I Became a Genius Mechanic at the Academy

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“Let’s fight. It’s the last time.”

The last.

Adelra nodded and drew up her Mana.

Recalling all those days training with Jack, she began to weave the spell.

She already knew how to coordinate their attacks.

– Charge!

It always started with his rush.

He would dive into the midst of the monster horde, swinging wildly.

With a lightning-fast jab, he slashed through two Lizardmen in no time.

The surrounding Lizardmen reacted and began to attack him.

– Slash!

And from that moment, her role began.

Using the Elmar Family’s spatial manipulation spell, she evaded the Lizardmen’s attack routes.

Though she had yet to reach mastery, unable to distort space itself to inflict physical damage, she could at least misdirect their attacks.

And so, the attacks aimed at Jack completely missed.

– Whoosh!

As their attacks went awry, Jack’s counterattack began.

With tempestuous sword swings, he sliced through the bodies of the Lizardmen.

However, Adelra was perplexed.

The Lizardmen were troublesome due to their formidable body regeneration and aggressive combat style, yet for some reason, the ones Jack struck fell without a struggle.

Bubbles began to rise as the severed flesh attempted to regenerate, but for some unknown reason, that chemical reaction was stifled, and new flesh did not grow.

“Cough!”

But the more Jack wielded that mysterious power, the more he became gaunt.

Beep──────

A ringing in his ears started, and his vision began to blur.

At that moment, a scream—indistinguishable from a wail—barely reached Jack’s ears.

Realizing it was Adelra’s cries, Jack steadied his swaying body and swung his sword again.

“Griiiik… Grrrr…”

As that brief skirmish concluded.

Like a squashed watermelon, the corpses of the Lizardmen scattered everywhere.

Jack’s body collapsed right there on the ground.

Adelra rushed to him, crying out and providing support.

But Jack, having expended most of his power, lacked the strength to lean against her.

“Get up…! Hurry up! Let’s go home! Home… we need to go home…”

Adelra pleaded, pounding her fists against Jack’s chest to get him to stand.

As her warm tears touched his cheek, Jack’s eyelids fluttered open.

In that moment, he felt there was still a drop of power left within him.

“…Alright. Let’s go.”

Jack used that tiny drop of power.

Though it wasn’t much, power was power, and it momentarily returned Jack’s body to its normal state.

The color returned to Adelra’s face.

– Rustle.

So they stepped out of the monster wave area.

Capping off four months of long adventure.

“Now we just have to go home! First, hop on! If we get to the nearest village and hit the teleport exchange, we can go to my territory!”

Adelra lifted Jack onto her back.

Holding back the tears that threatened to spill, she continued to speak to Jack, who was gasping for breath.

She promised him that she would do anything as long as he survived.

She even made absurd claims, like devoting her life to him as a servant.

“V-Village! Jack! We’re almost there!”

Carrying Jack, she ran as fast as she could.

At last, a chimney came into view in the distance.

With a heart full of joy, she hurried her steps.

But at that moment—

– Slip…

Jack’s body went limp.

Though it felt almost as if he were sleeping on her back, this time it felt different.

It felt like all life had drained from him.

In a panic, Adelra quickly set Jack down and checked his condition.

Her eyes welled with tears.

“Ah… Ahhh… No… no…!”

If she didn’t listen carefully, his breaths would have been inaudible, so faint they were.

Yet he wore a faint smile and moved his hand even in the moments before he breathed his last.

He pulled out a necklace from his pocket and handed it to Adelra.

“W-Well, it’s not a ring but…”

Jack forced out those words with a voice that sounded like it was breaking.

With tear-streaked cheeks, Adelra nodded.

She hurriedly wiped her tears, wearing the necklace he had given her while showing an expression of understanding what he said.

Yet, her lips trembled violently, unable to contain her sorrow.

Still, Adelra managed to show him a smile just in time.

With the last image of her smiling face, the light in Jack’s eyes began to fade.

“…Jack?”

Jack’s iris, losing focus, began to dilate.

Adelra ignited her mana into healing spells and began pouring it into Jack’s body.

Knowing it was futile, she continued to shout for him to rise while infusing her mana.

“Get up! Wake up! Don’t leave me like this…! It’s an order! Wake up now!”

“…”

But there was no response from him.

No matter how hard she hit his chest, no matter how much she yelled, no matter how much mana she poured in, he remained silent.

In the end, Adelra repeated the healing spell until she reached mana exhaustion.

She blindly kept using the healing spells until she collapsed from mana depletion.

“…”

How long had it been?

When Adelra regained consciousness and opened her eyes, she saw a familiar and nostalgic scene.

She had returned to her cozy and soft territory.

“Jack!”

Yet for Adelra, that no longer mattered.

She sprang up and dashed out of the room to search for Jack.

“Lady!”

Just then, a guard stationed at the door stopped her.

He asked her to find some stability and requested she re-enter the room.

But that mattered little to Adelra.

“Where’s Jack? Where is Jack? Jack…!”

“He’s been laid to rest in the family grave.”

At that moment, the head of the Elmar family and Adelra’s father appeared, saying this.

With a bitter smile, he spoke.

“I analyzed his wounds and the scars on his sword. It’s clear he died protecting you. I had him appointed as a knight of our family and gave him the burial he deserved.”

The news that the funeral had already taken place shattered Adelra.

Her hands trembled as she began to sob, nearly wailing.

The head of the Elmar family approached and patted Adelra’s shoulder, saying,

“I’m sorry… and truly, thank you for returning alive.”

***

From then on, Adelra roamed in search of Jack’s traces.

To uncover the secret of his lost memories, she sought out the mercenary group he had belonged to before.

“Cough, cough… Jack? That brat?”

But what she heard from Jack’s acquaintances was different from what she knew.

Unlike the image she had of him, he seemed more like an opportunist without any sense of responsibility.

According to their accounts, Jack should have left her behind and fled long ago.

“Shut up! What do you know about him?!”

But Adelra refused to accept the truth about Jack.

Even as everyone spoke of Jack as a weak opportunist, she would not concede.

“Jack… ahhh….”

Yet that truth confused Adelra.

It was a journey to get to know the man she had loved with all her heart, but the more she learned about him, the more her confusion deepened.

The man others described was so different from the Jack she knew.

-Swish…

One day, while lost in thought, a rainstorm began to pour down on Adelra.

At that moment, her gaze turned not forward but sideways.

She stared into the forest where monsters lurked.

“…Jack.”

As if entranced, Adelra stepped into the woods.

She wandered, catching the scents of grass and drenched earth she had shared with him while escaping.

After meandering through the forest for a while, a familiar sight appeared before her.

“…”

A cave.

It was a cave.

In an instant, memories of the times spent with Jack flooded her mind.

With a faint smile, Adelra entered the cave.

– Whirrr.

As soon as she stepped inside, she dispelled the darkness.

Using elemental spells, she lit a fire in the center of the ceiling.

“…Ah.”

Then, the figure of Jack sitting on a bed manifested like an illusion.

Soon, the scene depicting the traces of their life during that time began to unfold within the cave.

Jack was still smiling at her.

“Jack…”

But calling out to Jack yielded no response.

He simply gazed at her with a smile.

Yet, Adelra kept calling for him.

She sobbed as she expressed her confusion about the difference between the Jack she knew and what others said, begging him to reveal the truth.

But Jack remained smiling silently.

“…Ugh!”

Suddenly, a wave of nausea hit her.

Adelra hurried to a corner of the cave and began to retch.

When the nausea subsided, she found herself instinctively placing her hand on her belly.

A realization struck her—that life had taken root within her, a feeling only a woman could sense.

“…Jack.”

Adelra looked back at Jack.

He smiled and nodded.

And at that moment, his illusion began to disperse.

As she watched the memories that filled the cave with Jack’s illusion vanish, she began to contemplate their meaning.

“…Okay.”

Finally, she grasped the meaning of it.

Ultimately, Jack was alive and breathing within her.

The fruit of the love they shared was growing inside her.

What others said no longer mattered.

The image of Jack she remembered.

That alone was the embodiment of her first and last love, whom she had loved and respected.

***

I watched Adelra grow into the Empress of the East.

To be precise, I observed past me coming to see her occasionally through my former self.

In this way, my past self, having met death in Jack’s body, occasionally watched over her from a distance.

Perhaps it was out of a sense of responsibility for leaving some life behind in her.

“…”

But I could not approach her.

My past self bore the duty of saving this world.

I feared disturbing the timeline and causing chaos due to my influence.

[I will establish the Empire Academy.]

As time passed, how long had it been?

The optimal moment to stand against the demons finally arrived.

As the Empire’s influence spread across the continent, the Emperor summoned the greatest talents to the academy with the goal of ‘Eradicating the Demons.’

[It’s time to settle the score.]

And at this point, my past self decided to use all my powers.

After repeating numerous regressions, I sought the best route to awaken the scions of the Grand Duke family, intending to guide humanity down the best path with that information.

[I cannot repeat the same mistakes as before.]

However, to do this, I needed a future filled with horrific defeats, hundreds, if not thousands of them.

Thus, my past self implanted a ‘central memory that would make this world perceive itself as a game’ and kept turning it back.

So after countless errors, the best path I arrived at was ‘Edgar Fix.’

Ironically, the variable that had possessed the body of a mere commoner who couldn’t even use Mana became the only appropriate candidate to lead humanity to salvation.