“Ah? Haha…”
Wendy’s laughter was so awkward it could scrape off three layers of dust.
This woman still remembered that!
Explain? How to explain?
Say that last night he was wrung dry by two Demon Queens?
It would be less painful to just jump down from this third floor.
“Pfft.”
A soft laugh interrupted His Highness the Prince’s thoughts of rushing to his death.
Xiya tapped lightly on Wendy’s forehead with a book roll and teased,
“Just a joke, Student Wendy. Your reaction was way too big.”
Those beautiful purple eyes curved into lovely crescents.
“It seems your nightmare last night was truly terrifying.”
Hearing this, Wendy secretly let out a long breath, then stiffly nodded.
“Y-yes… very terrifying.”
He wanted to quickly leave this place of trouble, but his feet felt nailed to the floor.
For some reason, just thinking about returning to the dormitory where a “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” could break out at any moment made Wendy’s scalp tingle.
Staying here… seemed safer?
The next day, Wendy woke up to the soft touch of a velvet sofa.
He opened his eyes.
The afternoon sunlight had changed into the faint light of early morning.
He moved his body.
Huh?
No soreness.
The aftereffects… had they all disappeared?
The soreness in his lower back left by Astreia and Laxana’s combined torment last night was gone, his legs didn’t hurt, and even his mind felt unprecedentedly refreshed.
This… this defied magic!
He sat up abruptly and immediately attributed everything to the only variable—Xiya’s lavender tea!
A miracle drug!
Xiya was walking over with a tray holding simple toast and a cup of steaming milk.
“Awake?”
A gentle, soft voice came.
Today she had changed into a simple white dress, and her pink hair was casually draped over her shoulders, giving off a homey sense of reassurance.
“Good morning, Student Wendy. You looked so sound asleep that I didn’t want to wake you.”
She placed the tray on the low table in front of Wendy.
She didn’t ask about the progress of On War, nor did she mention yesterday’s farce.
She just sat opposite him, looked at him with those clear purple eyes, and said softly,
“How do you feel today? Any more nightmares?”
Wendy was stunned.
This feeling… was too unfamiliar.
Astreia would directly ask him,
“Have you figured out how to serve me today?”
Laxana would ask him in a roundabout way,
“Did you dream of me last night?”
Instructor Tracy would bombard him with,
“How many words did you write for your outline?”
Only Xiya asked if he had slept well.
A warm current quietly flowed in the prince’s heart.
“I… I feel great.”
He took the warm milk and took a big gulp.
“Unprecedentedly good.”
This feeling of being cared for without any strings attached…
Damn, it was addictive.
During the day, Wendy was completely immersed in finding examples from this world related to On War.
In Reading Room No. B, it was so quiet you could hear the rustle of pen against paper.
Xiya sat not far away by the window, quietly flipping through a thick ancient codex.
The sunlight cast a soft golden edge on her pretty face, a scene so beautiful it felt unreal.
Wendy’s thoughts had never been this clear.
The profound ideas from another world, belonging to Clausewitz, under his pen perfectly merged with the historical facts of this world.
“…Therefore, the center of gravity of war is not to annihilate the enemy’s effective strength, but to destroy their will to fight.”
He got stuck there.
How to destroy will?
It was a vast and vague concept.
He subconsciously raised his head and looked at the pink silhouette.
Xiya also happened to look up, their eyes met in the air.
She gave His Highness the Prince an encouraging smile, then asked casually,
“Student Wendy, are you troubled? Are you thinking about what a powerful country fears losing the most?”
Wendy was startled.
What was the most feared loss?
Not the army, not wealth, but…
“It’s ‘order.’”
Xiya did not wait for his answer and spoke softly on her own,
“The beliefs and rules that support a country’s operation. Once order collapses, no matter how strong a giant, it will disintegrate from within.”
That’s right!
It was order!
Through spreading rumors, intensifying internal conflicts, supporting opposition, destabilizing the economy… these methods were far more effective at fundamentally breaking a country’s will to resist than bloody battles!
The prince started writing again, his pen flying.
Inspiration gushed out like a flood bursting through a dam.
As he wrote, he made comparisons in his mind.
Astreia and Laxana were like two high-horsepower sports cars, roughly pressing him onto the chassis, flooring the accelerator, enjoying speed and passion, completely disregarding whether his engine would blow out.
While Xiya was like a racing engineer.
She would carefully adjust parameters, replace the best oil, cool the car when it overheated, allowing him to run the best performance in the most comfortable and efficient state.
This kind of spiritual resonance and comfort…
Was a dimensionality reduction strike!
His Highness the Prince sadly realized that he seemed… unable to do without this librarian.
Meanwhile, in an empty classroom of the Magic Division.
“…Clean background, a model of inspiration. Her parents were ordinary farmers on the border of Valoran, both killed in a small-scale orc attack. Xiya relied on meager support from a local lord and a full scholarship from the academy to complete her studies, and due to her excellent grades, she was specially retained as a librarian.”
Astreia looked expressionlessly at the sheepskin parchment delivered by the Royal Secret Intelligence Network.
Every word on it seemed to mock her for making such a big fuss.
Perfect.
Too perfect.
An impeccable commoner’s rags-to-riches story.
She crumpled the parchment into a ball.
Flames of unvented anger burned in her emerald star-like eyes.
This feeling was worse than encountering an evenly matched opponent on the battlefield.
The other side wouldn’t even fight you.
She just stood there, wrapped tightly in a suit of armor perfectly conforming to worldly morals and rules, making all your attacks seem overbearing, unreasonable, and stupid.
And Laxana’s results were pretty much the same.
The message sent by her mother—Layana Klein, Dean of the Magic Division—via magical communication was even more concise and even more infuriating.
“The file is flawless. Her mental strength and magical affinity are stable within the ordinary range. There are no traces of having practiced high-level magic. Daughter, don’t waste time on meaningless suspicions. Focus on your studies.”
“Damn it!”
Laxana angrily snapped the feather pen on the table.
How could she focus?
Just thinking that Wendy was now in a confined space with that pink-haired fox spirit, alone together day and night, made her feel like her heart was being gnawed by countless ants.
“And that’s the biggest problem!”
The young lady irritably tugged at her hair.
“How can there be such a perfect person in this world?”
“She’s like… a character carefully fabricated to make you believe in her!”
“Every detail is so reasonable that it feels fake.”