Chapter 8: 8

“Don’t you have to go there?”

I asked, looking at Bryce Nadon from a distance, who was setting the table for Blossom while grinning. Ramos was giggling and pointing at his brother as if he found him funny, while Bolton subtly moved his body to widen his distance from them.

Spencer was still expressionless, making it hard to guess what he was thinking. Did he eat that tiny little caramel today? Does it even have any effect to his stomach, which is probably twice as big as mine? That’s what I’ve been thinking about every time I see Spencer since we met in the infirmary.

“Why?”

“You always ate there.”

Blossom, which you will fall in love with later, is also there. I didn’t bother to add this last sentence.

“You said you wanted to eat together.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. You just misunderstood.”

When I responded flatly, Illestia responded with a drawn-out smile. I put on a look of disbelief.

I was planning to argue more strongly, but I stopped because I was afraid that a strong negation would sound like a strong affirmation.  In fact, it seemed like a lie even to me. At Fitzsimmons, if I lined up people who wanted to have a meal with Illestia, it would go around the main building twice.

Come to think of it, it was weird. Why did Illestia decide to have lunch with me and even escorted me?

“Fine.”

I didn’t have much time to argue about that. Illestia was the number one difficult person to dine with at the Fitzsimmons Academy and the most important issue in my repeated life wasn’t why Keran Illestia was being nice to Ariel Dalton.

“The book you were reading… <Patch Notes>. It was very peculiar.”

“Getting straight to the point. It’s very you.”

Illestia giggled. It’s dazzling, so please stop laughing.

“To begin with, I don’t even know what it is.”

“You don’t know?”

“I… I was just reading it because I thought it might help. To be precise, I was trying to read it.”

“Help? to what?”

“My… existence?”

What? I am not satisfied with his explanation at all so I can’t help but frown.

“Why are you curious about <Patch Notes>?”Illestia asked back.

 I was lost in thought as I watched him roll up pasta noodles with a fork and spoon (I thought the royal family’s way of eating pasta would be different.) Oh well.

I thought the name of the hell I fell into would be written there. I wanted find the reason that made Illestia remember ‘Adam Willie’.

I want this summer to be Bree’s last breakup with Walsh, and I hope this is the last time I feel uncomfortable with Kyle.

I don’t think I can stand it any longer.

“Because you think it might help? Your… existence?”

“What the hell.”

I only thought about it, but Illestia said it in words. I felt somewhat confused.

Before parting, Illestia told me that it would be nice if I could help decipher the <Patch Notes>. It seemed that he was busy preparing for the upcoming beginning-of-the-month banquet.

I asked how to do it, and he said that we just need to meet up sometimes on weekends or after school to take care of it together. I really wanted to borrow Manticore’s feet, so it would not be a problem that there are about 50 people between us in the school ranking.

Anyway, it didn’t seem that difficult. Nodding my head, Illestia said that he would send the schedule through Spencer soon.

What does Jaden Spencer have to do with me and Illestia making an appointment? I was a little curious but I missed the timing to ask because Illestia immediately left after leaving those words. Anyway, it seems I would need to tighten my budget after today. 

***

For Brianna, who greets the morning early, the night came quickly. Eleven o’clock was almost dawn for Bree. On the other hand, my eyes were bright even until two or three o’clock. So from about ten o’clock, when Bree fell asleep, I mostly lit candles by the window and played alone.

Today’s entertainment was a magic tool for playing that has been recently introduced to our guild. All I had to do was bring the wyvern carved at the end of a geometric shaped tree ring to the nest carved into another ring, but the two rings were strangely hanging together, so using strength didn’t work at all. 

As I was grunting for a while, I suddenly heard a ‘Tok’ sound from beyond the window.

Did something like a bug hit it? I thought nothing of it and tried to give hope to the sad-fated Wyvern, who would never hatch eggs without my help, but soon the same sound came again.

‘Tok’.

I closed the window calmly in case there was a swarm of bugs bumping into it, but I opened the curtains at the thought that it might be pixies playing around, and I almost fell backwards.

“Kyle, are you crazy?”

“Open the window, your knight is here!”

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Oh my God, Kyle Villard on a griffon was there! After the training, he must have slipped it out of the kennel and rode it.

I opened the window very slightly. The wind from the griffon’s fluttering wings beat me mercilessly in the face.

“Professor Hooper will kill you, Kyle Villard.”

“In that sense, I have a wish before I die.”

Kyle held out his hand to me. His other hand pointed at the saddle. He’s asking me to get on? I could not help but shake as violent as the flapping of the griffon’s wings.

Ever since I fell from a tree at the age of five, I have followed my iron rule for fourteen years and forty-six months; never climb anything high that is not stairs.

“Mosley is sleeping, go away!”

“If you don’t come, Mosley will not be the only one who will have their sleep disturbed.”

“You bastard. You must have been Adam Walsh in your past life.”

“Walsh is still alive.”

Kyle sneered gleefully. Reluctantly, I opened the window wide, put my foot on the window sill, and grabbed Kyle’s hand with both hands. As I trembled and climbed the griffon, he held me tight, just like in the magic science classroom.

“Where the hell are we going?”

“You’ll find out when we get there. You’ll be surprised.”

The feeling of riding a griffon for the first time in my life wasn’t too bad. Rather, it was very good. The Fitzsimmons seen under our feet was so small and shiny that rather than a sense of fear, it evoked excitement as if looking at a very elaborate miniature doll play set.

My back felt Kyle’s heart beating at an incredibly fast pace as he skillfully pulled the reins. My toes curled up as I somehow felt my heartbeat speed up.

The place we arrived by flying in a griffon was a greenhouse outside the academy. A place I could visit only occasionally during my herbalism classes, whenever Professor Stafford wanted to brag about his accomplishments, was also a place he considered his life.

The griffon, who came to the floor covered with unknown grass and placed Kyle down, panted, as if it was having a hard time withstanding the weight heavier than usual. Kyle took a large piece of horse jerky out of his bag and placed it on the griffon’s large tongue. The jerky disappeared as quickly as a frog grabs its prey.

“I’ve never seen meat jerky that big.”

“Layla has a big stomach, so it can’t be helped.”

“Is her name Layla?”

Layla, feeling better after eating the jerky, rubbed her head against Kyle. Taking advantage of that opportunity, I touched its wing feathers, which were the size of my palm. It was very soft.

“She has jelly on her back foot. Wanna see it?”

Jelly: The thick tissue exposed on the soles of the feet of animals is called jelly in Korea.

“I wanna see it!”

Kyle made Layla lie down on her back and lift her hind leg. As if it would tear at the mere touch, a cute toe bean was revealed under her sharp claws.

My cat, Lilu, gets very upset when my hand goes near her feet, but Layla is very calm. That ungrateful Lilu. Does she even realize how devoted I am to her?

“Lilu needs to reflect.”

“She’s a bit feisty. My Layla, on the other hand, is calm and even smart. It must be because they resemble their owners.”

After bragging about Layla without me asking, Kyle rummaged through his bag and pulled out something. It was a magic tool about the size of two and a half fingers.

Kyle grabbed it with his hands and headed for the entrance to the greenhouse. It had four seemingly intricate locks, but they became useless when he put the part of the magic tool made of elastic and soft material on it.

I freaked out. It was a serious violation of the rules to use magic tools for picking locks within the academy.

“Where did you get that?”

“Ariel, you’re all nice, but sometimes you look down on me too much. Of course, I made it.”

Aha! 

Kyle was well known in our grade for his magic circuit design. That was the case throughout the entire school year although he did not have a good reputation among professors because he used his outstanding talent for this purpose.

“Professor Stafford will kill you, Kyle Villard.”

“That’s a lot of dying for today,”Kyle said softly.

“Come on in, so you will want to resurrect me on the third day of my burial.”

Milua was a country that had little to do with magic. This is because the amount of mana accumulated on the land is not large compared to other countries. Instead, there were many smart people, so the size of the market for magic tools used to amplify small amounts of mana was large, and the quality was also extraordinary.

In other words, I haven’t seen much magic that burns and uses pure mana. In contrast to Milua, Kelly Ramirez from Nadon, which relies heavily on abundant mana, once witnessed a scene where several wizards cast spells at once and said it was incredibly fantastic.

Will that scene look like this? It was my wish to see it even once in my life.

“Ari, your jaw seems to have fallen here. Can you pick it up?”

Kyle pointed to the floor and teased me. I didn’t even think of reprimanding him. I was just in shock.

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