The Protagonist’s Party is Too Diligent

The mock exam is hard for a reason.

No matter how much it’s a mock exam, the style of questions and the difficulty level are sufficiently different from the real entrance exam. The balance of difficulty isn’t precise, leading to some questions being way too easy while others are ridiculously hard. Overall, though, the difficulty level of the questions tends to be high.

This isn’t just about the academy entrance exam. In the world I lived in before, most mock exams were somewhat or excessively harder than the actual tests.

The reason is simple. It’s good for the mock exam company to hear that students passed the entrance exam after taking their mock exams.

Even though everyone knows that mock exams are just fake questions based on real problems with little credibility, students still get all worked up over them. Humans have this beastly compensation psychology — once they feel like they’ve achieved some goal, they just let their guard down afterward.

So why not make the mock exams extra difficult? That way, if the real exam turns out to be way too hard, that’ll be a good excuse, and it keeps the students from relaxing too much while studying.

Alice and I have been through those exams countless times already.

With her brilliant mind, Alice always studied hard to score high —

— and I, on the other hand, used a sneaky method to repeatedly read and memorize the materials straight up.

Honestly, it was boring as hell. No matter how much my spirit follows my body, and even if my physical condition is restored when I turn back time, my memory perceives “turning back time” as just accumulating experiences.

In other words, no matter how many times I turn back time, it all just looks like the same events keep repeating to me.

…Is that what they mean?

Well, anyway.

So I made sure to squeeze in time to either take a good nap or relax among all those opportunities.

Skipping class to stroll outside the royal castle or locking the door and just crashing.

I didn’t care about others’ gazes. Time spent like that was just wasted time for me anyway. Minimizing mental fatigue and then turning back to how things were.

People say memory has limits, but seeing the same stuff over and over ends up getting stuck in my brain anyway. Whether it’s because my brain can hold a lot or maybe I had that talent all along but never used it, who knows?

Thinking of those times I saved multiple game files and loaded them repeatedly… Well, it doesn’t really matter now to imagine what talents my original self might have had. After all, the me now is Sylvia Fanggriffon — a character I’ve never even seen in the original world.

“How were the questions?”

Even with her status as a Crown Princess, the entrance exam had to be taken in designated places.

The Empire is vast. Even with the latest trains, getting from the countryside to the Imperial Capital can take hours or even half a day. And if you tire yourself out before the exam, it’ll affect your condition during the test.

Sure, commoners living in the countryside might accept that, but nobles would be annoyed if it happened every time. Since ancient times, educating children has been a big deal. Everyone else is left out but the ones who struggle to make ends meet.

So there are designated exam sites in the countryside. There might be people who can’t even reach those… but honestly, in such a scenario, one wouldn’t even know if they had that kind of talent. They probably live in a place with no educational opportunities to begin with.

Anyway, we took the exam at the Imperial Royal Londarium Academy.

Honestly, if a resident of the capital gets to take the academy exam, that’s lucky. It means they have a chance to actually visit the academy. It’s not a bad experience, whether they pass or fail, to see the well-built structure. Most commoners don’t get to witness the academic atmosphere which isn’t open except during festivals.

“The difficulty was lower than the mock exam.”

“As expected, right?”

Of course, even if we took the real exam at the academy, we couldn’t be treated the same as the other students.

There are security issues, and most importantly, the students in our classroom would definitely be paying extra attention to us. In the end, that could affect our scores too.

And among nobles, there are plenty of parents who are overly sensitive about their children’s scores. If they just got mad at their child, it wouldn’t matter that much, but there’s always someone trying to pin all the blame on the exam site.

The Emperor obviously brushes off such talk easily. Those petty matters don’t even reach him.

But the academy staff can’t afford that. The high-ranking officials running the education department of this nation can’t either. Once the Count and Duke families start moving, they’ll be left tearing their hair out in frustration.

To prevent that from happening in the first place, this time we specially took the exam in a different classroom.

As I walked out of the classroom, I casually glanced at Alice’s face, and she didn’t look that bad. It seemed like the exam was easy for her as expected.

And it was for me too. Given I had seen the material so many times, I’d probably do better than on the mock exam.

Though I did intentionally mess up a few questions.

“Let’s hurry and get our scores checked. We don’t have to get them all right. You remember a few ambiguous questions, right? Just checking those should give us an idea of our scores.”

I nodded my head.

Alice was already confident about getting into the academy.

That’s only natural. After all, Alice is a character who appears as an academy student in the original work.

Right now, with unverified people filling the building and us taking exams separately while guarded, by the time the semester starts, they’ll have filtered out all the unsuitable candidates from the passers. Inside the academy, we’ll be equals and will speak casually with one another.

Though it’s a useless rule, ranks will eventually emerge over time. Alice is known so well that everyone recognizes her without needing to be told.

As we walked, we heard a buzz ahead.

Students were pouring out of classrooms. We certainly weren’t the only ones finished with the exam.

We momentarily stopped in our tracks.

We could’ve cleared the students out, but it wasn’t urgent.

A guard was stepping forward to create space for us.

Some students did glance our way. But typically, they couldn’t come this way due to the guards in front of us. Alice had never formed friendships with anyone since her childhood, so even the children of famous noble families would feel awkward about speaking casually. They didn’t know her.

Alice wasn’t just any Crown Princess, she was a child aiming to be the Emperor. She had a personality that would rather read one more book and practice swordsmanship than attend a ball, so it made sense that not many nobles knew her.

“How many of those kids do you think will get into the academy?”

“Probably only a tiny few.”

In the original work, the enrollment quota was 30 nobles and 60 commoners per grade.

In reality, the characters with any significant roles were far fewer than that.

Compared to the many students passing by in front of us, it was practically a handful.

We waited for a while, standing at a distance, as the kids continued to flow past us.

“……”

Suddenly, I almost let out an “ah” sound.
A child with blue hair just passed by.

It wasn’t the face I recognized. Not the one I saw in the game, nor the scruffy appearance I last encountered.

It was a much more mature girl, with lush blue hair tied back in a proper ponytail. Unlike in the game, she wasn’t wearing intimidating makeup nor revealing modified school uniforms.

Just a very very neat-looking student. Honestly, she looked like she could be a class president anywhere. Though she wasn’t wearing glasses.

It was Claire.

Claire was happily chatting with a very handsome boy walking beside her.

So that must be the son of Grace’s Estate then.

The protagonist of this game.

“……”

“Why? Is there someone you know?”

“Yes. I see a few noble children.”

“……Hmm.”

Rather than denying it outright, I thought it was better to make a similar excuse, and once I said that, Alice let out a hum.

“Is there someone we should be cautious of?”

“There is, but it’s not a conversation for here.”

I wasn’t talking about Claire either.

It’d be better for Claire to not even know me.

But even so, it wouldn’t be entirely wrong to be wary.

…The daughter of Count Crowfield whom I killed is also set to attend this school. In the original work, she’s one of the heroines.

“……Then, let’s go back and tell me. There’s no harm in being cautious.”

“Understood.”

Hearing my words, Alice’s expression turned serious in an instant, and I replied like that.

In the original narrative, Alice and Claire have a very bad relationship, so Alice wouldn’t have gotten such information.

But now, I thought sharing this amount of information wouldn’t be a problem, since I wasn’t the original Claire. Plus, it seems Claire’s image has changed quite a bit from the original work already.

So I thought this level of information sharing wouldn’t really matter.

*

“……Huh?”

While Claire was talking, she abruptly stopped walking and turned around, and Leo, who was with her, asked.

“Why? Did you see something?”

“Oh, um…”

Claire stared blankly behind her for a moment. There was someone standing where the path turned ahead, and maybe she thought she saw that. One person had shining blonde hair, and the other had black bobbed hair. She thought the blonde was definitely someone she recognized. I seem to remember hearing the Crown Princess is supposed to enroll this year, and thinking about it, it makes sense that there were two guards before those two. The other one, though, I have no idea.

“Was it someone you know? Should we go meet them?”

As Leo said that, he turned and started to go back but soon paused awkwardly, receiving the disgruntled stares of other students.

“Uh, no, I don’t think we should.”

And that’s when Claire really snapped back to reality.

“Probably… I must’ve just seen it wrong. It could’ve just been someone who looked similar.”

“…Really?”

Although Claire was acting strangely, Leo decided to let it pass.

He knew Claire was searching for her sister. He has heard that story many times since childhood.

However, even if that sister truly existed, it’s unlikely she could be here. To take this exam, your identity has to be guaranteed to begin with.

It’s unfortunate, but if what Claire said holds true — which she would never think — the chances of that sister, who was alone and adrift as a child, surviving and growing enough to take the academy entrance exam, especially right next to the Crown Princess, are extremely slim. Plus, she wouldn’t look like a maid either. If she were a real maid, she would’ve taken the exam alongside students like Leo and Claire.

Besides, it seemed like Claire had long since given up on her search. While it’s not completely impossible, she probably knows that the chances of stumbling upon her sister here are extremely unlikely.

“Yeah. It’ll be fine. It was just… a feeling. Just like last time.”

Even in her childhood, Claire would approach anyone with black long hair just to check their face. Having spent years confirming they were not the person, by now, she must’ve learned how to let go of expectations.

After all, among the many students passing by here, there were loads of girls with black long hair.

“…Let’s go.”

As Claire said that, starting to walk again, Leo followed behind her, feeling somewhat bittersweet.

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