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It wasn't that I was too afraid of the nobles to help her.
Before the regression, the heads of nobles who'd died by my hands alone could have filled this entire classroom and then some.
Right now, the person I was most concerned about was Aden.
He, too, was currently in a regressed state, just like me.
Which meant, quite literally, that this was the Aden who had existed in the book.
The reason I could tell was that his actions matched the contents of the book exactly.
The moment the regressed Aden came to his senses, the first thing he did was head to the rooftop garden to save Aria, the person who would later become his lover.
Having successfully rescued her, Aden brought her down to the shelter with him, and both were rescued without incident.
But afterward, he began to waver upon seeing the names carved on the memorial stone.
Even though he'd had more than enough ability to handle the fishmen himself, he'd only felt relief at having saved his childhood friend and had holed up with her in the shelter.
He'd suddenly regressed and been overwhelmed.
He hadn't been able to spare a thought for anyone else.
Whatever excuse he offered, it left no room for justification to those who were already dead, their names left behind on the memorial stone.
Compared to the past, where nearly half the students had died, the number of survivors had increased this time, but that was all.
Unlike him, who'd returned to the past, the students who had died couldn't come back.
'I'm sorry... if... if I ever get one more chance... I swear I will never turn away from the people I'm now losing...'
Those were the words he'd whispered, weeping, every night in his temporary lodging.
'From now on... never again... will anyone...'
I happened to pass by Aden's room and overheard those words, and from them I could tell that this wasn't his second regression, but his first.
That was because I remembered the words he'd said, at the moment he was about to die, defeated in his final battle against the ancient being after regressing, as he anticipated that time would turn back once more.
'This time... I'll protect everyone.'
Aden, carrying the deaths of the students as his own burden, living with that weight.
There was no way someone like that would repeat the exact same actions again.
One might ask what Aden being in his first regression had to do with helping Aria avoid getting bullied, but according to what was written in the book, it was because, in the not too distant future, Aden would end up in a massive fight against the students of the Magic Department in order to protect Aria.
And that fight would become the trigger for his connection with the Sword God, Duke Brutal Snowtier, through which he would, for a brief time, learn proper, ascendant swordsmanship.
This was the single most important factor in Aden becoming several times stronger than he had been before the regression, which meant it absolutely had to happen.
But if I preemptively stopped her from getting bullied, there would be no conflict with the Magic Department, and the meeting between Aden and the Duke would clearly never take place.
While I stood there mulling all this over, Aria approached me right then.
"Um."
She held out one of the books she'd been hiding earlier, one that looked relatively intact compared to the others.
"This might be unnecessary meddling, but... you couldn't attend class yesterday, right? I put together some notes, so study from this. Thankfully this book is in decent shape... well, actually... I haven't taken great care of my books, so it's a little dirty, but it shouldn't cause any problems reading it."
I'd been thinking that, for Aden's future, it would probably be right to just let her be bullied without interfering.
But it suddenly occurred to me: was it really the right thing to just leave alone, under whatever excuse, a girl whose kind heart was already so obvious from just a few sentences of conversation?
Swept up in a sudden surge of emotion, I took the book from her, even though I knew I probably wouldn't understand a word of it even if I read it.
"...You."
"Hm?"
"I'm definitely going to repay you for this."
"Huh? You really don't have to..."
"Quiet. Just take it if I say take it."
The matter of Duke Snowtier and Aden could still wait, so I decided to think about it later.
"Then I'll get going."
I'd only been thinking that I shouldn't stray from the story's flow.
That way, I'd be able to prepare for whatever was coming in the future.
But I figured that just by existing, the story had probably already begun to change.
And there was no way problems like this wouldn't keep happening from here on out.
So what was I supposed to do going forward?
My head was a mess.
The garden set up on the dormitory rooftop.
I climbed up and sat there to clear my complicated head.
Recalling what I'd said to Aria earlier made my whole body cringe.
Something about repaying her, something about telling her to just shut up and take it.
Maybe it was because my body had gotten younger, but I wondered if puberty was coming back to hit me too.
Out of sheer awkwardness and embarrassment, I ended up kicking a stone on the ground as hard as I could, for no reason at all.
"Eek!"
"Huh?"
"Ohh... that hurt..."
I sprang up immediately and rushed over to whoever had been hit by the stone I'd just kicked.
A girl with long, orange tinted brown hair was crouched down, clutching her head.
"Well, why'd you get hit by a rock for walking in front of someone?"
"...Excuse me?"
The old mercenary habit of drawing a sword first even when I was in the wrong came bursting out without me even meaning it to.
Shaking my head, I put on a gentle smile and asked the girl again.
"Sorry, are you okay?"
I said this while holding out my hand, but rather than take it, she scowled as if she disliked the offered hand even more and shot up onto her feet by herself.
Hmph. What an independent kid.
"Excuse me! You suddenly hit someone with a rock and now... what did you just say?"
"...I asked if you were okay?"
"No, a second ago you said something about why I got hit walking in front of someone!"
"Who? Me? When?"
"...What?"
"No, come on, what kind of jerk hits someone and then tells them it's their own fault? Right?"
"..."
"And I never said anything like that. Did that rock hitting your head shake you up pretty bad?"
"Wa, was it?"
As I pushed forward shamelessly, the girl replayed the incident in her head with a bewildered look.
"Was that really it? That's not... I'm pretty sure I heard..."
"I never said that."
"No, more importantly, why are you throwing rocks onto a path people walk on!"
"I didn't throw it, I kicked it."
"That's the same thing!"
Her face, flushed red, looked about ready to burst from indignation.
"That's why I asked if you were okay."
"I'm not okay, actually."
"Then I'll apologize."
I held out my hand again along with the apology.
The girl glanced back and forth between my hand and my face several times, then let out a sigh.
"Ugh... I'll just take that as my apology, then."
Sure enough, she wouldn't take my hand.
This was, honestly, the response I'd come to expect from women I knew.
"Be more careful from now on. Got it?"
"Yeah, sure."
I watched, thinking, as she turned on her heel with an audible whip of motion and headed toward the entrance.
'She's not showing that prickly side just to me, is she?'
I sincerely hoped that if it had been Aden instead of me, she would have shown that same strong-willed independence.
Regardless, thanks to that pointless commotion, I'd managed to escape the cringe-inducing situation I'd been alone with, and for that at least I was grateful.
Once that was over, though, I felt utterly lost about what to do next.
If I solved the bullying situation myself, what would happen to the meeting between Duke Snowtier and Aden that was supposed to follow it, and how was I supposed to deal with the countless other futures that would change as a result?
Stress washed over me like a wave.
Not good for hair loss.
"Haah... today especially, I miss those guys."
Maybe it was the stress, but I found myself missing the mercenary crew whose body I'd once inhabited before the regression.
Every time we met up, it turned into some kind of brawl, we practically wanted to devour each other, but with them, no situation had ever felt unsolvable.
Well, that thing I'd run into right before the regression had seemed truly impossible to stop, though.
Given the circumstances, it seemed likely that the ancient being Aden would eventually have to face in the final battle was the exact same being I'd encountered right before regressing.
The ancient being. The existence the robed woman was trying to stop, even at the cost of turning back time itself.
I knew its power firsthand, having experienced it myself.
A single gesture had turned half my mercenary crew into handfuls of blood mist, and that colossal spell had covered the entire sky, as if meaning to wipe out everyone who remained.
[Cursed Flame Baptism]
I'd never seen a spell that massive and overwhelming before.
Just as I'd sensed death coming and resigned myself to it, the robed woman had appeared and turned back time.
If I didn't come up with a way to deal with something that absurd, Aden would end up dying all over again, and the members of the mercenary crew would clearly meet meaningless deaths once more.
"Hah!"
Ironically, my head cleared up precisely because the opponent was strong enough to feel hopeless.
I could say, with certainty, that there was no one in the world capable of stopping a monster like that.
Except Aden.
But just as Aden ultimately failed in the novel, he needed to become far stronger than that.
Because if the story flowed exactly the way I'd read it in the novel, the ending wouldn't change.
Which meant I needed to twist and bend the story until it created an overwhelmingly favorable situation.
That was probably exactly what the robed woman wanted from me.
And it was my job to make the story flow that way.
Which meant there was no need to rack my brain this hard over something as small as saving Aria from being bullied.
"Well... I still have no idea what to do, that much hasn't changed."
But at least I now knew for certain that I didn't need to worry that my future actions might ruin things.
This was, after all, already a timeline that had once failed.
"What's got you so lost in thought?"
Just as my thoughts had settled a little and I was feeling a sense of relief, a voice from behind me sent chills down my spine.
No matter how deep in complicated thought I'd been, I should have been able to sense someone approaching, but I hadn't even caught the sound of her breathing.
On top of that, this rather elderly-looking woman was sitting right beside me, as if she'd been there from the very beginning.
I felt as if I'd been possessed by some kind of ghost.
"Who's this old lady..."
"...Old lady?"
At the sudden burst of pressure radiating off her, I shot up from the bench, jumped back, put a hand on my hip, and let out a wave of my own pressure in response.
Ah, damn it... I didn't have a sword.
"Oho... impressive."
"Who the hell are you."
Despite my sharp tone, she kept right on smiling.
But behind that smile, the kind you'd give a grandchild, the pressure flowing off her was fierce enough that I could confidently say I'd rarely experienced anything like it, even before the regression.
"Ugh!"
This damned body of mine started to feel like it was heating up, burning as if from fire, crushed under that pressure more and more.
"I heard you were eighteen... but you carry a presence like someone who's actually lived through war."
"..."
As if my silence were only natural, she continued.
"That child Elin, no wonder she praised you so much."
Elin, meaning my homeroom professor?
I asked her sharply, ready to bolt at any moment, even as she kept smiling gently.
"Are you acquainted with the professor?"
At my question, she looked at me for a moment, deepened her smile even further, and rose from her seat.
"...Before I answer, I think we need to fix that tone of yours a bit first."
[Fire Fist]
Mana gathered in both her hands, and blue flames began to rise.
Compared to the plain, simple name Fire Fist, the amount of mana gathering was terrifyingly large.
"Should we sort out how you'll address me first?"
With those words as her last, I lost track of her movements entirely.