I told Req to turn back to the Requiem sword and hid her under my cloak— it was long enough that it came down to my knees. Normally any other outfits except the academy uniform weren't allowed until classes were going on but today they were going to be suspended.
Today was the day of reopening— I had confirmed it by the calendar. I had attended that speech in the previous timeline so I knew that most of the students and teachers were going to be there.
Therefore my plan revolved around that fact alone. During the time most of the academy's population will be busy attending the speech I'll sneak up into Ryfin's room and take the book.
'You ready?'
[Yeah.]
'Let's get this done with then.'
Saying that I opened the door of my dorm room and got out, locking the door back again. After that, I came down to the dorm building and entered the grounds.
However, rather than taking the normal route that went near the cafe and to the main building, I took the detour and went behind all the dorm buildings. From there I walked on the back boundaries of the Harts.
All of the teachers had their own dorm rooms that were built beside the Harts— or the office building, now I just had to find a way to get inside them.
'I don't think that's going to be much of a problem,' I thought as I stopped behind the teacher's dorms.
Looking up I saw a five-floor building with many rooms in it, and right now I was standing before the rear wall of it. Going into the building won't be that hard but there was just this little problem.
'I don't know which one is Ryfin's room.'
I mean, his character didn't even exist in the novel so I had no way of knowing that.
"Well, I'll once I get inside," I mumbled. All the teachers were on the grounds right now meaning this building was completely empty. I had all the time I needed in the world to find that book.
Therefore I looked around and decided on a route. After that, I took a few steps backward and got into a posture. Kicking off the ground I ran toward the building and jumped up as soon as I reached it.
I pressed one of my feet on the wall and pushed myself back, through that I jumped to the side of the wall, stretching out my hand, and grabbed onto the railing of the second floor. I swung my body like a pendulum two times before I flipped up and landed on the balcony.
I looked around to see if there were any witnesses; there were none. Then I crouched down below the window and peeked inside; I knew that there was no one inside but I wanted to be on the safe side nonetheless.
Once I was sure that I was alone at least here— if not in the entire building— I checked the window and found that it wasn't locked. Then I carefully lifted up the window pane and made way for myself to enter.
Now, here I could have easily used magic but I didn't want to leave any trace of myself behind so I was playing it safe by going inside like this.
I sneaked inside the building through the window and closed it afterward— didn't lock it though. I took a good look at my surroundings after that.
Seemed like I was in a teacher's room, but I was sure that it wasn't Ryfin's. After all, I could tell that by just a glance at the side wall. No matter how suspicious Ryfin may be, he wouldn't wear a woman's dress… I hoped he wouldn't.
Since it wasn't Ryfin's room I quickly but carefully got out of it and stepped into a sort of corridor that was connected with other rooms—the design was vaguely similar to our dorm buildings.
There was one thing I discovered once I was out in the corridor, and it was that the rooms were marked with number plates. Yeah, number plates, not nameplates. Rather than the name of the room owner the number of which class they were the homeroom teacher of was mentioned.
For example, the room I just came out of was marked 1C, meaning it was the room of class 1C's homeroom teacher. This made this relatively easy since now all I had to do was find the room with class 1B marked on its door.
I moved in the corridor while making sure that my footsteps didn't make any sound. Fortunately for me, this floor contained all the homeroom teachers of the 1st year classes, thus I found Ryfin's room on the same floor.
Or rather, how should I say it? It was just beside class C's room. It ruined the room sure but I didn't have to waste much time finding it, so hey that's a plus point.
I pushed the door of his room back slowly and opened it, there was no one inside, thus I didn't waste any time and stepped in. There was no time, after all. Therefore I went straight to searching for the book.
My future self hadn't told me exactly where it was, but I guess that was too much to ask. Though I couldn't afford to complain so I started searching for it everywhere.
ραпdα- n૦νe|`c,0m Under the bedsheets, in the wardrobe, drawers, under the bed, every place where it could possibly be.
[Uhh, Zero. I think—]
'Not now Req, I'm kinda in a hurry.'
[But…]
'Just wait for a second,' I said while shifting a giant wardrobe and looking behind it. It wasn't there either. I went to the bed again and flipped the bedsheets off and looked under the mattress to check if there was some hidden chamber under it. But no luck this time either.
"Could you stop making a mess out of my room please?"
A voice called, and I immediately stopped all my movement. Then I sighed. I mean, I recognized this voice.
'This is what you were trying to tell me, right?'
[...Yeah]
'It's my fault. I was being hasty even though you told me to take it easy,' I said that, but it wasn't really easy to not be hasty in a situation like this.
I dropped the mattress and turned around toward the door, but the door was closed as I'd left it. However, in the corner of the room, leaning against the wall with his hands crossed was standing Ryfin.
