I 10

A female librarian (not Alina) in the past world once asked me “What’s the point of living if that’s all you do?” She was referencing my talks about my job and family. For me, it was an objective I lived by. But as she said, that couldn’t be considered an objective at all. I didn’t really respond to her, deep down shrugging, and just answered whatever came to my mouth.

I have been recalling the past world too much recently.

I enter the library, and see Alina sobbing. “Did something happen?”

She notices me, and quickly wipes her eyes, “It’s nothing, just some personal stuff.”

Silence, unless you count her mm’s or yeah’s to my questions as I browse the shelves. Nothing interesting on the shelves.

“Say, do you want to join my adventure team after graduation?”

“Huh?” she looks baffled.

…after the incident with Ackie, life just goes on as usual. Gradually the guards stop stationing the gates or streets. Students stay the same, before the incidents they go to school with nonchalance, during and after the incidents they go to school with nonchalance toward the deaths of their classmates. If anything had been plaguing the atmosphere of the class, it’s more due to the indigestible materials the teachers force us all to study. Two familiar faces, and the only faces, I ever talked to in this class are now gone.

“You know, perhaps my harem plan should start right in this school. But I haven’t seen a lot of cute girls though, except for Regina. Worry not, I will spare your family member.”

Ackie is now gone.

“Hmm… I just happen to be the type who picks the classes that suit me. I don’t care if it’s a Magic or Academic or Sword class. Maybe the path shall fall itself upon me maybe. Mmm… better than somebody who has been ditching classes recently…”

Roselyn is now gone.

Now the only face I have a familiarity with in the entire class is Paul. He has been talking a lot to Regina during lunch breaks. So now I only have myself to have lunch with. Lunch ends very quickly. What should I even do now? The library? Would Alina be there though?

The silence of the library is melancholic. I didn’t really come here for books, I came here to find somebody to talk with. Also, about the future.

“So… Ryle wants to go on an adventure in search of Artifacts after graduation huh? I will graduate before you in a year though.” Alina meekly says.

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Are you insinuating I could graduate before you do by 3 years or worse?”

“Hey come on, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that I could try to graduate sooner than you expect.”

“Huh? Is that even possible?”

“There have been such people, haven’t there?”

Her eyes are pondering, then her head nods to herself slightly.

“But why are you searching for Artifacts, do you want power or something?”

“No, I’m trying to get rid of them all.”

“Oh…”

“You know Ackie, I mean, the recent killer?”

“Yeah, you actually have an acquaintance with him?” Alina widens her eyes.

“He was my classmate who sat right behind me.”

“Oh my. That sounds horrifying.”

…not really. “He seems to be an absolutely normal guy on the surface at least. Although sometimes eccentric.”

“Maybe that eccentricness could account for why he happens to be a killer?”

“Could be.” I continue, “Anyway, most of the incidents, except for the last one, have been related to the Artifacts. I just happen to think that if I get rid of them, perhaps what happened in the last many days could have been avoidable.”

“Aww. I see that now. Sounds like a very good reason for a journey to search for them all.”

Actually, it’s really simplistic to attribute all the evil on the Artifacts. Teacher Claude, the guy who teaches physics (or this world’s equivalent of it) didn’t kill the troops for the amulet of Evasion (or so they called it).

Claude seems to have some history himself. I don’t know much about him.

But before becoming a teacher, he used to be a military officer.

Or so his memoir seems to detail as much, if it truly belongs to him at all.

Although, he doesn’t seem to write much about me and Ackie, other than how he seems to know that me and Ackie are ‘the aliens’. 

But still, where did Ackie exactly come from?

It does feel like he did come from the same world as I did, but with variations. Although the same can be said about this world as well.

I do have a suspicion, that there are also other people in this world who came from some others as well.

“Alright! I shall join you!” Alina lets out a surprise excited cry. “This shall be our journey on the way of the good to defeat the evil! …why am I repeating some novels I just read though.”

“Glad to have you in my duo team.”

“Duo team. Only you and me?”

“So far, at least.”

Although, one thing I didn’t tell Alina, since there’s just no need to: I want to go on the journey because I need an objective. An obligation to fulfill.

Having said so…

“Without you, I may not have decided on this though.” I mumble.

“???”

Although, this was Regina’s suggestion at first. Still, she didn’t even give a lot of reasons for it. I have to wonder why she suggested it to me in the first place.

“I’m glad you invited me by the way,” Alina says with a very gentle smile, “life has been down for me recently.”

“May I ask… oh sorry, nevermind.” I forgot that she didn’t want me to pry it in the first place.

“Oh it’s okay, it’s okay. I just didn’t want to trouble you with my own issues. It’s just that… recently people dear to me have met some incidents. And now… let me just say they can’t be with me anymore.”

I wanted to ask her if they are related to the incidents, but decided not to.

“It has been really lonely recently, until you decided to invite me on a journey.” She smiles. “Although, I will have to wait until graduation anyway. Until then, I hope I will keep seeing you coming to this library.”

"Will do." I make a fist. She hesitantly looks at my hand and forms one too, gives me a fist bump.

“Besides, in the first place, the dream of being a lone Academic or Magician is just unrealistic.” She continues. “When you are not serving the royal court, you just have to teach children or do some mundane jobs that are not dreamy at all. At the very least, I still want to have several years of journey, something I have never had any chance to do before.”

Time passes. I know enough that we are all very busy so I decide not to bother Regina at all. Our interactions throughout Advanced school have gotten more scant. Although it does raise my brows sometimes to see her talking to Paul at places in the school, I finally decided to stop paying attention to all that.

A person who I didn’t think I would still see, is Rick. He certainly didn’t get expelled.

“…” He makes me feel uncomfortable, but neither of us exchange a single word to each other.

As graduation exams come near, I see a group of familiar looking students approaching me. They are friends in Paul’s clique. Their hands all hold a wooden sword. Faces all look stern.

In a moment, they all simultaneously kneel down to me.

“Bro, please take us all as your disciples!!!”

“…”

“We saw how you defeated every single student during the final Sword combat exam! Including Paul! You even managed to neutralize him very easily once he went berserk. If you don’t take us as your disciples, we shall have no one else to turn to..”

“Guys, I don’t know what to say. But I don’t think I have anything I can really teach you.”

That’s the truth.

“Instead, you guys may want to find somebody who is compatible with you, who shall complement the weakness you have. Instead of finding people who shall push you hard but fail to point out to you where you are flunking at all. That’s the best advice I can give to anybody.”

Well, it’s not like we can suddenly become friends and mentor each other just like that, when we have never said a single word to each other for years until just now?

They all make disappointed faces, and leave. I sigh. No matter how I loved to deal with it, it’s just impossible to avoid bothersome stuff, huh?

The final Sword combat examination was just several days ago. Since I only wanted to pass the class as quickly as possible, I tried to hold back myself and fight as mindlessly as possible.

“Please get to the field, Paul and Ryle!”

But no matter how I tried, what I did, it’s just impossible not to notice how slow their moves are. I can never see combat the same, after the battle with the Crimson Hero, I mean Ackie.

“Haaaaah!!!” Paul lets out a battlecry.

If you have to project yourself onto the sword, rather than being one thing with the sword, you are not fighting at all. Although this is a very clumsy way to convey it - I do agree with Claude as to how you can only learn well through actual experience.

Although what kind of experience, is something I can never know at all.

“Are you holding back? Are you really holding back to me?!”

Is it even possible, to become good at something through sheer will at all?

Perhaps there are things that you just can never do decently at all.

Which is why I have stopped practicing magic altogether, once I got barely enough to pass the final exam. It was truly lucky for me, the score was almost there, a point lower and I may have to wait until graduation.

“Although, if I was in charge of education, I would abolish the competitive ranking system.”

Thus, I have managed to graduate at the same time as Alina.

…

“Have made you wait~” Alina appears with a wizard hat on her head, and a wand. It’s the first time I see her in casual clothes. “When will the ship leave the dock?”

“5 hours later.”

“There’s still a long time before we depart. Do you think I can visit the capital and buy some sweets- I mean, essential goods?”

“Please do. I was gonna pay the capital a visit before we leave anyway.”

“Alright.”

We parted ways on some streets of the capital. As she turns toward some food stores, I turn toward the hospital.

“Sorry for not visiting you for a while.”

Not that she can respond, but well...

“Good to see you,” a familiar nurse, “why haven’t I seen you in such a long time?” “I had been busy with my studies. How’s Roselyn?” “She’s still sleeping.” Sleeping huh? I wonder if she will be awake by the time I return.

I stay by her bedside, and start telling stories about the classes (mostly stories that concern me, I doubt she cares about those classes, but my gut says she would be keen to hear about things that involved me), about the normal state the kingdom has returned to (except for the wars), about my graduation.

“Please wake up soon. I miss you.”

Though… a pretty irresponsible thing to say, given that I’m going on a journey from now on.

“Miss nurse, can you please help me with this?” I gave her a letter. “If Roselyn happens to wake up before I return, please give it to her.”

“I will try to preserve it, and pass it on to her.”

“Thank you.”

I returned to the ship, Alina had already returned before I did. She hands over the fruit. I bite on it and stare up and down.

“What is it?” Alina asks.

“Just intrigued about…” Nothing really. It just hit my mind how there’s no such fruit in my past world. Although such differences by now are no longer special, even though for some reason,  the past world is always on my mind. “Speaking by the way, Alina. Do you believe in reincarnation?”

“Huh? I don’t know, but speaking of reincarnation, I have read novels written with such a motif concerning…” she proceeds to go on a tangent.

What another reason I haven’t told Alina that prompted me to go on a journey though? There is one… Namely that, I want to know if there are other people who have been reincarnated into this world, just like I did. Or maybe coming to this world as an ‘alien’ somehow. If I don’t go on a journey, I’m not sure how I could find such people. They could live all across this world. If they do exist at all.

“…and that was how the novel ended with the couple married happily ever after. Sweet and dreamy and romantic isn’t it?” Her eyes beam with excitement. I can imagine the first place she would visit in the other lands being the library.

A hasty breathing voice, and its running steps can be heard coming toward us.

“Sorry for being late.”

It’s Regina.

“Long time no see Regina~. Are you going on a journey as well?” Alina asks.

“Not just that… we are going as a team too,” she breathes hard, “right?” Regina winks at me.

“Uhm… yeah.”

“You didn’t tell me Regina was gonna be in our team too. Although I should have assumed as much.”

“Good that you managed to come here in time. The ship is gonna depart soon. You should find a room to place your stuff,” I tell Regina.

“Yeah,” she nods and gets into the cabin.

“Alina,” I whisper to her ear.

“Huh? ...why do I have to do that? …alright.”

And so the ship sails. With that begins my journey.