[Elijah Knight POV]
My eyes slowly opened and I looked up at the blue sky. I looked like I was lying on a slightly bluish lawn. My head was hurting a lot, making me slowly sit up and put my hand on my forehead.
"Argh... What the fuck?..." I said as I grabbed my glasses, which were lying next to me on the floor.
Putting my glasses on my face, my vision stopped being blurry and I noticed a girl lying next to me, she looked like she was 17 years old, she had a quite long dark brown hair. Wearing an outfit I couldn't describe, but for some reason the word "modern" popped into my mind. The girl seemed to be resting, and I thought it was best to leave her like this for now.
I got up to realize that we weren't in Xyrus Academy. I was on some sort of campus of some more fancy academy for geniuses or something. There were some uniformed people walking in the distance and upon noticing them, I looked at my own clothes.
Unlike the girl, I looked like I was wearing long brown pants, like the color of the uniforms I just saw there, but I had on a white shirt that said "Gears Rules", which initially made me feel slightly ashamed, but strangely, the shame turned to pride. Looking again where I had been lying down, I saw what would be the top of my brown uniform, it looks like I used that as a pillow.
It didn't take long, and 4 people, who seemed to be employees of the place, were approaching us, one of them seemed to be in a hurry and was talking to me. "Holy shit, Nico!! You said you'd be back at the lab 3 hours ago!"
Nico?... Wait a minute... Isn't that the name of my otherself...? That same otherself that Arthur knew in a past life.... ? Is this... A flashback?
Strangely, unlike the other flashbacks, this time I was able to speak for myself. "Sorry.. It's just that I ran into her along the way.... You know she can persuade me very well..." It was really strange, how did I know that? Even if I wanted to say it... Why did I say it? It was like an obvious answer to make.
"Oh my, better watch out for her, I bet one of these days we'll find you kissing her feet." one girl out of the four employees said, making everyone laugh and making me feel ashamed.
When I turned to the girl to at least wake her up, everything changed.
In the blink of an eye, the blue grass became a sandy floor and that same girl was lying on her back, a sword stuck in her sternum. She appeared to be wearing some sort of battle armor.
"E-eh?!?" I bent down to try to help her and looked around.
Those people weren't there anymore, instead there was a dry blond hair guy, his face was blurry but I could feel what expression he was making. He looked happy, in a sadistic way, but soon changed to complete shock and horror, taking steps back, still looking our way. Loud applause began to arise and I saw that there was no one in the stands, that applause was inside my head.
Looking at the girl again, I noticed that I still couldn't see her face, it was completely blurred, but I saw her mouth, she was smiling and with blood dripping from her lips.
"C-cecilia?..." The name came through my voice, causing the clap to rise and, along with that, the repetitive sound of breaking glass.
The more I looked at the girl, the more those sounds became deafening. I wanted to put my hands over my ears to cover them, but I knew it was useless, those sounds coming from inside my mind. And I didn't want to let go of that girl. I kept holding on to her hands, feeling my face wet with tears and everything around me distorting, as if the world around me melted completely.
Soon it was just her, me and those sounds that never stopped, I couldn't even hear my thoughts anymore. However, a voice emerged in the midst of it.
"Kill..." Even low, I could hear it through the glass and applause.
"Kill." The voice became more intense, and it looked like it wanted to manipulate me.
"KILL HIM!!!!" The voice now screamed, making all other sounds fade away and just that.
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In a sudden movement, I managed to create an earth dagger using mana and shove it into my own chest. The shock of it made me close my eyes tightly. Letting out a scream and opening my eyes again, I tried to get up, but ended up falling flat on my face.
"But... What the fuck?!?" My surroundings changed, I was now in my room in the disciplinary committee area, I had fallen out of my bed. "W-was that..was it a dream?!?!"
"It's more like a nightmare." I heard a familiar voice and looked towards the door, Prince Curtis was there. "I came to wake you up because Arthur is waiting for you... Is everything okay?" He spoke worriedly, not getting too close.
"I think so... And why would Arthur be waiting for me?" I asked as I got up, I realized that instead of my pajamas, I was still dressed in yesterday's party clothes. Apparently when I entered the room I threw myself on the bed already falling asleep.
"Well, he's going to the Helstea house and stays there until tomorrow morning which is when we —from Professor Glory's class— will have a school trip to a low class dungeon. So he wants to know if you want to go visit the people there by going in the same carriage as him." Curtis answered me as he looked at the blueprints I'd left lying around on top of my workbench.
"Okay. I'm going... Can you let them know and put a mug of hot coffee on the main table for me?" Curtis nodded and went back out of my room.
I went to the small bathroom in my room and wet my face with hot water so I could wake up and calm down from the things I saw in my dream. After that, I changed into something warmer, taking a scarf and wrapping it around my neck.
Leaving the room, I watched most of them in an alternate version of their school uniform, made for cold days, Curtis handed me a mug of hot coffee and I started to take slow sips while listening to the people talking, but soon, Dora came up to me, asking about the scream I gave in my room, and everyone turned to me, asking the same thing.
"It was just a intense... nightmare, to say the least." I replied, now taking a long sip of my coffee.
"I see. If you want to talk about it, just let me know." Claire asked worriedly.
"I think if I'm going to talk about it with someone, it'll be just with Arthur and Luz. It's related to one specific thing." When I said that, Luz nodded, while Art just swallowed hard too, his eyes widening for a few seconds.
"I see... Let's see if the situation resolves itself..." Arthur yawned and scratched his own cheek.
"Arthur.. Are you okay?" I know he sleeps like a rock, but it's rare for him to be tired in the morning.
"I'm... Why the question?"
"It's just that you look too tired, it even looks like you stayed up all night." I replied.
"Speaking of which, Tess came out of his room all happy early. What happened in there?" Luz smirked.
It took a few seconds for everyone, myself included, to process what had just been said. Claire and Kathyln blushed absurdly, Theodore smirked, Doradrae and Feyrith were clueless, I was wide-eyed and Curtis was initially stunned and then started laughing like it was the end of the world. Arthur's face was redder than a tomato.
"Luz!?! N-nothing happened!!" Art said, slapping his brother hard on the back, making him starts laughing like Curtis.
"Are you sure?" Theodore tried to add more fuel to that emotional fire.
"... At least we do things that won't get me a cactus as a consequence." I looked quite confused by Arthur's answer.
"What's a cactus got to do with it?" Feyrith asked, quite confused as well.
"Virion, Tess's grandfather... He was threatening that he would attack Art with several cactus if he did something strange to our little elf friend." Luz replied, clearing everyone's doubt.
"A-Anyway... Let's go, Lilia must be waiting a lot for us." Art said running out of the room, I followed, saying goodbye to our friends and following him.
I looked at him a few times, feeling uncomfortable when my mind unintentionally ended up associating him with that dried blond guy in my dream. He seemed to notice something like that was happening, making him now walk beside me, with a hand on my shoulder. "Look... I don't know what that nightmare was like. Just know that... That life is over. Okay?"
"Okay... The nightmare was... About a girl... And... I appeared in the middle of an arena... I woke up screaming..." I said, adjusting my glasses, not having the courage to say everything, just a few loose pieces.
But apparently, even though I didn't directly say how it went, I saw him swallowing hard again and getting a slightly dark, but sad expression. He stopped walking, we could already see the carriage nearby and Lilia sitting there on a bench waiting for us.
"..." He sighed, trying to catch his breath. "We had no real control over what happened.... As your otherself has said to me before... 'Once our little trio was formed, there were no alternative paths'... So at most even with other actions... we would end up the same way." He smiled, giving me a tight hug and went to the carriage, getting in there.
"Did I say something that cool in the past life?" I thought, smirking and getting into the carriage too.
It took 5 awkward minutes of silence for Luz to finally get into the carriage and we started heading towards the Helstea mansion. I could see that his right shirt sleeve was ripped.
"What happened?" Lilia asked, sitting next to him.
"Don't want to know." He said that as if it was nothing strange to hide things like that.
The rest of the way to the Helstea house we just talked about some of the classes we were taking and how difficult some of them were, at which point Luz decided to flex about the fact that he was almost out of classes this semester because of his profession as teacher. This brought us to the subject of the school trip.
"So, both classes will be taking a school trip to the same area?" Lilia asked.
"Yes. According to the maps we received, we will be staying in neighboring dungeons. But due to the nature of the classes I teach, we will have to spend more time inside the dungeons than Vanesy's class... That is... I'll have to be there tonight." Luz spoke, leaving us all stunned.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Tonight? Are you sure?" Arthur asked.
"Yes. While Vanesy's class trip will take place tomorrow morning. Mine will be a lot earlier. So it was recommended that we arrive at the front of the dungeon at night, to make a camp and at dawn we will explore." He answered it, while picking up a notebook. "The BasicRL class will stay to floors 1 and 2. While the AdvancedRL class will go to floor 6 at the most."
"Wow... This is going to be intense..." Lilia commented.
"I agree, the Dungeons are Class D, but Professor Glory will only go to the 2nd or 3rd floor, as I recall." Art continued the girl's comment.
"Are you sure it's safe?" I asked Luz, who just laughed.
"Relax, guys. The ARL's students are all great battle mages, and I trained them a little just in case."
"Oh! Wait a minute!" Arthur exclaimed, asking the driver to stop.
"What is it, Art?" I asked confused and looked out the window, seeing that we were on a street where there were only jewelry stores.
"I'm going to buy some stuff. I know the way home, so let Mom know I'm coming." He said getting out of the carriage along with his bond, which was on his shoulder, and soon after our journey continued, without much happening.
Arriving there, I left first, leaving the door open for the two of them to leave and then closing it. In front of us, we could already see two of the employees of the Helstea house, in addition to Aunt Alice and Aunt Tabitha. Eleanor was also there, and her presence was quite noticeable, as she came running, jumping on Luz and hugging him.
"Oho! Watch out Ellie!" He said with a laugh and headpatting her. "How are you doing?"
"Very good! And you?" She said smiling looking at Lilia and me, we just nodded slightly and we all walked into the house together.
"My goodness, you took a while, didn't you?" Aunt Alice said, but realized someone was missing. "Where's Arthur? And where's Sylvie?"
"Oh Arthur decided to go shopping, Sylvie went with him." I answered her last question as I sat on the couch.
There was a coffee table in front of me, fully prepared with tea and cookies, I decided to eat one or two of them while Ellie and Lilia sat next to me on the sofa. Across the room, Aunt Alice and Tabitha were sitting in armchairs while Luz decided to stand still there.
"Oh, we were late because our Four-eyes over there didn't wake up early." He answered his mother's first question, while he was taking one of the cookies from the coffee table.
"Hey! It's not my fault, you took too long to get to the carriage!" I exclaimed.
"I agree with Elijah. What were you doing that took so long?" Lilia asked and everyone started to stare at Luz.
"Kathyln kept grabbing me by the arm and wanting to come with me here... But then Claire held her back and stuff." when he said that, Tabitha and Alice were wide-eyed and I sighed already wondering what they were going to ask him.
"Wait, Kathyln? Princess Kathyln Glayder?" Tabitha asked.
"What do you mean, the princess kept grabbing you....?" Alice spoke again what her son had said, trying to understand the logic in it.
"Well... It's just... Apparently she's developed a... Possessive crush on me..." Luz said scratching one of his shoulders.
"Wait... Are you saying that the princess... THE PRINCESS... of Sapin is in love with you...?" Alice said that in complete shock and staring at her son.
"I thought you and Lilia were getting along great, you mean my daughter has now a difficult rival?" Tabitha was the next to speak.
"M-mo-Mommy!?! D-don't say things like that, it's weird you say that!" Lilia was exclaiming all flushed, but her mother seemed to ignore her for now.
Meanwhile, Ellie, beside me, had a very evident smirk on her face and spoke. "Gee, my two brothers are dating the only princesses of Dicathen... Does that mean I'm forced to date the only prince?" Clearly she said this as an innocent joke so much that I laughed, but soon the attention of Aunt Alice and Luz went straight to her.
"DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, ELEANOR LEYWIN!" The two exclaimed to little Leywin, who responded by sticking out her tongue and pouting.
"But explain that to me, Luz." Alice returned to the subject very quickly so the boy wouldn't run away from the conversation.
"Just... She seemed to want to date me and all... But... I already had Lilia." He said looking at Lilia, making her blush more, but then he went back to talking to the two mothers. "Because she's the princess and I realize that giving a negative answer could get in trouble, I accepted her as my girlfriend. She always wants me to be with her and all, but I still see Lilia as my main."
"So.. You're dating two girls, politically, you're with Kathyln, but you're actually with Lilia. Is that it?" Tabitha asked satisfied, but hearing Luz swallow hard, she looked again "Isn't that it?..."
"Well... There's also Claire...." As he said that, he was gripped tightly by Alice and she started rocking him frantically.
"YOU HAVE THREE GIRLS?!? MY SON, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!?!?"
"A-a-a-a-aah! P-p-p-please, l-let m-m-expla-ain!" it was difficult for him to speak because he was being rocked like a rag doll, but soon his mother heard the request and stopped shaking him.
"And who is this Claire?" Tabitha asked, possibly a little angry to see that her daughter was having so many rivals.
"Claire Bladeheart... She was my disciple in my adventurer period.. I didn't know she was having a crush on me until just after the school year started." He replied and Tabitha was in shock.
"B-bladeheart!? My daughter has the daughter of a family famous for running the Adventurer's Guild of Xyrus, and a princess, as rivals?!?!" She said in disbelief, as if accepting that her daughter was going to lose.
"N-not like that, mom..." Lilia got up and tried to join the conversation.
"Wow, big brother Lu is a flirt?" Ellie said that making me facepalm.
"Actually, he attracts girls without realizing it..." I replied the little girl, with an embarrassed expression, after all, I got Emily because of him and Arthur.
"Me, and the girls... We've come to an agreement that we'll both be his." Lilia was already talking close to her mother.
"W-what?" Tabitha said in shock.
"Yeah... Kind of... Uh... Claire loves me because she wants to be just like me and because I cook sweets for her... Kathyln is just possessive and wants me so much for being her 'hero of Shining Armor' at that event at the Auction House. So.. The four of us came to an agreement that they could stay with me and if any of them decided not to stay in that 'group' anymore, that would be no problem, as the decision would be completely understandable." Luz explained all that better and the two mothers went back to their seats, their minds tired of so much information.
"My son... With a princess..... This is still unbelievable."
"Actually your two boys." I raised that point, which made Alice cover her face with her hands.
"Why are you so sure about that?...." She said in a muffled voice still covering her face.
"Because Arthur and Tessia are so close, I'm her helper at the student council.... Every time she sees Art at our meetings, she gets a silly face." Lilia made the comment, Luz and I ended up agreeing with that.
"Commoners... We are commoners and will we become nobles so easily... Had someone cast any luck spells on you two?" Alice asked again, very worried.
"I don't know. But anyway... If we're taking into account people getting married and such... I think we'd be more connected to elven royalty than human." Luz spoke as he went to sit with me and Lilia. Ellie ended up leaving the living room to take a plate of hers to the kitchen sink.
"Hmm?" Tabitha and Alice, still worn out from it all, looked at him confused.
"After all, the Eralith royal family only has Tessia as an option for their royal lineage. While the Glayders have Curtis as their first option and then Kathyln... That is... It's 100% sure that if I marry Kathy and Art marry Tess. We will be considered joint families of elven nobility, not human nobility, as Arthur would be king."
"My son... A king...?" Alice was still quite shocked by that conversation and, as if it were the magic of words, we ended up hearing the door opening.
Arthur was entering the house with Uncle Reynolds and Uncle Vincent, as usual, Sylvie was on top of his head, using his hair as a nest. The three guys looked confused at how the two mothers were arranged in the armchairs and Arthur seemed to have a gift box in hand.
"Something happened?" Reynolds asked curiously.
"....I'll let him explain." Alice pointed at Luz, who took a long breath.
"I'll explain later, you know, talk only to the men in the family." When Luz said that, I held back not to laugh, as he said it in a comical way, with thumbs up.
"Okay... Leaving that aside. Apparently our son here is achieving a lot, huh?" Reynolds said giving Arthur a light pat on the back who looked slightly embarrassed.
"Oh my god, Dad. Can't I even buy stuff for my classmates at school?" as he said this, Alice got up quickly from her armchair and seemed to go up the stairs to her room.
"Something serious happened?" Vincent asked Tabitha who just gave him a soft smile, the kind that even I knew meant 'don't ask for now'.
Arthur decided to break that strange situation that he didn't understand why it was happening. "So Ellie, Luz told me that you had a surprise to tell me, I even asked Dad, but he said that only you could tell me that." he said smiling looking at his sister who was near the kitchen door.
The little girl soon ran to her brother, hugging him tight and then replied "I awakened my mana core!!!"
"This is amazing! Waking up at almost 9 is great!" Arthur said hugging her tight.
"Considering you helped her, it's really nice to see that." Reynolds said smiling to see his children happy.
"Oh, have you figured out what your affinity is, Ellie?" I asked, adjusting my glasses and being curious.
"True! Show them what you can do, I bet even Arthur will be jealous!" Reynolds said excitedly, causing Luz to giggle lightly for possibly already knowing what her affinity was, while Arthur and I were the only ones unaware of it.
Ellie seemed to concentrate a lot, but slowly a pure white sphere appeared in her hand, it wasn't big, but it was of a minimally acceptable size to call a magic projectile. My jaw just didn't all way down because of the muscles in my mouth, that was impressive, incredible, unimaginable!!!
"Wait, that is...." Arthur was wide-eyed watching his sister and slowly put his hands close to the white sphere.
In a slow but refined process, mana from the four elements began to come out of Arthur's fingertips as if they were colored lines and curl up in the projectile made by his sister. He was smiling broadly and when she broke the spell, he hugged her tight.
"My sister is a conjurer! And one with an affinity for pure mana on top of that!?! That's great, Ellie!" Arthur said quite happily for his sister.
"I told you he'd love it." Luz said looking at Reynolds who started laughing happily.
"Geez... A quadra-elemental augmenter and a pure mana conjurer... Uncle Reynolds... what do you have in your genes?" I asked curiously, making everyone laugh.
"Too much power, as you can see." He said that kissing one of the shoulder muscles.
"It was all because of Mom." When Luz said that, the joint laughter rose from everyone except Uncle Rey, who was embarrassed.
"Anyway, I have to go see something special with Arthur in particular." Uncle Vincent said watching Arthur who gave a sigh and followed him up the big stairs in the main room.
Sylvie had decided to stay still in the room, because she jumped into the lap of the other Leywin boy, who was lovingly patting her head. "Hm... Father, I need to tell you something." He said after Lilia was also going out of the main room with Ellie and Tabitha.
"What's the problem?" Uncle Reynolds returned to his serious expression and sat next to me on the sofa, with Luz on his other side.
"It's about the school trip, Arthur's class will have tomorrow morning." Luz started to say and his father just asked him to continue, because everyone knew that. "But mine will be earlier. After dinner, I'm supposed to go out and meet up with a group of adventurers. They're all acquaintances of mine from my previous adventures and quite reliable people."
"Hm.... Okay, it's good that you told me that, so I'll be prepared to stop your mom from keeping you from going out in the middle of the night." Reynolds ended up laughing and looked at me. "Were you aware of this?"
"Yes. I already knew that detail, but anyway I don't go on those school trips, I just came along because I was curious to know how everyone was... And now I would love to train a little with Eleanor after learning about this attribute of hers." I said adjusting my glasses.
"Amazing. After this school trip of yours I would love for us all to train together as a family, got it guys?"
"Hm?.. Train together as a family?" I said a little confused.
"Elijah, you are a boy who has been with my children in moments that I consider special and incredible. I consider you at least as a nephew, really." When Uncle Reynolds said that, I felt... weird... For some reason I was enjoying this treatment.
"We'd better prepare the things we're going to talk about as soon as we give Luz time to 'run away'." I said, drawing a loud laugh from both of them.
So me, Uncle Reynolds and Luz were talking about what we should say to help him get out without Alice having a panic attack. After we'd worked out those details, Luz decided to hang out with Ellie for a while, while Reynolds and I continued talking and keeping up.
I was honestly amazed at the level of assimilation he was already to of his beast will.. Really...
A Mother with Healing Skills...
A girl with pure mana powers...
Two boys who are reincarnated and are dating princesses...
And a father like that, that even being a normal adventurer, was getting along with an assimilation of a Class AA to S beast will.
Are the Leywins all monsters, or what?