Standing on the field outside the academy, the place I was launched into space from last time I came here, I prepare to put into practice what Thorvadis just taught me. It wasn't much, but the principle behind gravity is surprisingly simple.

The windows of the academy are filled with students staring at me, and more of them are gathered at the edge of the field. They rarely get to see their principal outside his room or the dining hall, but he attracted even more attention by ordering everybody to make way for me, who appears to be a new student. They're right to think that a spectacle of some kind is about to unfold.

I could have easily had Flann teleport us to some deserted place elsewhere in the world, if not to the moon itself. But I'm using this opportunity to get a look at the students and new professors. Maybe I'll get a glimpse of Ninlil over at the dorms, too.

Then I remember that I can't waste too much time fooling around when the moon is drifting away, and the solar winds will fry this planet in just three days. Gesturing at the center of the field, I raise a giant ball of mud and transmute it into stone. There's no way wind magic could lift that boulder, so I can be sure that I'm doing it right instead of using an alternate method subconsciously.

As before, I reverse the gravity of the object, causing it to fly up and accelerate quickly. Stopping it, I let it drop back down before waving my hand at it from the side. Nothing happens, and it falls back onto the grassy field with a thud, creating a small crater on impact.

I don't glance at Thorvadis next to me, but somehow I get the feeling that he feels vindicated. But I know he isn't such a petty person, or he wouldn't have taught me anything. After the siege of Erbilan, he sat down to talk to me even after everything that happened between us. If he held a grudge back then, he was able to swallow it for the sake of the survival of the human race. He should be able to do the same now.

More and more students gather, thinking that I'm undergoing a test of my abilities to enroll at this academy. There's a murmur rising from the open windows when they realize that I'm not speaking any incantations to cast magic. Only Chosen Knights are supposed to be capable of that, so they already treat me with reverence.

Thinking back, I had some pleasant memories here. One mistake on my part brought it all crashing down. If everybody involved had reacted more calmly back then, what would things look like now? There's no real point thinking about it so long after the fact, yet I can't help but try to picture my life if I had stayed here instead of getting teleported to the Khurut Sultanate.

Then again, I wouldn't have met Asoko or gotten to see Hestia with glasses. I wouldn't have encountered a dragon and gained its template, or had any reason to go into the Lost Tombs and find Aurelia. I would have learned a lot more magic and eventually left the academy with a lot of books to present to Maou-mama on my return.

Maybe then Maou-mama wouldn't have had to die if I had remained here in the academy. Then I would have never been teleported to Adanak to find out that I had twin children. Without going there, I wouldn't have met Awhina, Tahiri, Tokomaha, or Korenga.

I would have been blissfully ignorant of the truth of this world until Chaos-Juzual or Mataku eventually destroyed it.

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"What is the matter?" Flann asks while looking up at me, seeing how I stopped trying to cast magic. The Royal Academy is such a nostalgic place that I've gone down memory lane a bit too deeply and forgotten my main objective.

"Just reminiscing." I smile at her and pet her hair. Then I remember a question I've been meaning to ask. "Oh, before I forget, when were you born?"

"The winter after Aldeath died." She replies, not at all looking surprised at me suddenly bringing up this topic. I calculate in my mind for a moment to come to one realization.

"You're my older sister, then." I lift my hand off her head as if I was scalded. All I know from my Japanese upbringing is that I should show respect to my elders. Even though I was an only child, I knew from classmates that they would never dare to treat their older siblings like I did. "Again, I'm sorry for my attitude toward you all this time..."

"It matters not." Staring at my hand hovering above her, Flann states in a level tone. Maybe she was enjoying it?

Turning back to my task, I notice Thorvadis watching us from the side. His eyebrows are raised as high as physically possible, and under his beard, it looks like his jaw is slack. The revelation that Flann is my sister seems to have shocked him deeply. The image of a wise old master that I had of him is crumbling before my eyes.

Ignoring him, I gesture at the boulder in the middle of the grassy field again, making it fall upward before trying to apply a slight pushing force. But instead of going the way I want it to, it merely drops back and impacts the ground with a loud thud. It buries itself into the dirt a bit, and I realize that it moved a few steps away from the initial impact crater in the direction I wanted it to go.

It's working, even if only slightly. Where did my ridiculous and uncontrolled output from back when I first started here go?

Repeating the process, I launch the boulder in the air and push with a physical motion of my hand. As if my remembrance of that time I summoned a pool of water with a spell meant to create a bucket worth of it affected my ability, my target flies off toward the dorms.

"Uh oh." I watch the boulder fly and quickly gesture at it to pull it toward me. But with my concentration broken, it doesn't react.

In the next moment, I see a small figure jumping more than a dozen meters high into the air and meeting the projectile. A heavy impact sounds across the field before the boulder flies back toward me. It rolls across the grass and falls into the crater it left when it landed the first time.

"Hole in one." I comment with a whistle as I watch Ninlil land gracefully with her oversized hammer in hand. She then runs across the field with an angry expression on her face, looking ready to pounce.

But when she notices me, her eyes narrow into slits, and she hops back with her tail puffed up in fear. It seems she's still not over what Asoko did to her and isn't aware of the fact that it was another me. I look at her with a wry smile, then turn to Thorvadis.

"How was that?" I ask nonchalantly. His furrowed brow tells me that I achieved in a few tries what most likely took him years of his life. But he wouldn't be a teacher if he didn't take pride in his students going above and beyond his abilities.

"You require more practice, but you are going down the right path." He remarks with a genuine smile that makes me feel bad for all I've done to him and his academy in the past.

"Thank you, Grand Master Eklundstrom. For everything." In a heartfelt tone, I bow to Thorvadis to express my gratitude for what he did when I was still at the academy. Neither side can truly forgive the other, but I'm not sure I'll ever come here again, so I want to make peace with the past. "I believe that what you just taught me will save this world."

With these words, I turn to Flann. The principal doesn't say anything in response as if contemplating the right answer. Before he can find it, we already teleport away and back to Arkaim.