"So, how have you been? Have Hypode and his gang of idiots given you any more trouble?"

  Mal licked his lips nervously.

  Behind him, Lusia was as silent and stoic as ever.

  In front of him, Princess Savaly, the second S-core in Chama. To her side, there were a few of her friends fanned out and watching him with wary eyes. Mal didn't know their names—he was pretty sure that they were unimportant.

  At best, irrelevant. At worst, sycophants who were killed off by Savaly herself when she got bored of them.

  Focus! he thought. She's expecting a response!

  "What do you mean?" Mal said. "They haven't given me any trouble."

  "What are you talking about?" She tilted her head. "When they showed up at your door. I've heard all about it."

  He kept himself from furrowing his eyebrows together. How did she even know that it happened?

  "I must've been asleep, someone else must've taken care of it."

  "No, it was you."

  Sweat dripped down Mal's neck. How did she know?

  "I analyzed each of your circle mates' profiles," she said, as if she were just talking about the weather and not about the fact that she'd spied on each of his teammates. "None of them are capable of what Hypode described. The boy with the illusions isn't talented enough to feed kinesthetic information into his illusions. The draconid is advanced, but he's traditional. The kind of spells that could manipulate the plant life are in the fourth and fifth year, and he hasn't even mastered first-year spells. The elf is a joke. I predict his exit by the end of the month."

  She stepped closer and leaned in, her eyes as cold as ice.

  "So that only leaves you."

  Mal was half tempted to sock her in the jaw and run away. But even he knew that this would be a bad idea. He glanced at Lusia behind him.

  Of course, she was simply watching. There was no threat to his life, so she wasn't concerned. If anything, she probably wanted to know what Savaly was talking about.

  "If you somehow got access to my records, then you'd know that I scored below average on my written test," Mal said.

  "But you scored second in the practical. Now isn't that strange? Someone who struggled with the bare basics of magic was capable of trouncing the Tungstenbird."

  "It was all luck."

  "So the rumors are true? You really did face down the Tungstenbird?"

  Crap!

  Mal had just confirmed to Princess Savaly that they were true.

  Mal was a clever guy. When it came to the art of magic, he was a prodigy among prodigies. Spell theory came as easily as breathing for him. The fact that he managed to figure out an entirely brand-new branch of magic—Resonance—based off of random sensations that he had and scattered quotes from books was proof of that.

  But the more time he spent in the past, the more he was starting to realize that for all his cleverness, his social acumen was near zero. Being a dark lord didn't require that. The only thing he needed was force, and lots of it. He was capable of screwing with idiot teenagers like Hypode, but against a girl raised in the snakepit that was the Imperial court, he had absolutely no chance.

  I should've left the conversation as soon as we encountered each other. Pretended that I didn't recognize her.

  But it was too late now. If he ran off, that would all but confirm that he was hiding something.

  He clenched his jaw. Logic wasn't going to work. Maybe... random bullcrap would?

  "The future crown atop your head, do you think you deserve it?"

  She blinked. The slightest crack in her normally put-together persona.

  Her expression locked down.

  "I'm only the second child," she said. "There is no crown in my future."

  "Not that you would care. It's a crown of wood to you, isn't it?"

  Mal was just more or less randomly spouting off whatever came to his mind at first. The goal was to confuse and flabbergast her so that she would back off and read into his words unnecessarily.

  Which was why he was surprised when Savaly's followers took a step back and looked at him with wide eyes.

  "He dares to insult the dignity of the crown?"

  "How dare he!"

  "The Kingdom of Chama is the greatest kingdom that has ever ruled in the history of the West! Retract your statement, now!"

  Mal grimaced. Of course, Savaly's followers would all be a bunch of hyper-patriots. They wouldn't stand for an insult to the monarchy.

  "Go on."

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  Mal had just been about to say a retraction when Savaly had spoken up. She stared into his eyes, completely focused on him.

  Is she actually curious, or is she trying to give me more rope to hang myself with? Mal thought. I have to be careful not to say anything that could be misconstrued as treasonous, while still making it sound like I actually know what it is I'm talking about.

  Mal really just wanted to go home at this point. Of all the times in all the places, why would he run across Princess Savaly in the middle of a random street?!

  "You see, Princess, the kingdom is at war with itself." Mal vaguely remembered some political columnist telling him that—right before Mal had killed him for a different reason. Mal was really wishing he'd paid more attention to that guy.

  "So you're aware, then, of the tension between the nobility and the monarchy. You're very well informed for the son of a disgraced Duke."

  "Yes, that's exactly what I was talking about," Mal said, completely lying. "Until there is–"

  Think, think! Say something, anything!

  "—unification, this kingdom will never achieve its full power."

  "Oh? And who exactly will achieve this unification you speak of?"

  Before Mal could stop himself, his mind immediately jumped to the obvious answer.

  "You."

  Savaly smiled.

  Mal felt a chill go down his spine.

  Every other time that she'd smiled, Mal could instantly tell that it was a trained, practiced thing. It was the sort of smile that she probably gave when meeting with potential suitors, when she was in front of the king, when she was going on diplomatic trips. Every inch of the expression was calculated: three degrees up on the side, the slightest wrinkling of the eyes—enough to make her seem happy, but not overly enthusiastic.

  But this smile...

  Her teeth were bared like a shark's. There was an eerie focus in her eyes that made Mal feel like he'd been put under a microscope.

  Mal was pretty sure this smile was genuine, and that was terrifying.

  "To say such a thing, to say that I'm the one who will take the crown in front of a group of strangers—to imply a treasonous action... You're a rather bold one, aren't you?"

  Mal internally cursed himself out with the strongest words he had available to him.

  You see, in the past timeline, Savaly had been the one to unite the Kingdom of Chama, to rebuild it from the ground up after the fall of Exodi. She rallied the kingdom against Mal and proved to be one of the greatest leaders that they'd ever had.

  The problem was that, out of context, what Mal was saying could be construed to be an implication that she should go and assassinate her father, which is obviously not what Mal meant.

  It was probably too late to back out now. If he did so, she would assume that he was just attempting to trap her, perhaps he was an agent of her father.

  No, she probably thought he was a fanatic. So, fanatic is the part that he would play.

  Dammit, he wasn't built for these kinds of problems! Throw him at a bunch of enemies or dangerous magical beasts, and he'd be doing great. Throw him against a smooth-talking princess, and he was screwed.

  "There's nothing treasonous about what I'm saying," Mal said. "If anything, what I'm saying proves my loyalty."

  "You care so much about the country that you would support an apparent act of treason for the greater good, is that what you're saying?"

  Was that what he was saying? Mal didn't know!

  "...Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying."

  At this point, the other members of Savaly's group were looking back and forth between Mal and her. There was a distinct tension in the air. One person had their hand resting on what looked to be a wand. Mal could actually smell mana in the air moving into their bodies. If things went ugly, they would be the first to respond.

  Mal adjusted his bracelet. Worse come to worst, he'd activate it, grab Lusia, then run like hell. It wasn't exactly a well-thought-out plan, but it was the best he had.

  Savaly stared at him for a little while longer, then held up a closed fist. The other students behind her immediately froze in place. The mana flow stopped, and their expressions turned neutral.

  "I have my eye on you, Malfrasius Patoal." She smirked, her eyes narrowed and her pupils as sharp as knives.

  "Rejoice," she said. "For you have the favor of a Princess of Chama."

  She turned around and took a few steps forward. The other students followed wordlessly behind her.

  As she walked, a few words slipped her mouth.

  "We should enjoy a cup of tea together sometime."

  Her footsteps faded into the distance.

  That night, Mal didn't exactly sleep well. Scratch that, he didn't sleep at all.

  He stared at the ceiling from his bed and groaned. If he didn't know any better, he could've sworn he still smelled dead rat from the hole in his floor.

  Mal's entire plan since he got back to the past hinged on him being unnoticed. He had to avoid making waves if he wanted to be able to move without fear of harassment or questions.

  But it seemed like things had been spiraling further and further out of control with every step that he made. First, there was getting second on the practical exam. Then there was making a fool out of himself in Igna’s classes. Then he somehow got caught by the headmaster. And now he had the attention of one of the most public and well-known figures in the entire kingdom.

  At the rate things were going, his future knowledge would start to become useless due to the aftereffects of his unforeseen actions.

  He wouldn't have even minded if he had saved someone—for example, Lusia—and that caused a ripple effect. In that case, he would consider the cost worth it. But in all these cases, there was no benefit that was occurring. It wasn't in service to a greater goal. He was just screwing himself over repeatedly because of his own stupidity.

  He dug his fingers into his hair and pulled. He was supposed to be a dark lord. An Endbringer. He once had the world playing in the palm of his hand. And he couldn't maintain a simple plan to stay unknown and unforeseen?

  He let out a sigh and glanced over to the corner of his room. There, inside of a jar, an infusion had been set on top of some hot coals atop a metal pan.

  At the very least, the Shattercore infusion was coming along nicely. It wouldn't be much longer now before the final step—refinement. Unfortunately, he didn't have the necessary experience to create an oil instead of an infusion.

  The problem was that the effects of the potion had to be incredibly dense. Thus, it would've been far easier to consume as an oil, which was basically nothing but magical essence. An infusion had water and a number of inactive ingredients. There was a chance that the potion wouldn't activate properly with a pure infusion.

  So instead, he was planning to sort of jerry-rig a process using a few scraps of information he picked up from some books in the library.

  The idea was that he would gently boil away the water over a long period of time. By doing this, he would be left with an infusion that was almost purely made up of the magical ingredients that went into it.

  The problem with doing things this way was that a large amount of magical properties would be lost via the boiling process. As such, Mal would have to triple the ingredients that are normally used in order to ensure that the potion will still work. On top of that, this wasn't an exact science—he was more or less playing things by ear. He didn't know for sure if tripling would be enough. In fact, it might've been too much. The best he could do was operate off of the colors and smells that the book had told him the brew should have. It was more or less in alignment with what he was expecting, but there was still a risk that was definitely concerning.

  And the stakes were high—if he got this wrong, there was no telling what could happen. The core was an exceptionally delicate thing, and it was deeply linked to the rest of his body. The effects could range from temporary weakness and fatigue to permanent nerve damage.

  Not for the first time he asked himself if this was really going to be worth it.

  I'll finish the potion, he thought. I'll make my final decision, then.

  A knock at the door.

  "Mal? Are you ready for our daily routine?"

  "Yep, coming!"

  Mal pushed himself off of the bed and stretched. For now, it was time to work out.