Aoko Aozaki opened her eyes.
Looking up at the sky from where she lay, she felt as though someone had painted that gray with an artist's tools.
Though it was a depressing color, like steel, for some reason it always felt like dusk, even though it was morning.
In the quiet, gentle atmosphere, sunlight stripped of its heat and intensity illuminated the dust drifting through the air.
Though she could already feel hunger in her belly, when faced with the option of enjoying a leisurely sleep, Aoko's only action was to mumble softly and turn over.
She lowered her eyelids and tried once again to sink into a deep sleep, searching for the drowsiness that remained.
For Aoko, who had spent all last night fighting a world-destroying monster, battling to the end of a universe where even the timeline had been worn away, her surroundings no longer mattered. Sleep was more important than anything else, after all. Time had already accelerated that far anyway, so all she could do was leave the rest to heaven...
Wait, time acceleration, True Magic... Roland!
As her consciousness gradually settled, that faint thought made her closed eyelids snap open, as though they were determined to defy Aoko Aozaki.
She sat upright, the sleepiness in her eyes swiftly giving way to a look of firm resolve.
The perfect True Magic User, in the very finest years of her girlhood, finally remembered what had happened.
"Ugh... that really was a crushing defeat."
Faced with that outcome, Aoko Aozaki's usually steady voice became a bitter sound squeezed from her throat.
For a competitive True Magic User, claiming she felt no frustration at all would have been impossible, but this time, she acknowledged her crushing defeat from the bottom of her heart.
It was not for some simple