[ Guest1236: Ask and you shall receive, they say. ]

  [ Guest1898: Well, yesterday was quite embarrassing. ]

  Alira woke up in a bed that wasn't her own for the second time. It was bigger, softer, and arguably better than the dormitory bed she could have woken up in instead. Still, the bed would have been actually hers, and she wouldn't have shiny runes in her face as some higher-dimensional beings poked at her misery.

  She shoved her face into a pillow with a groan. As annoyed as she was, she knew she couldn't escape them. Thinking she should at least make the most out of this situation, Alira thought she should get to figuring out how her Role worked. She recalled all the lies she remembered telling since arriving here. It played out in her mind like a list.

  There was the 'fox guy' lie, the lie about not being hungry, and finally the lie about her 'mother'. She lied about the fox guy, and Square-head acknowledged her lie as a fact. There just so happened to be a fox guy involved. She said she wasn't hungry, and the hunger just faded away. Finally, the duke didn't rebuke her about her mother's death, which, of course, could also be because he didn't fact-check her and simply believed what she said. Less likely, her character just out of pure coincidence had a dead mother.

  Then there was the embarrassing moment of the shower brush as a sword lie, which didn't manifest. She’d tested out a few other mundane lies, such as a servant telling her that they would wear pink maid dresses next time they came to serve her, but that didn’t come true at all. She asked the servant about whether they felt the urge to wear a cute, pink dress, but they were just confused and slightly weirded out.

  From what she knew as of now, she guessed the main ability of her Role was more along the line of 'any lies you can convince them are their Truth.' They could see what she saw and hear what she could. During the page turning, they could hear even her thoughts. Blatant lies, calling a mouse a cat wouldn't work.

  The first three lies that worked targeted what they didn't know, and since they didn't expect to be lied to by the narrator, the lies were taken as the truth and became true.

  The lies that didn’t work were because they knew the actual truth. They knew a shower brush was a shower brush, and they had been watching her constantly to know that the maid didn’t promise her a pink maid dress.

  A Scene was most likely an interval of them watching her, like a chapter in a novel. She still didn’t know how long a Scene was, but the number going up in her Aspects seemed to be a Scene count.

  The first Scene likely started inside the dungeon since the Goddess surely wouldn't let them know anything before that.

  Since they also knew that she was an outsider, a transmigrator, it meant they likely assumed that she inherited the memory of her body and was simply stating what she knew. Thus, her lies became their Truth. So anything she said about prior to the first Scene, her backstory, was becoming true.

  Still, she was making a lot of assumptions, and there were many things she didn't know for certain.

  Alira wanted to understand her Role just enough for it to be useful in her endeavors back home.

  Even when she couldn't see them, Alira could still feel the warmth from the runes burning into her. No doubt, they were complaining about how she could be doing literally anything else instead of sleeping in to keep them entertained.

  Too bad for them, Alira had no plan to move an inch, let alone be productive, since nothing could kill her for the time being. The duke was planning to send her off to the Academy at the start of next week, and before that, she planned to rot in her temporary bedroom.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Five days after she'd crash-landed on Staywes, Alira Vane, now Alira Ravon, stood in front of the main door of the palace, waiting for her ride to the Academy. She held a suitcase stuffed full of newly purchased, tailored clothes—the dresses and pants all having a circle-shaped hole for her now well-fluffed and well-groomed tail.

  Maria stood beside her, carrying two more such suitcases. She was assigned as Alira’s personal maid the day after she arrived at the duchy. Now the duke was sponsoring Maria so that she could attend the Academy along with Alira.

  It was for her to have company, he said, and she totally believed that he totally didn’t instruct Maria to keep an eye on her or anything like that.

  Since Alira had shown her ‘decisiveness’, the duke had decided to take more precautions in dealing with her. Not like that could get her to give up so easily. And after a few more experiments to see how Complete Bind worked for herself and the extent of its protection, everyone in the manor had straight up begun to act like she was a glass doll that would attempt to shatter itself anytime.

  She agreed to go to the Academy because their overprotectiveness was starting to get in the way. Not that she had much of a choice anyway.

  “Young lady, please, let me hold that suitcase. These two aren’t heavy at all! I can take it,” Maria repeated herself for the hundredth time. Alira prayed for the carriage to come faster.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Oh, young lady. Let me help you, please. It’s all thanks to you that someone like me gets to attend the Academy. I’m grateful to death!”

  Alira narrowed her eyes, her cat ears twitching. She didn’t like the way Maria tended to speak. The way she put herself down. She had been here for half a week, but even she knew that Maria deserved to attend the Academy.

  The girl, barely fifteen years old, was already a rank ten, first circle, mage. All by herself. The duke had obviously chosen her specifically because he’d seen her talents, too.

  Why do I even care though?

  Alira held herself back from saying unnecessary things.

  The goddess had certainly arranged the perfect timing. From the year and the season, she found out that she was in the same intake as Raine who would be attending through scholarship as a commoner.

  It was currently at the very start of the novel. She needed to get out before the story progressed any further. To do that, she decided to ignore anything that wouldn’t help her pass away.

  Alchemy. Bind. Alchemic bind.

  She recited inside her mind like a prayer, swearing to herself that she would get rid of the thing and nothing more.

  Clip-clops of hooves and clanking wheels interrupted Alira’s internal recitation as a carriage, a literal box of gold, screeched to a stop before the two girls. The coachman rushed down to help them settle before leaving for the Academy without wasting a second.

  The carriage rolled past the ducal guard’s checkpoint, leaving the gilded spires of the palace behind. It reached the border of Rue, the duke’s seat, close by, slowing down to pass through the capital’s gate before it picked up its speed once again outside of the city.

  The Academy was neutral ground—serving not the duke, not the mage tower, and not the alchemy society. It was a place with the sole purpose of nurturing the people of the Empire. That meant they couldn’t directly teleport there from the duke’s place.

  The road slithered through wooded hills for hours until silvery towers emerged from the horizon.

  The Academy’s southern branch stood somewhere between Rue and Astrail under Count Orllel, one of Duke Ravon’s many vassals. The black winged lion stone statues on each side of the gate were their way of giving the duke face.

  A man in dark denim blue, a color exclusively reserved for the Academy’s personnel, awaited to welcome the said duke’s recently obtained daughter.

  Alira came out of the carriage first, resisting the urge to stretch upon seeing the man who had his brown hair in a neat ponytail behind him. Maria followed with unstable steps, the ride having taken its toll on her as the two of them found out how bad her carsickness, well, carriage-sickness, was. This was apparently her first time outside the palace and her first carriage ride.

  Mages and those with high Mana Affinity were said to be more sensitive to orientation and movement, though it was mostly unproven.

  Alira extended her lace-gloved hand toward the man—her etiquette teacher of four days having thoroughly molded her into a noblewoman, though not a perfect model. Inside the Academy gates, the man might be a professor who stood above her. Now, as they stood outside, she was the duke’s daughter whom he had to pay respect to.

  What a pain. Nobility and all its refined manners and fancy pants only looked good in fantasy.

  Alira struggled to keep her face neutral and not let the ick she felt show as the man leaned to hold her hand, his touch light as a ghost, hovering his lips above. He kept his eyes lowered, directed towards the ground, as he greeted.

  “Welcome to the Academy, Lady Ravon.”