Chapter 7: Reincarnated
I’M not going to elaborate on how I got Vern to shut up after that. I didn’t actually do anything to him, but let’s just say he got scared all on his own.
Anyways, thanks to my negotiations with my father, I gained freedom while attending the Academy. Of course, I wasn’t so free to do whatever I wanted all the time, but I could get a three-day weekend by not going to class on Monday or Friday. Having that extra day meant I could make a serious attempt at the extreme-difficulty dungeon.
“I heard you did most of the work in that dungeon.”
I was in the library spending time with Noelle for the first time in a while. Even though I was going to class less, they were still boring, and I spent the time mostly reading books. I’d run out of things to read and went to the library during lunch break, where I found Noelle.
“I wasn’t nearby, so I didn’t actually see,” she continued. “But there’re incredible-sounding rumors going around that you beat the bad guys to a bloody pulp and used Teleport and other amazing spells.”
“This again? Noelle, don’t take all these rumors at face value. The second part is right, however. Only Eric and the others in our group saw me fight. Eric was the one who spread those rumors, so they’re not entirely false, but he embellished too much.”
Supposedly, I was fighting alone from the very beginning and killed the cleaners in an instant with some incredible spell. Impenetrable Defense was a tier-ten combined-elemental spell, so, yeah, it was flashy. And yes, I was the one who defeated all the cleaners. But I could sense some evil intent from Eric among the embellished statements.
“You’ve become the school’s hero with all the rumors. I felt like…you’d gone far away. You don’t come to the library as often as you used to… I missed you.”
The last part she muttered so quietly I didn’t catch it, but I could guess what she was trying to say based on her demeanor. It was true that I was spending a lot of time with Eric and the others when I was in the Academy, and I was going to the library less often, just because I was going to class less frequently. It had been a while since I’d seen Noelle.
Noelle was probably the only person I really knew when I first started. My school life had changed quite a lot, I guess.
“Noelle, we’re friends, aren’t we?” I asked. I felt uncomfortable using the word “friends,” but I could say it easily to her because I knew she wouldn’t laugh.
But her reaction was unexpected.
“E-eek! A-Arius, what is this all about all of a sudden?!” Her face was bright red. Maybe she was embarrassed by someone saying it right to her face.
“Sorry,” I blurted quickly. “It’s embarrassing, isn’t it? Having someone call you a friend.”
“N-no, not at all! I’m just so happy you consider me a friend!” she cried. It wasn’t often she spoke so loudly. And we were in a library.
The students nearby gave us full-on glares, making her turn even redder as she huddled over.
“Calm down, Noelle,” I reassured her.
“It’s your fault! Anyone would shout if someone said something that amazing to them…” Again, I didn’t catch the second part of that, but it seemed I was right in thinking she thought of me as a friend, too.
“Noelle, I plan on coming to the library on Wednesdays during lunch. Do you want to meet me here then?”
“Is that all right?”
“Of course, it’s all right. I want to see you. You’re the only person I can have such comfortable conversations with.”
It wasn’t that we talked about anything in particular, just whatever books we were reading, or sometimes I tutored her on things she didn’t understand from class. They were the sort of things you talked about with classmates you really got along with, but I didn’t have those conversations with the people who were in my classes.
“A-all right! I promise I’ll be here. Even if you don’t come, I’ll always be waiting here every week!”
“And I’ll keep my side of the promise. But there’s always the chance something might come up. You can use Message, can’t you? We should register each other.” Noelle was good at magic and was in B Class for the magic application lesson.
“Oh! Sharing contact info with you? Hey, um, have you registered other people?”
“Pretty much just my family and a few acquaintances. Now that you mention it, you’ll be the first person from the Academy I register.”
Eric and I didn’t have a relationship where we Messaged each other. Besides, I had a feeling if we did register with each other, he’d force annoying problems onto me. And the royals didn’t use Message for their communications. It was standard for them to communicate via the traditional method of letters with wax seals, partially because it left a record of their communications.
And while I was thinking about that…
“I-I’m Arius’s first…” whispered Noelle, her face so red you could boil a kettle on it.
“Noelle, are you all right? Do you have a fever or something?”
“I-I’m perfectly f-fine.”
She didn’t look perfectly fine to me.
I waited for Noelle to calm down before leaving the library. I decided it was okay not to worry about her since her fever seemed to go away. Just in case, I walked her to her classroom and got even more heated looks from the girls, perhaps because of the rumors. I also felt like there were a lot of jealous looks from the boys.
But I don’t care what other people think.
Once my class was over and I was about to leave, I found Milia waiting for me. “Arius, do you have a minute?”
I planned to go to the Citadel of Ancient Gods dungeon, but Milia didn’t give me the impression she would take no for an answer, which made me not want to try.
I followed her in silence out of the Academy grounds. She took me to an old café nestled in the back of the shopping district.
“I’ll have a milk tea, please. What about you, Arius?”
“A coffee.”
It was a small café with no other customers. There was just who I assumed was the owner, an old man with a sullen expression.
Milia remained silent even after we ordered. She finally spoke once our drinks came and the owner returned behind the counter.
“Arius, if what I’m about to say makes absolutely no sense, then say so. Agh, there’s no point prefacing it like that. You’ll probably pretend like you don’t know anyway.”
“You’re already making absolutely no sense,” I said lightly, and she glared at me.
“I’ll just get straight to the chase then: Arius, were you reincarnated here like me?”
That was straight to the chase. Not that I was shocked. I had considered the possibility Milia was reincarnated. Her words and actions were the most unlike the game compared to the others.