"In you go."
"Yes......."
As Adam stepped heavily into solitary confinement, a documentary came to mind.
It said that in a space with no stimulation, unable even to see outside, people suffered mental breakdowns and hurt themselves within a day.
'Don't tell me it's like that here too?'
But unlike he expected, the Palace's solitary cell had a view outside, and the guard even talked with him now and then.
Less solitary confinement and more of a kindergarten thinking chair?
Having plenty to think about anyway, Adam lay in his cell and cross-checked the clues he'd picked up at the Palace against what he knew.
The first.
'The Third Princess is a failure who can use neither swordsmanship nor magic.'
A false rumor.
Ether was skilled enough that her sword reached even an Archmage.
'The Third Princess is a character-bankrupt Tyrant Princess.'
Tyrant seemed right, but not character-bankrupt.
The fact that she was willing to fight Aicolman meant her courage exceeded most warriors'.
'The reason she hid her identity and snuck into the exam in disguise?'
This one I really don't know.
The only possibility was that Ether was a tyrant who'd put on a persona purely for fun.
If that was it, he had to escape the Palace immediately.
Because it would mean he'd been bitten by a mad dog.
While Adam was reviewing various hypotheses, the jailer came to his cell.
"Adam, you have a visitor."
"A visitor?"
"A man named Achilles is crying and wailing that it's his fault and that he should be the one punished. Will you see him?"
"Please tell him the rules say we can't meet."
"Honestly, he didn't seem to be in his right mind, so I already sent him back."
"Quick on the uptake."
"But he asked me to make sure you got this."
Saying that, the guard handed Adam a letter.
An envelope with its opening sealed in red wax.
On the front, the sender's name was written right there for all to see.
From: Ether Hawkeye
To: Adam Sanchez
The jailer, looking at the sender, muttered.
"Who's Ether? Your girlfriend?"
"Are you seriously asking because you don't know?"
"Of course I don't know."
"The Empire's Third Princess's name is Ether."
In an instant, the cell was wrapped in silence.
"Wh-why would she send you a letter?"
The guard's eyes widened openly.
"Guess you really didn't know?"
In truth, unless you held a fairly high position, it was normal never to hear the real names of the Imperial blood.
The jailer wasn't high-ranking, so he'd never even seen Ether's face, let alone heard her real name.
"What the hell are you, that you're getting letters from the Third Princess?"
"Step out so I can read my letter."
Adam tore open the letter and checked the contents.
『When you come out of solitary, you'll be assigned to the Arcanist department.
In the meantime, please come to the place where we first met.
It doesn't matter when.
Because I'll keep waiting.
Even after your department assignment is fine. Nobody expects anything of the Tyrant Princess, so I have plenty of free time.』
Below that, her postscript was written.
Respectfully, your adorable devotee, Ether.
Adam folded the letter neatly and put it in his pocket.
***
Three days of solitary confinement came to an end.
There was no need to think about where they'd first met.
He ran straight to the underground archive.
When Adam set foot on the stairs, the candle magic tools hanging on the walls flared to life with a whoosh.
The pitch-dark underground staircase, where you could see only an inch ahead, was so rarely used that dust lay thick on the steps.
In that dust were the footprints of someone who'd gone down first.
Going down the dark stairs, Adam opened the heavy wooden door.
Creeeak.
The half-underground archive, full of ashen gray.
The weather was cloudy today.
When he opened the door, Ether was sitting at the archive table as usual.
Seen like this, she was the same innocent literary girl as when they'd first met.
Even when Adam came in, she pretended not to see him, absorbed in her book.
It was all an act.
"I know everything now, so stop the pointless acting."
Ether smiled a kindly smile.
"Hehe, I don't know what you mean?"
"I'm telling you I know everything."
Ether closed the book she'd been reading and went in between the bookshelves.
She rummaged through the shelves as if looking for some book.
"Did you come to find a book?"
"I came to find you."
"I doubt it. Surely there's a book you're looking for?"
Ether, having picked out a book from the stacks, appeared in front of Adam again.
Holding a thick grimoire in her hands.
"Holy shit."
On the cover was written 『Exploding Curse』.
"Well, may I ask you something?"
"You may."
"How do you know that book is mine?"
"I can't help but know."
Ether answered calmly.
"Because I'm the one who gave you this book."
Adam's eyes went wide.
"You must have heard from Aicolman, but a grimoire whose level is too high comes with a curse as its price. You know it, right? Paying a price in proportion to the power you gain is a natural contract."
A contract?
"Grimoires can make contracts with humans. You were contracted by the grimoire one-sidedly, but that's only because the grimoire approached first. When it comes to contracts, grimoires and humans are equals. So humans can make contracts with grimoires too."
"What kind of contract?"
Ether, holding the grimoire, walked toward Adam.
"A contract telling the grimoire to go meet the boy at Aicolman's mansion."
Adam stared at Ether blankly.
Her expression was nonchalant.
Suddenly, something Aicolman had said came to mind.
When a grimoire sees a decent successor, it can make a contract without prior consent.
"I asked the grimoire of explosions. How about going to see Adam?"
The culprit who'd given him the grimoire's curse was Ether.
Something welled up inside him.
But he held it in.
There might be some misunderstanding.
Adam asked in a trembling voice.
"Did you deceive me?"
Ether acted exaggeratedly surprised.
"Deceive...! Well, I did deceive you, but I didn't mean any harm."
"Then you did deceive me."
"It was all for my sake and yours. Sometimes things turn out better if you share information a little later. Isn't that true for you too?"
Her tone was still perfectly innocent.
"What about me?"
"You're hiding that you're a reincarnator because it would shock people too, aren't you?"
Adam looked down at Ether and asked.
"Who told you?"
"You did."
"......."
"To be exact, you at 30."
Adam's whole body went stiff as if frozen.
***
The Empire's Third Princess, Ether, had met countless young ladies and nobles.
And whenever she saw a young lady with an especially nasty personality, she'd often think this.
'She doesn't know she's a bitch, does she?'
Children of the Empire usually learned manners through the rod and debate through a shouted 'Hah!' (a rebuking roar), but on rare occasions young ladies raised with too much coddling couldn't tell right from wrong and got called brats.
Even so, they simply didn't know right from wrong, so you could teach them.
But unlike young ladies who grew up ignorant from bad education, Ether knew herself very well.
Ether wasn't a devil made by her environment but a born tyrant.
It was purely her own fault.
On top of that, she hadn't put in any effort, so both her swordsmanship and magic were beyond pathetic.
Considering the adage that the worst are those who know and don't change, the most vicious of all tyrants was Ether.
But in the Empire, the weak couldn't survive.
A resistance that had united a cult, a neighboring kingdom and traitors broke through the Palace's cordon and kidnapped Ether for negotiations.
It was the fate of a tyrant with nothing but power and no strength.
The resistance leader who'd locked up Ether asked his subordinate.
"Has the Third Princess quieted down?"
"What can she do? Starve anyone long enough and they break."
"Don't kill her. If the princess dies, negotiations with the Empire go up in smoke."
Saying so, the leader threw a lump of bread into the cell.
Ether frantically picked up the fallen bread and ate it.
It was her first meal in ten days.
Even her vengeful desire to kill them all had long since gone out.
Unable to leave, unable even to see outside, she felt like she was going insane.
Bored, she asked the guard for magic books and swordsmanship theory books, and he handed them over readily.
The reason was that negotiations would be difficult if the princess went mad.
In the cell, every day, she swung a wooden sword as the manuals showed.
It was half to kill time.
If she kept sitting still, she felt like she'd lose her mind, so she had no choice.
Swinging the wooden sword, she held on to hope.
'It's okay. It's okay. They won't abandon me. I just have to wait for the negotiations.'
But the negotiations kept breaking down.
Because the resistance's demands were absurd.
Again, the days of endlessly swinging a wooden sword repeated.
The guard watching was impressed by Ether's skill with the wooden sword.
She'd perfected in 1 year the basic forms an ordinary person would take 5 years to learn.
But a handcuffed prisoner learning swordsmanship was pearls around a pig's neck.
Through her shivering hands and feet, she knew 4 winters had passed.
It was the 5th year.
"Found the location! It's here!"
Instead of negotiating, the Empire found where Ether was being held.
"Fuck! Find the princess!"
"Gyaaah!"
"The hostage! Where's the hostage?!"
Realizing every plan had failed, the resistance, in desperation, went to the cell.
"There you are! You monster bitch! Because of you! Because of you!"
"Th-that's not fair! How is that my fault? You're the ones who kidnapped me......."
Ether, bound in chains, shuffled backward awkwardly.
"Not fair? The people backing us made kidnapping you a condition, so we were forced to do it too! If you hadn't done nothing but crazy things in the Empire, we could've lived comfortably!"
"Wh-what kind of......."
The leader was already past reasoning with.
He raised his axe high and struck Ether's neck.
"Guhk!"
Blood spurted from her half-severed neck.
All she felt was a sensation, as if she'd drawn close to the very concept of death.
The sensation had been frightening at first, but now everything touched her skin as a calm truth.
'So this is life.......'
The boss raised the axe again, and Ether closed her eyes.
Just before he could finish cutting through Ether's neck, her Right-Hand came running, too late.
"Y-you, when did you!"
KA-BOOM—!
The boss turned to ash and vanished in an instant.
"Lady Ether......."
"Ah... ah... Nn!"
Her Right-Hand pressed on the cut surface of Ether's severed neck to stop the bleeding.
But it wasn't enough.
Gradually, she sank beneath the surface of consciousness.
There's no life in the world without regrets.
Ether was the same.
Looking at other young ladies, she'd at least been proud that she admitted she was a villain.
That was the same even now.
All her remaining regrets were about effort.
Why was I so lazy?
Why did I bother insulting people who had nothing to do with anything?
There isn't even enough time to deal with the villains threatening the Empire.
If I'd at least used that time to deal with my Right-Hands' enemies, wouldn't I have used my time more preciously?
Hehe, seeing that they made even someone like me love this country, Father and the Empire really did a lot for me.
Good grief.
That my regret right before dying is about not cracking down on traitors.
I really am a hopeless, born villain.
Even given all eternity, I might become a Sword Saint, but I'd never have the heart to forgive villains.
"Lady Ether......."
Her Right-Hand held the dying Ether tightly.
Ether took his hand too.
In her fading consciousness, she felt it clearly.
That even a worm like me could be loved by someone.
It was a death beyond extravagant.
The 5 years of confinement had been shit, but dying held in someone's arms like this wasn't bad.
Ether died holding her Right-Hand's hand.
It was good.
Just dying in someone's arms at the end like this made the 5 years of confinement feel like nothing.
So this is what life is. It's good.
Not bad at all.
Then, one more time!
***
And Ether slowly opened her eyes in bed.
"I did say one more time, but......."
15 years old.
Having run through time and returned to her tyrant days, she muttered to herself.
"Why am I alive? Huh? No, what... No, no. No. No, anyway, this is a good thing!"
At first she was flustered, baffled and dumbfounded, but she soon accepted the regression.
It was an adaptation speed that came from a simple nature.
Once she'd come to her senses, she immediately made plans.
Ether, excellent at one thing at least, objectively assessing herself, was certain that if she didn't make a plan, she'd die pointlessly again.
She immediately set two goals.
First, she herself had to get stronger.
Of course, even now she could subdue ten knights her age with a single sword if they came at her, but she hadn't yet completely transcended the stages.
But getting stronger by myself isn't enough.
I can kill 10 strong people, but if it becomes 100, I can't handle it.
Hence, the second.
Gather Right-Hands as strong as herself.
Because humans are strong when they form groups.
So she decided to take people with power as her Right-Hands.
After narrowing down countless candidates, when she picked out the one who grew fastest and would follow her, the candidates quickly narrowed.
"Adam......."
An Arcanist who, soon after obtaining a grimoire, transcended the stages.
In the original history, Adam had been fated to be chosen by the grimoire much further in the future.
Ether decided to pull that time forward to 15.
RIIIIIP!
She went down to the archive and tore out the grimoire's front page.
And then asked the grimoire for a contract.
『There's a boy at Aicolman's mansion who's probably your type』
The grimoire asked.
『Why should I listen to you?』
『I'll offer you my lifespan』
『You want me to move myself for a mere few years of a human's lifespan?』
『I'll offer you 20 years of my lifespan.』
『20 years for someone else's benefit? For something this trivial? You're a genuinely insane bitch. Well, it's good for me.』
Adam would be chosen by the grimoire.
This was a future she'd already seen once.
So it was a gamble she was bound to win.
After that, she immediately ran to Aicolman's mansion.
To check on Adam, while pretending to ask Aicolman to take part in the Recruitment Exam as a hidden boss.
And sure enough!
Adam was chosen by the grimoire a whole 10 years early.
In her past life, too, he'd come to the Palace soon after obtaining the grimoire, so he'd come soon.
Ether waited in the archive ahead of time to meet Adam.
Pretending to be meeting him for the first time, with a kindly face.
Pretending to be a shy but capable, smart girl.
For her personality, she pretended to be a polite, innocent model student, the type Adam liked most.
It made her toes curl, but she endured it.
Because without Adam, it would all fall apart from the very first step.
Taking the exam with him was for the same reason.
It was affection farming.
With her skill, there was no way she'd lose.
The problem was she hadn't expected Aicolman to get a little serious.
She'd thought she was starting 'Unrivaled After Regression: A Smooth Palace Life!', and she nearly died in episode 1.
Even while playing dead, she'd trembled, afraid she'd get caught in Adam's explosions.
But with this, Ether and Adam had become comrades-in-arms.
And so, now that her plan had succeeded perfectly.
The ingredients she needed were complete.
The moment Achilles named her, Ether decided to confess everything.
"Adam, I'm a regressor. I'm the one who set up this whole game."
***
Adam's pupils trembled hard.
"Then acting strange in front of other people."
"That's who I originally am. If I suddenly changed, they'd think I was possessed by a devil."
"I see."
Ether's heart was pounding.
A calm reaction, as expected.
Since he's a reincarnator himself, he must have figured there could be regressors too.
To begin with, who would refuse the favor of the Empire's princess?
Now, shall we begin?
The first start of the plan heading down the road where my survival is truly guaranteed!
A beaming smile stayed on Ether's lips.
"Lady Ether."
"Yes, what is it?"
"So in the end, all of this was because of you."
"You almost lived as a slave for a while longer, but thanks to me you escaped this fast, so you're happy, right?"
Adam slowly came closer.
"Aicolman's mansion wasn't bad."
Strange.
Why does Adam seem angry?