After helping Illia make breakfast, Zeigel was finally allowed to return to his room. Inside, he found Saliza clinging to the ceiling like a human spider. Somehow it didn't seem so unusual to Zeigel.

"What the hell are you doing?" He asked.

"Hiding from the other trainees. Didja clear things up with them already?"

"Yup, they're cool with us now. They're a pretty nice group, you should go introduce yourself to them." He told her with a sly smile.

"Yeah! Time to make some new friends!" Saliza dropped down from the ceiling and left to introduce herself to the other trainees. She returned a minute later, furious at Zeigel.

"Why am I being accused of breaking into their room!" She growled.

"Not sure. It's probably because of how shady you look with that mask on." Zeigel said while suppressing a mischievous grin.

"Hey! Get back here and tell us how you broke into our room!" Vesfira shouted from the hallway. A second later, the other trainees barged into their room, looking for Saliza.

"It wasn't me! It was Zeigel!" She pointed an accusatory finger at him.

"She's lying." Zeigel pointed back at her. "Would you believe the word of someone who feels the need to hide their face?"

"It really was him! He has some sort of lock picking spell!"

"She's delusional. You can't trust the word of someone who won't even show their face."

Vesfira eyed Saliza's mask. "Concealing your face does seem a little suspicious."

"It wasn't me! I swear!"

"Why are you even wearing that mask anyways?" Koidra asked. "Usually people only wear those during festivals in Sadonia."

"You see, I'm so insanely gorgeous that anyone who sees my face will immediately fall for me." Saliza explained, sounding as if she actually believes what she said.

"She's actually just so horrendously ugly that anyone who sees her face will have nightmares of it." Said Zeigel.

"Aren't they supposed to be good friends?" Illia muttered to herself.

"If you're innocent then answer me this," Vestira demanded. "Are you in love with Zeigel?"

"Ew, no!"

Before Vitren could speak up, Koidra pointed at him and asked, "What about this guy? Would you date him?"

"Ew, no!"

"I told you." Koidra said with a smug grin.

"That's not fair!" Vitren complained. "She didn't even get to know me yet! She might've fallen for me if she did!"

"Sure she would." He snickered.

Illia sighed. "Alright look, I don't know which one of you broke into our room,"

"It was Zeigel."

"It's Saliza."

"Regardless of who did it," Illia pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just promise me that neither of you will ever do it again."

"Yeah sure."

"It wasn't me but okay."

"And if anything in our room were to go missing, we'll know who to look for." Bora added.

"By the way, have you eaten yet Saliza?" Illia asked.

"No, Zeigel was supposed to make me breakfast, but he didn't."

"I would have if you didn't abandon me!"

"I panicked! Besides, it's your fault for breaking into their room!"

"It's yours for destroying my fucking kitchen!"

"Are they even friends?" Illia muttered to herself. "If you haven't eaten yet, you're more than welcomed to join us for breakfast."

"I'd love to, but I wanna eat in private. I can't take my mask off for personal reasons."

"Wait, so does that mean that no one has seen your face before?" Vesfira asked in surprise. "Not even Zeigel?"

Zeigel and Saliza glanced at each other.

"Nope." Zeigel lied through his teeth.

"Which is why he hasn't fallen for me."

"It's why I don't have nightmares."

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"Well, it's fine if you want to keep your mask on." Illia told her. "I'll make you a sunset omelette and you can bring it back to your room."

The other trainees returned to their rooms with Saliza happily following them back, leaving Zeigel alone.

So far these guys don't seem that bad, but it's still too early for me to judge. I need to make sure that they're able to take care of Saliza once I'm gone, but I can't get too familiar with them to the point where I'm considered a close friend. I can't repeat the same mistakes again and let them turn their problems into mine.

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Saliza returned about ten minutes later with a piping hot omelette on a plate and found a bored Zeigel lying on the living room floor.

"Hey Zeigel, the other trainees invited us to go out with them so we can get to know each other better!"

"Not interested." He dismissed her.

"What? Why? Today's our first day off, you should be using it to do something fun."

"I just don't feel like it."

I need to avoid spending too much time with them. It's already going to be a little hard with the cooking lessons I'll be taking with Illia.

"Well what else are you gonna do here?" Saliza asked.

"I was going to take a nap later, and when I wake up, I'll take a nap to rest from the napping. After all that napping, it's only natural that I take a nap after that."

"You're seriously going to spend the whole day sleeping?" Saliza asked in disbelief.

"Sleeping is good for you. I'm spending the day doing something good."

"Oh come on, just come along! It'll be fun!"

"Don't wanna, and there's nothing you can do to convince me."

"Can I pay you to come?"

"...Ten dollars."

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The trainees strolled through the streets of Mezio, checking out any shops that caught their eye. Zeigel remained silent and reserved while following them from behind, not wanting to socialize with the other trainees too much. He kept an eye on Saliza who was much chattier than he was, hoping that she'll be able to form a good relationship with the other trainees.

"So what were you guys doing in Sadonia?" Saliza asked while slipping the straw of her drink under her mask.

"We were called in to help get rid of murger nests throughout Sadonia's desert. Apparently some of them came to Sadonia probably a few months back and hid underneath the desert." Koidra explained. "Turns out they're able to build nests deep under the desert sand, and they built a lot of nests."

"Aside from the queens, normal murgers are two star monsters, so master Testra and master Coronis decided to bring us there to help out and gain some exp." Bora added.

"So you guys got to hunt as many two star monsters as you wanted? Man, I wish I was there." The envy in her voice got her strange looks from the other trainees.

Koidra slowed down to match Zeigel's lazy pace. "Is she some sort of battle maniac?" He asked, getting a nod in response.

"Trust me, there's nothing fun about fighting angry flying monsters with painful stingers that can poison you." Vesfira assured her while munching on a skewer. "We were supposed to spend a few weeks at Sadonia to clear as many nests as we could, but get this, Illia ended up clearing a large chunk of them all by herself."

"Yeah, and because of her, nearly all murger nests were cleared within the first week." Vitren added.

"Really?" Saliza turned her head to Illia who didn't seem to care too much about it. "You must be like really strong!"

"It wasn't that impressive to be honest." Illia replied. "Two star monsters aren't that difficult to handle at our level, and I also got help from our trainers who did most of the work."

"I'm pretty sure they only helped us kill the queens since those were four star monsters. I'm also sure that they didn't fight for six hours straight until they collapsed from exhaustion." Said Koidra.

"Ten hours?" Saliza was both shocked and amazed. "That's crazy! You must be the strongest trainee here!"

Illia shook her head. "Not really."

"As much as I hate to admit it, that title goes to Laren." Vesfira grumbled. "It's all because that jerk was lucky enough to be blessed with Wreistar blood."

"Yeah, he's ridiculously strong because of it, so try not to piss the guy off." Bora told her.

"Hey bro, Doesn't this area look a little familiar?" Vesfira nudged her brother.

"Wait a second, this place..." A wave of nostalgia hit Bora as he took a moment to look around.

"Have you been around these parts of Mezio before?" Illia asked.

"Been around? I used to live here! Until of course someone went against my wishes and did what I told her not to do." He threw a glance at Vesfira who turned her head away from him. "I know a place not too far from here that you guys are gonna love. It's a place I visit sometimes after I finish work."

Bora led them to a petting barn filled with docile one star monsters. While the other trainees went off to play with the adorable monsters, Zeigel chose to sit in an empty space and wait until everyone else decided to leave, hoping that they wouldn't bother him.

He watched Bora chat with a female keeper who was apparently an old friend of his. She seemed quite shocked to find out that he was now a vanguard. He introduced his sister to her and nearly assaulted Vitren for kissing the female staff's hand and creeping her out. Lucky for Vitren, Koidra came in just in time to hold Bora back from pummeling him in public.

Hehe, at least there's some good entertainment here. The only thing I need now is some popcorn.

Illia approached him with a small paper bag filled with green popcorn and offered it to him. "Here, I bought this for you."

Lucky me.

"Oh, thanks." Zeigel took the bag of popcorn and tossed one into his mouth. It tasted rather bland and had a weird aftertaste, but it wasn't too bad. He was about to pop another piece into his mouth until he noticed Illia giving him a very disturbed look.

A small boy nearby pointed at him. "Mommy, why is he eating monster food?"

I'm eating what?

Zeigel looked down at the bag of what he thought was popcorn and stared at it in horror.

The boy's mother gently pulled him away. "He's a vanguard dear, some of them aren't right in the head."

Zeigel turned his head to Illia who was still giving him a disturbed look.

"I know these are for monsters, I just wondered what they tasted like. They do look kinda tasty don't they?"

"...I guess?"

"Anyways, you can have it back. I'm not really interested in feeding the monsters." Zeigel said while handing the fake popcorn back.

"Oh, okay then." Illia took the monster food back and took a seat next to him.

Maybe I should've also told her to go away.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

"No, why?"

"You've been awfully quiet the entire time. Is there something on your mind?"

"I'm just a little tired I guess." Zeigel shrugged.

Saliza came over with a fox with blue fur and orange eyes.

"Look Zeigel, he's just like you." Saliza placed the fox on Zeigel's head.

"What?" Zeigel grabbed the fox off his head and took a good look at it, trying to figure out what she meant.

"It's because his name's Jerky. He's a jerk like you." She laughed.

Zeigel rolled his eyes. "Oh har har very funny Saliza, you're an amazing comedian." He said dryly. "He's probably named jerky because he eats Jerky you idiot."

"No, it's because he's a jerk who nearly drowned another monster here in a pond to create a distraction while it tried to escape by climbing up the fence."

"Oh, well, that's something."

"Maybe a better name for him would be Zeig-"

"I will smack you."

Beside them, Illia let out a chuckle. "You two are quite an interesting pair."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Zeigel grumbled.

All of a sudden, loud sirens blared outside the barn. Just as it did, the uneasy feeling, which Zeigel now referred to as his curse sense, returned.