The moment her eyes opened, the first thing Elena thought about was paid leave. That was strange. Even if her brain were dead, it would still operate with the perspective of a laborer. Elena Violet—who in her previous life had been a woman named Nao Odagiri, an office worker at a certain infrastructure company who consistently logged 120 hours of overtime per month for seven years—posed a question to the ceiling from atop a canopied bed. "...How many days of paid leave do I have left?" With her head resting on a frilly pillow, she moved only her eyes to survey her surroundings. High ceilings. A chandelier. Morning light filtering through lace curtains. She had memories of her previous life. All of them. The memory of the day she collapsed from overwork, the linoleum ceiling of the hospital, her boss's words telling her to "rest a bit more before coming back"—all of it remained vivid. And she also had all the memories of this world. Elena sat up and moved to the mirror on her desk. In the mirror was herself. Long golden hair. Clear blue eyes. A perfectly arranged face. A seventeen-year-old girl who looked like she'd stepped straight out of a painting. "...Ugh." Elena's impression was neither "cute" nor "yes!" "This is an otome game." A quiet but definite sense of resignation drifted through the clear morning air. She remembered. In her previous life—when she was living as Nao Odagiri—there was a memory of fiddling with her phone in bed after a severe all-nighter. The title was "The Rose Crown." An otome game set in the Kingdom of Fleuresia. A massive hit that had surpassed 800,000 copies sold, recommended by a coworker at her company. And the face in the mirror was that of the villainess in that game—Elena Violet. Elena placed her feet on the floor and conducted a high-speed search through her game memories. The heroine was a commoner girl named Lillia. She entered the Royal Academy Lumière—an all-girls boarding school in the Kingdom of Fleuresia where noble children studied—and had romantic encounters with various capture targets. And Elena Violet appeared in every route of that game, depicted as a thoroughly villainous noblewoman who interfered with the protagonist. Five routes in total. Destruction endings in all of them. Elena lined up the list in her mind. Social exile, broken engagement, magical power stripped away, banishment from the country, imprisonment. The variations differed, but ultimately all the capture targets—who all had the same face—would tell her something like "You're finished now." "...Mass-produced pretty boys." A venomous comment slipped out first thing in the morning. Well, from what she'd seen in the game, they each had their own characteristics. The golden-haired first prince Alphonse, the silver-haired knight commander Sebastian, the black-haired court mage Leon. But with her current sense of things, the information beyond "all three are handsome" felt thin. Elena pulled out parchment and a quill from her desk drawer and began writing methodically. "Alphonse Fleuresia (do not approach), Sebastian Greyford (do not approach), Leon Ashberry (do not approach)" What was supposed to be a café opening plan had somehow transformed into a "no-contact list" on the parchment. Elena continued filling in the plan. Property candidates, initial costs, suppliers, magical circle designs. As she wrote, she became absorbed, moving into the second sheet of parchment, and before she knew it, a nonsensical memo reading "Alphonse Fleuresia (do not approach) → regular customer candidate?" had appeared in the margins of the plan. Elena looked at her own memo. "...Regular customer candidate?" Even though she'd written it herself, it was incomprehensible. Well, whatever. In any case, the policy was decided. Romance? Not needed. Destruction ending? Avoid it. Villainess behavior? Zero interest. What did she want to do? Run a café. A person who had spent seven years handling administrative work at a black company in her previous life had ultimately dreamed of a quiet little café. No one rushing her, at her own pace, making delicious things and making people who came happy. That was all she needed. Here, she had the convenient financial resources of the Violet Marquis family. In Blanche, the capital of the Kingdom of Fleuresia—a city of approximately 180,000 people located in the middle reaches of the Adel River—there were naturally vacant properties. And she had an aptitude for intermediate-level magic. Particularly temperature control magic came naturally to her; the magical academy's examination had said she could control it to 0.5-degree increments. She could open a café. ────── The Central Market Street in the capital of Blanche was crowded with people from morning. In this major commercial district with over 300 permanent shops and countless street stalls, bags of coffee beans transported from the southern port city of Palmera and barrels of milk delivered from the northeastern village of Petrica were being traded with spirited calls. Elena passed through the hustle and bustle and entered a side street. "...Is this the place?" the real estate agent—an old woman named Hannah with wrinkles on her forehead like a map, who seemed cheerful—said apologetically. "Miss, are you truly certain? This place, the sunlight is..." "No problem," Elena replied. "But the sunlight is..." "No problem." "...The sunlight..." "I'll handle the lighting with magic," Elena said. On the fifth attempt, the old woman gave up. Elena pulled out fifty gold coins from her pocket and signed the contract without hesitation. The property was an old wooden two-story building with a ground floor spacious enough for a café. Ivy clung to the walls, blending with the stone pavement. Twelve seats. Four tables. By previous-world standards, it was about the size of a small, individually-run coffee shop. It was perfect. Elena moved in her belongings that same day and began preparing the kitchen. Installing the cooling magic circle was the biggest task. It needed to be carved directly into the floor, and she repeated incantations while moving her hands. In this world, magic required short incantations and hand gestures to activate, and overusing it caused the magical power in one's body to deplete, leading to dizziness. It was similar to the lightheadedness Elena knew all too well from after overtime in her previous life. So she proceeded with the work, taking planned breaks. Or so it should have been. A problem arose when she started making trial pudding. Caramel needed to be cooked to 127 degrees. This came from memories of her previous life as Nao Odagiri. The pudding itself needed to be cooled to 4 degrees. This process, which demanded abnormal precision in temperature control, paradoxically evoked a feeling of "enjoyment" in Elena. As she poured magical power into achieving a perfect finish that tolerated no 0.1-degree deviation, she became absorbed. Before she knew it, she'd overused her magic. The sensation of consciousness drifting away. It was strikingly similar to the feeling of losing consciousness in a company chair after the last train in her previous life. That was her last memory. When she came to, Elena had face-planted directly into the pudding. A soft *puff* sound. When she lifted her face, a face-shaped hole remained in the center of the pudding. Caramel was tangled in her bangs, and she could feel egg on the tip of her nose. After a moment, Elena picked up the nearby parchment and wrote methodically. "Magical power distribution: adjust to 7:3 next time" The previous-life office worker spirit didn't disappear even from the impact of a face-dive into pudding. After that, the caramel stuck to her cheeks wafted a sweet aroma, and she unconsciously licked it with her tongue. "...It's delicious." In the empty kitchen, Elena's face flushed slightly. Even though no one was watching. ────── Making the sign was a task for the next day. She prepared a wooden board, dipped a quill in ink, and began writing with confidence. She'd already decided on the shop's name. Tsukikage-tei. It felt right. She liked the name. The problem was that the memories of Japanese characters from her previous life and this world's writing system were somewhat tangled in her brain. When she hung up the completed sign, Elena was satisfied. Passerby A stopped. "...What is this place?" "Um, the moon is... stopping?" Passerby B whispered. "Isn't that scary? Like a haunted house?" Passerby C stared intently and then hurried away without a word. Elena looked at the sign. It read "Tsukikage-tei" written as "月陰停"—literally "moon shadow stop." "..." She'd tried to write Tsukikage-tei, but all three characters had become different ones. It could be read as "a place where the moon darkens and stops"—a declaration of an ominous building. She immediately took it down and rewrote it. This time for sure, she hung it up. Passerby D stopped. "...A convent?" Passerby E stopped and read it intently with a serious expression. "Deep..." they murmured before leaving. Elena checked the sign. It read "月影享"—"enjoy the moon's shadow"—a philosophical slogan. "Why?" She began the third rewrite. This time, carefully, checking each stroke as she wrote. Footsteps sounded from beyond the stone pavement, and someone passed by. When Elena looked up, the person had already passed halfway. Black robe. Black hair. A slender back. They stopped and glanced sideways at the sign—still in progress, the third attempt at "Tsukikage-tei." They laughed through their nose. Quietly, but unmistakably. Without saying a word. The figure disappeared beyond the stone pavement, and Elena murmured. "...What's with that person, so rude." But their profile was imprinted on her mind against her will. The refined features and the sharp line of their profile. (Who was that?) She didn't arrive at their identity. The character appearance information from the game remained too vague, and besides, the sign problem was more pressing at the moment. On the fourth rewrite, she finally managed to write "Tsukikage-tei" correctly. Elena sat down on the floor, still holding the sign, and fell asleep. ────── Opening day. Elena lined up twelve puddings in perfect condition. The coffee beans were premium stock sourced through Palmera. The ultra-spicy ramen broth had been simmering since last night. She stood inside the counter in a fluffy blouse, white apron, and practical long skirt. Her chestnut-brown short hair curled slightly inward, framing her cheeks. Her deep green eyes alternated between watching the counter and the door. A small bandage on her right index finger—a mark from scraping it while carving the magic circle. 10 AM. Opening. No one came. 11 AM. No one came. 12 PM. Noon. No one came. Two passersby stopped in front of the sign, and just as Elena internally thought "They're here!" she heard "Hey, what kind of shop is this?" "I don't know... it's too far down a side street," and their footsteps faded away. Elena rested her elbow on the counter. "..." By evening, no one had come. ────── The second day was the same. The only difference was that a child opened the door and peeked inside in the early afternoon. "Is this a candy shop?" Elena answered with a full smile, demonstrating the results of her customer service practice. "We have pudding," she said. The child silently closed the door. They ran away. The reason was unclear. (Later, that child would report to their mother that "the older sister's smile was scary," a fact Elena would remain forever ignorant of.) In the evening, Elena sat alone, leaning against the wall. Twelve puddings remained beautifully arranged, eaten by no one. The coffee had gone cold. The ramen broth quietly wafted its aroma from the pot. "...I didn't do market research." The business sense cultivated over seven years in her previous life—where