I… didn’t immediately head to the suite- it wasn’t even a choice- I was too… occupied with what I just learned- I didn’t like anything about it- which I guess is a stupid thing to say because what kind of sane human would?

Someone was being paid to basically stalk me- learn everything I do and that’s… the kind of thing that’s hard to ignore for anyone, really, maybe if I was some cold and calculating person I’d try to do something that would trick the private investigators coming my way but I don’t even know where to start, let alone what kind of actions I’d take.

So instead of doing any of that, I did something stupid and ran away from Pledge Academy.

Maximum Speed was activated to a greater extent than the last time I did this- enough that everything around me was barely even moving but not so much that it would start to hurt my brain, in this state, it’s like everything is quite literally, frozen, and that kind of slow, consequenceless perception of time helps me think.

But what do I think about?

I looked down, not really sure how to answer my own question…

I stared at my legs, they were dangling over the edge of a rooftop, waving about like seesaws and covering a small part of the visible street below: even in their unmoving state, the frozen people down there looked carefree and their expressions were mild enough that if they did have problems, they weren’t as bad as being a political target by who knows how many influential houses while at the same time- JUGGLING MY RESPONSIBILITY AS A PRINCESS AND FIXING MY PAST MISTAKE-

I let out a tired sigh, “I want to scream,” I said softly, causing a small pang of pain to ache away at the side of my head, I sighed again, “I want to scream,” I repeated, louder this time, it felt really, really tempting to just scream my heart out right now, but I was in the middle of the city, “I want to scream,” I gritted my teeth, the ache from doing so was enough to tell me that I was biting down harder than usual, “I want to scream.”

I stood up and was about to walk away from the rooftop to find a place where I could scream all I want but I quickly turned back- “you know what?” I shook my head at what I was just about to do, but I’ll still do it, you know? “Just this once, I’ll try it,”

Wind Walker activated and I sucked in a lungful of air while eyeing the streets below, “just this once,” I said to myself again, conviction clear and my resolve strong enough that I’ll commit to what I was thinking once, “I’ll try it,”

I jumped down, laughing all the while and as the wind beneath my boots told me to hold on- I ignored it and let myself continue to fall, slowly and surely, I was going to reach the ground and when I was a meter or so away from touching it, I held onto the wind and my fall… just stopped, my momentum didn’t go over the sudden stop of my fall and my body was fine, no bones were broken and I was whole.

I grinned, “that’s an endgame Technique for you,” I nodded in approval at the fact that I was able to use something so overpowered and physics-breaking as Wind Walker at this stage of the timeline, or plot, or whatever- “I guess there’s really no equivalent to it is there?” I muttered while looking at the sky, does the plot even exist? Do I have free will?.. Or am I just following along the whims of the world?

I… have no idea- and you know what?

Who cares?

I matter right now, what I did mattered back then- not just to me, but to people across the world, - and what I’m going to do in the future will matter so plot or not, timeline or not, free will or not-

I’m gonna keep on living and not bother with worrying about any of it- for now, I just want to enjoy this frozen world in all of its glory and as I let go of the wind and my feet touched the pavement, I started warming myself up by jumping in place before doing a jog, which turned into a run, which evolved into a sprint until I was running across the frozen city of Everlast all by my lonesome.

Here, I was alone, there wasn’t anyone who knew who I was, or even capable of seeing me, there’s no one in this frozen world but me.

I am the only one who’s capable of moving and I can do whatever I want and with so many choices, what did I decide on?

I went to the edge of the city, on a place that’s far from any building- I found myself on an empty plot within a private subdivision.

I placed my feet on the edge and stared down at the clouds stuck in place, unmoving like gigantic, mosaic statues of shapes that made no sense sculpted within the open expanse of the vast sky, there were holes and gaps between them and through those, I was able to see greenery, and a village, a small, inconsequential village that, although simple, probably had people who live simple lives, people who don’t have an ounce of my responsibility, if at all.

I looked around in concern, wondering if anyone would be able to hear what I was about to say and after a second or two of being paranoid- I decided that it didn’t really matter, did it?

I sucked in a lungful of air, glared at the distant mountains, and let out an incoherent yell until I felt satisfied.

…

I like to think that- and maybe it was? But I can also step on air and materialize a sword at will so is it that weird? - it’s weird that I was able to breathe and see during the effects of Maximum Speed, where everything but me, and that includes the air, is frozen.

And putting some thought into it, I guess my teacher’s words of everything having Light is starting to make sense- or at least in this particular context since, after all, if everything has Light, including the air, then maybe that’s what I’m breathing in and seeing through whenever I’m using Maximum Speed?

It’s a weird thought but it’s one that I think holds merit- so Light doesn’t get affected by Techniques, that explains the nullifying ability of some Omegafaunas or even the rare Pride Demon found out there in the world, they can nullify Techniques because they suck in Light, an object, or thing, or concept or whatever that no matter what, cannot be affected by Techniques.

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It was why there was no anti-pride demon Technique or something along those lines.

And man… that last example is just an unfair case, isn’t it? How can something that can scale during a fight while at the same time, weaken Light exist as an enemy?

I thought that it was just the Devs being sadistic but now that Everlast became real…

… I’m starting to think that Pride Demons are rare not because of the Devs wanting to nerf things, but because of The Goddess.

I still remember the artwork of the Goddess made using colored glass on the massive church, the one where she raised her hand against the Demons to curse them.

And maybe this is one of those effects?

That The Goddess made it so that Pride Demons are rare because they’re the most powerful kind of Demon out there and I’m glad that in this particular iteration, I only have to deal with a Demon Lord whose strongest sin is Wrath, which just makes him stronger, more deadlier- it doesn’t weaken anyone else, just makes himself stronger.

Pride does both.

“Such a cheat, Pride Demons are,” I murmured, how are they even fair?

“Man, I wish everything was as simple as the Demon hierarchy,” I paused, waiting for someone to come to me and say, ‘oh, but it is!’ but no one came, there was no sagely master to come teach me how to be a proper fighter and give me tips nor did the Goddess send me a message while causing a beam of light to shine down on me, it was just the same old frozen world with no change, I chuckled, “I guess this is just how things are,” I said to myself, “shitty, real life stuff that has consequences for everything,”

What am I even talking about?

And… now I remember why I’m doing this- I scowled-

Me being a princess probably helped a lot with the fact that I’m now stuck in the middle of politics but maybe this would’ve happened regardless? I don’t know why Crust wanted to send private investigators my way and even if I wanted to, I’m pretty sure that John Doe would work slow, because he has a lot more going for him than just my simple order of, ‘investigate why other nobles are starting to target me,’ so chances are, he’s probably very busy and I wouldn’t get anything out of him for a while.

I smiled sardonically, “how sad,” I murmured.

I touched the grass next to my head and started feeling it, left, right, left, right, my hand moved and the green blades felt soft to the touch, but the fact that they were frozen and unmoving gave it an uncanny feel, it’s like poking my hand through a piece of paper held in place by another person.

I stopped touching the grass and focused on the sky, wishing that I had discovered this sort of thing sooner- I wasted so much time worrying in the castle when I could’ve just used Maximum Speed and dealt with stress while time was slowed down.

I’m so stupid…

I looked to the side, “and everything is so scenic too,”

I stared at a small forest to my right and eyed the leaves of trees that blew in one direction, unmoving and stuck in place.

I looked at the birds in the sky halfway through flapping their wings, the wind that can be barely felt, the warm afternoon weather- everything about a frozen world made it feel like it’s a picture, which is… obvious but the fact that I can interact with it, make it so that the things within the picture are moving made it so much more… dynamic.

And knowing that it was only me who could do it gave it a personal feel, like I was some sort of deity that dictated everything that happened.

“Is playing God wrong, Goddess?” I asked the sky and frowned when I got no answer, “if you don’t give me a sign, I’m gonna go and try to move a praying mantis in front of a beetle and make it so that the beetle is being clamped down by the mantis,”

Was what I said specific? Yeah, but I’ve always wanted to do something like this- hm, should I take up making miniature figurines as a hobby? Maybe I can start doing sculpting?

“Maybe, maybe, maybe,” I repeated thrice as I stood up to start working on my impromptu miniature statue, “how about I do it now?”

Well, the Goddess didn’t give me a sign so she’s clearly okay with it right?

I walked near a praying mantis- I found one perched on top of a branch, presumably doing mantis things in regular time, - grabbed it, and then proceeded to scour the forest floor for a beetle which… took a while.

Honestly, I didn’t expect searching for something as well camouflaged as a mantis would be shorter than finding a beetle of all things but it did, and after upturning several fallen logs- I know that beetles like to live on them for some reason? - I managed to find one tiny beetle that’s colored in red, I didn’t know what kind of species it was but it was there so I nabbed it from its spot and then quickly got out of the forest.

I walked around until I found a stone flat enough to hold my impromptu statue, and when I did, I placed both insects on top of it and then sat in front of them crossed legged to think about what kind of pose I wanted them to take.

I placed my hand on my chin and started humming, “what to do, what to do?” I asked myself while staring at the mantis, who was looking up, and I had an epiphany, “... I know what to do now-”

So the mantis holding up the beetle in the air like some sort of trophy was, as it turns out, pretty hard to do, like seriously, how do I even do something like that?

I straightened the mantis’ legs- after trying it on a piece of grass to make sure that they wouldn’t break, which they wouldn’t, I deactivated my Technique and watched as the grass fell back down without any damage before re-activating it, - and made him stand as tall as he possibly could before making his claws go up and then opening them, in which I inserted the beetle and closed the claws but the resulting position looked awkward- the mantis was holding the beetle up using claws that only faced one direction, which made him look like he’s sacrificing the beetle to the gods or something…

Okay, I tried doing it again and this time, I made it so that the mantis’ claws were separated slightly and the resulting statuette was so much more better: the mantis now looked like it was tearing the beetle apart which is kind of cool, I approve of it!

“Nice,” I gave the statue a thumbs up before eyeing it for a while, and as I stared at it, I had a sudden thought- what if I make a tiny village out of sticks? And what if that tiny village is populated by- very confused, when time resumes at least, - insects?

“Neophyte, you are a genius!” I complimented myself while giggling.

Well, I guess this entire trip- which is supposed to be my break, in retrospect, I am now regretting the fact that I willingly confronted John Doe, and I had a lot of time to think about things, - to the city after class isn’t gonna end in me being all sad and mopey after all!

I started planning the infrastructure of the village- and I do have a bit of experience with it thanks to all the times when I was told by Amber that I was the one who needed to make the decision on where to put my restaurants and how they’ll look, - and I started cutting the grass on some parts of the field to make room for the tiny houses that my insects will be living in, I did make sure to leave some around of course, or else the land will just look bald, especially since it didn’t have concrete.

And after a while, I had enough space to make around… 8 houses! Neat! And all of them were placed in front of the flat stone where my mantis and beetle were in.

When my plans for where the houses would be became finished, I worked on what kind of houses they would be and since I’m not exactly an architect, I decided to just make them into tiny little huts- and when I say huts I meant four sticks in each corner and a leaf on top. I’m a genius, I know, no need to compliment me.

Once the houses were done I started searching for the village’s would-be inhabitants, and the lucky fellows were four caterpillars- one small and three big ones, - two mantises, five beetles of varying species- they are very common now for some reason, - and then finally, a stick insect, who, of course, will be the lord of this entire place, I’m planning on giving him a pedestal and everything!

So I started setting them up, and most of the huts were taken over by the beetles, and those guys were just your standard citizens of this insect village so they don’t really do much, they’re just the equivalent of NPCs around here but the ones who aren’t beetles were doing interesting things- like the four caterpillars, who, of course, were celebrating the birth of one of their own, the three large caterpillars were the adults, one was the mother, she was lying down and she had the tiny one (the baby) in front of her, meanwhile the father stood to the side watching in worry (it’s why he was bent over and shaped like a question mark,) while the doctor helped the baby come out of the mother!

Okay- maybe this is weird-

After the caterpillars came a special set of beetles, who, unlike their fellow beetles, were arguing over the stuff that one of them was selling (tiny pebbles, I didn’t- couldn’t find fruits the size of insects out in the forest,) and like I said, since the shop-owner beetle is special, his hut had a table (a flat piece of bark I chipped from a fallen log,) at the front which had stones on it!

And right now, the shop owner beetle was standing up and had both his hands on either end of the table while glaring at the other beetle, who was also standing up but had his arms crossed because he was haggling for the wares.

Then there’s the stick insect, who was just looking over everything while standing on his pedestal.

And last but not least were the two pairs of mantises that I found, which I positioned as though they were holding each other’s arms/claws while standing up- my intention is that they were doing a ballroom dance which… I guess looks that way?

Eh, it looks good enough.