Regina's POV
She sat on her balcony again.
This time, she wasn't painting.
Instead, her sapphire-and-amethyst eyes were fixed on the courtyard below, where her newly assigned maid was getting absolutely obliterated by the drill sergeant—also known as the Knight Commander's second-in-command.
"Get your knees higher! That's not a sprint, that's a funeral march!"
The maid looked like a silver-haired scarecrow flailing through a thunderstorm, her maid uniform soaked and clinging like a second skin. She stumbled again, nearly kissing the gravel.
Regina sipped her tea. Earl Grey. Too hot.
She didn't wince.
Instead, she watched—her expression blank, save for a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth when the maid tripped over a training dummy for the third time in five minutes.
"Hm. Still alive."
It was... unexpected.
Most of the girls assigned to her didn't last through their first week. Too soft. Too scared. Too chatty.
But this one? This one hadn't cried. Hadn't begged. Hadn't even cursed at her directly. Her eyes, dull with exhaustion, still held the tiniest flicker of refusal.
She was weak, yes. Hilariously so. But she kept moving. Kept getting up. Even now, her hands trembled, but her back stayed straight when she tried to salute the Knight Commander.
Interesting.
"Why do I get the feeling you'll amuse me?" Regina murmured to herself, standing up from her perch.
Her long, wild hair spilled over her back like golden-black ribbons as she turned toward her room, catching her own reflection in a fractured mirror. The darkness affinity simmered beneath her skin—quiet, controlled… for now.
"Anyway… she'll live."
She slipped into a black cloak embroidered with obsidian thread, lace gloves, and a soft scarf to cover her hair. Her presence could be felt even when she tried to go unnoticed—some said it was her eyes, others whispered it was the chill in the air when she passed.
"I need to get some things from town," she called toward the door. "Have a horse prepared."
The guards outside bowed silently and moved into action.
Behind her, out in the courtyard, the second-in-command yelled again:
"Drop and give me thirty, maggot!"
Regina smirked.
"You better be alive when I return, little maid. I haven't broken you yet."
MC's POV — Later That Evening
I lay face-down in a patch of grass beside the training pole, drenched in sweat and shame. Muscles I didn't even know I had were staging a protest.
The drill sergeant had barked at me until my brain stopped recognizing language.
But even as I gasped and twitched like a dying fish, something kept needling at me.
The formations. The drills. The terminology. They were familiar.
Too familiar.
Pushups. Lap counts. Chain-of-command structures. Even the punishment routines—they weren't from this world. They were...
Modern.
Military.
Structured.
Earth-like.
I wasn't a soldier, but even I could tell.
"Hey," I whispered to the sky, my voice cracking. "System?"
[Yes, Host?]
"This military stuff… did you give me that knowledge?"
[No. That is not native to your uploaded memory fragments.]
My throat went dry.
That meant someone else had brought it here.
Someone else like me.
Another transmigrator?