Thud
Soren collapsed onto his bed, the frame creaking faintly beneath the impact.
His muscles ached with a dull, lingering burn, and his mind refused to slow down, thoughts circling like vultures.
He stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds, chest rising and falling too fast, then turned his face into the pillow and bit down on his lip hard enough to taste iron.
The memories of the duel pressed down on him like physical weight.
He hadn't been confident.
Not really.
He knew better than that.
But somewhere beneath all the layers of caution and pessimism, he had still thought, still hoped, he had a chance.
And for a fleeting moment, that hope had felt real.
During the fight, he had kept up with Alex.
Not perfectly, not smoothly, but enough.
He had forced the Hero back with spells, cut off his escape routes, and even landed a solid hit.
He had strung together every trick he had learned, every half-refined movement, forcing Alex to actually respond instead of simply overwhelming him.
He had pushed him.
…And yet, it hadn't mattered.
The second Alex had closed his eyes, everything had shifted.
That golden radiance had poured out, thick and heavy, and time itself had bent around it.
The light that slowed the world had been too strong for Soren to handle, too absolute, like a declaration from the world itself that this was how things were supposed to be.
What Soren couldn't understand was where that power came from.
It wasn't like the [Divinity] he had known from the game.
It wasn't just numbers and buffs, a neat description in a menu.
Not only that, it was overwhelmingly stronger than anything he had expected.
This was something beyond the bounds of his understanding.
And that was precisely why Soren was so frustrated.
'Why… why does it feel like I failed even when I tried everything?'
Frustration churned in his chest, twisting into a hard, tight knot.
He had used every trick he had.
Every half-mastered spell, the improvised foot-circle with [Breeze], even [Crescent], stolen through stubborn observation.
He had stacked everything on the table…
…and still lost.
Not because he had made a huge mistake.
Not because he had thrown the fight or blundered into some obvious trap.
He had lost because Alex had pulled out something impossible.
Something that shouldn't have existed in the version of the story Soren knew.
It was unfair.
And that unfairness gnawed at him relentlessly.
He let out a long breath into the pillow.
There was nothing he could do about it.
Rationally, a part of him knew he should feel relieved.
Alex's overwhelming strength meant the main story would roll forward on its own rails.
The world didn't need Soren.
He could stay on the sidelines more easily if the protagonist was this reliable.
That was what rationality said.
But rationality had never had much power against the storm raging in his head.
Every battle so far had chipped away at his confidence, piece by piece.
A narrow win with someone else's help.
A draw he hadn't truly earned.
A loss that proved he was still far behind.
He had yet to win a single fight that felt truly his.
He felt small.
Insignificant.
Stagnant.
It wasn't as if he expected to match the main characters this fast.
He wasn't delusional enough to think he could stand beside the Hero after a single semester.
But still…
Soren had hoped that he would at least be able to properly deal with someone who started from a similar position.
Someone who had entered the academy the same year, with the same basic constraints.
"...I need to get stronger," he murmured, voice muffled against the pillow. "But… how?"
He rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling again, then exhaled slowly.
His eyes fluttered shut.
He summoned the [Library of Memories].
The bed, the room, the ceiling, all of it vanished in an instant, swallowed by darkness.
When he opened his eyes again, he stood in the familiar silence of the Library.
Endless shelves stretched out in every direction, towering above him and vanishing into shadow at the edges of his vision.
Books lined them in orderly rows, spines neat and polished, each one bearing a date, a sliver of a life he barely recognised as his own.
He had walked here many times since acquiring the skill, but it still felt strange.
A world made of nothing but memories.
No people.
No sound.
Just him and the record of everything he could no longer quite touch.
He started walking.
His footsteps made no sound against the invisible floor, but the shelves responded to his intent, sliding subtly, rearranging themselves as his focus narrowed.
He moved toward the section labelled for ages under eighteen, the time when he had started new playthroughs of ❰The Knight of Stellaris❱, the period he had lived from one save file to the next, searching over and over for routes, endings, secrets.
This was where his deepest familiarity with the game lay.
It was also where his biggest blind spots hid.
Soren ran his fingers lightly along the spines until one date caught his eye.
June 28th, 2022.
He pulled the book free.
The cover was plain, unadorned, but the moment he opened it, the world shifted.
Morning sunlight spilt into view, warm and familiar, cutting across a cramped room.
The smell of breakfast, eggs, toast, something slightly burnt in a way he recognised, drifted through the air.
There was the faint sound of a kettle boiling, the clink of plates.
A voice called out from another room, and a figure appeared in the memory, blurry around the edges but painfully clear where it mattered.
A fleeting smile, tired but gentle. Someone he missed dearly.
His chest tightened.
He almost closed the book on instinct, the ache in his throat rising too fast.
But he forced himself to keep going.
He didn't have the time to dwell.
The memory flicked forward.
Daylight faded, replaced by the familiar glow of a monitor in a dark room.
The quiet tap of keys echoed in the small space as the younger him stared at a screen, eyes bloodshot, blinking slowly.
The game's title screen.
Multiple save files.
A cursor moving between them.
The in-game calendar on the screen.
Second semester.
Principal's office.
Stellaris Academy's hidden quest line.
As the memory replayed, he watched himself navigate menus, read item descriptions, and grumble under his breath about drop rates and missable content.
And then, there it was.
Nighttime in Stellaris Academy.
A quest given by the Principal.
A single line in the corner of the screen.
A location he had rushed through at the time, more focused on the visible loot than the implications of what he was reading.
On the page in his hands, the image froze.
'There it is.'
He focused on the memory with narrowed eyes.
A second look.
An item that could help him.
A solution he hadn't thought about before.
Something that, until now, had seemed impossible to grasp.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
"Are you doing okay, Ren?"
Soren blinked.
The shelves of the Library vanished, and the dim, warm light of Lilliana's dorm room came back into focus.
He found himself staring at her face from far too close, a familiar soft expression, brows drawn slightly together with worry.
He was sitting on the edge of her couch, cloak folded beside him, a cup of untouched herbal tea cooling on the low table in front of them.
He had come here for their scheduled tutoring session.
Instead, the moment Lilliana opened the door and saw his face, she had gone completely still.
Her eyes had flicked over the dark circles under his eyes, the stiffness in his shoulders, the way he swayed just slightly on his feet.
Before he could say anything, she had taken his bag, made him sit down, and called off the lesson.
He could still hear her earlier words echoing in his mind.
– You look exhausted, Ren. You need a break more than you need tutoring today.
Now, she sat beside him, turned slightly so she could see his face properly, hands folded neatly in her lap.
"I'm… fine," he said.
The answer came out automatic, his voice tight and rough around the edges.
Lilliana tilted her head, studying him.
A few strands of pink hair fell over her shoulder, and she absently tucked them behind her ear as her tone softened.
"You know, the other professors and I were shocked when Carlen started giving you a lesson in the middle of a duelling examination," she said. "The teaching assistants were panicking, not knowing what to do. It was a funny sight."
Her lips curved up slightly at the memory, but her eyes stayed on him, gauging his reaction.
A humourless chuckle escaped Soren's lips.
"Not that it mattered."
He stared down at his hands as he spoke, fingers knotting together.
The faint smell of herbs and dried flowers filled the room, a comforting scent he usually liked.
Right now, it only made him more aware of how out of place he felt.
"It's not your fault. You know better than anyone that you tried your best."
Soren's jaw tightened.
Her words should have landed like a soft blanket, something to ease the sharp edge of his thoughts.
Instead, they skidded off the wall in his chest without sinking in.
He had lost.
That was what his mind clung to.
He had lost again.
No matter how much she told him otherwise, his brain translated everything into the same conclusion:
'You weren't enough.'
"I was watching," she continued, her voice low. "And for the most part, the professors were praising your performance. You had the Hero on the ropes for a long time. Even I was impressed."
He glanced up at that.
Lilliana's gaze didn't waver.
There was no pity there, just gentle conviction.
Her hands, which had been twined together, relaxed slightly as she met his eyes.
"For someone with your current skills, you did more than anyone could reasonably expect."
For a fleeting moment, he let himself accept her words.
Just for a second, he allowed himself to consider that from the outside, maybe it really hadn't looked like a complete failure.
That maybe his desperate flailing had resembled something closer to a proper fight.
Then the image of Alex bathed in golden light flashed again in his mind, and the fragile calm cracked.
Soren shifted his gaze fully to her, forcing the words out before he could hesitate.
"Can you help me with something?"
The directness in his voice startled Lilliana.
Her shoulders jumped slightly, and her eyes widened.
Soren rarely asked for help so openly.
Usually, he circled around it, asking for "advice" or "clarification," pretending it was nothing important.
"Uhm, if it's something I can help with," she said.
Her fingers curled lightly into the fabric of her skirt, but she didn't look away.
Whatever he was about to ask, she was already bracing herself to listen.
Something in him was different.
The recent duel hadn't broken him, but it had stripped away something.
The thin layer of denial he had been using to cushion the truth was gone.
All it had done was highlight how precarious his footing had become.
The path ahead of him was still the same.
But now he could feel just how easy it would be to fall.
————「❤︎」————