young noble's gaze passed from Fahna to Xian and Carmillia before settling back upon his own desk. The slight irritation crossing his expression disappeared quickly, but not quickly enough for Xian to miss it.
To him, it seemed Rhykard was forming his own conclusions, but he decided not to think about it. There were only a few minutes remaining before the first period began.
He sat beside Carmillia and rested one arm against the desk, allowing the subdued conversations around them to wash together into meaningless noise.
His mind was already organizing what needed to happen next.
Classes. Find a way to contact Serika and Lucinelle, check Carmillia's letterbox and review the information he had gathered during the night.
Find out whether the academy intended to punish him and somehow continue the absurd assignment Aleandro had given them on the very first day. The sequence already made his head hurt; somehow he was busier than yesterday.
A target he had to secretly observe for the entire term.
'I haven't checked it yet.'
If the target discovered him, he failed. If his conclusions were wrong, he failed. Somewhere in the Royal Class, another student had been given him as their own target as well.
'As if I don't already have enough people watching me.'
Once the doors opened, the remaining conversations died almost immediately.
Aleandro entered with the usual stern expression and wide strides, a case carried at his side and the same resting expression that made it seem as though nothing impressive would ever please him.
He reached the front of the room, placed his materials upon the instructor's desk, and looked across the Royal Class.
"... Before your first period begins, remember the assignment distributed yesterday. It continues for the duration stated in your instructions. Two days of observation will not be accepted as a completed evaluation."
Several students visibly deflated, and he felt his own mood sink with them.
Aleandro continued through several ordinary notices concerning attendance, schedules, and academy conduct before closing the case he had brought with him.
"That will be all."
"And First Seat. You are to be at the Headmaster's office after the afternoon class periods." He left shortly afterward, leaving the whole class glancing at the person of interest himself. A single frown was all it took for most to look away.
It was only a few minutes later when the doors opened again.
An old man with small, round, silver-rimmed glasses entered the room. Puffy gray hair swept back from his forehead in a shaggy, almost pompadour-like mass, complementing a rather round figure that somehow carried considerably more energy than the man who had just departed.
He was all smiles, unlike Aleandro, who looked as though his face had been carved from stone.
Xian recognized him immediately as one of the professors involved in the Five Doors examination.
The professor reached the front of the lecture hall with an easy smile, looking over the students with the warm enthusiasm of an old grandfather about to tell some tales.
"Good morning, everyone. For those I did not meet during the examinations, I am Edgar of the Nocturne family, professor of Rozenfall and specialist in Monster Ecology." He glanced around, smiling at whichever students met his eyes. "A wonderful field, truly. Though perhaps not one for breakfast conversation."
"Monster Ecology is about what a monster eats, where it migrates, why it competes, how it adapts, and what place it occupies in its environment. Sometimes they even discover travelers are easier prey than wildlife." Seeing his smile remain as he talked, Xian surmised that he was the type of professor who truly felt passion for his teachings, a rare sort in an academy like Rozenfall. "Very clever of them, but rather unfortunate for the travelers."
The professor turned toward the board.
"We will study how those things affect the way monsters fight, survive, and develop weaknesses. Knowing where to stab may be useful, but knowing why it is there in the first place is considerably more useful."
"And if you ever find a trail of blood leading into a burrow, remember that it may not belong to whatever lives inside." Edgar smiled brightly. "We will save that cheerful subject for later."
And with that, Monster Ecology began.
It was a class Xian never imagined himself taking.
He had fought monsters, hunted them, avoided them, and memorized where plenty could be found, but never once had he considered actually studying them.
As far as the game was concerned, his knowledge had always been simple enough.
Which monsters appeared in which areas, what class they belonged to, and whatever was necessary to kill them.
There had never been much reason to wonder what they ate, why they lived where they did, or what could drive them away. Monsters had simply occupied whatever locations the game assigned to them, turning into EXP whenever he farmed them and dropping whatever materials the player needed afterward.
Apparently, there was an entire field of study behind what he had once regarded as locations and classifications on a map.
Edgar wrote a single word across the board.
Baseline.
"Before deciding that something is wrong with a monster, you must first know what is normal for it."
Four more words appeared beneath it.
Body. Habitat. Diet. Behavior.
"One creature found outside its usual habitat tells you something. Several species abandoning the same region tell you considerably more." Edgar smiled mildly. "At that point, I would recommend investigating what convinced them to leave before worrying about how to kill them."
He tapped the board again.
"Weakness is often ecological as well. Thick armor requires flexibility somewhere; a creature adapted to darkness may possess sensitive eyes. Understand how something survives, and quite often you will understand how it can be defeated."
He paused.
"And when ordinary biology no longer explains what you are observing, only then do we begin discussing mutation, abnormal environments, and Agrind influence."
'Hm. Well, that's something new at least.'
The rest of the lesson passed gradually, but one point managed to catch his attention.
According to Edgar, monsters appearing outside their usual territory were often a warning sign. If several species abandoned the same region, an Arbiter was supposed to investigate what drove them away.
Sometimes the first sign of Agrind influence was not a strange monster or an obvious lair.
It was ordinary monsters running away from it.
He stared at his notes and smiled wryly. He never thought he would be jotting down topics like a student again.
'Something like that actually happens when there are Agrinds around, huh?'
The world felt a little more real knowing that the Agrinds and monsters he used to hunt had consequences beyond whatever mechanics appeared on the screen.
To him, an Agrind lair had already been an Agrind lair by the time the player arrived. NPCs called the area corrupted, its monsters gained altered traits, and that was generally all he needed to know before destroying the core.
He was reminded of the Treant Agrind Kin.
The parasitic things grew upon living monsters and remained attached until their hosts died, at which point they seized the corpses and forced them back into battle. In the game, it had simply been an irritating revival mechanic that returned the monster with altered attributes.
But this was reality.
'Then I can just destroy the body before the Treant gets to use it again.'
It wasn't possible in the game since they were set to revive. A corpse was either part of the mechanic or it wasn't, but here, there was an actual body involved.
That alone gave him something the game never had.
By the time Edgar finally gathered his materials and departed, he had filled several pages with things he had never considered and mechanics that suddenly worked differently simply because the world was real.
"Haah, so what's next?"
Roughly fifteen minutes later, he was still staring at his notes when the doors opened for the next period.
The reaction throughout the lecture hall changed almost immediately.
Vica Ellios entered. Several of the young men seemed to discover a sudden enthusiasm for education.
Those who slouched straightened their backs. A few students who had spent the previous period looking half-asleep now watched the front of the room with considerably greater attention.
For better or for worse, Vica's hourglass figure, neatly tied-up hair, and skin-tight suit attire reminiscent of an office lady in glasses seemed to awaken the boys, while the girls were energized into rolling their eyes and spiting them. At that moment, the class seemed to split into two.
"Hello, everyone, you can call me Professor Vica Ellios. Today I'll be your professor for Applied Mathematics and Logic."
Hearing the subject, everyone simultaneously let out a united wail of despair.
"Wha... don't be like that! Don't you know math is like magic in itself? Blah blah blah…"
'You've got to be kidding me.' Xian stiffened. 'Now I even have to learn math?'