--------------------------------------- 2 Days Later:
The blaring noise of my alarm woke me up with a startle and I knocked the annoying device off my bedside table, the noise stopping as the battery fell out the back of the clock. I groaned as I rolled over in my bed, not wanting to get up for class.
It had been 2 days since my conversation with Principal Raymond, and I was no closer to understanding the full extent of his strenght. He had said it so clearly and outlined every part of it in detail, and still claimed I was stronger. That night, I had imagined what it would be like if he had known everything. That explains why he has so many books open all the time, he's constantly trying to gain knowledge and information so he can make those predictions more precise. I thought to myself as I threw the covers off and slinked off my bed towards the ensuite bathroom of the room. I had only stayed in the University accomodation for a month or so before I was sent off to Nuhevom by that portal 6 months ago during the tournament, so I was still getting used to the bed and facilities again.
The past few days had been hectic to say the least: From the moment I arrived back in Nova, I had a fight with three apostles of Destruction and killed one, I was then hauled off to see the King and Queen before having a conversation with Raymond about his overpowered artefact, just how ridiculous could it get?
I took off my boxers and hopped into the shower, the warm water washing over me felt relaxing, and I had an urge to go back to bed, but I resisted. It was definitely a struggle washing myself with a single hand, but I made do with what I could using a mixture of magic and physical washing.
Half an hour later, I was dressed and ready to head out to class, leaving my room and locking my door. Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind and I felt the tickle of hot breath on my neck and a soft voice, one I wanted to hear most of the time.
"Hey." Jessica murmured against my neck.
I turned around in her arms slowly and looked down at her. The first thing I noticed was that her hair had changed. Now, instead of the fringe spiking down, it was more evened out, covering her forehead in thin, but many blonde strands. Her straight hair that fell down to her waist was now cut a little shorter to her lower back and was a little wavy and curled slightly in some places. Carefully, I brushed her hair behind her ears and smiled. "I like your new hair, what made you want to change it?"
"You coming back alive did," she replied softly, and I could see the difference in her mana flow by using {Miracle Eye}. Darius was right, she hadn't been taking care of herself properly while I was gone, and that made my heart hurt more than I thought it would.
"You've not been looking after yourself properly," I said, more as a statement to her than a question, feeling like I needed to call her out on it, even if it was a bit harsh of me to do so.
"How can you tell?"
"Your mana flow is different... and your brother told me."
"Snitch..." She muttered before dropping her forehead onto my shoulder and standing there with her arms around me, her voice muffled by my shoulder as she spoke, "I'm sorry, I thought you were dead so..." She trailed off and I knew what she meant. With my single arm, I wrapped it around her shoulders and whispered in her ear.
"So long as you take care of yourself from now on, leave the rest to me." I paused for a moment before chuckling and saying, "and I'll give you that date you asked for a few days ago, okay?"
Her head snapped up at that and her eyes lit up, a bright smile crossing her lips. "Seriously?"
"You thought I wasn't being serious? How you wound me." I teased with a smirk as she rolled her eyes playfully. After our little conversation, we walked together to class and arrive at the lecture hall. I reached for the door handle but my hand stopped. This was my first lecture back since I was basically presumed dead in a different land. I wasn't sure how people would react: would they be happy or would they just be so shocked that they couldn't speak. I wasn't sure what to do until Jess' hand guided mine to the handle, her hand gently closing around mine.
"It's okay if you don't want to go in, but eventually you know you'll have to," she said softly as she looked at me, checking if I was ok. I felt like I didn't deserve her, but nonetheless, I pushed the door open and walked in with her into our 'History of Artefacts' class. Upon the door opening, the whole class turned around, even the professor looked up at us. It was a different professor from six months ago, so I wasn't sure what his name was, but it didn't matter, since he smiled and gestured to take a seat. "Mr Freed, welcome back to class."
He knew who I was? My mind raced with thoughts on how a professer I had never met before knew me, until I remembered a certain scheming person who ran this University. I sat at the back where I used to sit and Jess sat down on my left, where she had been at the beginning of the course.
It felt oddly comforting to be back where I was before, albeit missing an arm and being much stronger, but comforting anyway. The class hadn't reacted either way I had thought they would, and I could only guess that it was because I was barely a presence in the class to begin with, or they didn't want to overwhelm me, since no one came to bother me.
"Alright class, for the returning student I will introduce myself again. I am Mr Charlie Hills, call me Sir, Mr Hills or whatever, I am not that bothered. Welcome to History of artefacts. Today we are covering an ancient ruin that was recently discovered near the border of our lands and the lands of Spirits where the Kapanyth Dynasty is. The ruins' name is Haavaralon, and it is expected to be one of the bigger ruins we've discovered. There will be a field trip there, accompanied by the Hunters guild, so make sure you sign up if you want to go. Now onto the main lecture..."
My ears perked up at the prospect of going on a trip to a ruin, a large one at that. Big ruin meant more space for artefacts, more space for artefacts meant there would likely be loads of artefacts and more artefacts meant I could get stronger!
The gears in my head were turning as I was thinking of all the ways this exploration could go. At some point during the trip, I would need to sneak off and do my own thing in finding the artefacts, otherwise there's no way the Hunters guild would let students get anywhere near one.
I decided to drown out my thoughts and focus on the lecture for once since I didn't really do that very well when I was here the last time. Mr Hills had a gentle, calming voice to go with his quite lax appearance. He had messy brown hair and wasn't wearing a suit or anything too smart, just a plain linen shirt and some loose trousers, making him look well-dressed but not overly so. His eyes were a vibrant green and I could almost feel them piercing me each time he looked in my direction, but perhaps I was imagining things.
"To help map out ruins before they're explored, they use something called mana-based echolocation. By sending pulses of mana into the ground, they can be detected when they rebound off of the boundaries between surfaces. Special detectors are used to sense the mana and it is tyically an alteration class artefact used to send out the mana, however it is not fully necessary and can be done with a strength class artefact if the vibrations are strong enough, using seismic waves instead of mana."
I understood it well enough to know that if I pumped mana into the floor and detected it with the ring, I could tell what the whole ruin looked like before I even went inside. I took a glance to my left at Jess and saw her taking heavy notes. I had forgotten how dedicated to her studies she was, and it made me feel a little guilty that she had fallen in that area because she had been so worried about me after my disappearance. It was then that I decided I would make it up to her by taking her on a decent date, even if I had never really done it before. My heart started racing and I was suddenly very nervous about that day, more so than I was nervous about fighting apostles of Gods.
I knew you were in love with her way back when. I heard in my head from my annoying companion.
Shut up. Sure, I've fallen for her a lot but... in love? I replied as I kept staring at Jess. God I must look like a creep.
You look like a creep anyway. Orebrul quipped back with a hard laugh.
You be quiet before I send you back to the darkness of our mental link, I growled back at him, and I must've made the noise audibly since Jess glanced at me a little confused, her cheeks turning a little red, probably from my staring. See what you did? Idiot. I said with a mental sigh as I looked back to the front of the lecture hall.
Not my fault that you are incapable of handling a woman that's interested in you. He replied and I had to resist the urge to just put a wall between us and kick him out.
Fine, I'll take her on an amazing date then! Just you watch. I shot back before ignoring his laughing and teases.
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Class finally ended, so I packed up and stood up, ready to leave with Jess. After she was packed up too, we walked out of class talking about the lecture.
"Are you going to go on that trip?" I asked her carefully. If she went too, I would no doubt have a harder time sneaking away. Alternatively, since she knew my powers, she could actually be an accomplice and assist me in sneaking away.
"Yeah, are you?" She answered calmly, tilting her head at my conflicted expression. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, nothing. I am gonna go on the trip, but not for the sake of the class..." I responded with a small glint in my eye. She was very quick to understand and gave me a knowing look before laughing.
"Make sure you don't get caught. I'll help where I can, okay?"
I nodded and felt a small weight lifted off my shoulders. This was going to be ten times easier now, since not only did I have an accomplice in my antics, but that accomplice was the girl I was going on a date with soon, and she was an assassin. Who knows how to sneak around other than a duo of an ex-soldier and an assassin? Probably nobody.
However, as we exited the door, I was jumped by a flurry of people, some shaking and professing how relieved they were that I was ok, some asking what happened to my arm, and some just crying and sobbing about how I was back. The level and range of emotions was a little overwhelming, but I felt a soft hand slip into mine and squeeze gently, and I knew it was Jess'. Taking a deep breath, I addressed everyone and thanked them for their concern.
After a bit of explaining and describing my journey back and how I lost my left arm and what not, the crowd slowly dispersed until it was just me and Jess. We started walking, our hands still together, and I prayed mine wasn't too sweaty from nervousness.
While I was very focused on our connected hands, I wasn't completely oblivious to the whispers around us...
"Look at them two!"
"Right? They're so cute together."
"Wait, isn't that Jessica Black? Like the assassin house of Black?"
"And isn't that Lough Freed?"
"He's the one who dominated Principal Raymond at the tournament!"
I groaned internally. There were already rumours spreading I suppose, though it wasn't like it was going to heavily affect me in any particular way as of now, so I had no reason to shut them down. Plus, it was exactly what it looked like, we just hadn't been on a date... yet.
"You can hear them too, right?" Jess asked me with a small giggle.
"Yeah, they're not very subtle, are they?" I responded with a huff, "sorry for the drama."
Jess waved her other hand dismissively with a soft smile. "It's not a big deal, I'm used to the spotlight from my family name and such, though it doesn't interest me one bit. My siblings eat that shit up though, so they would jump at the chance to be the centre of rumours."
"What? Darius?" I scoffed at the mere idea of Darius wanting to be in the spotlight. I couldn't imagine anything further from the truth, there was no way that Darius would enjoy being the centre of attention, especially since he's a fairly reserved individual. Though he did challenge me to a duel first that one time. I thought with a small grin.
"No, I meant my other siblings." She paused and her lips parted in shock as I gave her a slightly bemused expression. "Did Darius not tell you about our other siblings?" She let out a sigh of defeat, rolling her eyes, "No, I guess he wouldn't since he doesn't really like talking to them anyway."
I chuckled, imagining Darius being standoffish with his family too aswell as other people except for me and Jessica. "How many siblings do you even have then?"
"I have five other siblings." She stated matter-of-factly, "There's obviously Darius, who's the middle brother. Warren is the oldest, he's 25. Then Jennifer is 22 but nearly 23 soon. My younger sister, Edith, is 18 and my youngest brother is called Troy and he's 17."
I stared at her for a moment before laughing quietly, "Jeez you have a big family, are you all assassins, or just some of you?"
She shook her head and we turned the corner of the corridor leading into a new one with windows stretching all across the wall to our left, looking out over the city of Nova. Down there, you could see little people buying things from market stalls or heading into shops. There were small gambling games and barters for goods. My attention was fixed on the girl holding my hand, despite the beautiful view outside, since she was the most beautiful girl in the world to me right now.
"No, only my elder siblings are fully fledged assassins, though me and Darius will become ones once we graduate."
I could have been wrong, and I didn't want to assume, but I could have sworn she looked a bit upset by her statement, like she didn't really want to follow through on it. Perhaps I was biased though, since I had feelings for her, but it almost felt like she didn't want to become an assassin like her whole family expected of her. My jaw tightened and I decided to just jump the gun.
"Do you not want to be an assassin, Jess?"