Lear suddenly realized that he was very tired.
When was the last time he had to talk to so many people?
He had met a lot of people in one day and felt that he had talked to enough people for the day.
But whether he wanted it or not, there was still the matter of learning the rules of Antares.
Meyde showed him the layout of the training halls and classrooms, explaining along the way:
"The very fact that you're asking about textbooks already proves everything."
"Proves what?"
Meyde stopped abruptly, and Lear almost ran into him. The freshman turned sharply and pointed his finger at Lear.
"You're a Formalhautian to the core! Not a single idiot on Antares would bother reading some textbooks."
Before he could digest this information, Lear unconsciously blurted out:
"Horror."
Boenetri looked at him with disapproval. "It's terrible that you spend so much time reading instead of actually studying."
Lear wanted to argue about that, but remembered that he was supposed to have recently realized that he was a natural student of Antares.
"Well, that...makes sense," he squeezed out.
In fact, the knowledge from the books hadn't helped him much in the war. But his combat skills, in general, hadn't turned out to be that useful either.
They went into one of the halls, and from there into the armory room, and Meyde began carefully taking out and putting away equipment next to him.
"To be honest, I should check how you are with hand-to-hand combat...but I don't like that kind of thing."
"No wonder."
After all, he was from a wealthy family and was unlikely to have ever been forced to fight with his fists.
"Do you have a favorite type of weapon? Or have you never practiced it at all?" Meyde was squatting, rummaging through the storage. He pulled out a short wooden sword and examined it with a businesslike air. "How do you feel about fencing?"
Lear sat down next to him and looked at the contents of the box. It turned out to be not very impressive: the equipment was intended for training and was designed only for first-year students.
"Actually," Lear took the sword from Boenetri's hands, "it turns out that I'm not bad at everything."
Meyde looked at him askance for the umpteenth time that day.
"I'm serious. And in hand-to-hand combat too. Wanna check?"
"Not really. But Kieran will reprimand me if I leave you to your fate." The guy stood up and stretched, warming up his limbs. "Go ahead, show me what moves they teach in orphan schools now."
Meyde chuckled as Lear's expression changed dramatically.
"Are you trying to piss me off? Don't even try," Lear warned calmly, standing up after him.
They walked out into the hall and stood opposite each other at a short distance. Both had wooden swords in their hands. Meyde opened his mouth and started to say something about the rules of etiquette in combat, but Lear interrupted him:
"Maybe we should skip the conversation and get started already?"
Meyde chuckled mockingly and raised his hand with the sword, but the next moment the piece of wood flew out of his grip before he realized what had happened.
"What?" He found the sword lying on the floor behind him with his eyes. "Oh, okay. Maybe I was too careless..."
"Yeah, yeah, sure." Lear leaned on his sword, waiting for his opponent to raise his weapon. "You all say that at the beginning."
The next times were exactly the same. Soft sunlight and the smell of spring nature entered the hall through the high windows. The idyll was broken only by Meyde's attempts to catch his breath and take a fighting stance, as his legs, which were starting to shake, were failing him. Lear felt a little guilty for tormenting the child, but not so guilty that this feeling overpowered the joy and good mood in general.
He hadn't had this much fun in a long time.
"Are you convinced yet or not so much yet? I can go on all day, but I doubt it will be as fun for you."
"Very funny,"panted Meyde, adjusting his collar. "Stupid uniform."
"Agreed-e-e," sang Lear, twirling the sword in his hand.
"And why the fuck are you in ordinary clothes?" Sometimes Meyde completely forgot about his high origin.
"I don't have the Antares uniform yet."
"I see." Boenetri enthusiastically brushed invisible dust off his jacket for the third time in the last minute. "I'm tired of this."
"What a pity, I was just getting the hang of it."
"There are more interesting ways to spend time. But I give you my due, for someone who has never been taught how to fight properly, you're good. Very good, even."
The sudden praise from the arrogant sissy should have pleased him, but inside, Lear shuddered for a second.
He really had never been taught how to fight properly. They just hadn't had the time.
His only teacher, if you can call it that, was war. And...
Meyde's voice, discussing what else they should do, brought him out of his unpleasant thoughts. The Antares freshman was too absorbed in his own problems to notice Lear's latest mood change.
Making sure that the hall was clean after their little fight, they put the swords back in their place.
"Kieran will be pleased to hear this," said Meyde as they walked down the hall.
"Don't you call him captain?"
"What? Who told you that?" Boenetri laughed. "Oh, I get it. He wants to be taken seriously, but he's such an idiot and everyone knows it."
"But he's your idiot?" Lear smiled.
"Ha, yours is too now, so don't relax."
***
Meyde briefly explained what Lear had missed while studying at Fomalhaut and gave him the schedule of training halls and the class schedule. Lear was intrigued by the first, and he wanted to refuse the second, but he was not offered that option. Even Antares students had to study like any other normal student.
They also went to get a new uniform for Lear, and on the way, Meyde managed to tell every classmate he met about the new guy at their faculty, which sometimes made Lear want to hit him.
The day had been quite eventful, so he finally wanted to retire and rest. Since he was given the opportunity to skip classes, he wanted to take full advantage of it and devote the rest of the day to himself.
Deciding not to return to his room for now, he walked around the courtyard of the Antares building and accidentally wandered into the common garden of the Academy.
Lear had forgotten what an impressive size institution the Academy was. In addition to the four main buildings and one common building, there were annexes in the form of towers with observatories and planetariums, training grounds, a huge sports field with stands where the tournament between the houses was held, and much more.
The garden did not belong to any particular house, but as far as Lear remembered, it was mainly the students of Regulus who tended it.
Perhaps this affected the fact that most of the plants were bright yellow.
Lear was not even surprised to see a cluster of wormwood bushes - according to the books, Regulus's favorite plant.
"It stands out from the general picture a little, doesn't it?"
Before his brain could react, Lear felt his heart drop like a stone.
He forced himself to turn around at the voice.
Ruan emerged from behind the bushes, silently, just like last time. He walked with small steps, his arms crossed behind his back, like on a summer stroll. His black cloak, which stood out most from the picture, fluttered smoothly behind him.
"What are you doing here?" Lear asked insistently, standing still.
Ruan was also in no hurry to close the distance and was carefully examining the flowers on the other side of the garden.
"I don't know. Probably came here so that no one would see me crying my eyes out."
'Yuni, you little son of a bitch, how could he have the nerve...'
"In that case, I won't bother you," Lear turned around.
Ruan didn't say anything, but Lear knew that sooner or later he would ask. So instead of leaving, he sat down on a bench in the shade and closed his eyes.
'The main thing is to remain calm. Remain calm, Lear.'
He stamped his foot impatiently, waiting for Chairman of Fomalhaut to look at the flowers enough. When Lear opened his eyes, Ruan was already standing in front of him.
"Why?"
"Why what?" Lear barked.
"You know very well."
Lear felt like one exposed nerve. The intensity with which he stamped his foot unconsciously increased.
Richrass was the embodiment of calm.
'Patience, Lear, patience.'
Inhale. Exhale.
Lear straightened his shoulders and froze.
"Sorry."
Ruan stared at him silently. Lear stared at the floor. "I should have informed you in advance. Consulted. I just...thought about it and made a decision. I didn't mean to burden you."
"You never burden me, Lear. After all, I brought you here, and I'm responsible for you. Whatever happens to you, remember, you always—"
"I can tell you, yes. I know. Thank you." He interrupted him and stood up. "But I'm under Kieran Shin's control now, so don't worry. He's a good guy."
"I know what he's like." Ruan didn't move, and Lear froze right in front of him, forced to look up to meet his eyes. "Still, you made a big decision without talking it over with anyone first. I didn't know you disliked it here so much."
Lear wanted to say something along the lines of "it's not you, it's me," but that would have made him look like an even bigger idiot than he already was.
"I didn't know either."
"I see."
Ruan sat down on the other side of the bench, crossing his legs.
"Good luck in your new position, Lear. I hope you're not mistaken."
"Thank you," Lear replied shortly and walked out of the garden without turning around.
***
If there was one thing that could have irritated Lear, it would have been missing lunch. After the unpleasant encounter with Richrass, he hurried back to Antares territory and ran into Meyde returning from the dining hall.
"You weren't at lunch," he said when he saw Lear.
"How observant of you."
Meyde ignored the sarcasm and continued:
"Kieran was pleased, as I predicted. Having learned about our sparring, he is now finally convinced that you are a real Antaresian. From now on, he will place his hopes on you, so you will have to train twice as much. Don't disappoint him, or you'll break his naive heart."
"Thank you, Meyde, for putting in a good word for me. I appreciate it."
"Please. Who, if not me. You don't have Richrass anymore."
Lear couldn't help but stick his tongue out at him, then hurried away to the accompaniment of the indignation of the deeply offended guy.
'What an idiot you are,' his inner voice told him. 'A man of twenty years, and he behaves like a child.'
'Technically, I am a child now.'
'Of course, and four years of my life just evaporated.'
Standing in the hallway, Lear thought.
'A fair remark, but that doesn't make it any easier.'
And since when did his habit of talking to himself return?
Students passing by glanced at him and whispered.
That feeling again.
Despite the amusing squabble with Meyde, Lear's mood was still at rock bottom.
'One conversation with Ruan and you've already lost your temper. At this rate, he's sure to suspect something.'
'What could he suspect? No one would ever think of something like that.'
Did Ruan know anything about time travel? About that cursed star?
About resurrection from the dead?
Lear shook his head (the students in the hallway began to avoid him). Even if he did, it would be too dangerous to tell him everything. Lear couldn't trust anyone, especially Richrass. He even had trouble trusting himself.
First, he had to figure it out on his own.
'Should I? Why can't I just...'
'Just what?'
He returned to the dorm and lay on his bed in the long-awaited silence and solitude.
'I don't know... live.'
The thought sounded so alien that Lear winced inwardly.
"Just living, knowing that one fucking asshole will betray humanity, if he hasn't already, and that soon everyone here will be sent to the meat grinder? Sounds amazing."
After so much time, he finally understood what was bothering him.
All day long, he strolled carefree through the majestic Academy, admiring its views, watching the carefree teenagers, listening to their conversations.
The Academy was supposed to be almost the main stronghold of security in the Empire.
Its students, even the oldest ones, were still very young. They studied, made friends, argued, made plans for their lives.
But in the time he came from, they all had to go to war.
'Then I have to do something, don't I? If I really traveled to the past and know in advance what will happen, I can change something. Maybe that's why I'm here? After all, no one else traveled.'
These children did not deserve to die like this. They weren't supposed to be cannon fodder in a war with a race of monsters that humanity had been fighting since before the Empire.
Where Lear came from, back then, they were raised and trained as soldiers to be sent to their inevitable death. Lear was one of them and knew what it was like to be nothing more than a pawn in someone else's hands.
And since fate had given him such a chance, should he have taken it?
Lear felt ashamed and guilty. Instead of making a plan of action, he had been fiddling around like a child all day. If he wanted to save anyone, he needed to think and decide how to act from now on so as not to make mistakes.
In his defense, he could only say that he hadn't fully figured out this whole time travel thing yet and was waiting until he could adapt to it enough. But after thinking about it, he decided that he couldn't sit around doing nothing any longer.
Lear jumped out of bed, took the paper from the nightstand and began feverishly remembering everything that had happened - or would happen if he didn't fix something - to him in the future.
First year:
Freshman Championship
Transfer students
The Death of the Emperor
The Disappearance of Prince Decadokkia
He looked at the list with a critical eye, then added with an unsteady hand:
R.R.'s betrayal