Anna was confused, to say the least. She didn’t know how to process what was even going on at this point, even after a few hours had already passed since the initial commotion. The voice of her teacher turned into muffled static that played in the background, her eyes were staring at the blackboard full of white texts, her mind drifting along the clouds in search of inner peace.
Inner peace? How the hell am I gonna have inner peace when the plot has derailed so much?! She shouted in a shrill scream. It was truly a mess with no possible way for things to return to normal. Perhaps things had already gone astray much earlier than this and she’s only learning about it now.
No, things were still okay, in fact, it should theoretically be better. If what she had heard was right, then the girl, Elaine Fortune, was the girl who had her parents die in the fire - sad, but this meant she was just a normal girl, a girl who had no magical abilities.
If things played out as normal in the game, then in their third year, she would launch a devastating attack and display abilities at the pinnacle of Royal Mages. She was practically invincible and was only defeated when Christopher Laum arrived. Perhaps the fire wouldn’t have even appeared, and she would have spent more time as a normal girl who didn’t know about magic.
If that’s the case, and hopefully it was, it meant that by the time they become third-year students, she would most likely reach the level of a royal mage, a royal mage that can control time! This meant Anna would have another powerful ally to fight against the Demon Lord and the organization pushing forward the descent of the devil, Grim Hallow!
As her mind continued to wander in all these theories and possible results from this change, a loud ring rang through the hallways and classrooms of the building they were in as the students cheered. The teacher gave a light chuckle to the excited students, recommended some books to read in advance for their next classes, and told them to enjoy their lunch.
Rob slowly stood up and flicked Elaine’s forehead, waking her up from her drowsy state. “What a sleepyhead,” he teased.
“Ugh,” she rubbed her forehead with a frown.
“Come on, I still have work to do,” Rob reminded her and stood up while grabbing his bag.
“You still have work?” Elaine chuckled and wore a teasing grin. “What a workaholic.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rob muttered in indifference. “Just hurry up before I leave you.”
“Fine!” Elaine yawned as she followed behind Rob.
Now all alone at her desk, ignored by the two siblings, Anna stared down at her hands, wearing a strangely tragic smile, and said in amusement, “I guess the true loner here is me.”
But… The main problem here is the fire. That’s likely the reason everything is in a mess right now. Because of that fire, Rob somehow became Elaine’s sister, the same girl who could assassinate Royal Mages and Royal Knights in a single breath. Anna rubbed her aching head and sighed, murmuring in defeat, “Fuck, it seems like my foreknowledge would become more useless.”
The only thing she could hope for now was that this change was a net positive and that Grim Hallow doesn’t get a more overpowered member any time soon.
…
Holly was inside the Inside Garden of the academy, silently roaming along the neat stone paths placed along patches of soil full of magical greenery. Trees shook in response to her presence, mana swirled around in an erratic manner as the plants instinctively sensed her mana signature, responding either defensively or aggressively, though most stayed neutral since they could tell she had no malicious intentions.
They were almost like animals - almost. They’re all non-sentient and rely purely on their magical senses to react with nothing but their instinct, rather than think and act accordingly.
The air was moist, with an earthy smell covering the entire garden. She breathed in and wore a pleasant as she was met with a rather familiar atmosphere. Having lived most of her life on a farm, in the countryside with clean air and fresh wind, this place gave her a hint of nostalgia, but this was still far from being comparable with the liveliness of the countryside.
As she returned back to a table placed in a lightly illuminated corner by the rays of light poking through the glass ceiling and the green roof made from gathered leaves, she heard footsteps echo from the stairs as two figures walked up.
She didn’t recognize either of them and thought that they were merely strangers who were there to visit the garden, or perhaps they were just like her, planting their own plants for their personal projects. But, when the guy unceremoniously sat down on the bench opposite to her, and the sister followed, she raised her eyebrow and asked, “Um, excuse me, but that seat is reserved.”
“O-Oh? It’s reserved? Sorry about that!” the girl hastily responded as she glared at the boy. “I told you to not sit here!”
“Wow, it hurts…” The boy clutched his chest as he stared at Holly with a grieving gaze. “You don’t even recognize me anymore.”
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Holly recognized that familiar voice and almost shot a quick mana arrow with just how shocked she was. That voice belonged to none other than Rob, but… he wasn’t Rob.
“A-Are you… Rob?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“What? I just took a haircut and you’re acting like you’ve seen a ghost,” he teased.
“You did look ugly as hell before. I wonder why you even had a haircut as bad as that,” the girl beside him said with a snort.
“Well, I’m sorry that I was an ugly loser, okay?” Rob rolled his eyes and pulled out his lunch box as usual, placing it on the table and opening it with a barely audible click.
“You’re really Rob? As in Rob Fortune? The Rob Fortune who looked like a depressed and angsty- I mean the same Rob Fortune who looked… like… uh.”
“Yes, yes! It’s me! Is it so hard to believe for a guy to have a glow-up?” Rob said with an annoyed tone.
“But you were just so… unassuming? Is that even the right word?” Holly rubbed her head in dismay.
“I know right? He used to look like a side character that you wouldn’t even remember the name of in a story,” Elaine jeered.
“Rude! But true,” Rob agreed.
“How do you even look so… different? Where did all that muscle come from?! Why is your face so different?!” Holly was beginning to grow crazy from the sheer difference that had changed in just two days.
“It’s the new clothes, okay? And my hair just used to cover a majority of my face, like, my bangs covered the majority of my eyes, remember?” Rob reminded with a smile. To provide a clearer visual image, he conjured a floating image to appear right beside his face for the two to see. “See?”
“Now that I look at it… Your clothes were really baggy back then as if they were too large for you. And now that you said it, I guess I never saw your face without your hair blocking it so much…” Holly rubbed her chin in confusion. So… she wasn’t insane and just missed out on a lot of details because of Rob’s clothes and hair?
But that still doesn’t explain how Rob went from 5’8 to somewhere along like 5’10 in two days.
“Probably an accident with a potion or something,” Rob answered as he waved his hand to dismiss her worry. “It’s not that serious, really, although I did have a very torturous night that day.”
“I see…” Holly decided to just believe it. The reasons Rob gave were valid, in a way, and why would he even need to lie in the first place?
As the trio ate, she decided to ask another question and poke at the elephant in the room, “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Oh, her?” Rob looked to the side and rolled his eyes. “She’s Elaine.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Holly!” Elaine greeted her and went for a handshake. While she wasn’t that enthusiastic to meet new people, there was a sort of special charm Holly had that radiated an aura of warmth and friendliness - it was strange but comforting.
“It’s nice to meet you too!” Holly smiled and shook hands with Elaine. She was more than curious to learn more about the sister of her… mentor and she wanted to give a good first impression.
“Okay, enough with the greetings!” Rob reminded the two. “We still have classes to do so you two better hurry up and eat. Time is ticking, you know?”
Elaine rolled her eyes and unpacked her lunch. It was a scrumptious lunch, full of eggs and juicy meat. Rob had the same meal as her, but in larger portions since he was bulking up to gain more muscle.
“So, what are you even teaching her?” Elaine asked curiously while biting into a piece of chicken.
“Botany,” Rob replied.
“And also holy magic!” Holly continued.
“Holy magic?” Elaine murmured. “Oh, you’re that girl! That super duper talented girl!”
“Ah, right…,” Holly coughed and ignored the nickname.
“So, how did that even happen?” Elaine questioned.
“Oh, it’s a long story…,” Holly said in hopes of swaying Elaine’s interest away. She didn’t even know how to begin explaining it, much less giving a story about it.
“I have time,” Elaine responded, oblivious to Holly’s struggles.
“Well, hmm…” Holly crossed her arms and furrowed her arms as she began to think. “It all started when I was around ten or so, I don’t really remember.”
“A wandering mage was traveling across the empire, and found herself in my hometown. While they were wandering around, they seemed to have somehow noticed that I was subconsciously manipulating the mana around me and taught me for a little while and gave me a book.”
“After they went away, I began to teach myself magic, just for the fun of it, and learned some pretty useful spells to help out on the farm.”
“Oh, so your family owns a farm?” Elaine inquired.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty large farm! It doesn’t really snow in the region the town is in, so we could plant rice all year long. But back to the story, a few years had passed after I had taught myself magic. My parents thought it would be a good idea for me to try to enroll here, in the academy, and we had excess savings at that time so it wouldn’t be that hard to do.”
“So fast forward, I found myself taking the test. As I expected, the written portion of the exam was really hard since my knowledge was spotty, but the results of that quiz became irrelevant when they tested my aptitude. I guess I’m pretty gifted in holy magic that they immediately granted me a scholarship, and grant me a pretty sizeable allowance for monthly expenses.”
“Damn, they’re giving you free money?!” Elaine widened her eyes in surprise. “They only gave me a scholarship and I had to cram so much in just two days so I can keep up with the rest of the class!”
“What do you mean cram everything in two days?” Holly asked.
“I actually only recently learned magic like… yesterday? We were just hanging around on Saturday, wandering around the capital, when Rob suddenly wanted me to test out my magical aptitude. So I was like, sure! Let’s do it! I was curious, you know?”
“But who would have thought that would become a nightmare soon, because Christopher Laum was disguising himself as a normal old guy operator schmuck, and saw my supposedly earth-shattering aptitude in time magic. He then practically forced me to attend school, and me and Rob here hadn’t slept for two nights so I could learn everything I needed, even controlling mana,” Elaine grumbled in anger.
“Time magic? That’s way more rare compared to holy magic! But why didn’t you just take the entrance exam with Rob back then? Why only now?” Holly began to spot some irregularities in the story Elaine told.
“Oh, that?” Rob finally chided in. “You want her to know?”
“It’s fine,” Elaine said with a smile. Whatever it was, it’s definitely serious.
“Ahem,” Rob coughed to clear his throat. “Elaine here, to boil it down, is adopted. Her parents died in a fire, parents that abused her, and now she was adopted last week Monday by my parents.”
“Wait wait wait, she’s adopted?! Abused?! Huh?!”
“It’s not that deep, Holly.” Elaine waved her hand. “My mind’s pretty okay due to a couple of potions here and there, so you don’t have to worry about my trauma too much. Besides, life’s okay now, so you just gotta enjoy it.”
“Uh, sure…?” Holly said. How eccentric… They really are just like real siblings.