As for strength, realm knights have appropriately increased physical abilities depending on their core’s realm and layer. A neophyte realm knight is twice as strong as they were before awakening. This power effectively doubles with each realm, resulting in strength beyond commoners’ comprehension by the peak of the fifth realm.

  A peak realm knight, one stuck at the verge of becoming a realm mageknight, can run over a hundred and sixty miles per hour for days at a time, punch through a castle wall, and leave a crater and walk away unharmed after falling from just about any height.

  — Excerpt from Introduction to Realm Cores

  Day 7, 9:40 AM

  I stared at Ruby, the slave mage turned librarian, potentially a passionate florist for all I knew. Quite a resume for someone who looked well under thirty. After one long, silent breath, I believed I had found the best way of going forward.

  “Can I do something to free you?” The woman laughed at me.

  “You really have lost your memories.” Not a hint of mirth leaked into her voice. “Everything you own, everything the empire or the kingdom of Couatl have granted you, all of it is a speck before the resources I need to advance my realm.”

  She shrugged.

  “It’s not pretty, but such is life, the imperials see me as a servant with potential, so they offered me infinite resources in exchange. All I had to do was sign a willing slavery contract and enter their service until I pay off my debt.”

  “And when do you expect you will pay it off?”

  “Never.” Her voice didn’t shake a bit as she admitted she would be a slave for life. “I will work and study under excellent tutorage until I stop advancing. This is a cloistered period of leisure before other duties befal me. My turn.”

  She straightened in her seat, steepled her fingers, and looked me in the eye.

  “How does it feel to not know anything?”

  Huh? The question stunned me. “Normal I guess?”

  “What do you mean normal?” Her arms went up in the air as she raised her voice, fortunately, she didn’t try to overturn the table, otherwise she would’ve sent it crashing at my head. “Weren’t you afraid? Didn’t you wonder what was going on?”

  “I mean normal, I don’t know any other way to live. I wasn’t afraid, confused is a better word to describe my state at the moment, and yes, I did wonder what was going on. Thus the library.”

  She eyed me suspiciously, but her body relaxed.

  “You seem to be smarter than the townlord I knew.” It wasn’t really a question, but I shrugged in response regardless. I’ve seen trees and bugs smarter than Dandelion Blackfist. Literally.

  “Anything else you’re interested in?”

  “Yes, what do you plan to do now?” She seemed overly interested in what I have to say on the subject. One might even call her invested. There was no good reason to reveal I could see through her though, and since I didn’t know what her angle was, there was no reason to lie.

  “I don’t know. Read books, try to figure out the world, see if my memories return, and if they don’t I’ll continue with my life as it was. I could always leave if I don’t like it.”

  “Do you feel like you’ve killed the old you? If your memories return and your old personality is radically different from you, will you fight it?”

  I frowned. No matter how dumb Dandelion was, her questions were way too suspicious.

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  “Why are you asking that?”

  “No reason.” She averted her gaze, lying worse than a child would.

  What was I even supposed to say under the circumstances. Calling out her lie was stupid, staying silent was stupid…

  “Right…” I said in a dubious tone, but didn’t press the issue. That should be the most tactful way out.

  Fortunately, a pair of steaming plates came to Ruby’s rescue. The stew smelled of garlic and basil, minced green leaves, still fresh, floated atop a reddish-orange lake, sitting still between the islands of meat and what I guessed were gooders, tubers similar to potatoes, but healthier and more aromatic.

  Reading books already paid dividends. I could recognize what I ate. Jokes aside, the fragrance was pleasant, the soup boiling, and the mage took a spoonful, blew once and swallowed what should have scalded her tongue with a happy smile.

  “Eat, your body can endure drinking boiling tar.”

  With nothing to lose, I took a spoon, blew a bit, and placed a spoon of steaming stew atop my tongue. It was hot, but that was irrelevant, the stew was very good, exquisite even, and I was starving.

  I had enough self-control not to shovel food into my mouth, but I ate with gusto, and ordered another serving before Ruby finished hers.

  “Do they have sweets?”

  “Basil bakes excellent pies, he made pineapple today, if you’re lucky.”

  I didn’t know you could make pineapple pie, but I guess anything goes with pies. Unfortunately, it was not my day. I got raptorberry, which turned out just fine, even though I had no idea which fruit raptorberry was, it was either mislabeled, or missing from the books I read.

  Ruby ordered one as well, and after a short, friendly chat we decided to split a third one. The baker sweetened the delicacy with orange-flavored honey, which made for a wonderful contrast against the sour berries.

  “Do you mind if I have a jar of that honey?” I asked the confused proprietor, who nodded and fetched the sweet for me.

  I could do this. Redo random evenings out in different taverns, go watch a show if they have theaters, but even visiting the same place and ordering different meals should be fine if they don’t have chatty waiters.

  Which they shouldn’t, assuming this innkeeper followed standard protocols for servers.

  “So, back to work?” I asked as we stood up, and Ruby nodded, her face once more a serious mask of disdain. “You even put on the serious working-woman mask.”

  “I’m the strongest person in this town, save for my teacher. It’s expected to frown at the weaker who dare waste my time.”

  Why? Just because you’re strong doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be polite to others. If nothing else, you never know who their daddy is and what he does.

  “Was I wasting your time?” I let a bit of hurt seep into my voice, but not too much. I wanted to come across as witty, not sappy.

  Ruby chuckled. “You’re all right. I can’t believe that someone with your history could turn out like you simply after losing your memories. It makes me wonder whether the rumors insulting your intelligence were actually baseless, someone spreading hatred because of your deeds as a brigand leader.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t feel smart. In fact, I kind of feel like my mind is having trouble catching up.”

  “That’s because you’re a knight.” She misunderstood my words, starting an interesting conversation. “Beyond the second realm, a knight’s mind has trouble catching up to their body. It gets more extreme the higher your realm. There are jokes and even anecdotal true stories about peak knights realizing what they have done only after doing the deed.”

  I listened, my ears wide, as we left the alley.

  “Mages have a different problem. Mindcores enhance our minds greatly, but the body gets a significantly smaller boost. You can find books on the subject.”

  I have. Introduction to Realm Cores mentioned those advantages and benefits. The author didn’t explain them in detail, citing another book if one wanted to read about the minutiae regarding the changes realm cores induced in humans broken down by realms and layers.

  “Again, there are jokes about cross eyed mages and such. It can’t really happen, but I have sprained my eyes more than once when trying to rapidly look in two directions at once.” My eyes went sufficiently wide for her to smile and continue talking. “They didn’t get stuck like in the jokes, but it hurt, and my eyes were teary.”

  We reached the library with Ruby telling anecdotes. The past hour had mellowed out the woman considerably, and after we parted ways, I had a serious decision to make.

  Should I redo and go back two weeks in time on the fifteenth day, which would bring me back into Dandelion’s office, soup smeared on my face, or should I do it on the twenty-first, letting the conversations with Ruby stick?

  She was stronger than me and had a very positive disposition, but she was also bound to the library and couldn’t involve herself in my affairs. The best she could do was offer pointers regarding arcane matters, which I would have to learn eventually, anyway. She could also suggest which books I should read, but I already planned to read everything in the library, so basically, Ruby is useless.

  I’m not a machine. I don’t have to be rational about all the decisions I make, especially ones as insignificant as this one. Life or death, sure, but whether my loop is day one through fifteen or day seven through twenty-one changes nothing.

  The decision made me feel satisfied. It grounded me as a flesh and blood man rather than an automaton wearing human skin. Whether that sensation was an illusion or truth, not even I could tell.