“Is the princess of Izaris really here?”

“Oh, God! Sonetti!”

“Sonetti, show yourself!”

Taeri had been peeking outside through a crack in the curtain when she spotted a stone flying straight at the window. She startled and ducked back. The cold of the wall pressed against her spine.

Was this not a dream?

Her bewildered eyes darted around.

She was standing in a large room where a bedroom and a sitting room connected.

Every wall was finished in ornate wallpaper, furniture and furnishings fit for an old castle filled the space, and a chandelier lit by mana stones swayed overhead.

The most out-of-place thing in the room was herself, wearing a pajama dress printed with a large bear.

The frayed threads she had always meant to cut but never did, and the coffee stain she had spilled in front of her computer, were still there, exactly as she remembered.

When she spotted a clear logo reading “Hotel Izaris” on the surface of a silver teapot sitting on the tea table, her head went properly blank.

‘Wait, so am I actually inside the game?’

She wanted to insist it was all a hallucination from sleep deprivation, but outside, the shouts of protesters calling for the princess still rang out loud enough to make her ears ring.

And if her memory was right, the people who had so solicitously brought her here had also called her princess through their tears.

Your Highness, Your Highness. Our princess, they had said.

‘I just clicked once.’

She had been playing a game the night before. A notoriously difficult RPG called “The Black Forest of Izaris,” infamous among players for its punishing difficulty.

It was something to pass the time, something to vent her frustration.

The anniversary of her mother’s death always brought a wave of gloom, but that day she had been especially bitter and upset.

Sitting still and doing nothing only made the tears keep coming, so out of habit she turned on her computer and moved her hands numbly. She figured that even if it was hard, she could see the ending if she stayed up one night.

Maybe it was that pointless stubbornness, but even after seeing “YOU DIED” dozens of times with only the final boss dragon left, she strangely hadn’t wanted to give up.

She revived her dead character. Died fighting, then revived again right there. Revived and revived and revived, enough times that she was sick of it……

Then, out of nowhere, a strange status window appeared on the monitor.

[Would you like to change the hero’s class from Knight to Mage?]

Changing a character’s class. That wasn’t a feature she remembered.

The protagonist was fixed as the knight Claude, that was the whole game.

[If you wish, press YES.]

[Press YES.]

[Press YES.]

[Press YES.]

She assumed it was a bad line of code or a glitch, but the thought that surfaced in that moment was, absurdly, a strange hope: can I really change it?

[Press YES.]

[Press YES.]

[Press YE……]

Click.

It really was just that one click.

The sound of the click still rang clearly in her ears. Taeri sat down on the floor and stared at her own palm.

A mysterious energy circulating through her body like blood seemed to show through her skin.

Swept up by impulse, she reached toward a hand mirror on the table and held the thought of pulling it to her strongly in her mind.

The mirror rattled and shifted in place for a moment, then flew straight into her hand as though obeying a command.

“……This can’t be real.”

The sound of the mirror hitting the floor startled her just as much as last night’s click.

In the mirror was a woman with a completely different face. Ash-tinged golden hair, a rare pair of orange eyes, and features altered entirely in line and shape.

Only then did the meaning of the selection window that had appeared in the center of her monitor truly sink in.

[Would you like to change the hero’s class from Knight to Mage?]

YES.

The answer I chose was YES.

It seemed she had really become a mage. No, she had definitely become a mage.

* * *

“The princess has returned?”

“Yes. It seems she had quite a skirmish in the forest on the way. Five bog ants, three jackals, four goblins, one cave giant. She wiped out an entire group of ogres. The brutality of the hunt…… The area confirmed spans from the entrance of the ruined fortress all the way to the interior of the ruins.”

Early this morning. Of all days, it had to be the one Claude took off from patrol. Lucky or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it.

“That’s quite a number. She handled it alone?”

He pressed for more as he walked toward the hotel, and after a brief pause, the answer came.

“We found a palm print in blood at the scene. Fairly large, for a woman.”

“But the princess entered alone, without any companions.”

That covered the rough outline of the incident. He would have preferred to keep walking without stopping, but Claude found his path blocked by a crowd thick as an ant colony and frowned.

His destination was right in front of him, yet the area before the hotel was packed with people.

“Come out, Princess!”

“Sonetti, have you no shame!”

People who had heard news of the princess’s return had come early and planted themselves there. A stone thrown by the protesters narrowly missed one of the second-floor windows of the hotel, where a curtain had been stirring.

What diligent and utterly pointless behavior.

Claude pressed through the crowd and stopped in front of a warrior who had been shouting loudest. The man had been raising a glaive and screaming for the princess to be dragged out.

“Who gave anyone permission to carry on like this here?”

“Oh, my lord Governor……”

“I gave a warning that disrupting public order was not to be done.”

“Did you? Ah, I’m afraid I don’t quite recall……”

“People say that sort of thing often enough. I don’t remember, I didn’t know, I forgot. So I’ve come to a conclusion. If you don’t remember, you’re guilty by default.”

“What?!”

“You’re guilty. Hang this man from the well. String up the rest of them too.”

At Claude’s order, the knights stepped forward and bound the man in an instant. The others who had been causing the commotion were rounded up one by one amid the chaos.

“O wielder of the holy sword, have mercy……!”

Someone clung to Claude’s title and begged for forgiveness, but the holy knight in his gleaming white uniform and billowing blue cape cleanly ignored the pleas of the shameless.

Only after confirming the hotel entrance had been cleared did he calmly ascend the steps.

* * *

“Welcome, my lord Governor.”

The hotel manager stepped out to greet Claude before he even opened the door.

A middle-aged woman whose exact age was difficult to guess. Gracious and impeccably polite, yet her hands, folded neatly in front of her, looked capable of drawing poison from her sleeve at any moment.

“I am Ansi, the hotel manager.”

“I know who you are. Illusionist.”

He delivered the jab with a smile in his voice, but the manager’s expression didn’t waver.

“Where shall I escort you?”

“The dining room.”

“Right this way.”

Crossing the elegant lobby with its marble floors, Claude observed the interior without any particular expression.

In the old quarter, buildings this luxurious were rare enough to count on one hand.

The facilities were excellent, the upkeep immaculate, without so much as a speck of anything lacking.

There was only one thing, the fact that every employee in this establishment was a mage.

Claude settled into a seat in the middle of the nearly empty dining room and flicked his hand to request a menu.

“Are you truly here to dine?”

The manager asked again, as though confirming what she already suspected. Claude slid his gaze away from her face.

His eyes landed on a cleaner flicking a feather duster near the wall clock, and then on a cook lazily moving dishes, both of whom made immediate eye contact with him and looked away just as quickly.

Well, well.

He knew that the repeated question and the furtive glances both came from wariness.

He was not welcome here at all. He had suspected as much, but to feel it this plainly was something else.

At least I’ve come to the right place.

He handed the menu back without opening it.

“I hear this hotel’s food has less than half a star. Just recommend something. Anything that won’t kill me when it goes in my mouth.”

“You have discerning tastes. That would be difficult to find at our establishment, sir.”

She said it with a warm smile and a kind voice. Claude made no effort to hide the wry smile that rose unbidden.

“You don’t need to make it so obvious that you want me dead. Still, I should order something if I’m going to pay for the seat.”

“In that case, may I suggest the braised wyvern wing bone——”

“One condition: make it two plates.”

Why? For the first time, a flicker of hesitation crossed the manager’s manner. Claude pressed the advantage without missing his chance.

“One for me, the other for my guest.”

He would see whether she dared recommend this sort of thing for his guest’s plate as well.

“You have someone joining you?”

“I am requesting an audience with the guest currently staying here.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Beneath black hair that just brushed his eyebrows, a pair of cold, predatory eyes glinted with amusement.

“Please pass this along. The Governor wishes to see the princess. If she declines, I will return tomorrow, but I would prefer to see her today.”

“……”

“Bring her here. Or I can go myself.”

He gave the order plainly, and the manager’s throat visibly worked with resistance and displeasure.

“You’re not going? I’m starting to get hungry.”

Under the slow, unhurried weight of his pressure, it was the manager who raised the white flag first.

“I will relay your message exactly.”

“A wise decision.”

“I will put in your order at once as well.”

“Do that.”

“My lord Governor.”

“Yes?”

“Even if the guest declines your invitation, you will still be charged for two plates. Please don’t forget.”

Picking a fight over something so trivial was obviously a show of defiance. Claude made a willing gesture and paid a considerable sum upfront.

“If it means I get to see the princess, I’ll pay whatever it takes.”

* * *

“Here. Juice.”

He had ordered something edible, and what arrived was a cocktail glass garnished with a lemon and a paper umbrella.

He thought it had to be a joke, but what followed was even bolder.

The woman who set down the two glasses dropped into the seat across from Claude.

Not the manager, not a server. A woman wearing a strangely patterned dress that showed her ankles. She seemed to know it looked odd herself, she had wrapped a long shawl around her upper body to cover it.

“There weren’t any clothes that fit me. They said they’d find some soon.”

Only then did Claude realize he had been staring at her outfit for too long. At a lady’s torso, no less.

“My apologies. How rude of me.”

He had braced for a sharp rebuke, but to his surprise the woman brushed it off and moved on without any particular reaction.

She gave a small yawn and rubbed her eyes, and in doing so gave Claude, who had been following her movements, a clear look at her orange eyes, bright as a constellation.