Chapter 30
[Tomorrow at 8 a.m., I’ll be waiting at the academy’s rear gate. Be sure to come alone.]
“……What is this supposed to be?”
By now, he didn’t even have the energy to complain. Kairos, who had noticed the note tucked into the crack of the door, let out a hollow laugh and scratched his head.
‘She is cute, though….’
There was no need to ask who had sent it. Tomorrow was the weekend, and there was only one woman who had recently asked him whether there was anywhere he wanted to go on the weekend.
A smile crept onto his face before he knew it. Kairos carefully folded the note, slipped it into his pocket, and entered the room.
He sat down in front of the desk piled high with textbooks and opened the first drawer. Then he lightly scratched at a faint groove in the upper-left corner with his fingernail.
Click.
A mechanical sound rang out immediately. At the same time, the bottom of the drawer slid inward, revealing a hidden compartment. Without hesitation, Kairos reached inside and took out an old black notebook.
Kairos quickly flipped through the notebook filled with densely packed writing, then began writing something at the very top of a blank page.
[Day 71. Confirmed entry into the Rene route.]
The scratch of his quill continued for a while.
[First-ever event (‘Nameless Letter’) -> Because it’s a hidden route?
The possibility of a bug caused by a tangle in the common route is still under investigation.
Ria variable?
Forced skip of the moving event (Maybe intentional rather than a bug?)]
After writing that much, Kairos rested the quill against his chin and fell into thought for a moment.
Then, after quite some time, he began moving the quill again.
[Demon King’s resurrection-related event -> Need to check during tomorrow’s date.
Reevaluate the need to reconnect with Erica.
Continue monitoring the movements of faculty and other factions.
Reconfirm hidden flag conditions.]
‘Good.’
Having organized his thoughts that far, Kairos nodded and set down the quill. He skillfully returned the notebook to the secret compartment in the drawer, then leaned deeply back into the creaking chair.
‘No matter what, am I following the route properly….’
Was this what people meant when they said that even a roundabout path was fine as long as you reached Seoul in the end?
He was still far from certain, but at least his heart felt considerably lighter.
Kairos unconsciously wore a faint smile, then quickly corrected his expression with a loud cough.
‘I’m getting excited in a way that isn’t like me.’
Still, it was too soon to relax. This world had always spectacularly betrayed his expectations.
Besides, the person he was dealing with was none other than the unpredictable irregular Rene. This note itself might even be one enormous trap.
Kairos took a deep breath and steeled himself. Looking down at his tightly clenched fist, he made a vow to himself.
‘For now, let’s focus solely on restoring her trust.’
What he had realized through his relationship with Rene was that this world absolutely refused to tolerate attempts to forcibly twist its settings.
Until he found a solution, the best course seemed to be steadily raising Rene’s personal affection level through the straightforward approach.
‘Tomorrow’s goal is to hold hands!’
Kairos steeled himself once more, vowing to make tomorrow’s date a success.
……
And at last, the fateful day arrived: Saturday at eight in the morning.
“L-Lord Kairos! You came.”
“……Huh?”
Faced with the unexpected development unfolding before his eyes, Kairos’s mind, which had been filled with preparations for the perfect date, went completely blank.
※※
‘That Christina is handling things well on her own, right?’
Well, he decided not to worry about anything unnecessary. Christina wasn’t a little child who couldn’t even take care of herself.
After banishing my needless worries, I set off with a much lighter heart. It was a quiet weekend morning, and before long, I began to see in the distance the enormous bookstore frequently used by Luminous’s students.
‘Today was the day the Tower of Hierarchy was updated!’
It had already been a month since I entered Rene’s body. Until now, I had been too busy simply looking after myself to pay much attention to what was happening in the world.
But just because I had become Rene didn’t mean my life was over, nor would the world stop and wait for me.
Eventually, I was destined to return to Evan’s body. If I didn’t want to be reduced to an underachieving student who knew nothing about the world by then, I had to keep up with news about the outside world, even in this body.
“Welcome.”
When I opened the bookstore door, the owner’s familiar greeting reached me along with the pleasant smell of paper.
I gave the owner a light bow and entered the bookstore. Passing the miscellaneous humanities section, I headed straight for the new magic section. In the most visible spot in front of the bookshelves lay the newsletter published monthly by the Ministry of Magic.
‘Let’s see.’
Without hesitation, I picked up the newsletter, crouched down with my back against the wall, and began flipping through the pages quickly.
Normally, I would have bought the newsletter and read it calmly at a nearby café, but unfortunately, Rene’s finances were far from comfortable.
I quickly skipped over minor information, such as news of newly appointed scribes. Then I suddenly spotted a photograph of my father with a grim expression and stopped turning the pages.
‘[Evan, eldest son of House Friesna, absent once again under mysterious circumstances. In hiding, or missing?] ……Wait, this is about me?’
It felt as though my heart had dropped into my stomach. A sudden throb began in one side of my head.
I placed a hand over my chest and calmed my pounding heart before quickly reading through the entire article.
‘Ah… Come to think of it, last week was Grandma’s birthday.’
The eldest son of House Friesna, a family that valued etiquette and formality above life itself, had been absent from an important family event twice in a row. No wonder the reporters had caught the scent of something suspicious.
I read through my father’s statement with a troubled feeling.
“Rene?”
“Eek?!”
W-what a surprise! I jerked my head up in shock.
A girl with a face I had never seen before was standing in front of me, staring down at me. Beneath her lively brown ponytail, her healthy bronze skin gleamed.
“So it really is you, Rene! It’s been forever!”
“Uh… huh?”
Before I knew it, the girl had seized both my hands. She gripped them tightly and began bouncing up and down in place.
W-who is this girl? As I stood there stammering in confusion, she abruptly released my hands and slapped me on the shoulder.
“You said you’d write once you arrived, but you’ve been completely silent all this time! I was really hurt, you know?”
“A letter…?”
“Yeah! You worked so hard memorizing our address before you left, and you forgot all about it too?”
‘Ah….’
Only then could I vaguely guess who this girl was.
She must have been a hometown friend of Rene’s, someone she had known before transferring to Luminous.
‘……This is a problem.’
This was hardly a welcome coincidence. At the moment, I knew even less about Rene than I did about Ria.
After hesitating for a moment, I cautiously opened my mouth.
“W-what brings you all the way out here?”
“What do you mean, what brings me here? I came to do business, of course. Quite a lot of rare herbs grew on our mountain this spring.”
The girl gave the large backpack on her back a few pats.
“What about you, Rene? Did you come here to read a book on your day off?”
“Y-yeah. Something like that.”
“Alone?”
“Yeah….”
The girl hummed as she looked around.
She stared down at my face for a moment, then snickered and lightly tapped me on the shoulder again.
“You’re not being ostracized as some country bumpkin, are you?”
“N-no, it’s not like that!”
“Haha, I’m just kidding, just kidding. With your personality, there’s no way that’d happen.”
She gripped my right hand tightly once more.
“It’d be rude to make too much noise in the bookstore, so let’s go outside and talk. My pockets are nice and full, so I’ll buy you something tasty.”
With that, she tugged hard on my arm.
“W-wait a second….”
I hadn’t finished reading my father’s statement or the list of newly released magic yet. I planted both feet firmly on the ground and tried to resist.
‘Why is she so strong?!’
But it was useless. With strength that surpassed even Ria’s, the girl dragged me out of the bookstore.
I-is this the power of a frontier herbalist…? By the time I came to my senses, I was already sitting at a table inside a large, flashy café across from the bookstore.
“Come on, order whatever you want! It’s my treat today!”
The girl more or less forced me into a seat and handed me the menu.
I rotated my sore wrist to loosen it, then reluctantly looked through the menu.
‘Well, since this has happened, it might not be a bad idea to use this opportunity to properly find out what kind of girl Rene had been.’
Rene’s parents might come to visit as soon as the first semester ended. For the sake of a smooth academy life from now on, I absolutely couldn’t let my identity be discovered.
After thinking for a moment, I chose from the menu and said, “The pancake set.” Then I looked at the girl across from me and spoke as naturally as possible.
“So, how are Mom and Dad? Are they doing well?”
“What? You weren’t even keeping in touch with your parents?”
“I was so busy with the admission procedures and everything that I barely knew which way was up.”
“Is that why you didn’t write to me either?”
“Well, yeah.”
The girl answered with a slightly suspicious expression, “Hmm, really?” Then she soon nodded and continued.
“They’re doing fine, as always. Though your dad seems to be a little busy lately.”
“Dad? Why?”
“Well… the monsters in the forest have been acting kind of strange lately.”
“The monsters?”
“Since last month, I think? Because of that, the northern part of our mountain was designated as a completely restricted area.”
The girl let out a short sigh.
“It’s not like some incredibly powerful monster appeared. Apparently, the frequency of weak, low-level monsters showing up has just increased dramatically. So it’s sentries like your dad, not the knights, who are bearing the brunt of it.”
“Hmm, I see.”
This was the first I had heard of it. The monsters had suddenly become more active?
I was thinking that I should ask Teacher Justina about it in detail later when the girl continued.
“Come on, enough of these boring country stories. Let’s talk about you, Rene. How’s Luminous? Is it a decent place to attend?”
The girl’s eyes sparkled with considerable interest.
“What could be so special about it? Schools are all pretty much the same.”
I gave a vague answer and smiled lightly.
“So is there anything in particular you’re curious about?”
“Hmm… So that’s how you’re going to answer me?”
The girl crossed her arms and fell into thought for a moment.
I took advantage of the opportunity to focus my attention on the metal plate that had been jingling near her neck for a while.
‘As I thought, it’s an adventurer’s identification tag. Her name is… Jibel.’
Just as I expected. There was no way a frontier herbalist wouldn’t have an adventurer’s license.
“Right! What’s the cafeteria food like? Is it tasty?”
Only then did Jibel ask, her eyes sparkling. It was a rather unremarkable question considering how long she had spent thinking.
“It’s very tasty.”
Still, I answered kindly and naturally followed up with a question.
“By the way, Jibel, is everything in that backpack herbs?”
“Huh? This? Well, mostly, yeah. It’s not all herbs, though.”
Jibel swung the backpack she had been carrying on her back around to the front. Apparently, Rene hadn’t called her by some kind of nickname.
Just as she began untying the straps, Jibel suddenly clapped her hands as if she had remembered something.
“Ah!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Come to think of it, I found it!”
“That thing?”
……What thing?
“That thing! The one you used to go on and on about wanting to see someday!”
Jibel immediately began rummaging through her backpack.
A moment later, she pulled out a small cloth pouch and placed it on the table.
“I found it completely by chance! We searched the whole mountain together back then, and we couldn’t find it no matter how hard we looked.”
Then Jibel smiled brightly and met my gaze.
‘……This is bad.’
She seemed to be expecting me to jump for joy, but… honestly, I had absolutely no idea how I was supposed to react.
“W-wow, Jibel! That’s amazing!”
In the end, I awkwardly threw both arms up and squeezed out what even I thought was a soulless performance.
As expected, Jibel’s bright smile quickly froze.
“What was that forced reaction? Aren’t you happy?”
“O-of course I am! It’s just… I guess it doesn’t feel real yet.”
I spoke with a creaking smile like a puppet.
Jibel stared at me strangely, then shrugged.
“Well, I guess that’s because you haven’t seen the actual thing yet.”
With that, Jibel immediately began untying the pouch’s drawstring.
Without hesitation, she took out a handful of mysterious dried herbs and held them out right before my eyes.