Xian had not died this time. For what little that was worth, the regression left him just as shaken.
Darkness surrounded him while streaks of silver light flashed past. For a moment, he felt like a weightless piece of wood drifting through deep water. Then an unseen force seized him and dragged him backward.
The familiar hall returned around him.
Carmillia sat before him exactly as she had during the previous attempts, with both swordmaidens standing behind her. Xian reacted before she could question him, lowering his gaze and bowing with the posture Moris had drilled into him.
"Greetings, Young Miss."
This time, he neither hesitated nor stared at Carmillia's beauty. He presented himself as a properly trained servant, or at least a convincing imitation of one.
[Black Heart: 19]
The value had not changed. Whatever Carmillia disliked about him existed before he had even opened his mouth.
"Hmm."
Carmillia rose gracefully from her seat and extended one pale hand. The swordmaiden who had beheaded Xian twice drew her longsword and placed it reverently into her mistress's grasp.
With a languid motion, Carmillia leveled the weapon toward him. Its cold tip settled beneath his chin and forced him to raise his head.
"Were you permitted to speak?"
[Black Heart: 17]
The score had fallen and within the Black tier, lower was worse.
'Why does she hate me so much?'
His appearance was far removed from Adrian's approachable features, but that alone should not have inspired such immediate animosity. Even someone as cruel as Carmillia had to possess a reason for despising a servant she had supposedly just met.
Xian had watched her die only moments ago, yet her cold disdain was already erasing what little pity he had felt for her.
He closed his eyes in submission.
"Please forgive this unworthy servant."
[Black Heart: 20]
The sword remained beneath his chin for several seconds before Carmillia finally lowered it.
"At least you know your place."
She returned the weapon to the swordmaiden and scrutinized Xian with a faint frown.
"The head butler will instruct you. I expect you to be prepared within one week."
The words were nearly identical to those she had spoken before. Only Xian's response had changed.
"As you command, Young Miss."
Carmillia turned away, and her swordmaidens followed her from the hall. While Xian remained standing long after they had disappeared, as his thoughts returned to the bridge.
The first month before the academy term had been treated as a tutorial period in the game. Players used it to select training options, distribute statistics, and prepare Adrian for the assessment that would determine his class.
No major threat was supposed to occur during that period.
That assumption was now useless.
The coachman's assassination attempt proved that the 'safe dates' he remembered could no longer be trusted. Xian had entered an undiscovered route, and none of the guides, discussions, or repeated playthroughs he had relied upon contained information about its events.
He knew only one thing with certainty.
Death came for Carmillia as readily as she gave it to others.
'Revenge.'
The coachman had acted with the determination of someone consumed by it. Xian did not recognize his face, but his fighting methods had been familiar.
He caught blades with his bare hands, redirected attacks through fluid movements, and possessed enough physical strength to tear trained swordmaidens apart. His body itself had functioned like a weapon.
Only one figure from the game came to mind and its the supposedly dead father of one of the heroines.
He had been a Martial Class practitioner known for his palm techniques and abnormal physical conditioning. His daughter had inherited the rare Foresight Eye from her mother, an ocular gift that allowed her to partially anticipate the movements of others.
An injury had suppressed that gift before the beginning of the story. During her route, Adrian could eventually heal her, allowing her to become one of the most dangerous close-range fighters in the game.
Her father, however, was supposed to have died long before any of that happened.
'It has to be him. Or someone trained in the same discipline.'
The motive also seemed to fit.
The heroine's father had possessed a deep hatred for Carmillia, although the game had never clearly revealed how that hatred began. By the start of the main story, he was already dead, leaving behind only scattered references to his disappearance and the resentment he had carried toward her.
The man on the bridge had sacrificed his life with genuine happiness because he had finally reached the person he wanted dead. Yet he should never have been alive during the game's story, making him another variable.
Xian remembered what the coachman had called him.
The 'special butler.'
The assassin had expected someone dangerous, perhaps an observer planted beside Carmillia. Instead, he had found Xian, an inexperienced stranger who knew nothing about the role he had inherited.
That suggested the original owner of Xian's body had been connected to the assassination. Perhaps he had been expected to expose the infiltrator, interfere with the attack, or perform some other action that Xian had failed to reproduce.
By replacing him, Xian had removed a necessary piece from the sequence.
The route had not changed randomly and Xian himself was the missing variable.
'Yep. That must be it.'
It remained only a theory, but it explained why the coachman had been wary of his arrival and why the assassination had succeeded when it was never supposed to occur.
The regression itself presented an even more disturbing mystery.
During Xian's first two deaths, everything had ended abruptly. He remembered the cold passage of the blade and the moment his vision turned sideways, but nothing afterward. One instant, he was dying. The next, he stood before Carmillia again.
This time, he had remained alive when Carmillia died.
He had experienced the darkness, the silver lights, and the sensation of being pulled backward through the world suggesting a possibility he did not want to consider.
Perhaps his own death did not trigger the regression.
Perhaps his consciousness had simply remained trapped in some empty state until Carmillia eventually died, however long that took. Only then would the world return and place him before her again.
Xian shuddered at the unsettling thought of being in that state for too long, not knowing when his own soul would be taken to reincarnate or used to animate an undead.
If he ever gained the means, he would need a method of killing Carmillia remotely.
A curse, an implanted spell, or some other mechanism he alone could activate. Something that would ensure she could never leave him trapped in that empty state.
'For control purposes, of course.'
Was it heartless?
Xian did not particularly care.
His continuation depended upon Carmillia's death. He intended to exploit every part of that connection, especially when she would undoubtedly use him for her own purposes in return.
The following week repeated the same routine, but Xian no longer experienced it in quite the same way.
His body had returned to its original condition. Any physical progress from the first week had vanished along with the injuries and exhaustion, but his memories had not.
He woke before Moris could strike him with the horsewhip. He knew which tests would come next, how much weight his wrist could endure, and how long Moris intended to keep him underwater.
The movements Moris had taught him also felt more familiar. His body possessed no additional strength, but Xian could use what it already had with greater control.
Physical gains may disappear with regression.
But technique and memory remained.
The etiquette lessons became easier as well. Xian already knew the correct angle of a bow, the order of the tea utensils, and the greetings appropriate for several ranks of nobility. Moris still found countless faults in his performance, but Xian progressed far more quickly than before.
Near the end of the week, however, he began making mistakes deliberately.
He allowed his posture to slip during escort practice. He reacted too slowly to instructions and acted visibly nervous whenever Carmillia was mentioned.
Moris punished each failure with the whip and Xian endured it.
He needed the old man to reach one conclusion: Xian could not be trusted to escort Carmillia without supervision.
A week later, the expected request finally came.
"I want to tour the city."
Carmillia stood before Moris with the same impatient expression she had worn in the previous regression.
Xian kept his gaze lowered.
Moris looked toward him first. A faint crease appeared between the old man's brows, exactly as Xian had hoped.
"I fear you may find this butler inadequate, Young Miss," Moris said. "I shall accompany you as well."
Carmillia did not object, although a trace of confusion passed across her face.
Xian had spent the week complaining that he was unprepared to serve her properly. Moris had chastised him for his pessimism and punished his intentional failures, but the performance had achieved its purpose.
The old man no longer trusted Xian to remain composed during the excursion.
[Gray Heart: 39]
Moris's impression of him had fallen considerably from the fifty-one Xian had observed during the previous loop.
It was a necessary sacrifice.
Morisson was no ordinary servant. The more formal name suited him whenever Xian considered the position he truly occupied.
He was the right-hand man of the Montagne patriarch and an old monster who had served the family for decades. Even after his eventual death in the game, arrangements he had prepared in advance continued protecting the household and eliminating its enemies.
His presence near Carmillia should be enough to deter the assassin from attacking openly.
When two people of sufficient strength encountered one another, concealing hostile intent became far more difficult, especially for the weaker party.
The coachman had succeeded before because someone had exploited a gap in the estate's security and replaced a legitimate servant without being noticed. Even Morisson had failed to catch it.
Xian intended to give the assassin the same opportunity.
He could not warn Moris directly. He had no proof that the coachman would be replaced, no reasonable explanation for knowing when the attack would occur, and no intention of revealing his regression.
The assassin had to infiltrate as he had before, only then could Xian expose him through an observation that sounded accidental.
Carmillia and the two swordmaidens left for the courtyard while the servants prepared the carriage. Xian remained behind with Moris.
"Sir Moris, please wait."
The old man stopped and looked back.
"What is it this time, young man?"
"Could I have a weapon of my own?"
The request served two purposes. Xian genuinely wanted something with which to defend himself, but he also needed to draw Moris away from the carriage preparations long enough for the assassin to replace the assigned coachman.
Moris examined him from head to toe.
"Do you know how to use one?"
"Yes. Somewhat."
That was not entirely true, but Xian understood the general principle well enough. Put the sharp end into the enemy and avoid allowing them to do the same. More importantly, he already knew what would happen during the excursion.
Xian wanted the weapon because he intended to kill the coachman himself.
The game had allowed players to gain levels and distribute bonus statistics. Natural growth based on a character's potential contributed most of their development, but additional points still mattered.
Xian did not know whether killing an enemy would still grant experience now that the game had become reality.
How certain was he?
Not at all.
'It's instinct.'
The affection display remained, magic Potential still existed as a numerical value, skills and spells had become real techniques.
If so, then Experience might have survived as well.
'Hehe. I have to kill-steal at all costs.'
He remembered the impossible endurance the coachman had displayed. Even after losing a foot, being torn open, and enduring Manaburst Detonation, the man had survived long enough to kill Carmillia.
A heroine's father, a powerful assassin, and a Martial Class master.
'So what?'
There was no benefit in attempting to become his ally. Whatever had driven the man to target Carmillia had consumed him completely. He had already sacrificed himself once to kill her, and Xian had no reason to believe he could be persuaded to stop.
Within the original game, he had possessed no role beyond being the heroine's supposedly dead father. Xian saw no reason to preserve the life of someone who had already thrown everything away for revenge.
The assassin would become his stepping stone instead. If killing him granted experience, Xian intended to claim it and if it did not, then the attempt would merely make the situation more difficult.
Time still favored him.
Physical improvements vanished with regression, but knowledge and technique remained. Each repeated week gave him another opportunity to practice, refine his timing, and understand the abilities of those around him.
He could not simply train until his body became a monster across repeated loops. He could, however, become far more skilled at using whatever body the world returned to him.
Moris continued examining him before finally turning toward one of the estate's storage rooms.
"This will be sufficient for defending yourself."
He returned with a slender dagger. Its blade was narrow and sharply pointed, while its handle lacked a conventional guard. Despite its simple shape, the weapon had been crafted with considerable care.
A stiletto.
Xian would have preferred something larger, but he remembered reading that servants and butlers benefited from weapons that could remain concealed. Daggers, hidden blades, and short swords were supposedly more practical for their work.
Whether that claim had been historically accurate never mattered to him, since the explanation sounded reasonable enough.
"Thank you, Sir Moris."
"Hm."
Moris nodded, and the two of them returned to the courtyard.
The carriage was waiting.
The same man from the previous regression sat upon the driver's bench, holding the reins and behaving as naturally as any ordinary servant.
Moris appeared not to notice anything unusual.
Xian concealed the dagger beneath his coat and approached.
"Hmm? Sir Moris, did our coachman change?"
The man holding the reins flinched and Moris's visible irritation with Xian vanished.
His tired eyes shifted toward the coachman, for several seconds, he said nothing.
Morisson had spent years overseeing servants, guards, and operations on behalf of the Montagne family. Although he had only been assigned to this estate temporarily, memorizing its personnel was a basic requirement of his work.
Rarely did anyone interfere with the Montagne household without possessing enough power to endure the consequences.
The two swordmaidens waiting outside the carriage placed their hands upon their weapons, and inside, the carriage door remained open. Carmillia watched the scene with visible amusement.
Morisson studied the coachman's face.
"If my memory has not failed me, you are not among the personnel assigned to this estate."
His voice remained quiet, but the atmosphere surrounding him seemed to grow colder.
"Who are you?"
Xian suppressed the smile threatening to form on his face.
He was ready to watch the show.