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At first, all I felt was hatred. I couldn’t even insist that what I’d done was only natural. So the second time, I eliminated him before anything could begin. It wasn’t as if I bore no ill will toward my fiancé either, but laying a hand on him would have been dangerous for me. Even so, nothing changed. In the end, I was killed as a heartless villain. The third time around, I tried to swallow my emotions and be kind. I hadn’t done anything wrong, at least I thought so, yet I was betrayed and executed.

In my fourth life, I tried to live without getting involved with anyone. I truly believed it would be fine this time, until one day I was suddenly murdered.

Starting with the fifth life, I began keeping a journal.

In the sixth life, I simply drifted along, letting things carry me. And that too… has now ended.

◇◇◇

“So the seventh round really is beginning…”

The unbearable pain subsided, and when I opened my eyes, I was on my bed, just as my journal had said. In about an hour, Anne, the maid, would come to wake me. Thanks to the journal I began keeping in my fifth life, I could recall the circumstances right after each reset. Even after repeating this so many times, I couldn’t remember every detail from more than ten years ago.

That’s why I started writing the journal in the fifth life and reread it constantly. It wasn’t really a normal diary; it was more like a schedule book.

Even so, I checked the room again to confirm that nothing had changed.

In the mirror, I saw the same face I had at five years old. The layout matched my memory and the notes in the journal. As I had done the last two cycles, I took the journal from the bookshelf, checking each detail as I wrote it down. Only the first three pages were ever used before I tucked the diary away again. I think it was in my first life that my journal got pulled out, probably around two years from now. But I had already forgotten the finer points.

In any case, in a few years, I would be engaged to this kingdom’s second prince, enroll in the academy seven years later, see the Saint ten years from now, and then die within seven to ten years after that.

Even if I didn’t encounter the Saint, I would still die.

No matter what I did, the outcome probably wouldn’t change. So I decided once again to just drift with the flow. I lay back down on the bed.

◇◇◇

“Lady Amria, you look beautiful today!”
“Do I? Thank you.”

Without diverging much from the history I remembered, though things had changed a bit since I wasn’t as spoiled as in my first life, I entered the academy. Students enrolled at twelve and graduate at eighteen. There was a lower division and an upper division, and talented commoners were admitted to the upper. Since I was already engaged to the second prince, people treated me with wary respect. Still, until the Saint enrolled in the upper division, life would remain peaceful, so I may as well enjoy this calm. I’d end up dying this time, too, anyway.

After class, I headed to the library. Though the divisions were separate, some facilities were shared, and lower-division students were allowed to use the library. It wasn’t exactly bustling, but it wasn’t empty either. People could be found in almost every area of the two-story building. But there was one place that, as far as I remembered, almost no one ever visited.

The back of the second floor. The section where old books were collected, far from any windows, was dimly lit.

Unless you knew it existed, you’d never reach it. Even if you found it, the lighting was too poor to read without borrowing a lamp from the front desk, and hardly anyone knew lamps could be borrowed. There was actually one more unpopular spot in the library, but it already had a resident. And given our past non-interactions, I really didn’t want to run into that person.

Since I could never be alone at home or at school, I often hid here during my sixth life. Out of habit, I came again today. I hadn’t borrowed a lamp, but if I could be alone for a while, I didn’t mind.

It was a gloomy, damp little hideout, unknown to everyone. Or at least, it was supposed to be. But when I reached it, I found an unfamiliar scene spread before me.

“Just like the journal says, hardly anyone ever comes here. Why does this place even exist?”
“Some people need places like this.”
“Is that so?”
“I think it makes things more interesting, personally.”

Three upper-division girls stood there, chatting without a trace of tension. One had green hair and an expressionless face, another was blonde and resembled the green-haired girl, and the last had black hair. It was odd enough that three people were here at once. But stranger still, the space was bright enough to read without any lamps. It resembled a scene straight out of a storybook, some kind of magic, so much so that I noticed the green-haired girl turning toward me a moment too late.

“Aren’t you going to sit down?”
“…Ah, um. I-I’ll sit.”

Startled, I sat in the one empty seat before I could think. It was unbelievably careless of me. Both the way my mind froze when faced with an impossible situation and the way I moved as instructed. If embarrassment were the worst of it, I’d be lucky.

“Amri, what brings you here?”
“Amri?! It’s… simply my favorite spot.”

The black-haired girl’s overly familiar manner threw me off. Addressing a duke’s daughter like that was strange, even when it was coming from another girl. And I didn’t remember meeting them before either. I tried searching my memory, but in this seventh life, I had no recollection of ever seeing them.

“Isn’t this your first time here?”
“Of course not. Just because I’m in the lower division—”
“You came without a lamp, though?”
“… I simply forgot it today.”

I tried to argue back, but her blank expression gave me nothing to read. She had certainly not been fooled. If that was the case, their behavior was strange. No, it had been strange from the moment we met. It felt as if they could see straight through me…

A faint chill ran down my spine. My eyes drifted to the book they had been reading.
I recognized it instantly. My heart clenched painfully, cold sweat breaking out at once.

It was something I had hidden in my room, something I had checked again this morning before leaving for school. And behind it, the stack of things I was planning to buy in the future.

“?!!”

I tried to gasp, but no sound came out. The realization only intensified my confusion.

“You’re supposed to stay quiet in the library,” the green-haired girl said.

“I restricted your voice until you calm down.” Then all three casually resumed chatting.

And that was when I realized I had seen them somewhere before, which only strengthened my confusion.