22 1 more day until the battle

...

*bang*

Feeling the blow of Wilhelm's sword, my body flips and flies towards the ground. Noticing this, I bring one arm behind me and catch myself before my head rams into the dirt.

I then proceed to use my hand to push myself off the ground and go into a backflip. Once straight I lean myself forward a bit and prepare for landing. Doing so makes me land cleanly.

I then shoot my attention immediately towards Wilhelm and rush towards him again only for him to raise his hand towards me. "I believe that is enough for today. We still have issues concerning a beast to worry about."

Hearing him I stop my steps and stick my practice sword into the ground. I then rummage around in my front pocket of my vest before pulling out a handkerchief.

Using it, I wipe the sweat from my forehead and face before folding it again to stuff back into my pocket. Once done, I turn towards Rem who has been watching over the two of us and grab my suit.

"How are the preparations going? Do we have all of the mages? And what about the equipment provided by Russel?"

Rem just calmly nods to my questions before listing off the current affairs of the operation. "The mage squadrons have been formed successfully, Lady Anastasia has sent a mercenary group that is supporting her, I believe they are called Iron Fang."

"Mr. Russel and lady Crusch have come to an agreement for the equipment and the weapons are being quickly prepared. We should have all the forces against the White Whale complete by tomorrow evening."

I can only just release a sigh of relief before smiling. I was worried about the equipment part. But it seems Russel is willing to overwork himself for this ordeal.

"What about healers?" I ask her before turning towards Wilhelm. He said that we would be done for today, but he clearly doesn't want to stay idle.

"They have all been contacted. Out of the 20 healers present in the Healing Institute , 12 have agreed to come."

12 will be plenty, Felix will get some much needed pressure off his back. I then look into the air and see the sun directly above us. It seems we have hit afternoon.

"Rem, are the merchants prepared for travel?" They are a key part of my plan after all. I will be keeping a close eye on the merchant present in this scenario.

They did after all sneak in and fit a massive explosion along with plenty of cultists. Betelgeuse is still my greatest worry for now. I would rather leave the dirty work for Julius, but I NEED to kill him.

I have a few theory's on how I could avoid the scenario of possession. Betelgeuse's soul could effect the physical world for a certain period of time using unseen hand. So destroying his soul is a key point to my success.

I have tried speaking to others about Return by Death. However, I had no reaction whatsoever. I even asked Rem to sniff me to see if the witches stench had increased.

That didn't even increase either. At the current time, I cannot confirm the ability of Return by Death. It may be because I haven't 'returned' yet, or it may very well be because I don't have it.

I may even have a different ability as to compared to Subaru. But that also made me terrified. That would mean that Satella has noticed the change present in Subaru's body.

And knowing how the witch of envy part of Satella acted towards Subaru, it terrifies me to think about what she has prepared for me.

"Are you ok Suburu?" Rem asks as she pulls on my tux's sleeve and looks at me with worry. "You seem lost in thought, are you worried about the upcoming battle?"

Snapping out of my thought, I look down and frown towards Rem. "Yes I am worried. We would all die if things went wrong after all."

"The beast could just blast us with a overpowering mist and go straight into his second phase causing countless deaths and panic among our soldiers."

"We could both even end up being forgot-"

Before I could finish, Rem just put her finger up to my mouth to shut me up. She then looked at me with a smile before shaking her head slowly.

"Suburu, you tend to get way too stressed over small details. You need some time to unwind and relax, how about spending time with me?"

Putting my hand over her own, I take a hold of it. She's right, I'm far too stressed.

"Thanks Rem, I don't know what I'd do without you. Let's go get some tea or something."

She then smiles brightly and softly squeezes my hand.

"That sounds nice."

...

It's now late at night, Rem helped me calm my nerves earlier. Looking over my shoulder, I see her curled under my bed sheets. She had a peaceful and happy smile upon her face.

Seeing this, my face contorts into a genuine smile. She truly is a wonderful girl.

But just as quick as my smile came, it disappeared. My face changed into a frown and guilt suddenly surged throughout my whole being.

Maybe I shouldn't....

But then a subconscious part of me starts to reel it all back. I sat there in silence with only the sounds of Rem's breathing encompassing the room.

Once calm, I look into the mirror in front of me. Staring at me is 'my' reflection. Truth be told, I still struggle to identify this body as 'mine' at times.

It just 'feels' off, going from tall and stout, to short and skinny. Now don't get me wrong, this body is amazing. I've learned that the endurance needed to be worked on though, but without using magic. I can create a crack in a tree with a single punch.

Give me a month, and I feel that I will be able to crush rocks with my grip and punch a tree down with just my physical strength alone.

Speaking of physical strength, you can also boost it with magic. I actually picked this up fairly quickly, I seem to have much better control over my mana then Subaru did.

Of course it took me a few attempts to get down. I almost broke my shoulder on my first few attempts when I only reinforced my fist.

But when I sat down to think about it, I realized how stupid I was. When you punch, you use your full upper body.

So all I had to do was simply reinforce the whole right side of my body along with my spine, I didn't want to risk paralysis. Doing so made an explosive difference in strength as I broke a tree in half.

The sheer joy I felt from such a 'simple' thing in this world was unimaginable. I then went over other ways to make it more effective. I could also reinforce my hips and legs to generate more energy when I punch, I would also reinforce my upper body to make it all explode out violently.

When I did this, I managed to shatter a boulder about my size into smaller pieces. When doing the original technique, I only managed to cause some big cracks.

But I unfortunately made a huge mistake when sending mana to reinforce my eyes and ears. It almost made me go into shock from a sensory overload.

I then thought of a simple solution and reinforced my brain. This made my perception of time slow and my thought process speed up. I dropped a stone and it took 21 seconds for it to hit the ground.

When I tested it again without my boost, I counted 3 seconds. This means my perception of time is 7 times faster than when using strengthening magic on my brain's capabilities.

However, this drained my mana at a terrifying degree. This is because I had to focus on the many neurons and parts of my brain that involve my perception of time and thought processing abilities.

Funny enough however, I recalled many other things from the past life when boosting my memory. This means I can use my past life's knowledge to a much more accurate degree.

In the future I could perhaps make strengthening my brain a viable option for a drawn out battle. For now though, it is a trump card for when my life is in extreme danger.

Anyways, I should probably get some sleep now. Thinking about all my success in magic has made me tired.

I then got up from my desks chair and went to the bed where Rem was sleeping with her beautiful smile. Looking down at her naked figure, a slight ache arose from within my heart before quickly disappearing.

I then slowly got into bed, brought my hand to her cheek, and kissed her forehead. I then noticed how she smiled in her sleep from my touch.

Seeing this, the feeling of happiness and guilt once again surfaced before once again disappearing.

"Goodnight Rem."

...