I memorized what I believed was important in the Preview world and returned to reality. The fact that Olivia remained imprisoned for more than a month meant that we would fail even if we tried to save her with what we had planned. During that time, Olivia would become completely broken after enduring unending torture and magical treatment.
If we went on like that, we would end up failing, although I didn't know why.
The 100-point option showed me the key event depicting our failure, but it didn't give me a reason as to why we had failed.
It was just too vague.
I had to do it one more time.
"Sigh…"
I picked the 200-point Preview option next.
I had already confirmed our failure using the 100-point option, so I hoped I would be able to use the 200-point option to get a clue as to why we failed.
The 200-point option showed me a short dialogue.
The date was around 4pm on Sunday, May 24th of the 323rd year of the Imperial Calendar.
That would have been the next day.
It was a place I knew—it was the club room of 'Grace'. All of the club members—including myself—were sitting in a circle.
"When I asked if I could speak with the president for a moment… I was allowed to."
Olivia was in her fifth year, but she took one year off to do volunteer work related to the Demon World War. Therefore, Ceres seemed to be really respectful when speaking about the president.
"However… The atmosphere was definitely weird. She had a very hard expression on her face. I think there was something she was hiding. Like something she couldn't say while the Commander was around. I asked him several times to let us speak alone, but it seemed like he wouldn't allow her to be unsupervised for even a second."
It seemed like Ceres van Owen stopped by the Knights Templars' headquarters to figure out the situation. She had met both Olivia and the Commander. However, Olivia couldn't say anything because the Commander was close to them.
"The Commander said that his daughter decided to quit Temple, so he was only respecting her decision."
It was definitely suspicious but didn't serve as a confirmation. Olivia wasn't able to say anything out of the ordinary; it was as if she had been silenced.
Ceres went directly to them but wasn't able to get a definite answer to those suspicions. She had her doubts but wasn't sure. It would have been impossible to petition for Olivia to be taken back without any hard evidence.
So did things just end there without anything happening? Even if we were to meet up with Olivia, she wouldn't be able to ask for help because the Commander watched over her at all times, right?
"First off, I went to the teachers… but they told me that it would take some time because they had to go through a faculty meeting first."
Since the students had failed, did the teachers fail as well?
After the Preview was over, my head hurt even more after I returned back to reality.
Olivia couldn't talk freely. I knew that she was deathly afraid of Riverrier Lanze just by having overheard a conversation between her and him. We weren't able to turn those suspicions into certainty. So, knowing what happened after, I knew that we wouldn't be able to save Olivia.
However, if that was the case, I had no idea what else to do. The teachers would have to go through a faculty meeting, so it would take some time before they could act.
'Should I watch the 500-point Preview?'
The 100-point option indicated we'd fail, and the 200-point option indicated that even if we went to see Olivia Lanze and tried to talk to her, she would be too terrified to say anything.
'Will the 500-point option show me something more decisive?'
After much deliberation, I finally decided to use the 500-point option.
[You have spent 500 achievement points.]
I had instantly used up 800 achievement points.
As long as I was able to save Olivia Lanze, it didn't matter. Besides, I would quickly get more points anyway.
Please don't be anything vague, but be something certain.
It was June 3rd in the 323rd year of the Imperial Calendar, around 5pm.
That was 2 weeks from then.
What appeared before my eyes was a place I wasn't familiar with. It looked like a conference room, and there appeared to be a group of people sitting around a large table—there were about 20 of them. I wondered who those people were, but then I saw two familiar faces among them.
Mr. Epinhauser and Mr. Mustrang.
I knew what I was seeing.
It was Royal Class' faculty meeting. There was one teacher of each class, the headmaster, various assistant teachers, and even executive-level teachers present.
-Bang!
"This doesn't make any sense!"
Someone shouted angrily. It was a woman. I didn't know who she was.
"I'm sure Olivia is going through something! Didn't she already turn down the personal visitation request? If there was nothing going on, why did she reject it? Other students also said that Olivia looked very bad when they saw her, so something must be going on!"
The headmaster of the Royal Class, who looked slightly older than her and sat at the head of the table, sighed in response to her exasperated exclamation.
"It's not like we don't know that. You know this as well, Ms. Sabrina. The decision of the Temple General Assembly came fast enough… There's nothing more Temple can do at this time. This has fallen into the Investigation Agency's jurisdiction. However… I wonder if we are able to investigate the Knights Templars' Commander without any evidence… This situation is too unclear."
'What happened?'
"Just one day… Really. If it had just been one day earlier… No, if I just paid more attention to her concerns a little sooner…"
The teacher, who I guessed was Olivia's homeroom teacher, eventually began to cry—tears flowing down her face.
I didn't know why, but Temple's response was delayed due to several meetings. Something was definitely wrong.
What did she mean by being just one day earlier? What did that mean?
"Unfortunately, Olivia Lanze is no longer a Temple student. There's nothing we can do."
Only after I heard those words did I feel like I could put the puzzle together.
Olivia Lanze had dropped out the previous day, so Temple lost all justification to do anything about Olivia Lanze's situation.
He might have sensed something and quickly forced her to drop out officially, telling the Temple official something like," Who are you to take away my daughter? She isn't even a Temple student anymore."
If the General Assembly had come to a conclusion just a few days earlier, the faculty would have been able to do something, but just a single day threw a wedge in everything. They might also have been able to tell the administration office in advance that Olivia Lanze might unexpectedly drop out and that they should delay the handling of her case a day.
I didn't waste those 800 points.
Now I knew for sure where the problem lay.
Ceres van Owen was able to meet up with Olivia early on, but she couldn't say anything because Riverrier was around. It might be because she was scared of him, but there were many other possible reasons for that.
Considering the various magical procedures that seemed to have been performed on Olivia, there might be a possibility that one of them prevented her from speaking.
After that, the student council president would have asked the teachers for help. However, they had to be cautious so as to not act against the Knights Templar without any evidence, so they debated whether to send them an official request to hand over Olivia or not.
After Temple finally decided to take action, Olivia Lanze was no longer a Temple student.
This led to Temple being unable to meddle in Olivia Lanze's personal life. The rest fell into the jurisdiction of the Investigations Agency—and it was more than clear that they didn't take any actions.
In the end, the Commander seemed to have failed in brainwashing or subduing Olivia, so he hadn't achieved his goal.
If things went on like that, there would have been a catastrophic outcome for everyone.
After dinner ended, Adriana called out to me.
"Let's go, junior."
"Yes."
Judging by the look on her face, it seemed like things worked out as we had planned.
After dinner, all members—save for those that had yet to return to Temple—were gathered in Grace's club room.
All the people sitting on one side seemed to have read the letter, as they had serious, frozen expressions on their faces.
"Ah… You said your name was Reinhardt, right?"
"Yeah."
Ceres van Owen, the student council president and vice club president, looked at me with a somewhat ambiguous expression. She seemed to be unsure whether I could stay or not.
"Hmm… That's right. I was told you went to visit the president. Come, sit here."
It looked like she didn't want to kick me out because she realized that I had visited Olivia, who was in the same grade as her. She probably somehow found out that I was somewhat concerned about her for some reason.
Before her lay the anonymous letter I had written.
Ceres waved my letter around to a silent crowd.
"If this is a prank, it's a very tasteless one… However, no matter how I look at it, this doesn't seem to be a prank."
"What does it say?"
"What's going on?"
Those who knew—as well as those who didn't—had a gloomy look on their faces as if they were wondering if something bad had happened.
"There might be some among you who don't know yet, but the Knights Templar Commander came to Temple personally and took the president away with him."
"Th-the president? He came personally?"
"Yeah, it was too early in the morning, so I couldn't see it myself, but I think some people did."
As of that moment, only her classmates would have known that Olivia Lanze was gone. It made sense that everyone else seemed rather confused.
"And this letter states that the Commander is going to do something very horrible to her. Something like… torture."
Torture.
They couldn't help but be surprised that such a horrible word came out of the vice-president's mouth.
It was already surprising enough that the Commander of the Knights Templar took his daughter away early in the morning as if kidnapping her, but now there was an anonymous letter telling that he was torturing his daughter.
"What… What nonsense is that?"
"Yeah…"
"Who would pull such a prank?"
So it was inevitable that the other's reactions were quite negative.
The atmosphere immediately turned chaotic. With all of those unbelievable stories raining on them all at once, it was only natural.
"Now, now, calm down."
Ceres calmed the others down and put more power into her gaze.
"This is a vicious prank as well as a tremendous insult to the Commander of the Knights Templar."
Hearing those words, both Adriana and I got chills running down our spines. It was only natural that they questioned the authenticity of the letter, but seeing it happen right in front of us made us realize that getting caught might far exceed the level of just being troublesome.
"...However, no matter if the letter is telling the truth or not, there were actually people who saw the president getting taken away by the Commander this morning—those who went to train in the morning saw it clearly."
It seemed like Ceres was informed about Olivia's disappearance by people who actually witnessed it.
"Another common point in their recounts was that the president had been beaten by the Commander. They said she seemed as if she was getting dragged away forcefully."
Olivia had been beaten by the Commander. It wasn't just Adriana and me who saw that. It seemed certain that the Commander actually used violence against his own foster daughter. That alone surprised everyone.
"I don't care who wrote the letter or who brought it here; I believe we need to make sure that the president is absolutely safe."
Ceres seemed to be convinced that the letter's contents were false, but she seemed sure that the Commander would do anything to rectify her behavior of abandoning her own faith.
It had already been confirmed that he was willing to use violence against his foster daughter.
He might not end up torturing her, but Riverrier Lanze might do something drastic to fix his wayward child's thoughts.
Adriana and I didn't have to say anything to make the letter seem more credible. Ceres had already decided to check things out with her own eyes.
"I'll go and check on her tomorrow. I'll tell you if she's okay or not, so please be careful until then."
It was already late, so it would be difficult to go visit her. Therefore, Ceres decided to visit the headquarters of the Knights Templar tomorrow afternoon, as I had seen.
Judging by the situation, neither Adriana nor I would have ended up saying anything because Ceres had already reached the conclusion we wanted.
It was the path that led to the future I had seen.
Ceres would head to the headquarters of the Knights Templar on her own, returning with unanswered questions. She had doubts but had no definite evidence. The Commander would let her meet Olivia, but he wouldn't allow them to be alone in the same room.
I wasn't sure if she was able to mobilize the student council to meet Olivia after that. There was a very high chance that they didn't get to meet.
The moment Ceres returned empty-handed, I would have to think about other measures on how to secure evidence, a method that would provide absolute answers.
I had to think of another method because I had confirmed that we could meet Olivia but that we wouldn't be able to find anything noteworthy, which I, of course, thought of as a result of having seen the future. Because I had seen that things didn't turn out well, I could deduce that the Commander only let us meet her once.
That meant we only had a single chance to meet up with Olivia.
Olivia wouldn't be able to say anything either because the Commander was next to her or because they cast some spell on her to force her to keep her mouth shut.
"Vice-president, I think we should consider one thing."
When I voiced my opinion, all eyes turned to me. The moment I opened my mouth, they might have suspected that it was me who wrote the letter, but it was time to step up.
If things went on like that, everything would end terribly.
"One thing? What do you mean?"
"Well… I don't know her well, but is the president very scared of the Commander?"
At my question, Ceres slightly nodded.
"Hmm… Although the president is a fifth-year student, she is a senior, so the sixth-years might know more about her than I do."
Olivia was only living with her juniors because she had been gone for a year. For that reason, the sixth-year students might know more about her.
Of course, we had two sixth-years there with us, so Ceres looked over to them. They were a male and female senior.
"Hmm… Now that I think about it… I think she tried to not talk too much about the Commander."
Those were the words of the male senior.
"I'm sure she's scared of him. Every time the topic came up… How should I call it? The atmosphere around her dimmed. I've seen that quite a few times. She seemed to be trembling a bit."
The female senior seemed to know her a little better. Everyone found out that Olivia was afraid of her stepfather, Riverrier Lanze. I looked at Ceres.
"If you go visit her like this… I don't think she will be able to answer properly—no matter what you ask her, don't you think?"
"Well… But if I asked to be left alone with her… Wouldn't she be able to tell the details?"
No, the Commander wouldn't allow that.
"This may or may not be true. But wouldn't it be better to be prepared for all scenarios?"
It didn't seem that they would belittle me for being just a little junior who didn't know anything. It was good that they all had such nice personalities. If there was one among them having only a little bit too much pride, they would have yelled at me to shut my fucking mouth. Ceres didn't have to, but she agreed with my opinion..
"Yeah, there's always the possibility that we won't be able to have a good conversation. However, how are we supposed to prepare for that?"
There was a way to listen to what Olivia, who was silenced either by fear or by a magic spell, really had to say.
"I think it would be good to take one more person with you."
She shouldn't go alone but should instead take one more person with her.
"One more person… Reinhardt, do you want to come with me?"
Most of their expressions seemed to ask me something like: "Excuse me, but what are you going to do there?"
"No, not me."
I wanted her to take someone else with her, not me.
"Ah!" B-4 Ashir, who was sitting in his seat in complete silence, suddenly exclaimed.
"There's a student named Ibia among Class B's first years."
Number B-7, Ibia.
She wasn't a character that got a lot of action, but she was needed more than anyone else in that situation.
"Why do you think I need to take her with me, Reinhardt?"
"She has telepathic abilities."
Everyone was surprised at my words.