Chapter 8: The Day Out
4 days have passed, and it’s finally the first weekend of the school year. Throughout the week, I’ve suffered forced combat training that for some reason differs from my peers, learnt about different plants and monsters in wilderness survival, and listened to more random tales about my exploits in the past. Attending school is a lot harder than I thought.
Anyway, it’s now Saturday, and I can finally take a break from all of that. Today, I just feel like sleeping and reading in my room. I don’t want to do any more physical or social activities, it’s too much of a pain. Unfortunately, my mother and a certain friend had other plans for me.
“Aria! Guess who’s here!” My mother bursts into the room, yelling that, and I immediately pull the blanket over my head. I didn’t want to get out of this warm little spot I have right here. “Come on, dear, don’t be like that!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll handle it, Ms. Brynhildr. You can wait outside for now.” Another voice speaks to my mom, and I hear an ‘okay~’ from my mother before the sound of a door shutting closed can be heard. Although my mother finally left, I’d have preferred her to be here this moment, because that voice I heard was extremely familiar.
“Okay then, Mr. Taciturn, time to RISE AND SHINE!” The voice yelled out loud, and suddenly I’m being lifted while wrapped in the blanket. The person holding me began to spin me around, and I began to feel dizzy. I don’t let my voice out, and I try to endure this silently. Then, the blanket began to loosen, and I slip out of it, flying face-first straight into my wall. Thankfully, the bed was my landing zone, so I didn’t take any more damage when I fell.
“…why?” I sit up as if nothing even happened to me, and faced the perpetrator of this act of evilness.
“Of course, it’s because you didn’t wake up and greet me! Look, we’re friends now right? So friends should hang out with each other!” The cheerful girl in front of me states this as if it was only natural to swing your friend around if they didn’t wake up to say hello.
“…why?” I ask a second time. This time I was asking why she wanted to hang out with me today.
“Like, I, said! We’re friends now! Therefore, I’m going to drag you out with me and we’re both going to the mall! So let’s get your dressed up!” She begins pulling on my clothes and removing them for me, until I was completely undressed and the only thing visible was the bandages wrapping me.
Why is it that every girl close to me wants to dress me up? Is it somehow fun to dress up someone wrapped up like a mummy? I don’t understand them. Anyway, she enters my closet and looks through the clothes I have.
“Why is there a rabbit costume in here?” She asks while pulling out a t-shirt and shorts for me.
“Mom.” I reply. She snorts to herself, holding back her laughter. I try to glare at her, but obviously no one could tell if I was due to the bandages.
“Well, let’s get going. I want to spend the whole day with you, so let’s make the most of it!” She grabs my hand and sprints out the room, pulling me along with her. I nearly tumble as we run down the stairs, but manage to maintain my balance. After putting our shoes on at the front door, my mother yells from the living room.
“Have a great time, you two! Tell your mother I said hi, Thoth!”
“Thank you! We’ll be back!” My friend shouts back. These two seemed much more compatible with each other than I was. Kind of saddens me for a bit, but I forget about it right away. It’s only a trivial thing. We leave the house, and exit out the front gate, heading towards the downtown section of the city. Thoth tries to start up a conversation on the way there.
“So, how’ve you been doing since we last met?” She asked.
“…busy…school…” I tell her. She has a look of surprise in her face for a second, then a grin appears on her face.
“Oi, oi, what is this? Our little taciturn is actually attending school? I’m so proud of you!” She teases me. I just shrug her off though, and she asks another question. “So, which school you attending?”
“…Krystalis Academy.”
“Woah! Really!? That school is actually a rival of my school! By the way, I’m attending ‘Atalin Royal Academy,’ because it’s my parent’s alma mater. They’re both competing for top spot in the kingdom, you know?” I shake my head in reply, and she laughs to herself. Then, she began to lecture me about it.
“Of course you don’t. They compete through the semi-annual tournament held in the kingdom, the [National Adventurer’s Tournament]! Every school in Atalin sends their best students as representatives, where they participate in a number of events to earn prestige for their school. It happens in the Fall and Spring, but there are different restrictions for these two tournaments.”
“The [Fall Tournament], which is coming up in about a month and a half, will only allow freshmen and students in their final year of education to participate. This is because they want to show the potential of their new students, and show off their cultivation of students who attended all six years. The [Spring tournament] allows all students as long as they have a level over 10 and stats at least totally 75 points.” Right after saying this, as if she just realized something, she stops walking.
“Wait, doesn’t this mean that…” A smile creeps up on her face and she turns her head towards my direction, keeping that smile. I didn’t like it. I immediately began sprinting away, down the road, but she managed to grab the collar of my shirt and stopped me from running.
“Aria, you’ll be joining the tournament this fall, right?” She says with an evil grin. I had no choice but to agree. She lets me go, and we begin walking again, but I kept my distance from her. She was whistling happily, not caring at all. We kept going like this until we arrive at our destination.
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“You really need to take off those bandages.” Thoth says to me. We both just left a sweets shop, and walked around window shopping in the mall. I was sucking on a lollipop while Thoth was eating ice cream, something I’ve never tried before due to the bandages.
“…can’t.” I tell her. She understands why, but she still doesn’t like it.
“What if I found another way to curse you without giving you such a stupid appearance? Would you take it?” I shake my head immediately, which surprised her.
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“…hide…self…longer…” She seemed to understand the message, but pouted her lips upon hearing it.
“Fine then. When you change your mind though, come straight to me, okay? I’ll put on a demonic curse so strong that you’ll even have gravity against you.” She lets her sadistic intentions for a bit, but returns to the cheerful attitude. We continue window shopping, and roaming around the mall together. It was pretty fun, even though we didn’t buy anything. I just liked hanging out with her in general I guess. Is this what having a friend feels like?
When it reaches about noon, we finally leave the mall and head towards the park. As we reach the entrance of the park, my attention immediately focused on a group of people in the center of the park, just hanging out together. I immediately pull on Thoth’s arm and turn around, trying to walk away.
“What’s wrong?” She asked me. I pointed at the group and made an X with my two index fingers, and she understood the message. I was too late in escaping though. In the corner of my vision I see one of them turn towards this direction, so I begin sprinting away from park immediately, and Thoth left in a different direction. My stats were much higher than hers, so there was no way she could’ve kept up with me, so we split up.
I sprint back down the city and hurriedly went into the nearest alley. I wanted to try and keep myself as conspicuous as possible, but I also needed to get away from that park. Why was I working so hard to get away? Well, you see, this group of people was one I didn’t want to interact with after a certain event four days ago. Yeah, that unique group of students that I was eavesdropping on.
They were actually looking for me throughout the week, some of them standing by the school gate waiting for me to leave. Fortunately I still had my light magic from my previous life, so I was able to use illusion magic to disguise my appearance. They did the same at lunch, so every time I escaped and left the school, sneaking back in right before classes started again.
I don’t know what they wanted from me, and I don't really care what they want. Whatever request they may have for me, it's probably going to be annoying and boring in some way. Judging from what I've seen as well, it seems like they're also very persistent, so simply refusing them won't work. That's why I'm going to these lengths to escape from them.
After taking several turns in the alley, I slow down because I was starting to feel tired from all the running I did. I start walking down the strangely desolate alley, and use [Enhanced Detection] to be sure that they weren’t following me. When I first entered, I saw a bunch of guys smoking in the alley in small groups, and they did give me strange looks when they saw me running through. Now though, there was absolutely no one.
As I continue walking slowly, I finally feel someone’s presence. No, I felt three people’s presence. It wasn’t the other students’ though, but those of the boys I saw when I first entered the alley. I turn around to try and look for them, but I don’t see anyone. They were definitely there though, I can hear extremely quiet footsteps slowly making their way towards me, and the smell of cigarettes was getting stronger. They were using invisibility magic. So even thugs like these have mages? Is it a common thing now to be a mage, or a rarity? Back then, they were definitely scarce, but for some random group of thugs to have a mage now, it makes me feel like crying.
I don't have time for that, though. I turn back around and increase my walking speed, trying to navigate through the alleys to escape from a different group of people now. Eventually, more people appear and cut my way off whenever I got close to escaping, and it kept happening until they finally trapped me. They were both in front and behind me, and there was some even above me at the roof of the buildings. They all dispelled their invisibility, and as I thought, it was the same people I saw when I first entered the alleys.
“Hey there kid, you lost? What’chu doing walking around our territory?” One of them walks up and immediately asks me a question in an intimidating way. I don’t respond to him though, keeping quiet.
“Hello, are those ear workin’? Can you understand us, hello? Or are you a completely broke person underneath those bandages?” It was clear that he was starting to get irritated, but I still don’t respond.
“Pfft, you seriously asking him that? What kind of broken person would run at that kind of speed? He even knew where most of our guys was when we chased him. Clearly he’s some sort of super-kid that was sent here to investigate us. Probably the son of cops or something.” Well, he got that completely wrong, but I don’t try to correct him. Unfortunately, the person intimidating me immediately believed him.
“Ah, that sounds about right. We can’t have people snooping around in our territory, you feel me? So kid, you’re coming with us.” He grabs my hand and tries to pull me away. At this point, should I just beat him down or obediently follow.
I don’t get to do either, because something unexpected happens. Screams were heard from above, and everyone looks up to see what was happening. Two figures suddenly jump from the two story building and landed onto the ground next to me and my captor. I recognize both of them immediately.
“Raina, go for it.” A white haired boy says to his younger sister. A wicked smile appears on her face as she replies. As I thought, she’s someone who enjoys fighting.
“Okay. I hope they can keep me entertained.” She sprints to the wall with high speed and runs up a few steps before jumping off of it, making a dive kick towards the nearest assailant, who was the man trying to abduct me. He raises his arm to block it, but strength of the kick broke through, shattering his arm bone and smashing into his chest. He’s driven into the ground, and is completely subdued.
“So, let’s start off with a bone-breaking symphony, shall we?” I’m not sure about the symphony part, but during the next 15 minutes, there was definitely bone breaking. It was a one-sided beatdown from her end, and the screams of many men were heard that day. Now, how am I going to escape in this situation?