A full day had already passed since the first class ended.
Perhaps because Professor Elahim had run them ragged from day one, there were mercifully no additional schedules this week beyond her class.
Well, that made sense. In the game, the opening period had served as a tutorial—time set aside to wander the facilities of Stellar Academy and get one's bearings. She hadn't known that would carry over into reality.
Even Stellar Academy, it seemed, didn't grind its freshmen into the dirt from the very first week.
Still, something had been nagging at her. On the way to dinner after that first day of class, she'd crossed paths with Elahim in the corridor—and the professor had been radiating displeasure in waves, shooting her a distinctly pointed look.
Why, though? Was it something from that day?
Anyway.
And so the long-awaited holiday had arrived.
Under normal circumstances, she would have done some light training and then spent the time with Aiolette. But she was in no state for any of that.
The reason was simple: her body had taken a sharp turn for the worse.
"Ugh…"
At present, Gladia had barely managed to change into her maid's uniform before collapsing back into bed, groaning.
Thud. Thud.
It felt as though someone was driving nails into her skull with a hammer.
Pain radiated from somewhere deep inside her—from the very marrow of her bones—and carved through her entire body in relentless, unbroken waves. It was like reliving the morning after her first company dinner at her old job, back before she'd fallen into this world: the kind of hangover that made existence feel like a personal offense.
The reason wasn't hard to identify.
*Damn ⟨World's Trial⟩…!*
Well—to be fair, the rebound that came from drawing and sheathing the sword had always been a chronic condition she lived with. If she'd exercised proper restraint, she wouldn't have ended up fused to her mattress like this.
The problem was that she'd gotten quietly, uncharacteristically excited lately—what with the Stellar Academy enrollment and everything that came with it. The elation of finally stepping into the main story. She hadn't been herself. She'd drawn the sword far more carelessly than usual, and the delayed backlash had chosen now to come crashing down on her.
Click.
The door opened, and a familiar mana signature drifted into the room.
"…Dia?"
It was none other than her young lady, Aiolette.
She must have come in person when Gladia failed to appear.
For the record, Gladia had registered Aiolette's mana signature to the door lock so she could come and go freely. Since ⟨Sword Saint⟩ couldn't activate, Gladia's own mana was essentially nonexistent—so it was the only practical solution.
"……Dia."
Aiolette's voice, usually so imperious, had dropped a full tone lower than normal.
The mattress dipped to one side, and Gladia felt the weight of Aiolette settling down beside her. She didn't need to look to picture the expression on her young lady's face as she gazed down at her.
The girl who had once barely left her own room was here, in Gladia's room, sitting at her side.
*…That's actually touching. Three years of devoted service, and it shows.*
Right. Beneath all the prickliness, Aiolette had always had a deep, gentle side. She just kept it well hidden.
Her approach to raising the girl had been correct all along…!
She had turned a wild creature into a person!
"Dia, I'm hungry. Feed me."
"……"
…No. She had raised a wild creature and it was still a wild creature.
The image of some green dinosaur scratching its belly flashed through her mind. The warmth that had been swelling in her chest evaporated instantly.
Of course. What had she expected? Aiolette's character wasn't going anywhere.
…Though, in fairness, Aiolette hadn't always reacted this way.
Three years ago, after they'd formally entered into their contract as mistress and attendant, Gladia had been in high spirits.
And why wouldn't she be? She had survived an entire month without being able to see.
After that, being able to see again—how could she not be thrilled?
So there had been one day when she'd walked around with the sword in hand from morning to night. She'd known there was a rebound, but she'd thought she could handle it.
She had been wrong. The moment she set the sword down to sleep—
[⟨World's Trial⟩ activates.]
Hell arrived.
The world plunged back into suffocating darkness, and simultaneously, an agony like every bone and organ in her body being fed into a blender tore through her. She'd rolled off the bed and spent the next stretch of time crawling across the floor, making sounds that could only be described as deeply undignified. She wasn't someone who cried easily, but tears had come anyway.
And Aiolette, who had happened to be passing by her room at that exact moment and witnessed the whole spectacle—
She had panicked. Completely. Screaming for a physician, clutching Gladia's hand, unable to sit still—that small, frantic girl, her composure entirely shattered. The image was still vivid, even now. (Technically, she hadn't been able to see it at the time, since the sword was sheathed. But she'd felt it.)
So how had it come to this?
Three years was a cruel stretch of time.
If she had stopped after that first ordeal, her standing probably wouldn't have fallen this far. But surviving the Academy without the ability to see meant she needed to understand the precise limits of her own strength.
And so had begun three years of relentless, obsessive study into ⟨Sword Saint⟩ and ⟨World's Trial⟩.
What she'd learned, through repeated collision and failure, was this: the longer ⟨Sword Saint⟩ remained active, the heavier the backlash from ⟨World's Trial⟩ became—exponentially so.
Testing those limits had meant spending weeks at a stretch lying in her room like a corpse.
The first time or two, Aiolette had wept and wailed as though the world were ending. By the third time, the fourth time, something had quietly shifted behind her eyes. A kind of resigned acceptance had settled in.
By now, Aiolette seemed to treat it roughly on par with a monthly inconvenience.
"Dia, I said I'm hungry."
The whining voice pressed right up against her ear. Gladia finally forced her heavy eyelids open. The world was still solid black, but the faint, expensive scent of lavender that clung to Aiolette drifted to her from close range.
"…If you're hungry, please go to the Academy dining hall."
The words scraped out through the gap in the blankets, rough and cracked. What kind of cruel labor exploitation was this, inflicted upon a patient? It was, by her own estimation, a perfectly polite refusal—but there was no chance of it working on Aiolette.
"The menu today is bad."
Aiolette dismissed the suggestion without a second's hesitation. Utterly typical of a young lady whose palate had transcended the merely picky and ascended to cosmic heights.
The Stellar Academy cafeteria was, by any reasonable standard, quite good for institutional food. But this was what happened when someone grew up wealthy from birth. If Aiolette had spent even one month living as a beggar the way Gladia had, she'd have licked the bowl clean even if they served plain gruel.
Then it happened.
A rustle of fabric, and the blanket was pulled back. A moment later, a hand—smooth and startlingly cool—slipped under the hem of Gladia's maid skirt.
"……What are you doing?"
"You carry food on you. Get some out. It came from around here last time. Is it here?"
Aiolette's nimble fingers, having invaded beneath the skirt, began roaming her inner thigh without the slightest hesitation.
Excuse me?! Where do you think you're touching?! Where exactly do you think you're putting your hands?!
Whatever happened to the girl who used to go red at the slightest accidental contact?!
Gladia summoned the last reserves of her strength, kicked the blanket off, and threw herself across the bed to the other side.
Aiolette's smooth fingers grasped at empty air.
Biting down on her lip to swallow the groan, Gladia forced her unsteady legs to hold her weight and pushed herself upright.
This cannot stand.
It wasn't wounded pride at being ambushed in bed by her young lady's shameless offensive. That wasn't the point.
She had only just set foot inside Stellar Academy. From here on, as the main story properly got underway, an endless parade of bizarre incidents and disasters was scheduled to detonate one after another.
Given the game's trajectory, something could blow up as early as next week—and she was going to spend a whole day bedridden just because she'd drawn the sword a few too many times?
Absolutely not.
She was a devoted fan of Saintess & Hero, a veteran player who had sunk countless hours into it. She was going to witness this main story unfold with her own eyes, no matter what it took.
Which meant she needed a countermeasure for ⟨World's Trial⟩. If she couldn't reduce the rebound itself, then at the very least she needed a way to recover faster.
With that thought, something came to mind.
A Hidden Piece from the very early game—the kind no veteran Saintess & Hero player could afford to overlook.
It was only obtainable in the opening stretch, and its performance was middling enough that most players skipped it. But for her current situation, she was certain it was exactly what she needed.
In that case…
*Time to go pick it up. The Hidden Piece.*
Hmm. In her current state, going alone was going to be awkward.
Fortunately, right beside her was someone perfectly suited to be put to work—her precious mistress.
Gladia rose from the floor, took the walking stick leaning against the bedside, and turned toward Aiolette, who was sprawled across her bed rolling around without a care in the world.
"My lady."
"Hm? What?"
"Would you like to come somewhere nice with me?"