I guess it was less that I forgot and more that I wasn’t used to doing it. That was usually Lynokis’s job. Besides, I was always ready for potential attacks, whether in broad daylight or at night. If the doors or windows were locked, the assailant would just forcefully break in. The attacks themselves wouldn’t be a big deal, but the cleanup and repairs that came after would be such a pain. That must’ve been how I lived my previous life too. That was why I didn’t particularly have a habit of locking my doors, but this was the first time it had worked against me.
“You saw, right?! You totally saw, didn’t you?!”
“I did, I did. That’s enough already. Calm down.” It was first thing in the morning and the girl was already grabbing me and shaking me. After getting her to stop, I sighed and got out of bed.
Nowadays, Reliared was always so exhausted from her recordings that she went straight to bed when she made it back to the dorms, so she came to my room in the morning now instead of evening. I didn’t mind that, but... This is unfortunate. I really wanted to sleep a little more. I’m still tired. But I couldn’t bring myself to let down a child looking at me with such excitement in her eyes. It was like how you couldn’t resist a crying baby.
“You’re talking about the Wingroad program, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, yeah! Young Master Neal was there! And he was shown the whole time! And it was, like, kinda really good!”
Reliared was usually well-spoken when it came to her reviews, but it seemed this time, she’d completely lost all her vocabulary in her excitement. She’d probably been in this state since last night, unable to sleep, but getting more worked up the longer she lay awake. It became morning before she knew it, so she’d come to my room the second she was ready—all to talk about that program.
“Yes, they did put it together nicely.” I had been to the recording location every day and Neal was my brother, so I didn’t feel anything on Reliared’s level. But given the girl hadn’t been able to go to the shoot no matter how much she wanted to, the episode must have been emotional for her to watch. She’d almost been in tears as she’d told me that she’d been unable to clear a space in her schedule to join me. Hildetaura had apparently said that she would attend too, but it seemed she was too busy herself. I couldn’t blame either of them—even I was having to force the free time to make it.
“There should be two or three more episodes,” I told her. There were still three weeks until the main matches, so they would likely be recording every day until then. I hadn’t been told what their intended pace for the broadcasts was, but given yesterday’s episode had been a compilation of the week’s recordings, weekly releases were likely their intention.
“Right?! They said episode one, didn’t they?! If there’s an episode one, that means there’s an episode two, right?! Young Master Neal will get to appear again, won’t he?!”
Yes, he will.
Disregarding Reliared and all of Neal’s other fans, I really did want my brother to succeed. I’d seen in person how hard he and his team had been working each day. I’d seen all the unrefined efforts they’d put in that couldn’t be shown on the MagiPad.
And so, the second episode of the Wingroad program was broadcast, the losers’ matches came to an end, and we only had two weeks left until the tournament.
We were finally entering the last sprint.