Start of the Loop

...

After waking up again, the first thing Lucas noticed was the familiar ceiling of the infirmary.

"Hey, Lucas, you're finally awake."

And the second thing he noticed was the unfamiliar face of Roy sitting next to him.

Well, it wasn't entirely unfamiliar, Roy was one of the nine other humans who got accepted to this school just like him, except that, unlike him, Roy got in with his talent alone.

For whatever reason, Roy has been acting very friendly to him lately, perhaps a little too friendly.

Though this had nothing to do with Lucas, who with the help of Alfred, finally managed to put his plan into motion.

"Yeah, Alfred really didn't go easy on me, huh."

However, before that, he needed to find out what time it was.

Looking around the room, he spotted his watch that he usually wore, it was an old and outdated watch, but it was a gift from his dear friend and maid Lisa, and so he wouldn't change it for the world.

Taking the watch and putting it on his wrist, he noticed that it was almost six already.

'This is bad.'

If he wanted to complete his plan, he had to do it before six, because after that, there would be too many people going around to do anything.

Thinking quickly inside his head, Lucas got out of bed, completely ignoring the chattering Roy, and headed outside the infirmary towards the roof of the building.

-05:45am

Luckily, the infirmary was located near the top floor, so it didn't take him long to reach the locked door of the Rooftop.

"Hey, just what are you thinking of doing all the way up here?"

Roy, who had followed him here in a hurry kept asking questions, but Lucas ignored him and started ramming against the door, in hopes of taking it down.

Unfortunately, his weak body wasn't capable of taking down this door, especially not after being injured by Alfred, even if he received emergency treatment by the Healer at the infirmary.

"Sigh, stand aside, l will try and take down the door for you, just don't tell anyone l did this okay?"

Roy, perhaps feeling sympathetic towards his pitiful appearance, decided to help him break the door open.

Although Lucas had trouble bringing down the door, it was simply too easy for Roy, who was a 3rd class Aura user, to take down a simple lock.

A simple push with his hand that was coated in aura, and the door was opened immediately, as if it wasn't locked in the first place.

-05:50am

The moment the door opened, Lucas immediately ran to the edge of the building and looked down.

"Hey! wait for me."

Lucas heard Roy yelling in the background, but there was no way he was stopping, not now when he was so close to finishing his plan.

This was it, the moment of truth.

As long as he jumped off this building, all his suffering would end after just a little pain.

In truth, Lucas wasn't planning on doing anything so extreme when he first came to this academy.

However all those years of abuse by the other cadets pushed him towards the edge, and now he was finally here, one step away from disaster.

Truth is, this wasn't the option he defaulted to in the beginning, he tried to drop out many times before.

However, there was a special rule made by the Council stating that, 'all those who join the academy can only leave its premises upon graduation.'

This rule was originally made to stop cadets from going outside, to make them focus only on their studies and pursuit of strength.

Since dropping out wasn't an option, that meant only graduates were allowed to leave the academy, except that...

Lucas had no chance of graduating in the first place!

Due to his inability to use Aura or Mana, he simply wasn't capable of graduating at all!

-05:52am

In the first place, the entire concept of failing to graduate wasn't considered by the Council at all.

The reason for this was very simple.

Every single cadet who joined the academy, from its founding thousands of years ago, to the present day, was an absolute genius who had no problem in passing the tests that the academy gave out.

This meant that he would have to spend the rest of his life in this hell, getting abused, beaten and looked down upon by everyone, without any chance of ever getting out.

Lucas simply wasn't willing to live such a life, and thus, he came up with a plan.

This plan consisted of him committing suicide by jumping off the roof of this building.

its not that he hadn't considered other options, such as hanging, or cutting his wrist, in actuality, those options were completely impossible.

The reason for this was the enormous spell formation that automatically checked the well being of all the cadets inside the academy grounds.

If he tried to hurt himself in any way, a healer would teleport in front of him within seconds, and he would be saved.

the reason such a bullshit formation existed inside the academy was that cadets were constantly getting injured, and so the Council came up with this idea to stop them from worrying about their injuries and focus entirely on the fighting at hand.

Should he get caught trying to kill himself, he would never have another chance to commit suicide, as he would be watched closely by the instructors of the academy.

-05:55

However, there was one solution, and one solution only to this problem.

And this solution came in the form of jumping off a building so high, it would guarantee his death upon falling to the ground, such that no healer would be capable of saving him in time!

There was one slight problem though.

between the hours of midnight, all the way until 06:00am, curfew was imposed on all the cadets, including instructors! the only ones who could walk around campus during this hour were special golems made to patrol the premises, in case any fool tried to break into the academy.

During curfew, there was absolutely no way for Lucas to get inside the tallest building on campus which was reserved for emergency treatment of cadets, for the armory, and the lab that Scholarly Mages used in order to conduct their research.

However, jumping off during the day was also impossible, there were too many people outside, and he would get noticed before he could even fall down.

Thus, he came up with a plan.

Yesterday, after classes ended, he approached Alfred and asked him to act out a play with him during the 'Advanced Combat Training' class in order to get him into the infirmary long enough for curfew to be implemented.

At that point, he would be left alone inside the infirmary and would be able to put his plan into action.

-05:57am

However, just as he was about to jump off the roof, the watch that Lisa bought for him started to ring.

Although it was old, it still had the function of receiving calls, and the only person that had his number in this world Lisa herself.

Usually he called her once or twice a week to tell her he was okay, but recently he stopped calling her because....

Why did he stop calling her?

In a daze, Lucas picked up the call and immediately heard Lisa's worried voice trough the watch.

"Lucas? is that you? thank god you are okay, l finally managed to get a call trough."

"Slow down a little, will you? What do you mean by you finally managed to get trough? I didn't see any missed calls when l checked the watch."

"That's not important right now, I don't know where you are right now, but you need to get to one of the instructors immediately!"

"Getting to one of the instructors? Why?"

"Because...someone hired an assassin to kill you in hopes of replacing you with a better student for the incoming Thousand Races Battleground."

Suddenly, as if he broke free from a spell, his mind cleared up, and the world in front of his eyes no longer seemed so cloudy and grey.

Using his Innate Skill-[Memory Film] he looked back on his actions for the past three days, and almost immediately, cold sweat started going down his forehead.

If someone who didn't know him were to look at his actions for the past three days, they wouldn't find anything amiss compared to the past three years at the academy.

However, he knew himself best, and coupled with his innate skill showing him a perfect recollection of events, he was capable of seeing all the loopholes in his behavior for the past three days.

'Suddenly acting crazy and getting suicidal thoughts.'

'Devising a plan to get to the rooftop.'

'Approaching Alfred and asking him for help.'

'Avoiding calling Lisa in fear of being caught.'

-05:59am

These were all things that he would usually never do....and all of it started after his meeting with the overly friendly Roy three days ago...

"What a shame."

In a flash, Lucas tried to turn around and attack Roy, but before he could even take a single step, a hand reached out pushed his body off the twenty story building.

"If it wasn't for that persistent woman calling you at the last moment resulting in the breaking of the spell [Mind Control], l could have passed it off as a suicide."

Knowing that his doom was near, Lucas desperately turned his head around to try and catch a glimpse of his murderer.

He knew for a fact that the person who pushed him was not Roy, it was someone posing as him!

Unfortunately, his weak body wasn't capable of turning around in mid air, and he could only helplessly fall to his death.

As he lay there in his own pool of blood and guts, he started regretting all the choices he had made so far.

'Why didn't he try harder in his practice?'

'Why didn't he try to get the help of someone like Alfred earlier?'

'Lisa...l miss you."

Unfortunately it was useless to regret it now, as the last thing he saw before dying a painful death was a healer teleporting to him in a hurry to try and save him.

...

-06:00am

Rinngggggg

In a flash, Lucas got up from his bed, and instinctively started running towards the bathroom, before starting to throw up.

When he finally calmed down enough to raise his head and look in the mirror, he was shocked to see that his face was full of snot and tears.

It was as if he had a terrible nightmare.

'Nightmare? Impossible! That was no nightmare.'

Lucas thought to himself as he looked trough his memories using his Innate Skill-[Memory Film].

There was no one more familiar with nightmares on this planet then Lucas himself.

He was certain of it, that was not a nightmare, but if that was truly the case, how was he still alive?

Could it be that the Healer he saw right at the end managed to save him?

But this shouldn't be possible with the level of injuries on his body at the time!

---------------------------------------

Year 222 of the Universal Calendar

27th of December, Friday

---------------------------------------

Confused, Lucas looked at his watch, only to find out that the current date was the same as yesterday!

Quickly rushing out of the bathroom, Lucas opened the fridge, only to see that the food he ate yesterday was still there!

The news playing on the TV were also the same as 'yesterday.'

The alarm clock in his room was still going, despite the fact that he had no alarm set for Saturday, as there were no classes on that day!

Lucas tried his best to calm down when he suddenly remembered a quote from a book he had read a long time ago.

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." it was a quote by Arthur Conan Doyle from his book series titled Sherlock Holmes.

As much as his brain refused to believe it, the facts were right in front of him, therefore it must be the truth.

However, human brains were fickle creatures.

Despite understanding the truth right in front of him, his brain still desired concrete evidence that he really had gone back in time, even if only for a single day.

And so, he dressed up into his academy uniform, went outside, and started heading towards the location of his Advanced Combat Training lessons.

This would come to be the worst decision he had ever made in his eighteen years of life.