“Is this really true?” Phoebe worriedly asked.

  “It could be. Maybe it's not. Nothing is truly certain. Just trust in my hunch. If I suddenly keel over, you know what to do,” Alexa lightheartedly answered.

  “B-but, why aren’t you doing anything about it? You and Sir Wilhelm?”

  “I assure you, Wilhelm and Alfred already prepared countermeasures for today.”

  “And what about…”

  “I’ll deal with everything afterward. All you have to do is to do your part. Can I trust you in that?”

  “Of course…Lady Alexa.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  Alexa squeezed Phoebe’s gloved hand gently. Within a few minutes, Alexa’s maids finished preparing the dresses, makeup, and hairstyles that Phoebe and Alexa wore.

  Adele, too, outside, was all dolled up and ready. For such a big occasion, of course, there couldn’t be any quarter when it came to the appearance of Alexa’s camp. She was going to be visible to the public after all.

  Even Wilhelm, who usually didn’t give a rat's ass about his appearance, was now dressed in the stylish white royal guard uniform, the same one sported by Alfred. When Alexa finally exited the Hohle Dormitory, going straight to the ongoing festival at the academy’s campus, Wilhelm and Alfred practically flanked her.

  She was heavily guarded compared to nearly all other students. Wherever she went, it was a massive event, with crowds of students coming close just to see the princess with their eyes.

  She barely had fun throughout it, as she attended her usual function, which was to simply inspect the booths opened by the school’s respective clubs.

  And she had to go to each one of them, closely guided by Elisabeth, the vice president of the student council.

  “Your Highness, it is a true honor to have you here,” a fat student bowed as she entered the booth prepared by the History Club. “If it’s not a major problem, I shall present to you the exhibit we have here.”

  Alexa looked around with a fake smile on her face, glancing a bit at Elisabeth.

  “Ah, I’ve already checked the exhibits his team prepared,” Elisabeth lightly said. “It shouldn’t take much time.”

  “Please, it’s no problem. I’m sure you and your club members worked hard for this. I am quite curious about myself.”

  The fat student’s eyes shone, and quickly, he gushed to present and explain everything that his booth had to offer to Alexa. She nodded along and remained polite, going as far as to interact with the people showing off their work to her.

  But in the end, her slothful attitude was starting to show, and by the end of it, she was quite irate.

  “Finally,” Alexa grumbled as she walked back to the Hohle Dormitory. “That snake is gone.”

  “She didn’t seem dangerous…” Phoebe mumbled on the side.

  “Of course. If she’s plotting something against Lady Alexa, she’ll act all innocent. I know, because I’d do the same if Alexa ordered me to do something similar to what she’s doing.”

  “But Lady Alexa would never do such a thing!”

  “Of course she won’t. But back then, she was…ahem, quite petty.”

  Alexa turned slightly red, but she didn’t rebuke Adele.

  “W-well,” Alexa laughed. “I grew out of it…I think.”

  “Ah, I suppose I did hear a lot of talk about Lady Alexa being a slight bully back then,” Phoebe shyly said. “Though, I’m sure she’ll never go as far as to poison someone.”

  Alexa then remembered the oldest iteration of the Iron Saintess. Yes, the original Alexa Theresa did try to poison Phoebe once, so this was a bit awkward.

  Alexa coughed.

  “Of course I won’t. And I’m pretty sure even Elisabeth wouldn’t be so stupid as to do this nonsense if it wasn’t for a certain someone influencing her.”

  The trio soon closed the Hohle Dormitory.

  That was when Adele walked forward slightly faster to catch up to Alexa.

  “At this point,” her voice was nearly a whisper. “We really have to be ready to eliminate him.”

  “It’s…easier said than done,” Alexa worriedly said. “I think even Wilhelm’s best plan right now only involves forcing him to retreat.”

  Alexa already read the passages of the previously updated Iron Saintess novel early this morning. Apparently, in the fallout of this incident, Alexa and Phoebe stupidly tried to chase Henry after Elisabeth was apprehended.

  All that happened was the two died, almost instantaneously. Strangely enough, Henry tried to escape, almost desperately, once it became clear that soldiers were swarming him.

  His strength, his powers—it was inconsistent. If he was so strong that he could literally defeat Phoebe by laying the perfect trap to exploit her main weakness, that meant—

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Is he really strong, or does he have a different exploit?

  “It’s so hard to figure it out,” Alexa said. “If only I knew, I’d have nipped him in the bud ages ago. I just need more intel.”

  “Hmph. Maybe I can just punch him to the heavens,” Phoebe puffed her cheeks. “He’s been quite annoying for ages anyway, and he has been worrying everyone. I think it’s time to teach him a lesson.”

  “I…wouldn’t try doing that.” Alexa shook her head. They soon finally entered the Hohle Dormitory, which was largely deserted. “Anyway, let’s just eat for now!”

  “Right.”

  “I’m starving too.”

  The trio then retired to one of the private rooms of the dormitory. Later, groups of maids bringing food arrived, including Wilhelm, who gave Alexa a brief report.

  For now, she’d just try to keep things ‘normal’ until nightfall.

  +++

  “I see…” Henry gripped his pocket watch tightly. “So it seems that you truly anticipated this. How…unsurprising.”

  He had just received a report from one of his men. Both Wilhelm and Alfred were now preparing measures not just to prevent Henry and Elisabeth from poisoning Alexa, but also, they were preparing to apprehend the two.

  Truly, truly, truly a grave mistake.

  Henry wasn’t stupid. He knew that the Grand Academy would be a massive trap if he pulled something crazy within its walls. Yet, he was still prepared to conduct this plan.

  There was very little possibility for Alexa’s camp to figure out the threat coming from Elisabeth and for it to be poison. She should know, quite clearly, that it was Henry that was the main threat.

  She didn’t even have enough resources to keep an eye on both Henry and Elisabeth. Henry would know—he had been acting almost conspicuously to divert attention off Elisabeth.

  Yet, Alexa knew.

  She was acting exactly the way those tropey protagonists acted. Reincarnators, regressors, you name it—this was how they acted when they knew how the future would play out.

  Henry himself was, to a limited extent, the same. He was a different kind of a character, though. He was a time-looper, and his ability was extremely limited.

  He could only loop back into a set spawn point minutes after he died. It was why he could only use it during direct combat or battles, where he could lock himself and his enemy down into his ‘domain’.

  Once locked inside, Henry and his target essentially would be forced to fight, again and again, until Henry won. Sometimes, he’d die a few times.

  Sometimes a dozen.

  The worst he remembered was hundreds of times.

  Fighting Phoebe, Wilhelm, Alfred, and Alexa would certainly be a battle where he’d have to fight them hundreds of times until he found the most optimal move and executed it.

  Was Alexa the same? No, he doubted it. This ability was beyond cruel to its user. Back then, when he was new at using it, he remembered being utterly mind-broken by it.

  It granted nearly true immortality, unless he somehow found himself locked into an unbreakable death loop, in which case he would be forced to conduct an emergency retreat and loop back hours before a potential fight and pull back entirely. Should he fail at doing that, he didn’t know yet what would happen.

  So no, he didn’t have a perfect ability, and this ability was traumatic. He would know if Alexa had it. She wouldn’t be such a lively brat if she went through what Henry went through regularly whenever he faced powerful opponents.

  Which meant she was a regressor or a reincarnator, no doubt.

  But I also tested other strategies to counter her, but she always managed to escape me.

  That meant she probably wasn’t a simple reincarnator or regressor. He scoured his brain for other tropes that he read ages ago in his original world.

  That was when it snapped in his head.

  Maybe she can see the future of the story.

  But, in what manner?

  A most curious thought, but it wasn’t something that Henry needed answered. What was useful now, though, was that he confirmed things he wanted to confirm. The finer details didn’t really matter, quite frankly.

  What mattered was that he knew this Alexa Theresa was in no way the original Alexa Theresa, and she had the powers to see what would happen next whenever Henry made his move.

  Most of all, she had the power of propaganda on her side. It was just so, so stacked.

  “All that’s left then is to make a big gamble,” Henry frowned. “If I pull out of this operation, I won’t have a second chance.”

  Did she know his thought process? Or did she simply know the general path of events? No matter, the big gamble had to go through. Then he would try to handle the aftermath.

  Henry soon met up with his men one by one, ordering them to prepare escape routes in the worst-case scenario. He also covertly released a messenger pigeon to the members of Young Lotharingia by afternoon.

  The 4th Group Army had to be extremely prepared for any and all eventualities.

  “Finally…” Henry walked rapidly through the hallways of the General Building. “I need my key to Ludwig.”

  While Elisabeth was just his pretty little pawn, Henry considered her an extremely important character going forward no matter the outcome of this assassination.

  Should he succeed, he would capture and disappear Elisabeth to make it all look like a targeted strike by Ludwig, brewing the fires for a conflict between Ludwig and Alexa’s camp.

  Should he fail, he would still need Elisabeth as a hostage to control Ludwig. He was quite sure that an attempt on Her Highness’ life would certainly cause a civil war, so he wanted to make sure that Ludwig had a very good reason to come to his knees begging for Elisabeth’s life.

  If he surrendered the 1st and 3rd Group Army in the process, Henry would have enough to defeat Alexa’s camp later.

  Indeed, he had a decent plan now. All that was left was to give it his best shot.

  That was when he suddenly stopped.

  A cold chill filled his body as his consciousness blanked for a second before returning. His grey eyes glowed brightly as vomit threatened to spill out of his guts.

  Memories flashed into his mind, all of them no less horrifying than the last, until the last image was shown to him.

  It was a scene where Alexa Theresa’s beautiful face was deadly pale, blood spurting out of her pale lips, his sword stuck deep in her chest.

  Around the two, corpses of thousands of attendees filled the room. Even the saintess herself was nothing but an ugly stain on the side of the room.

  But Alexa Theresa, the dying princess, managed to let out her last tearful words.

  “B-brother? Why?”

  He had no time to respond. The gaping wound from Wilhelm’s glyph spell finally took him down.

  He lay there, bleeding side-by-side with the princess who called him ‘brother’.

  I…did an emergency loop.

  After a hundred sixty-seven attempts.

  He looked down at his gloves as he slowly regained control over himself.

  “It’s time to make major adjustments.”