“Oh, uh…” The young elven girl froze for a moment as she nearly lost balance over the tray of hot tea and biscuits. Regaining her balance and making sure no tea was spilled, she heaved a sigh of relief and cleared her throat before speaking. “Hi!”
“Nuela, right?” Anna asked with squinted eyes. She had already decided to take a more authoritative approach and press for answers. Even though she had near-limitless access to the flow of information throughout history, with her damaged soul and the scarred world spirit, it would take a heap of effort to even gain a smidgen of info she needed.
So, rather than go through all that trouble, she’d rather spend a little time talking and keeping up with the news from the young eleven girl.
“You know me?” Nuela was surprised and placed the tray of biscuits and tea on the bedside table before sitting down on a stool placed right beside Anna’s bed. Leaning forward slightly, her eyes twinkled with excitement as she asked a question herself, “You’re Annabeth Auburn… right?”
“Yes.” Anna nodded her head and slowly pushed herself into a sitting position with her back resting on the wall. Looking at Nuela intently, she continued, “I assume my guess is correct?”
“Yeah! I’m Nuela Vorhiz! It’s nice to meet you!” she greeted chirpily and stretched out her hand for a handshake. “Let me tell you, when I found you two bleeding out in the forests, I nearly fell unconscious from shock.”
“Although it seems the spirits like you really well because one of them came begging to me to help you. If it weren’t for that little wind spirit, you would have died!” Nuela rambled.
Anna smiled lightly as she watched a small wind spirit hovering on top of Nuela’s head waving at her. Nodding her head subtly as a sign of thanks to the wind spirit, it smiled brightly and slowly disappeared.
Moving her attention back to the conversation, Anna asked something that had piqued her interest. “You can also see spirits?”
“Yeah, I had always been able to see them since I was young! It’s not public knowledge, but very rarely amongst elven folks, some of us would be able to see the spiritual plane and interact with the spirits of the world!” She explained quickly, as if afraid Anna knew something else that would connect the dots regarding her true identity.
Unfortunately for her, Anna already knew her true identity, and her being able to see spirits is just another sign of confirmation regarding that matter, because, amongst elven folks, the only family with a guaranteed chance of having the unique trait of seeing spirits is the Royal Elmaer Elven Family!
Taking a subtle look at her shining, gem-like green eyes that shimmered whenever placed under the soft rays of light from the sun, Anna inwardly sighed at just how vast the world spirit’s influence had been on the common folk.
It was such an obvious detail that it appeared rather stupid how no one else noticed her unique eyes for so long. Anna does wonder though why she didn’t just wear contacts to hide her gem-like eyes, but Anna is so preoccupied with so much stuff that she doesn’t have the energy nor the capacity to answer such a minor question.
“But I am curious why the spirits like you so much. Even I barely find them interacting with me this enthusiastically with barely little effort.” Nuela pointed out by physically pointing at the swarm of spirits gently swirling around Anna’s figure.
“It’s just an innate talent, a fated gift if you will.” Anna smiled playfully.
“Well, I guess that is true, that also explains the rumors regarding your multi-elemental aptitude… But wait, did you dye your hair? And why are your eyes like that now? I remember clearly that you’ve always had auburn-colored hair and brown eyes!” Nuela asked while tilting her head to the left.
“Oh that, ahaha…” Anna coughed as a thought swiftly flashed through her mind with a little guidance from the world spirit. “It was a magical accident.”
“Me and Noel back then were experimenting on a magic array, when the spirits suddenly started to go into a massive panic and the mana in the area warped to an extreme degree! Things just began to shake and stuff, and bam, I blacked out. The last thing I saw was a burst of mana in the sky,” Anna recalled and made motions with her hands to emphasize her points.
“Oh, so you passed out during the Great Cataclysm…” Nuela’s eyes lit up with enlightenment as if the mystery that had been puzzling her for nearly a month had finally been solved.
“The Great Cataclysm?” Anna asked hurriedly.
“Ah, right! You wouldn’t know about that since you’ve been knocked out for a month.” Nuela rubbed her head, embarrassed. She then straightened her back and began to talk. “Exactly a month ago, the Northern Continent faced the event now known as the Great Cataclysm.”
“The Great Northern Forest, Vast Southern Desert, Shadowy Western Plains, and Deep Eastern Trenches all simultaneously experienced countless natural disasters ranging from earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis; it was so scary!”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Then, with more details coming to light, it turned out the event was far more mystical than what was first thought! Those with experience in soul magic all saw the sea of souls swirling in the sky, and those hundreds of millions of souls that covered the entire continent all gathered in the royal capital… here! Well, not exactly here, but up above in the sky!”
Nuela waved her hand and showed a vivid illusion of the swirling mass of milky white souls in the sky. This illusion was created by first replicating the memories of a direct witness of the Great Cataclysm, then inscribing it into an array, mass producing it, and spreading it to the masses.
So, even though she was rather inexperienced with illusion magic, Anna didn’t find it too strange she had produced this vivid illusion.
Inspecting it closely, she inwardly sighed over the godlike magical capabilities of the man known as Mammon. Not only was he superior in terms of power, but in skill and technique too! At their last fight, she still remembered how she was squashed so thoroughly with no hopes of making a comeback at all.
The end of their fight still sent minor shivers down her spine with how close she was to facing death. If not for Mammon’s weird inclinations to keep her alive for whatever scheme he was planning, she would have already been dead.
Keeping me alive even after all this time… Anna gritted her teeth as she felt her rage bubble. Do you think you can just treat me as some sort of pawn? Hmph, I’ll make you regret not killing me after all this!
Her thoughts were soon interrupted as the two heard a groan from the side. Turning to look at the bed where Noel slept, his eyes slowly winked open as surprise flashed on the two girl’s faces.
Nuela quickly came to Noel’s side and slowly aided him in waking up, while Anna rubbed her head and sat with a straight back. Grabbing a cup of tea from the tray, she took a sip and enjoyed the mellow taste while watching Noel’s dazed eyes slowly focus on the young elven girl and her.
He then lets out a grunt of pain as he clutches his aching head. Shooting up into a sitting position, he curled up like a shrimp and grabbed his forehead with both of his hands.
“Uh... uh… are you okay?” Nuela asked hesitantly as she didn’t know what to do or how to help Noel.
Noel ignored her completely though as memories of the fight replayed in his mind with crystal clear quality. The headache soon subsided as his inactive mind went into homeostasis to return back to its normal state before he then locked eyes with Anna.
Anna couldn’t be bothered to think about anything else though as she stared dazely at Noel’s… hair. She didn’t notice it at first when he was still lying down with his head all bundled up by the pillow, but now that he was sitting, she noticed the drastic change in his haircut.
It had significantly reduced in length and changed drastically in style. Previously, his hair had gone down all the to his waist, all straight and fine, but it has now been cut up into something more… stylish and messy.
It was basically, with her minute knowledge regarding men’s hairstyle back from the modern world, a two-block haircut with a 60/40 split. And through some stupid magic logic, his hair went from fine and straight to having a slight wave, giving him a messier look.
Appearing dumbfounded for a moment, she coughed and cleared her throat before waving hello to the still groggy Noel.
“Anna?” He murmured and then looked to the young elven girl right beside him. “Nuela?”
“What… happened?” he asked with a confused look in his eyes.
…
“While I don’t like to force others to share their secrets with me, I can tell with a glance alone that whatever secret you’re hiding from me is important.” Noel clicked his tongue and placed his hands into his pockets.
“I promise! It’s nothing special!” Anna shook her head and waved her arms. Although it is since it’s knowledge of the truth of this world, the mysteries of fate, our predestined encounter, our… destiny to be together…
Hmph, but with this knowledge now, there’s no way in hell I’ll fall in love with this bozo! Anna wore a confident smirk on her face as she followed behind Noel.
Taking a quick look at her stupid face, Noel sighed and said bluntly, “Look at you, smiling at me like that. You really can’t lie for the life of you, huh?”
“Huh?” Anna quickly removed the grin on her face and looked away from Noel. “It was nothing! I wasn’t even smiling at you… I was just smiling at the fact that… I’ll get to see my friends after being gone for a month!”
“Really?” Noel scoffed and shook his head disappointingly. “Your friends are basically me, Elaine, and the guy you kind of hate for no reason, Rob. Other than them, your closest acquaintances are Leo and Melvin. Smirking so dubiously like that for meeting your friends again is just blatant lying.”
“Okay, fuck you!” Anna huffed and placed her hands on her waist. “It’s not like I’m the only loner here! Heck, you’re even a bigger loner than me because the only friend you have is-“
“Kain Vizwel, Rhett Convir, Alice Lamuer, and Elaine Fortune.”
“-None… Wait… HUH?!?!” Anna’s eyes bulged out in dismay. “Y-Y-You have friends other than me… Wait, how in the heck are you even friends with Elaine???”
“She came to me begging for me to teach her time magic since Rob’s teaching methods were very strict and methodical. She wanted something more easy and cheat-ish, so I taught her how to construct some simple temporal arrays and now I regularly tutor her during the weekends.”
“You could even say that I’m rather close acquaintances with Rob since he sometimes comes looking for me to receive opinions regarding some of his alchemical products. And I must say, his genius never ceased to amaze me when it comes to alchemy and the creation of magical products.” Noel smiled lightly as he glanced at Anna’s gawking face.
“Okay, fine! You can shut up now!” Anna rolled her eyes and hastened her pace to leave Noel behind.
Smiling lightly, he followed behind her as the two soon reached the royal academy. Albeit, upon opening the door to their classroom and receiving surprised stares along the way from classmates and students of Class 1-A, they were met with a ridiculously large room with no chairs or desks in sight.
The whole room was replaced with a big and large hall, with mirrors covering the walls, stacks of foods and drinks on the side, along with a mannequin-like golem dancing in front of an entire crowd of students.
And, as soon as they stepped into the room, their eyes met with Rob’s who was floating in the air above everyone else, with a checklist in one hand and a pen in the other.
As soon as their gazes interlocked, a chilling grin appeared on Rob’s face.
“So you two shitheads are finally here… Two weeks! I’VE BEEN STRESSING THE HELL OUT OF MY LIFE FOR TWO WEEKS BECAUSE YOU TWO WERE MISSING FOR A MONTH STRAIGHT!”