"Nnnnghh, finally all done…"
Lilliana let her forehead fall onto the back of her hand for a second, the quill still between her fingers, the ink on the last report sheet only just drying, then she pushed herself upright again and stretched until her spine cracked in a way that made her ears twitch.
"Ugh, I can't wait to sleep."
The words came out small and unguarded, not the crisp, professional tone she used in lectures, just a tired little complaint meant for nobody, the kind she would never let slip in front of students who already watched her too closely because of her age, her talent, and her title.
Her desk was a disaster.
Stacks of report sheets, pairing proposals, notes from the other first-year professors, a little list she had made for herself with half-scribbled reminders like "check injuries", "confirm consent", "don't put two reckless idiots together", and beside it, a doodle of a tiny bear with a big angry face that she didn't remember drawing until she saw it and muffled a giggle into her sleeve.
She shouldn't laugh.
Not after a week like this, not after nights of reading every student's evaluation until the words blurred, not after the endless back-and-forth of balancing ranks, affinities, temperament, the way some students treated duels like a sport and others treated them like a battlefield, and especially not after the memory that kept flashing behind her eyes whenever she stopped moving for too long.
Blood, mud, and the look on a student's face right before he passed out.
Soren Arden.
Her hand paused on the neat stack of papers with his name clipped on top, then she forced herself to file it properly, because if she let herself hover, she would start hovering in her head too, and she did not have the luxury of spiralling at midnight.
She gathered her equipment, tied her hair back with a ribbon she kept in the drawer for "serious work" days, and as she locked the cabinet she found herself humming under her breath, a little tune she used to hum as a student when she was nervous before practicals.
It hit her, again, like a soft punch.
Only a few months.
Only a few months ago she had been a student walking these same corridors, complaining about homework, sneaking snacks into lectures, and now she was the one assigning duels and signing off on safety measures as if she had always belonged on this side of the desk.
It still felt surreal in the quiet moments, when nobody was watching and the mask was optional.
As she left her office and headed towards the professors' dormitory, the academy around her had fallen into its late-night hush, mana lamps low, footsteps rare, and the air cool enough that her breath almost showed.
On the way, as usual, she passed by one of the magic training grounds.
The building was enormous, one of the biggest in Stellaris Academy, wide, tall and built like a promise, and every time Lilliana saw it, she couldn't help being pulled back into those student days.
She smiled to herself, softer than she allowed when she was near anyone, and was about to walk past when she noticed it.
One of the doors was open, just a crack, and light was leaking out onto the walkway's floor like someone had spilt it there.
Lilliana slowed.
'Someone's still using it?'
It had long passed midnight, and most students, especially nobles, clung to routines as if sleep itself was part of their family crest, so seeing the training hall lit at this hour was unusual enough that her curiosity pricked up before her caution did.
Ordinarily she would have kept walking, because professors didn't need to hover, and students deserved their private moments too, but tonight her feet betrayed her, turning her towards the door.
Quietly, carefully, she pushed it open just enough to look inside.
The hall was empty at first glance, the wide floor reflecting lamplight, the targets lined neatly at the far end, and then she saw him in the middle.
Snow-white hair, damp at the ends, sticking slightly to his neck, that delicate face that could so easily be mistaken for a girl's if you didn't know any better, and that same faintly sickly first impression that had tricked her the first time she saw him.
Only, right now, there was nothing sickly about him.
He was drenched in sweat, breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling in a steady, controlled rhythm, his uniform loosened at the collar as if he had stopped bothering with neatness an hour ago, and in front of his palm floated a magic circle, stable and clean, its lines faintly trembling with strain but never breaking.
His eyes weren't on her.
He hadn't noticed her at all.
That, more than the sweat, told her how deep he was in it, how hard he was forcing his mind to hold steady despite exhaustion, and for a moment Lilliana just stood there, watching, the professional part of her brain automatically ticking through safety questions:
'Is he overcasting?'
'Is he okay?'
'Is he going to collapse?'
While another part of her, quieter and far more personal, warmed with something she didn't have a neat label for.
Pride, maybe.
Or was it relief?
Or even simply the gentle, unreasonable softness of seeing someone who had looked so close to breaking, and then watching them choose to keep moving anyway.
She couldn't help it, her mouth curved into a smile.
Not the polite professor smile, not the "I am in control" smile, just… a small, private one.
If another person had caught her standing here like this, watching one student train with such open fondness on her face, she would have straightened instantly and pretended it never happened, but nobody was looking, and for one breath she let herself be open.
Her hand lifted as if she might knock, check in, tell him to go to bed, tell him he didn't have to do this alone, then she stopped herself.
He was working.
He was holding something fragile inside his head together with sheer stubbornness, and she knew, from experience, how easy it was to shatter concentration with one soft interruption.
So instead, she quietly eased the door shut again, careful not to let it click.
As she turned back towards the dormitory, her footsteps lightened without her meaning them to, and she found herself thinking, very simply,
'…I'm glad he's doing better now.'
It wasn't a conclusion she could prove, not yet, but she wanted it to be true, badly enough that it sat in her chest like a warm stone.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
"I feel like shit."
A week had passed since Rena Forest, which meant the mock duels were no longer some far-off event the game liked to tease the player with, they were here, looming, close enough that Soren could feel them in his stomach every time he checked the calendar.
His body hit the training hall floor with a dull thud, sweat slick on his skin, chest heaving, arms trembling with that specific exhaustion that came from pushing his mana and his mind at the same time, and he lay there for a second, staring up at the ceiling as if it might offer an answer.
It didn't.
So he exhaled through his teeth, forced himself to move, and called out the command that was becoming far too familiar.
"「Status」"
.
[Status Window]
Name: Soren Arden
Age: 18
Race: Human
◈ Stats
Stamina - 0.8 (F+)
Strength - 0.6 (F+)
Agility - 0.7 (F+) → 1.0 (E-)
Mana - 0.8 (F+) → 0.9 (F+)
Divine Power - 0.3 (F)
Charm - 8.7 (S-)
◈ Skills
- Life Magic
- Basic Magic
└ Gaia (E-)
└ Ignition (F) → Ignition (E-)
└ Aqua (F+)
- Concentration (F)
.
His eyes locked onto one line, and despite everything, despite the aching ribs that still complained if he breathed too sharply, despite the raw memory of mud and blood that never fully left the back of his mind, something bright sparked in him.
"Finally…!"
Ignition had crossed properly into E-rank territory.
It was still pathetic compared to what the real powerhouses could do, still a spark in a world full of infernos, but it was progress, measurable and real, and after Rena Forest, after having to claw for every second of survival, even small progress felt like proof that he wasn't helpless.
He rolled onto his side, wiped sweat off his brow, and only then properly registered how disgusting he felt.
His hair was damp, uniform clinging to his skin, and the faint sticky discomfort of dried sweat on his palms from repeating [Ignition] over and over, all of it made him feel gross.
"Ugh, when did I get so sweaty? 「Clean」"
The magic washed over him, the sweat and grime evaporating in seconds, leaving him warm and clean and almost normal, which was absurd, considering what he was doing in the middle of the night.
'Once again, thank god for magic,' he thought, and it wasn't even a joke this time, it was sincere.
He pushed himself up.
"Well… tomorrow's the day."
Tomorrow.
The mock duels, the first major event of ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱, the moment where the story properly flexed its muscles and reminded the player that the academy was not just lectures and gossip, it was a place that forged weapons for a war nobody wanted to admit was coming.
It also meant it had been a month since he had transmigrated into this world.
That thought hit him with a strange, quiet weight, half disbelief and half something dangerously close to gratitude, because a month ago he had been a different person in a different room, staring at a screen and living like an empty husk, and now… now he had bruises that were real, and skills he had earned with his own hands, and a heart that still sped up too fast at certain memories.
He was about to let himself sit in that emotion for longer than was wise when the translucent window in front of him made his stomach twist.
The real reason.
The reason he was here, late into the night, training until his arms shook and his focus started to fray, even though he knew better now, even though Rena Forest had taught him that pushing past limits without a plan was how you died.
.
▶ Main Quest: First Steps (1) ◀
[Details: Win all three duels.]
[Difficulty: C]
[Reward: Inventory, Hidden Reward.]
[Penalty: -0.5 to all stats.]
.
He stared at the quest window, jaw tight.
At first, when he had seen it, his reaction had been almost offended laughter, because of course the system would decide to shove him into the spotlight the moment he had tried to carve out a quiet life, but the longer it sat there, the more it became a knot in his chest.
The penalty itself wouldn't ruin him, not completely, but the idea of accepting it made his skin crawl, as if the system was telling him to stay weak, and after Rena Forest, after understanding in his bones what weakness meant in this world, there was no part of him that could swallow that calmly.
And then there was the difficulty rating.
'C,' he thought, eyes narrowing.
In ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱, quest difficulty went from F to S.
F was practically a conversation, a cutscene, a reward window with a bow on it, something you cleared with a smile and forgot the moment you walked away, while S meant the odds were so low you were likely meant to fail, either for narrative tragedy or because the game wanted to punish arrogance.
Between those were the normal letters, with pluses and minuses that turned "manageable" into "barely", and beyond even that were the special categories, 'Personal' and 'Unknown', the ones that made veteran players swear and start googling.
Quest difficulty was based on the character's status, which meant C for him was not a casual suggestion, it was the system saying, "this will be hard for what you are right now".
A few days ago it had been C+, and the fact it had dropped was the only reason he could breathe without tasting panic.
His training had paid off.
Not enough to make him confident, not enough to make him arrogant, but enough that he could look at the window and think that it was manageable.
That, more than anything, was what Rena Forest had done to him.
Before, he would have seen tomorrow as a game event, something to "clear".
Now, he saw it like a problem that could injure him, humiliate him, or worse, and that awareness didn't make him a coward, it made him careful.
Still, even with preparation, his stomach wouldn't unclench.
He thought of the arena, the noise, the eyes, the way students watched duels like they were entertainment, the way a single mistake could turn into a rumour that followed him for months, and a part of him, the part that still wanted to live quietly, wanted to crawl under his blankets and pretend none of it was happening.
Then another part of him, smaller but sharper, pushed back.
Because he was… curious.
Because he was still, unbelievably, the sort of person who could feel a subtle excitement about trying something new, even when he was scared, because some stubborn, petty spark inside him refused to let fear have the final word.
And because tomorrow wasn't just "his duels".
Tomorrow was that scene.
The Hero's reveal.
The moment the game had made every player sit up straight the first time they saw it, the holy light, the prophecy resonance, the sheer "main character" absurdity of it all, and Soren couldn't help it, he could feel his inner fanboy trying to crawl out of his chest like an embarrassing creature.
'I'm actually going to see it,' he thought, and his lips twitched, half grin, half disbelief, 'I'm going to see Alex do it all in real life.'
It was ridiculous, and he knew it, and it didn't stop him from being a little thrilled anyway.
The thought of Amelia crossed his mind too, quieter, but more complicated.
Amelia Indras Einhardt.
In the game, the mock duel chapter was the point where she properly entered the narrative's orbit, where her interest shifted from vague background character potential to a sharp, dangerous focus, and Soren had caught himself worrying that his own strange, improvised way of fighting might catch her attention.
Then he remembered himself, and the worry dulled into something almost laughable.
His stats were still low, his spells were still terrible, his fighting style was held together by one week of [Concentration] practice and a month of desperation, and even if it looked "unique", it would still look sloppy to anyone who had real experience.
He wasn't a rival to anyone.
He was just… a person trying not to die.
Even so, the worry lingered at the edges, not because he thought he was important, but because Rena Forest had made him sensitive.
He didn't want to be noticed.
He wanted strength, safety, freedom, and the ability to say "no" without it costing him everything.
The moonlight through the high windows caught his eye, pale and cold, and he realised how late it was.
'It's already this late?'
He exhaled, stood, and rolled his shoulders, feeling the faint tug of healing muscle, the ache that was no longer sharp but still present, like a reminder pressed into his skin.
He was anxious.
He was prepared.
He was, annoyingly, a little excited too.
At the end of the day, he had already told himself he would win the mock duels anyway, even before the quest, even before Rena Forest, and even if a voice whispered in his head to do nothing, to stay out of the spotlight, he still wanted to win nevertheless.
Pride is a terrible thing.
————「❤︎」————