The rooftop was so quiet that only the sound of breathing remained. Erich stared blankly at the dark-purple sky.
“Leonora doesn't seem to be holding up much longer.”
Isabella's voice rang out abruptly, tossing a pebble into this pool of stagnant water.
It took Erich a long while to register what she was saying. He instinctively wanted to ask, “How do you know?” but swallowed the words back down. Isabella was someone who always knew many things she shouldn't. He decided not to take the bait and simply said dryly, “Lorraine will save her. She's the protagonist, after all.”
Isabella did not reply immediately. After a long silence, she let out a soft laugh. The laughter seemed devoid of emotion, yet Erich felt he could detect a hint of mockery in it.
“Why do you think she can save Leonora?”
Erich froze and turned his head to look at her.
“Without knowing the weak point of the barrier beforehand,” Isabella said to herself, her gaze not even landing on Erich as she stared down at the school building swallowed by shadows, “the core barrier is virtually impossible to destroy from the outside.”
These words were like a key, unlocking a dusty corner of Erich's mind.
He began to recall. During the boss event of the game's first chapter, he had skipped all the dialogue, leaving only fragments of memory. But piecing those fragments together still formed a rough outline. How did Lorraine break through the situation? It seemed someone had told her the barrier's weak point, and then the protagonist's party combined their strength to shatter it in a single strike.
The person who told her the weak point was a female character.
Who was it again?
Erich raised his head, staring at the sky dyed purple by the barrier, his mind frantically churning through those blurry images. Was it the Holy Maiden? No, she seemed to have stayed behind midway. Was it Irene? No, did Irene even appear in the game?
“Hey.”
A face suddenly leaned close to his.
The distance was absurdly close—close enough for Erich to clearly see his own reflection in her eyes. Startled, he scrambled to move a distance away before finally steadying himself.
“What are you doing?!”
Isabella stood up straight as if her previous action of almost pressing her face against his was entirely inconsequential.
“You've been spacing out for too long.”
Erich was about to lose his temper when his gaze froze on Isabella's face.
Wait.
He remembered this face.
In the game, the female character who told Lorraine the barrier's weak point was indeed Isabella.
Erich froze on the spot, the fragments in his mind instantly snapping together perfectly to reveal a fact he should have realized long ago: in the original work, Isabella was a top student of Solar Class A. In this chapter, she provided the protagonist's party with the crucial information that allowed them to break the barrier.
But the current Isabella was a deadweight of Morningstar Class F, sitting on the rooftop and watching the sunset with him—a disgraced villain kicked out of his family.
Erich shuddered.
Why was Isabella in Class F?
She should have been in Solar Class A.
Could it be because of him? Because of his actions since transmigrating, his completely different choices from the original plot, and the interactions that were never supposed to happen? His existence was like a pebble thrown into a peaceful body of water, sending out ripples that pushed Isabella, who should have been in Class A, all the way to Class F.
If that was truly the case...
...then who would tell Lorraine how to break the barrier?
If the barrier couldn't be broken, who would save the young princess?
Erich's expression darkened, and the weight that had been pressing on his shoulders grew even heavier—so heavy that he almost wanted to bury his face in his knees and pretend he knew nothing. He was just a trash villain who couldn't even reach the threshold of the second-tier. What right did he have to meddle in the protagonists' affairs?
Yet, the figure of the young princess rose before his eyes—her disheveled state in the Abyss, and the sight of her back as she ran away from his cottage crying in the night.
Erich pushed himself up against the railing, looked at Isabella, and said, “Help me, Isabella.”
Isabella didn't ask what he needed help with. She slowly stood up as well, patted the dust off her rear, and began to stroll leisurely across the rooftop, just as she did whenever the sunset viewing ended. Her shoes tapped against the rooftop floor, one step after another, unhurriedly. Erich stared at her back, the tension in his chest winding tighter and tighter.
She circled a small portion of the terrace before finally stopping at a certain spot.
Isabella turned around and smiled at him. The smile was no different from her usual one when watching the sunset, but Erich felt there was something hidden beneath it.
“Aim right here, Erich,” she said. “Use your strongest attack. You only have one chance. If you miss, there won't be enough time.”
Erich nodded, and mana began to gather within his body.
...
Meanwhile, downstairs.
“Is this the end?”
Leonora slumped in the corner, staring at the cracked red barrier before her. Every crack seeped with a dim, fading glow, on the verge of extinguishing at any moment.
Her mana was depleted, and her physical strength was utterly exhausted.
Now, it seemed her life would end here as well.
She wanted to cry, her nose stinging, but the young princess ultimately did not let her tears fall. In this moment of peril, she didn't want the two figures in black to see her cry; she refused to show even a shred of weakness to them.
So she simply stopped looking at them. Letting her body rest against the cold wall, she began to reminisce about her short life.
But as she looked back, she found there was barely anything to recall.
Her life hadn't been long to begin with. Most of her time had been locked away deep inside the palace grounds, day after day, year after year. The palace walls sliced the sky into a single square block, and she had grown up watching only that piece of the sky. Most of her understanding of the outside world was pieced together from books and other people's words.
However, although her life was short, she could think of quite a few regrets.
She hadn't spent more time with her mother, she hadn't gotten along with her siblings, she hadn't been able to save Sister Isa, and she hadn't been able to talk things out properly with Erich.
At the thought of that name, Leonora's chest twitched slightly.
In truth, Irene had already cleared things up with him. Although she always felt Irene was hiding something, she could tell there was indeed nothing going on between Erich and that detestable maid.
She just suddenly didn't know how to face him.
At first, she had avoided him instinctively, but over time, avoiding him became a habit. Once a habit was formed, it was hard to break.
What a shame.
That rushed night had actually become the last time they ever spoke.
The red barrier in front of her let out a series of fine, cracking sounds.
Leonora closed her eyes.
Goodbye, Erich.
Yet, at the exact moment she closed her eyes, a thunderous explosion erupted.
An explosion carrying a scorching aura poured down from above, tearing a rift through the sky. Leonora snapped her eyes open, her pupils reflecting a highly condensed beam of fire piercing down from the rooftop, slamming straight into the barrier trapping the room.
The barrier, which had left Lorraine's group completely helpless, violently cracked open under this strike.
Through the crack, a silver figure leaped down, landing steadily in front of the young princess and blocking the two black-clad figures from her sight.
Leonora stared blankly at the back of his figure, forgetting to breathe.
“Sorry, I'm late,” he said.
Rate on N.U.
