“... Arghhh.”

That night, I tried to get my mind off Emori by studying, but I failed. If anything, thinking about Emori hindered my progress. I couldn’t get anything done, my brain solely focusing on her.

You screw up, Fortis. You screw up, bad.

Half of me regretted what I said, really, but the other half wondered what I should have done. I let out a heavy breath and stood up from the chair, throwing myself into bed. I heard a knock coming from the window, noticing Asytelar there. I got up and opened the window for her.

“Good evening, Fortisbel. You didn’t seem well.” She hopped onto the bed.

“Yeah, I messed things up.”

“Care to tell?” Asytelar relaxed her bird body next to me.

I began telling her about what happened with Emori. She remained silent as I told her everything.

“That’s basically it.”

She nodded her crow head. “You screwed up. You shouldn’t have pushed her.”

“Thank you for that vital piece of information.”

“You know, Prilus has a point. You really don’t know how to show respect, do you?”

“... Sorry.”

I guess, even in bird form, she’s still a lot older compared to me.

I would blame it on the lack of communication in the later years of my life. During that time, I only interacted with fellow players, most of whom had no respect for their rivals. Then again, it might just be an excuse.

In my new life, all of the people I met were loving and caring, and they didn’t see me as someone beneath them. Looking at me, Asytelar brought her wings over her head.

“Well… it hasn’t been too bad… but forcing things like that wouldn’t get you many friends.”

“Do… Do you think I was underestimating her?”

“Yes, you definitely are.”

“But you said that she has hidden powers. Is that not what you’re talking about?”

“Here’s the thing, Mister Fortisbel.”

She stood up and waltzed toward the window, looking up at the night sky. “Those stars are beautiful, aren’t they?”

“How did we get there?”

“Do you believe that those stars are bright?”

“... Yeah?” I decided to play along for now by answering her question.

“Then, would it affect you if one of those stars flickers and disappears? Would the night sky be any less bright?”

“No…?”

The night sky was filled with countless stars. While I enjoyed looking up at them, I didn’t love them enough to study them in depth. Even in the game, the stars functioned as no more than objects to make the world beautiful.

“You know, every one of those stars have names. This world isn’t as advanced in astrology as Earth, but the people named the stars. Those names are also in Mimosa Online.”

“They’re never relevant, though.”

There was a time when I visited the observatory in game, but that mission didn’t have a major role in the main story.

“Don’t you think they'd be sad if you said that, Fortisbel?”

“Sad?”

“The stars may not be the main characters, but they’re trying their best. Every single one of them.” Asytelar turned toward me. “Don’t you think it’s the same for Emori? She’s trying her best, isn’t she?”

“Yeah, I know that.” I saw just how hard she worked, how much she pushed herself. How she gained levels and overtook her own brother.

“And now, all of a sudden, you said that the only way she can be useful is by deploying a spell that she didn’t want to deploy.”

“While I understand that deploying White Void has many implications, I don’t think it’s worth the risk. I mean, think about it. There would be no royal family if the demon king isn’t defeated. What’s the point of keeping your secret ability under the wraps if you’re not going to use it?”

“... And you think you’re not underestimating her?”

“What?”

Asytelar nodded her head. “You’re underestimating her. Just like those stars, you think they’re not important because they’re not relevant to your story. You think the rest of Emori’s abilities aren’t relevant, thus you told her to ignore them.”

“...”

I opened my mouth, but words didn’t come out. Maybe I did underestimate her. But, what about the demon king? Do we have enough time to train everyone? Could we take him on?

“Remember, Fortisbel. You’re leading a party of five, not three.” She returned from the window and sat back next to me. “You aren’t fighting the demon king with Emori and Maya alone.”

“But I hadn’t discovered Solicea and Prilus’ hidden power?”

“Despite them already showing you hints?”

Hints?

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I tried remembering all of the fights we had so far. I mean, they weren’t bad. Solicea’s accuracy had increased tremendously. She could now hold her own against monsters, occasionally throwing water spells into the mix. Prilus had also grown. His attacks became cleaner, faster, and more devastating.

Despite that, I couldn’t see how their strengths would be enough. This is the demon king, after all. Would such an entity, that couldn’t even be killed by a party of heroes, be killed by us nobodies?

“... Are you not going to tell me?”

“Imagine how you would have reacted if I told you about Emori’s power earlier?”

“... I would probably fight her over it.”

I saw her use it, I saw how powerful it was, and how unstable. Had I known her strength before that, we would probably have gotten into a fight much earlier.

“You haven’t spoken with her for a while now, have you? You’ve gotten quite close, yet your actions created a rift between you two. Imagine what would have happened had you not been close.”

“We would stop speaking.”

“Correct. Remember your origins, Fortisbel. You’re a gamer. Would you like it if I spoil the entire story for you?”

“No. Even if I get to hear about the story earlier, I won’t enjoy it.”

“Will you play as seriously as if you’re going blind?”

“No… It won’t be as fun.”

“This life may not be a game.” She rose from the bed and turned around. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.”

“... Even when we have a threat as big as the demon king on the horizon?”

“I trust that you will somehow be able to deal with it.”

With those words, she flew out the window and disappeared from my sight. I let out a sigh and threw myself to bed.

… She’s right. I’m at fault.

I need to go and apologize.

* ••

The following days, I tried apologizing to Emori, but she dodged me on purpose. Figuring that she needed some time, I decided to left her alone. On the next sixth day, I woke up early and went to the cafeteria. We had made an unwritten agreement to meet each other in the cafeteria at eight to grab breakfast together. We did this almost every sixth day, even though we didn’t actually promise each other.

That morning, though, Emori wasn’t there. Realizing that I couldn’t put this off any longer, I finally tried using the spell Connect to call her, but she blocked it with her own magic.

Guess she really didn’t want to meet me…

I thought as I ate my morning sandwich. I could probably contact her through her brother, but her brother was busy on sixth days, meaning I could contact him tomorrow at the earliest.

What should I do…

I returned the wooden plate to the side of the cafeteria and began walking aimlessly around the school building, hoping I would run into her. I ran into two of our classmates instead.

“Ah, Fortis, morning.”

“Morning. Have you seen Emori?”

“Emori…?” Their eyes twitched.

Ah, right.

“Sorry. I mean, have you seen Her Highness?”

Emori wasn’t close to them, so she probably hadn’t told them to just call her Emori.

They both shook their heads. “Sorry we can’t help.”

“No, it’s alright.”

I continued walking, and my foot brought me to the library. I opened the library’s large doors, peeking inside. Emori wasn’t there, either. I got in and looked for any new books. We had been busy with grinding so I hadn’t visited the library as much compared to when I first came here.

The library had a couple of new books, but what caught my attention was the newest editions of the local newspaper. Not a single mention of monsters or the demon king. I guess that should be expected. The adventurers probably hadn’t met any dangerous monsters. If they did, they would call us, like what they did with the tiger.

I took a book down and brought it to a table and began reading. I looked for any new spells that might have been found in the years after the demon king’s defeat. The demon king’s defeat caused the world to grow lax. Many of the new spells were convenient for day-to-day life with no useful function in battles. One such example was Light All, a fire-based magic spell that could turn on or off all torches and light sources in one specific area.

It was certainly convenient, don’t get me wrong, but it couldn’t help in the fight against the demon king. I decided to study it anyway, as I was incredibly bored. I studied all the spells I could find in that book. From the scary sounding ones like Soul Locker, which attached the soul of someone momentarily to an object, allowing that person to communicate his thoughts despite being far away. Despite its scary sounding name, it wasn’t harmful, and the person in question must be willing to attach a part of their soul to the object. It wasn’t something that could be forced onto someone.

How would this spell be useful? Don’t ask me. I’m bored, though, so I thought why not.

The book also contained less scary-sounding spells. An example of these kinds of spell is Change Taste and Mirror.

Maybe it was because of my level one hundred brain, but I didn’t struggle all that much to remember the symbols. After a few tries, I could use Light On, turning off then on all the lights in the library. The other students and library staff, not aware of what I did, panicked. I immediately turned the lights back on. They were looking around, searching for the perpetrator, so I planted my face into the book. Things died down after a while, though.

I continued studying, basically consuming the entire book. I ended my session by lunch, then made my way back to the cafeteria to get some food. I tried using Change Taste, changing the taste of my rice into a pizza. It worked, and I enjoyed plain rice in the middle of the cafeteria. Some of my classmates were there to find some food.

“Has Fortis gone insane?” one of them whispered.

“... Being left behind by Emori must have taken a toll on him.”

These rumors!

To be fair, from their eyes, I was eating plain old rice, with nothing on it. Not an ideal lunch. But still…

After I was done, I went back to my room to do my homework.

* ••

This was a terrible day…

By the end of the day, I found myself feeling exhausted, as if something had drained all my energy throughout the day. It was supposed to be less tiring than when I went out to grind with Emori, but for whatever reason, I felt worse today.

How long since I've been alone?

I reminisce about the times in the past. I had loving parents who would always accompany me, then Maya came and lit up my day. I never spent a boring day with her around, so much so that sometimes I wanted an empty day for the sake of it. After I entered school, I spent my days with Emori and the rest. The only times we were separated was when we needed to sleep.

I… might have forgotten how to be alone. It was something that came naturally to the me in my previous life, but here, I had been surrounded by many, many great people.

My dad, my mom, Maya, Maya’s parents, the baron, Emori, Solicea, even King Torez and Queen Ezabeth treated me far better than the parents of my previous life. Even Prilus treated me better than the people from back there, even if not by much.

This is bad…

I tried using Connect again, calling for Emori, but she didn’t reply. I must have angered her that badly if she tried that hard to avoid me. I wonder what I should say when I see her again…

I should definitely apologize, that’s for sure.

Still… just how sensitive is that information?

Why didn’t she want to lead the country? Wasn’t that the dreams of practically every royalty? People fight their own family just for the throne, so why was Emori so opposed to it? Did her parents tell her to act like that? But her parents must know that she was the first born, and many queens lead this country as its head in the past. It didn’t make sense.

Trying to understand it will only piss her off more, though.

All of a sudden, my head rang. It was like someone putting a phone to my ears, and me hearing the ringtone. Except, that ringtone was directly into my brain, and I could reject it with my thoughts. I could also mute it if I wanted to. I could tell that the spell was sent by the prince. The conveniences of magic, I guess.

“Hello?”

Like with Asytelar, I could communicate directly to him through my mind.

“Have you seen Emori?”

“No, why?”

“No reason.”

He cut the call… the Connect spell, I mean. Using the Connect spell required a lot of concentration, especially from the side casting it, so I didn’t use it often.

Still… What's with Emori?

I tried casting Connect, but Prilus rejected my call. I decided to ask him about it tomorrow and went to sleep.