The supplementary class is over.
Naturally, we fell behind on our studies, and everything was moved to supplementary lessons.
It was decided that extra classes, like Attribute Magic, would be completely suspended until this make-up session ended.
“Haa.”
After finishing the fourth day of supplementary lessons, I returned to the dormitory and collapsed onto my bed.
Basically, Arcana classes start at 9 AM on weekdays and end at 6 PM.
After that, students have free time until curfew at 10 PM.
But now, due to the supplementary classes, my schedule ended at 8 or 9 PM.
And on weekends, there were up to 5 hours of additional supplementary classes.
Since the midterm exams had already passed, it was said that we would be evaluated collectively for the final exams.
This meant that from the end of April to mid-June, these supplementary classes would continue.
In other words, my actual free time on weekdays was limited to a maximum of 2 hours.
With such an awkward amount of time, many people, like me, chose to go straight back to their dorms to rest instead of wandering around.
I should be reviewing what I learned today.
Unfortunately, studying wasn’t sinking in at all right now.
“Aike. I don’t want to distance myself from you because of those rumors. Because I now know that there are things more precious than reputation.”
“So think carefully. Is your behavior truly for the sake of Lady Reina?”
“And she is not a puppet that moves according to your wishes. It would be good to keep that in mind.”
Three days ago. The words exchanged between Reina and the Crown Prince kept swirling in my head.
Since that day, I hadn’t spoken with either of them.
Even when we met in the classroom, we exchanged only light greetings.
It felt like we were avoiding each other.
Something more precious than a noble’s reputation.
Naturally, to me, Reina is more valuable than my reputation.
It was also a happy thing that she valued me to that extent.
However, I couldn’t accept Reina’s request.
The moment I saw her eyes as she spoke those words, I turned away and rejected her.
“What on earth are you afraid of, Aike?”
Well, I honestly don’t know anymore.
At first, I thought that if rumors spread about me and Reina, it would ruin the relationship between the Crown Prince and Reina.
But haven’t I already realized?
The Crown Prince is not the same as the one I knew from the original story.
Even if Reina and I became close and rumors spread, the Crown Prince would never take issue with it.
Despite knowing that, why was I avoiding Reina?
Was it because, as the Crown Prince said, I really thought of Reina as just a simple puppet?
The more I think, the less confident I become.
My certainty fades away.
I feel like I will end up thinking all this concern for you is a lie.
And that scared me a lot.
★
“Huh?”
When I opened my eyes, I saw a white ceiling.
The place was all too familiar to me.
And I had thought I would never see it again.
Ah, it’s a dream.
Even without someone telling me, I could figure it out.
This was the hospital where I was probably dependent on for my life until I died.
As I grasped the situation, I naturally turned my head to the right to look at the calendar.
20XX year XX month XX day.
It was right after I entered high school.
A time when I hadn’t even been on a ventilator yet.
Of course, even then, walking was practically impossible.
The good thing, perhaps because it was a dream, was that I didn’t feel any pain.
I tried to get out of bed using that, but unfortunately, I couldn’t even feel the effort in my body.
Geez.
What on earth is the purpose of this dream?
I had no idea.
If I were to express my life in colors, it would be white.
Dressed in white clothes, trapped in a white room, lying on a white bed, spending my days.
Yes.
I had been looking toward the end since my childhood.
I had only managed to meet the minimum attendance requirement since elementary school.
And that was just popping into the nurse’s office for a moment, soon leaving to lie down at home or go to the hospital for checkups.
There was no way I could build proper friendships.
Teachers always looked at me with pity, while classmates awkwardly regarded my existence.
There were only a few who visited me at home or hospital during elementary school.
And after about a month, they all disappeared.
Of course, I don’t resent them.
I probably wouldn’t have been able to view someone who lived in the hospital daily as a friend either.
Anyway, this lifestyle continued until the second half of my third year in middle school.
From then on, my health seriously deteriorated.
It became unbearable for me to leave the hospital even for a moment.
I lay in bed every day, receiving doses of narcotic painkillers.
I’d eat the congee provided by the hospital, vomit, lie down again, and repeat eating congee, vomiting, and lying down.
Looking back now, I’m curious how I endured it back then.
After my condition worsened, only one person came to visit me.
My homeroom teacher from the third year in middle school.
At that point, I was already a well-known figure at school, so nobody would visit me just because I was hospitalized for a long time.
I had no one I shared such a relationship with.
Anyway, the teacher who came to see me conveyed a very simple message.
Whether I would advance to high school or not.
It was a truly humorous story.
Who would even think to ask someone who looked incapable of living normally about high school?
I found it deeply irritating.
I wondered if they were teasing me.
So, in a fit of anger, I expressed my desire to attend high school.
Later, I heard that my name had been placed on the roster of a vocational high school that fell short of standards.
Of course, I never attended even once before I died.
I had only my father left as family.
And he was out working to pay for my hospital bills, so I rarely got to see his face.
No friends whatsoever.
No memory of trivial conversation with my father.
No relatives I had ever heard of.
Yeah. I was always alone.
I had nowhere to rely on, and honestly, I was lonely.
That’s surely why I sank into reading.
It might be a natural conclusion.
With my limitations, there was hardly anything else I could do lying down except that.
I read pure literature, genre novels, magazines, essays, and web novels without discrimination.
The stories where the characters thrived were fun, the tales of worlds I didn’t know were delightful, and acquiring new knowledge made me happy.
When asked which was the most enjoyable, it would of course be “She heals the wounded world.”
The content itself was an extremely common romance fantasy.
The ordinary peasant female protagonist, Sophia, gets accepted into the empire’s academy through a special selection.
Then she meets the Empire’s Crown Prince, who is seen as perfect.
Feeling something new in Sophia’s actions, the Crown Prince falls in love with her.
After that, her hidden past and identity are revealed, they connect, save the world, and the story concludes.
Even though it was a plain and cliché romance fantasy, I enjoyed this work.
The reason was because of the character depicted as the antagonist, Reina.
She is the Crown Prince’s fiancée and persistently bullied Sophia.
However, after Sophia’s past and identity are revealed later, she gets jilted by the Crown Prince and ends up completely isolated.
She can no longer rely on her family or the friends she had among the noble factions.
It might sound strange, but the fun part starts from here.
Usually, an antagonist in a romance fantasy like this would quickly exit the story, but Reina was different.
For some reason, the episodes of her isolation kept coming up.
She gets muddy water poured on her head, stumbles over something, has trash mixed in her meal, and all her books for class are torn apart.
Watching this, the surrounding characters enjoyed themselves.
It felt like the author had a fixation, with the stories of her suffering continuing to appear.
…If you were to ask whether Reina committed a terrible sin, I would honestly say no.
At most, it was merely criticism relating to a lack of etiquette due to being a commoner.
Being reprimanded for getting too close to her fiancé, the Crown Prince.
If that’s bullying, it’s nothing more than such matters.
But most readers took pleasure in seeing her suffer after being portrayed as the antagonist.
Is that why the author went overboard with her?
Anyway, Reina ended up alone to the point of mental breakdown.
Ultimately, she tries to ambush Sophia with a knife.
Although it was discovered beforehand causing no significant issue, Reina is sentenced to death for attempting to kill Sophia, the Crown Princess and Empire’s Saintess.
“I was lonely. I was isolated… In the end, I had no one until the very end.”
That was Reina’s dying wish, said with tears in her eyes.
I know the situations are different, but I liked Reina.
I could empathize with the fact that she felt lonely and had nowhere to rely on.
This feeling intensified after reading Reina’s side story.
At that time, I sincerely prayed for a world where Reina could be happy.
And now, I have that opportunity.
“Ah, I see.”
I finally realized.
Why I rejected Reina’s request.
I am not really Aike Akses.
I am merely a reader who happened to possess his body.
I had only been in Aike’s body for less than ten years.
If I had been reincarnated into Aike’s body, I wouldn’t have worried like this.
I was afraid that if I got close to you, you’d find out that I’m not the real Aike.
That scared me, and that’s why I couldn’t accept that request.
Reina and the Crown Prince’s relationship was just an excuse.
The foundation of her fondness for me must be the result built by the real Aike Akses.
So, I worried about what expression she would make if it came to light that I am not Aike.
That’s what terrified me.
The Crown Prince’s words that Reina is not a puppet also meant that.
In the end, I only lead her down a path I think will make her happy while hiding behind the scenes.
While my feelings for her are not lies, the thought of walking beside her has never crossed my mind.
He must have seen through that.
“Haha. …Damn.”
What am I supposed to do from here?
There’s no one who could tell me that.
★
“Aike, dear.”
After five days of supplementary classes, as I was trying to head back to the dormitory, I was stopped by Reina.
“Lady Reina.”
To be honest, I was still so confused that I didn’t want to talk to her.
But there was no way I could ignore her.
“Can you come to the Banquet Hall tomorrow after the supplementary class, at 5 PM?”
“The Banquet Hall?”
“Yes. I have something I want to talk about.”
Why the Banquet Hall of all places?
If it’s just to talk, now would be fine in the garden or somewhere.
I couldn’t understand, but…
“…Understood.”
I slowly nodded my head.
