Taking classes at the academy had been illustrative of what the elites of the empire thought their children should know. There was a lot about business and matchmaking. Way too much about how families should work together to find the right match for their scions. The wrong person could, of course, sink a noble house within a generation.

  He couldn't believe that there were classes about that. After some careful contemplating, it drifted into the realm of possibility.

  He just didn't expect it.

  There were a lot of ways for people to lose a fortune. There were not a lot of ways to keep it safe. And as he was finding out, a lot of what they were trying to do was keep the money from falling into the wrong hands.

  The fact those hands were probably going to be his hands eventually did nothing to make him any less mad at the situation. They were here discussing how to keep the masses poor. He was trying to save them all.

  Mila met him after class. His normal routine of studying had been interrupted by the fact that he already studied for all this, and he knew it. He could do it better than the material again, but he didn't feel like it was worthwhile. Instead, he'd spent the time working through a logic chart in his mind. He linked every single person he could on one map.

  His best guess was that if he was a demon, he would do his best to replace somebody who was forgettable. The only indication he ever got was the smell and the view of their eyes. He wasn't entirely sure that he could rely on his Soul. Magic finds the right person. It made sense that the succubus that was about to invade the academy had some way to avoid detection.

  He hadn't even been able to see how many demons were part of the invasion. It could be one. It could be many—he didn't know, because he was one of the first ones that died. Or, at least, that was what he thought had happened.

  "What if we try to get the event canceled? Can we have it canceled or moved?"

  "There's absolutely no way they're going to listen to us on that. You have no leg to stand on. We could reveal your secret. I don't like that, because it means that we're in a doomed loop."

  "A doomed loop?"

  "If you think about your visions, you might want to think about one in which you already know you're not going to make it. What would you do differently?"

  She had known about his curse for only a few hours, and she was already coming up with ideas that he had not even thought about before. There was a reason that she'd been put into the academy as the only one from his social class.

  She was smart. He hadn't realized it until that moment.

  "Okay, so what would I do in a doomed loop? How would I approach it differently?"

  "Besides the obvious? You can be more aggressive than you otherwise would have been."

  Ludere waited for her to expand upon what she thought the obvious was.

  "You could seduce any of the girls in our academy, and each one of them would be glad to spill information to you. Not me, of course, but…"

  "You know I'm in a relationship right now with the Oracle, and she can see these kinds of things, right?"

  "I'm not saying you have to. I'm just saying you could, and if she could see into the past or into your loops, then that's a whole different problem. But if the cat's putting you through these loops? Then you are going to need to ask the cat what happens to the people that you left behind."

  None of this made sense to him. He's been through so many moves before, and never thought about the people that were left behind. They were all doomed in most of his loops. This one was an anomaly, because he actually got to live through it. But he didn't want to just live through it, and then go back into another loop. It looked like he was going to have to.

  "I've never really actually thought about that. I don't know what they do. I guess that the world kind of ends and I go back to the beginning? Otherwise, it would be just terrific. I wouldn't want a part of that, but if it's demonic invasion takes over the Empire, then it's a doomed world anyway."

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  "Well, the plan is we're going to both be on high alert for demons and demonic intrusion, and if someone tries to replace our classmates with a succubus or someone else, then we're going to have to fight them."

  "…I'm going to have to fight them."

  "Right? Like, you gave me all this training—I'm going to take advantage of it. I don't know why I would do that, but okay. Wait, what did you say?" Mila blinked several times.

  "I'm fighting them alone."

  "Like soup, you are. Strip down, right now."

  Ludere blushed.

  "What?"

  "You heard me. We're doing this right now."

  "Again, what?"

  Mila had her toga on the ground, neatly folded in between them. "We're fighting."

  "I don't have any weapons?"

  "Then fight me unarmed. If I win, I get to fight alongside you. If you win, I get to fight alongside you."

  "Wait—" He was bodily thrown over her shoulder.

  Ludere found himself covered in sand. He hadn't taken his toga off. A toga was a liability in battle. Fighting with one was like wearing a second enemy close to one's self.

  He got up, one leg at a time. He didn't have a spear to steady himself.

  "Stay down."

  He could overpower her. He could end this in moments. He should…

  "Alright, you can help. I'm not going to say no. I just wish Gia and Erebus were here."

  "They're not. And according to what you've put them through, I would say that they should be happy about that fact."

  He was in fact wishing that they were there. He already could feel the unshakeable confidence he had with Mila. She would be with him through thick and thin.

  She was inner atrium people. He would be honest with her.

  "I know that they can't be. I'm just glad you understand the shit I've gone through."

  "It's got to be tough to go through that, but after the academy, maybe you can slow down."

  "If these demons keep invading, that won't be possible. There's nothing I can really do about that."

  "I guess it's tough to go from one bureaucratic day job to yet another one, but we've got to be stronger together."

  That catch phrase didn't sit well with him.

  "We'll make it through this."

  "Are you trying a new slogan? I don't think that's going to work."

  "Will it?"

  Mila gave him a flat stare. Too late he realized that he hadn't gotten up more than to the sitting position. His toga was messed up, a casualty of the larger discourse he was losing to her.

  "Alright, well, let's see what your baseline is. You have Will at what level?"

  "My Will is thirty. My Soul Magic is twenty eight."

  He called up his status and checked his own. He was getting close to where he wanted to be, but wasn't quite there yet.

  "Athletics?"

  Mila sucked a breath through her teeth. "Twenty five."

  "Okay, well, that's good to know. If this is a loop and we keep returning to this set point, I'll remember that."

  "We need to get Cire in on this."

  "Cire is atrium people. If we do that… If I have to explain everything to her, then her father will know. I deliberately didn't tell him everything. I don't think I could tell you everything unless we took a day. The cat sent me back with enough time to figure out how to fix this. I need to strike a balance here. I'm going to keep advancing, but…"

  "I'm stuck here until you get out. I get it. I'm not going to make a fuss out of it."

  He nodded. She was great.

  "Okay, let's make our little lists. Cire is going to want to know what you did, so let's talk to her. Additionally, the damned things making it here is bothering me. I swear that one of the grammarians would know how to deal with this, and we haven't even gotten to the final event. This is just a preliminary one!"

  Preliminary or not, it was supposed to set the stage for the final team competition. Each of the first class students would form a team with two from a different class, and do something across the island that was always a secret each year. In years past, it wasn't uncommon for students to die during that final push. The winner was generally accepted as the top student. Ludere had no hope of winning that, unless a lot of variables fell into place.

  A lot of those variables would be decided in the next two weeks. He couldn't do any better on his tests than he had done, and there weren't that many. The opportunities for advancement were few.

  He could challenge one of the top students. That might get him into the first class. He would have to play it close to the chest. Class-ups happened whenever a challenger could move up, and there were a ton of rules about them.

  "Mila. Indulge me for a minute."

  "Sure. I mean, you lost that match easily, so I might as well."

  He started to tell her his plan, and she ate it up. She was completely on board and that, more than anything, steeled his resolve.

  For him to get Regnicus and to be the top student? Valedictorian? It would put him in the right spot to actually deal with these demons long-term. He didn't want to have to spend his life talking about demons and working to fight them, but if that was what the fates had in store for him? He would discipline the system and make it fall in line.

  It was the least he could do.