"I still cannot believe how reckless you were, Alex." Evelyn frowned and finished tying up a bandage.
I chuckled and said, "Well, it wasn't THAT reckless..."
Roland lowered his hands, finishing with a healing spell to close up the cuts on my hands. Then he shook his head. "To you, maybe. But at this rate, Alex, I'm starting to believe 'reckless' by your standard is laying on the verge of death and bleeding out from every orifice..."
Okay. I wasn't that bad... right? It was all very much calculated. Though I guess Void Sovereign showing up there at the end wasn't calculated... but I was prepared for it anyway!
Roland and Evelyn let out blank stares, as if they could read my thoughts and didn't believe a single word.
I coughed and took a look around.
After the fiasco of the mid-term exam and the many, many, MANY near death experiences for the students, when the Gate closed, Elio took charge and packed all of us on a bus straight back to the academy.
Of course, the moment I got on that bus, I was dragged into a seat in the back by Evelyn, Roland, and Marisa.
Speaking of Marisa, she kept staring at me with glittering emerald eyes. As if she could tell I did something that defied the known rules of magic again.
In fact, I was about 90% sure she realized that I had managed to condense the broken fragments of a domain into a sword and was just trying to figure out where I was keeping it. Of course, I wasn't about to spill the beans on that.
Plausible deniability and all that. Not to mention the less people who knew that was possible the better.
I couldn't avoid the Void Sovereign finding out because that person's ability was literally reading the record of existence and forcing fate into place. If that person was interested, they would find out. And apparently, I was *very* interesting to them... But anyway.
The bus was packed with students. But all of them were either asleep from the physical and emotional toll, or they were listening to music from their phones with some wireless earbuds.
...It seemed like my setting leaned more into modern tech than I thought? I didn't explicitly write wireless earbuds in, or the fact that teenagers would definitely zone out using them... but that made sense.
Internal setting consistency.
I couldn't help but love it.
At that time, there was a soft chime and a floating holographic message appeared.
>ETA until System reboot: 24 hours.
...Huh? I thought it was going to be done by tonight. Wasn't that what the log messages said?
> Due to required adjustments, maintenance has been extended.
Tch. Just like any other gacha game, maintenance always gets extended, huh? Well, whatever. If I knew Void Sovereign and Prince Maximillian... and I knew them very well, after I threw a wrench in their plans they'd lay low for a while. At least for a day.
Void Sovereign didn't like to interfere unless a variable emerged... and considering the deal we struck, they would step back and watch for a while.
As for Prince Maximillian, he liked to take his time to review new information before acting. While he always had backups, he had a habit of riding things out a little bit before committing to a backup.
All of that to say, I was perfectly fine...
Evelyn sighed and leaned against me. She gently rubbed her hands over my bandages and said, "Why did you run off alone again, Alex? I know you have a grudge against monsters and Gates, but..." She looked up at me, her violet eyes glistening with unshed tears. "...Can't you consider how we feel when you do that?"
...Except for having to answer all these questions from my friends and the emotional damage from it.
"Alex?" Evelyn gently tugged my sleeve and stared into my eyes.
My heart hurt seeing that expression on her face. I looked away and quietly muttered, "Sorry, Eve."
Marisa gasped and let out a happy squeal.
I glared at her.
Roland laughed. "Well, seems like we know how you really feel about our princess here."
"Oh shut up." I grumbled and leaned back in my chair.
High school drama... No, this was technically university drama.
I thought I got past all that stuff in life, but it seemed like life liked playing tricks...
Roland stretched and rolled his shoulder. Marisa, seated to his left, noticed and started massaging him like it was natural.
I raised an eyebrow.
Roland didn't notice, but Marisa certainly did. She turned a bright red, but didn't say a word and kept massaging Roland.
Evelyn seemed to take that as a cue though and then gently started massaging my bandaged hands, as if she could make the pain go away.
...But Evelyn. You do realize that since Roland cast healing magic on me, there isn't even a wound left under these bandages you put on, right...?
Roland hummed, relaxed. Then he glanced at me and said, "So you going to tell us what happened in the Gate now, Alex? It was a mess, but it looks like you managed to clear it..."
I shrugged. "It wasn't anything too bad. Nothing really unexpected."
Well, other than the fact that the Void Sovereign popped out of nowhere. And that I messed up showing Void Sovereign how to make conceptual weapons that shouldn't exist in this world other than in the form of Divine Relics. And the most important fact that Void Sovereign had definitely made a sword forged from their Authority, which probably let them do something like a certain crimson spear from a blue-spandex version of Cu Chulainn...
Roland looked at me with piercing blue eyes, as if he saw right through all I was leaving out. But after a bit, he sighed and said, "Well. At least you aren't in the infirmary this time."
Evelyn nodded and leaned against me, muttering, "Thank the gods for small miracles..."
I pointedly ignored her affectionate actions and changed the subject. "How did things go on your end? There weren't any casualties, right?" The bus was filled, but there *were* a lot of students in our year. This was only like... 1/5th of our class, if that.
Roland nodded. "Yeah. Because you kept sending us our classmates you helped, we managed to team up and live." He sighed. "It was close though. A lot of people got injured in the first few minutes while that suppressive force was up."
Marisa finished massaging Roland's shoulders and then leaned back. She wrapped her arms around herself at Roland's words and shuddered. "I remember that. I... hadn't felt so weak in such a long time."
Roland instinctively pulled Marisa into a one-armed hug and patted her arm. "It's okay, Mari. Nothing happened to you, remember?"
Marisa let out a radiant smile, leaning into Roland.
I rolled my eyes at the blatant affection, opening my mouth to tease them a bit.
And then Evelyn hugged my arm and leaned against me.
I shut my mouth and then averted my gaze to look out the window. Also to hide my definitely beet red face from how hot it felt...
The day was fading away as the sun began to set. The open plains were slowly dyed orange with the sinking sunlight, making everything a picturesque scene.
And there, in the window with the fading light, I could see Evelyn's warm silver eyes reflected, along with her soft smile.
A calm and silent affection without an expectation of return...
And the face of someone who I wrote off to her death. A beautifully kind woman who had a timer on her life from the moment I knew her. And not just in this world. From the time I thought of her, I had set her fate to be just a plot device.
On the day of the Winter Solstice Ball... on the darkest day of the year. At that time, and maybe sooner, Evelyn would turn into a demon and be killed.
Before that happened, I had to find a way to save her. But... Could I?
Evelyn was already corrupted. Because of her unique
If it had been any other person, there might be a chance. I could safely remove the energy and separate it, but with Evelyn...