This is the tutorial battle!

Explanation time! A tutorial battle is basically the opening bout of a game, designed to teach players about the combat mechanics and fighting systems. Cecilia always found these tedious and skipped right over the prologue.

I’m in trouble…

Her blood ran cold. A closer look revealed a gaggle of love interests, presumably selected as knights, standing behind Lean. In other words, it now looked like Cecilia had interrupted their very first group project (ha). Furthermore, ordinary people were incapable of subduing Obstructions, making Cecilia’s identity all the more suspicious.

“Who are you?” asked Lean, her eyes widened in astonishment, as she stepped closer.

Cecilia’s expression froze on her face.

“Here, Sister,” whispered Gilbert.

“Huh?”

Cecilia felt something touch her left wrist and shivered at the cold metal sensation.

“Just act confident. That should work,” her brother said.

Cecilia looked down at her wrist, where she saw the bracelet that was the sign of a knight—which must have originally been Gilbert’s.

“But this is—”

“Oh? A knight has already performed his duty,” came a voice from the stage.

“What?!” she yelped in a strained voice, watching as a man slowly descended from the platform and walked over.

“You performed a task fit for a knight and very admirably at that. It looked dicey there for a moment, but you did quite well. Keep using those skills of yours to protect the potential Holy Maidens.”

“Hold on… What?”

He grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet. The crowd broke into applause.

The most flushed and teary-eyed of all the onlookers were the members of the Prince Cecil Fan Club.

“You were wonderful, Prince Cecil!”

“Our prince is now a knight! He’s gone even further out of our reach!”

“Your moves just now were simply amazing! Oh, I feel hot all over simply at the memory of it!”

Even the love interests, who had looked so suspicious moments ago, now nodded in understanding. Which made perfect sense. If Cecilia were a knight instead of an ordinary student, subduing an Obstruction would be well within the realm of possibility. Now that they could see the Sacred Artifact on Cecil’s wrist, there was no need to suspect a thing.

Thanks to Gilbert’s quick wits, Cecilia had evaded danger for the moment. But…

Doesn’t this mean Gilbert bequeathed me his Sacred Artifact?!

The instant she realized that, all the blood drained from her face.

Her trials were only beginning.

CHAPTER 2

First Romantic Event

“Someone, help! She’s losing consciousness!”

Lean paled as she watched a student go berserk and attack a girl out of nowhere in the auditorium.

Next to her stood the school doctor, Mordred, ready to defend. On his wrist glinted a Sacred Artifact, one of the bands the envoy from the king had just brought in. He was a chosen knight.

“That’s called an Obstruction. It’s my first time seeing one, too, but I’ve heard they’re demons who can possess people.”

Another man stood at her side—Oscar, the crown prince of the nation. A Sacred Artifact was wrapped around his wrist as well. “I’ve also only read about them, but it seems they appear when the Holy Maiden’s power is weakened. According to my reading, one appeared at the last Selection Ceremony, too, and the potential Holy Maidens and the knights subdued it.”

“But who could the potential Holy Maidens be…?” she wondered, glancing around her. Even Lean, who’d been a mere commoner until recently, knew about them. She’d read picture books about the saints who defended the country from the shadows.

And candidates for Holy Maiden were here among the students. But the attack had broken out while the envoy was still in the middle of his explanation. No one knew who the prospective Maidens were yet.

“You’re one of them,” came a bright voice from behind her.

“I’m what?” she cried before they suddenly grasped her hand. An unnatural mark had formed there several days ago, shaped exactly like an oblong snowflake.

The person who’d taken her hand was a boy standing diagonally behind her. Along with his soft, short brown hair, he seemed just like a dog. Judging by where he was standing, he must have been in the same class as her.

“I’m Jade. I’m not sure why, but I think I’ve been chosen as a knight to protect you,” he informed her, holding up his wrist to reveal the glittering silver bracelet on it.

“Um, so, Jade, why do you think I’m a Holy Maiden?” she asked hesitantly.

“You mean you didn’t know? Before the Selection Ceremony for potential Holy Maidens, this floral mark appears on the candidates. And that means I am duty bound to protect you.”

“Holy Maiden…,” Lean repeated, utterly flustered.

Until recently, she’d been an orphan living in an almshouse; then she’d suddenly learned that she was a baron’s illegitimate daughter and so had become nobility. And now she was a candidate for Holy Maiden on top of everything. Flustered was underselling it.

“In that case, we can get right to it. Let’s take down that Obstruction together! Will you lend us your aid?”

“We need you to.”

Mordred and Oscar gazed at her expectantly. In the face of their powerful stares, a sense of duty welled up from deep within Lean’s heart.

“If you’re sure I can help, then…,” she answered, taking a step forward.

And then, miraculously, they completed their very first task.

That’s the prologue to the original game, anyway.

“AAAAHHHHH! Why did my past self not take the prologue more seriously?! I should have memorized it! If I had, then this wouldn’t have…” Cecilia moaned, head in her hands, lamenting how she’d stolen the great Lean’s introductory spotlight and even acquired Gilbert’s Sacred Artifact.

Next to her was, of course, Gilbert, an exasperated look on his face. It was lunchtime, and they’d brought sandwiches into their usual greenhouse and were now in the midst of a strategy meeting that was devolving into a pity party.

“It’s in the past now, so there’s no point beating yourself up over it. Also, if you don’t eat fast, you’ll be late for your next class,” Gilbert insisted in an even more measured tone of voice than usual.

Cecilia glared at him through tears. “You don’t understand the gravity of the situation, Gil!”

“And what would that be?”

“I told you, the Selection Ceremony is basically an election for the Holy Maiden candidates. I’ve now gotten one vote from you, which means I’m one step ahead of Lean! If she doesn’t end up getting close to anyone else, I’m going to get picked to be Holy Maiden!”

And if that happened, bandits would attack Cecilia on her way to the church to receive her Holy Maiden baptism—and kill her. Then, bereft of their spiritual leader, Obstructions would overrun the country until it was destroyed.

That very unexpected ending made even Gilbert pull a face. “You’d die and the nation would go under…”

“Why do you look like that?”

“I’m just put off by the idea. You don’t really think something so drastic would happen, do you?”

Up until now, Cecilia had only used vague words like bleak outlook, total destruction, and tragedy to describe her future to Gilbert. She’d never gone into specifics before, which was why he was so alarmed now.

The real mystery was actually why he’d helped her without knowing any of the details.

“So should I not have given it to you?” he ventured.

“No! I’m really grateful you made that snap judgment! If you hadn’t, I might’ve been done for right then and there, to be honest!”

If Gilbert hadn’t given her his Sacred Artifact, Cecil would have developed a reputation for being able to inexplicably exorcise Obstructions. Not only that, but there probably would have been a physical examination, which would have revealed Cecil as Cecilia. Then she would have had no choice but to become a candidate for Holy Maiden, putting her right on track for a route that would result in her inevitable ruin, no matter how hard she tried to reverse it.

So Gilbert’s decision had absolutely been the correct one, and she was endlessly grateful to him for it.

She’d landed in this mess entirely because Hiyono Kanzaki, her past self, had skipped right over the prologue.

“I actually want to ask you, Gil, if you’re sure about giving me your Sacred Artifact. I mean, that was your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…,” Cecilia mentioned, bemused, as she tilted her head to one side.

Being selected as one of the Holy Maiden’s personal knights was the highest honor in the nation. They ranked higher than other members of nobility, only just below the king himself.

But Gilbert had handed his Artifact over to Cecilia, who had no intention of becoming Holy Maiden, which was tantamount to entirely throwing away those privileges.

“It’s fine. I’m not really interested in power like that anyway… Besides, I wouldn’t have felt like giving it to anyone but you in the first place,” answered Gilbert, his cheeks full of sandwich. For some reason, that shook her a little. From the look on his face, he was clearly trying to hide his embarrassment.

Oh, right—Gil is a little shy around strangers. He only just met Lean, so he might not know how to approach her…

He’d been like this when they’d lived together in the Sylvie manor, too. El, the gardener who’d always brought Cecilia flowers; Hans, the soldier who’d taught them swordsmanship and martial arts; Donny, the butler’s son who’d carefully looked after her—Gilbert had treated them all coldly. He made no attempt to get to know them and rarely looked at them even when he was conversing with them. Furthermore, he very much disliked Cecilia getting close to them, too.

The original game contains similar scenes. At first, this depressed shut-in categorically refuses to open up to Lean. When she takes it upon herself to help him with his studies, since he rarely attends class, she tries out all kinds of methods to get him to soften his heart around her. No matter how many times he rebuffs her, she never gives in, so ultimately, Gilbert relents and allows her kindness to slowly melt the walls around his heart.

“I must have loved you from the moment of our very first encounter. I think it was love at first sight. Thank you for pulling me out of that dark room. Thank you for opening up my world.”

It was impossible to watch the scene where he reveals that he’s fallen in love with her without crying.