Alicia von Valerion — POV
✦✦✦
I already knew how this story ended.
That was why I never smiled.
The world mistook my silence for arrogance.
My composure for disdain.
My distance for the inherited pride of an SS-ranker's daughter.
They were wrong.
Coldness was not who I was.
It was armor.
And I had learned—far too early—what happened when I allowed myself to be warm.
✦✦✦
The academy arena thundered with noise.
Students filled the stone stands in rising tiers, their voices overlapping in waves of cheers, whispers, and poorly concealed anticipation. Mana saturated the air, unstable and restless, leaking from excited cores and clashing violently against the ancient runes carved into the arena walls. The inscriptions glowed faintly, suppressing excess output, preventing catastrophic accidents.
To everyone else, today's combat assessment was entertainment.
A spectacle.
A ranking opportunity.
To me—
It was confirmation.
I stood among the spectators with my hands folded neatly before me, posture immaculate, spine straight, chin level. Every movement was measured, every breath regulated. I could feel dozens of gazes glance my way—some admiring, some wary, some resentful—but none of them mattered.
My eyes never left the platform.
Alden von Astra.
No.
That was the name this world gave him.
It was not the name my memories recognized.
He stepped onto the stone arena floor with unremarkable confidence. His frame was slim, his mana signature shallow and erratic—barely qualifying as (D-)-rank by academy metrics. Whispers spread instantly through the crowd.
"Isn't that the defective one?"
"He shouldn't even be here."
"Who did he offend to get matched like this?"
His opponent stood opposite him, radiating stabilized D-rank mana with practiced ease. His stance was polished, his breathing controlled, his expression smug with certainty.
Just like last time.
My fingers tightened around each other, just slightly.
Don't underestimate him, I thought coolly.
You already died once for that mistake.
The bell rang.
And the pressure in the arena shifted.
Others felt excitement surge through their veins.
I felt inevitability settle into my bones.
✦✦✦
Alden moved.
Not like a mage trained by the academy.
Not like a noble raised on formal combat doctrine.
Not like anyone born into this world at all.
His footwork was inefficient by textbook standards—too grounded, too direct—but brutally effective. There was no flourish, no reliance on mana-enhanced movement. Every step served a purpose. Every shift of weight was deliberate.
Calculation.
Timing.
Intent.
I watched as he dismantled his opponent piece by piece—not with overwhelming force, but with precision. He baited attacks, exploited overextensions, and struck at moments too small for the crowd to recognize.
When he seized control of the fight—
I closed my eyes.
I didn't need to see the conclusion.
✦✦✦
In my previous life—
No.
That phrasing was incorrect.
This was my second life.
And in the first one, Alden von Astra had ended the world.
✦✦✦
I was born powerful.
Unnaturally so.
Even as a child, my mana responded to emotion in ways it never should have. When I cried, frost crept across palace walls. When I panicked, windows shattered outward in silent explosions. When I laughed—
People bled.
At six years old, I erased a servant from existence.
There was no spell.
No chant.
No conscious intent.
Only a fleeting thought.
My family ensured the incident vanished along with the evidence. The Valerions were experts in concealment—an ancient bloodline that prized control above raw power. They sealed my core, layered restriction arrays upon restriction arrays, and drilled one lesson into me until it replaced every childish instinct:
Emotion is dangerous.
Love was forbidden.
Anger was lethal.
Attachment was weakness.
So I learned restraint.
I became perfect.
Silent.
Elegant.
Untouchable.
And then—
I met him.
✦✦✦
In my first timeline, Alden was unremarkable.
No talent worth noting.
No noble lineage.
No admiration from peers.
That was precisely why I noticed him.
While others chased recognition, he observed. While nobles flaunted power, he studied systems—mana circulation models, rank compression theory, bloodline inheritance laws, academy political structures.
He wasn't gifted.
He was inevitable.
I fell in love quietly.
Gradually.
Hopelessly.
He never noticed.
Until it no longer mattered.
✦✦✦
Three years after graduation, the world fractured.
Alden uncovered the truth behind the system—the artificial ceilings imposed on growth, the falsified hierarchies, the way bloodlines were shackles disguised as blessings. He exposed suppressed authorities and tore open the mechanisms that governed reality itself.
SS-rankers died screaming.
Cities vanished overnight.
The sky split like broken glass.
I stood beside him until the end.
Not because he asked me to.
But because I chose to.
When dimensional erosion consumed the world and unsealed authorities collapsed into oblivion, he turned to me—apologetic, regret etched into his eyes.
"If I had more time," he said softly,
"I would've chosen you properly."
Then everything ended.
✦✦✦
I regressed.
I don't know why.
I don't know how.
I awoke as a child once more—memories intact, power sealed, the future rewritten but not erased.
The only constant—
Was him.
Except this time, something was wrong.
A foreign soul had fused with his own. A transmigrator. An anomaly layered atop an already impossible existence. The system did not recognize him.
But I did.
From the moment he insulted the class without fear.
From the moment his gaze remained steady under SS-rank pressure.
From the moment my sealed core trembled in response to his presence—
I knew.
Alden von Astra had returned.
And he didn't remember me.
✦✦✦
The match ended as expected.
When mana awakened inside him, it resonated with something buried deep within me—like a missing piece snapping into place.
My breath hitched.
Only for a moment.
No one noticed.
Good.
Obsession is best cultivated quietly.
✦✦✦
Later, when I took the seat beside him in class, I asked politely if it was free.
He said yes.
He always does.
He pretends not to notice the way my aura bends toward his. The way my attention never truly leaves him.
He thinks I'm curious.
He thinks I'm interested.
He thinks I don't know.
How adorable.
I know he's a transmigrator.
I know the system fears him.
I know he's pretending to be human.
And I know—
If this world tries to take him from me again,
I will burn it to ash first.
✦✦✦
They call me cold.
They call me distant.
They call me untouchable.
Let them.
Because the truth is far worse.
I am patient.
I am devoted.
And I remember the end.
And this time—
Alden von Astra will be mine.
Even if I must become the final villain to make it so.
✦