[Achievement Unlocked: Plot Changer]

"...Huh."

[Reward: 500 PS]

I looked at her, still sleeping.

I turned the words over for a moment.

In the original novel, Lina Vale had no backstory worth mentioning. No family. No origin story. The only thing ever said about her was that the academy dean had brought her in one day, no explanation, no context. She existed at the edges of the plot, unnamed in most Chapters, until the hero arrived and she became relevant by proximity to him.

The story had already decided she didn’t matter.

I quietly removed my arm from her grip without disturbing her.

The sun wasn’t up yet.

I got ready and headed out for my morning run.

At the door I stopped.

One last check.

She was still sleeping. Completely unbothered, the way she always was.

I left.

When I reached the cave, the cold hit differently than usual. Sharper. The kind of cold that felt less like temperature and more like mood.

"Is it because of yesterday?" I muttered.

Silence. Obviously.

I crouched down anyway and started the mana breathing.

"There was a girl in the forest," I said, to no one in particular. "She was hurt. Crying. I helped her."

Why I was explaining myself to a cave, I had no idea.

I just did it.

...And somehow that felt normal.

I filed that away and got to work.

On my way back, I found her.

Lina. Standing at the entrance of the forest, barefoot, still in her sleeping clothes, looking like she had followed the path without entirely deciding to.

"Why are you out here?" I muttered. "Did someone kick you out?"

I walked closer.

"Hey. What are you doing here?"

She didn’t answer.

She just closed the distance between us, reached out, and grabbed my sleeve.

Her eyes were dangerously close to doing something I didn’t want to deal with early in the morning.

Did she come looking because I wasn’t there?

I exhaled slowly.

"Want a piggyback?"

She smiled.

Small.

The first real smile I’d seen from her.

I crouched down.

She climbed on without argument this time.

She was with me for the rest of the day.

Breakfast. Sword training, watching from the side. Free time somewhere within three feet of me at all times.

She even tried to follow me into the bath.

I shut the door.

I stood there for a moment on the other side of it.

When is she getting her memory back, I thought.

I went to bed and had the maid take her back to her room.

The next morning she was still there.

I divided the bed in half with a pillow and said nothing about it.

Four days passed.

She had started talking. Actual words not just head movements. Still quiet. Still careful. But words.

I told her to call me Kael.

She called me Mister.

Every time.

I let it go.

I had also, somewhere in the last few days, developed the habit of talking to the cave. No one answered. Nothing changed. But it felt right in a way I didn’t bother analyzing.

On the fourth day I checked her status.

[STATUS WINDOW]

Name: Lina Vale

Title: Spirit Sorceress

Potential: S+ Rank

Age: 18

Skills: Mid-Rank Spirit Formula / High-Rank Wind Spirit Bond

State: Memory will recover in 3 days.

I stared at that for a moment.

Three days.

Good. That was good.

I had planned to leave the mansion alone.

Instead I was apparently bringing a koala.

The day before leaving, I went to the cave one last time and explained the situation. All of it the banquet, Aria, the duel, what was coming next.

I don’t know why I felt like it needed to be known.

I told it anyway.

The temperature rose slightly. Then settled.

Interesting.

The next morning, a carriage rolled through the gate.

Sebastian stepped out.

He looked at me.

Then his gaze moved just slightly to the girl standing half a step behind me, the sleeve of my coat loosely in her grip.

"How have you been, Young Master?" A pause. "And who might this be?"

Right, I thought. So it begins.

"A friend," I said. "She’ll be coming with us."

Something crossed Sebastian’s face.

It lasted less than a second but it was there. The mask slipped just enough to show the thing underneath it.

Confusion.

Genuine confusion. From Sebastian Crowe, who I had never once seen caught off guard by anything.

Interesting.

He recovered immediately, expression settling back into its usual composure.

"I understand, Young Master." A slight incline of his head. "And the young lady’s name?"

I kept my face completely still.

Damn.

I had been calling her miss this entire time because she didn’t have a name to give. Not one she remembered. I hadn’t thought past that. Hadn’t considered the moment someone would actually ask.

The silence stretched exactly one beat too long.

I looked at her.

She looked at me.

Those quiet green eyes. Waiting. The way she always waited, patient, unhurried, like she had decided a long time ago that I would figure it out.

I have about three seconds before Sebastian notices something is wrong.

Then she spoke.

"I am Mister’s miss."

A laugh escaped before I could stop it.

Not a polite laugh. Not a controlled one. A real one sudden and short, the kind that happens before your composure catches up.

I pressed my fist to my mouth and looked away.

Sebastian blinked.

It was the most human thing I had ever seen him do.

Lina stood there, completely unbothered, like she had just given a perfectly reasonable answer and was waiting for the next question.

Mister’s Miss.

That was what she’d settled on.

I exhaled slowly and straightened up.

"You heard her," I said, looking at Sebastian with a perfectly straight face.

He looked at me.

Then at her.

Then back at me.

"...I see," he said, in the tone of a man who did not see at all but had decided not to pursue it.

He stepped aside and gestured toward the carriage.

"Shall we depart, Young Master."

Right, I thought, moving toward the door.

So it begins.