Chapter 22: 20 – The villainess

"L-Lilith?!"

Glynn stared at the woman before her in shock. She definitely looked like the Lilith she knew. Fair skin, round and red eyes, and a cute nose, everything was all too familiar. She looked older than she remembered, but that was a given since 8 years had passed since then. Although Lilith's hair was black and not white, Glynn thought that she also dyed it to hide her homunculi-like appearance.

"Why did you sound like a girl just now?" Lilith wrote, unaware of the shock Glynn was going through right now.

Glynn didn't— couldn't see the text, as her eyes were already blurry with tears. With sobs and shaky arms, she took a step forward and—

"...!"

—hugged Lilith tight.

But things didn't go well from there. Overcoming her initial surprise, Lilith regained her calm and promptly kicked Glynn off her. Then, with an angry face, she wrote, "what do you think you're doing?!"

Glynn quickly recovered from the kick and realized that Lilith probably didn't know that it was here. Ten minutes had already passed, so she quickly stood up and turned back into Glenn. 

Then, with a handful of Chaos in his hand, Glenn punched his own hood as hard as he could, shattering it almost immediately. He watched as Lilith's face go through various emotions; confusion, realization, shock, disbelief, and eventually, sadness and longing.

"I-It's me!" Glenn stuttered as he once again struggled to keep his emotions in check.

But instead of responding to Glenn's emotions in earnest, Lilith shook her head resolutely and made a mad dash for Ava. 

It was only when she was mere inches away from Ava that Glenn realized that she was actually aiming for the slime that Ava was hugging.

"Woah there!" Ava gasped as she watched Lilith snatch the slime away from her.

Due to her sudden stop, Lilith lost her balance and fell to the ground. However, as if she had already achieved her objective, she heaved a weary sigh of relief and laid there motionlessly.

Soon, her body twitched faintly, before she got up again with a dazed look on her face. Then, she turned back at Glenn to face him. 

'What?' Glenn stared back at Lilith with the same degree of confusion as he noticed that her eyes were bright green now instead of red. Suddenly, he had an idea. But that idea was so absurd that he didn't even know if he wanted it to be true.

'What am I thinking? I have to find out!'

As such, he looked for the slime. However, as soon as he did so, the slime slid into Lilith's armors, obscuring itself from his prying eyes.

This sudden motion seemingly broke Lilith out of her daze, as her green eyes regained a bit of clarity as she blinked a few times. After lingering her gaze on Glenn for a few more seconds, she turned toward Ander and wrote, "I have to go now, instructor Ander. Family business."

Then, she left the training ground without another word.

"Okay!" Ander then shouted loudly. "It has been a very interesting orientation, and I hope that you all learned something useful from this. Class dismissed!"

Though everyone looked like they all had something to say, especially to Glenn, they decided that it wasn't worth going against the instructor words. Thus, they left the training grounds quickly.

As Glenn was about to also leave to avoid Ander and, more importantly, go look for Lilith, he was stopped by the same red-haired woman that was with Ander earlier—Maria.

"Listen here," she said in a cold voice, "I don't care what went on inside that little mind of yours for you to assault your fellow student after winning a duel, but don't ever to that again, not in front of me."

"But instructor, she—"

"Don't talk back!"

Before such an authoritative voice, Glenn could only swallow his saliva and nod. However, his fears were soon turned into irritation as he heard Ander's booming voice.

"Ah, ignore Maria, please. You can do it however much you want to my daughter."

"Ander, stop encouraging students to do stupid shit!"

With a sigh, Maria then turned her attention back to Glenn.

"Look, I don't personally agree with this decision, but the headmaster seems to be satisfied with your performance. Therefore, you can attend Kevlas for this school year, after which, your performance will be reviewed by the faculty board. Then, they will decide whether or not you're worthy of becoming a permanent student of this institution."

Maria then made her way toward the exit. Before she left full left, however, she left one last remark.

"I heard about you from Hiro. I swear to Goddess Lyra that if you're involved with anything shady, I'll personally make you regret living."

As the door was slammed shut, Ander approached Glenn with the most irritating grin possible on his face.

"Maria asides, I'm sure that you know what I'm going to bother you with for the next 2 weeks."

Glenn groaned. Of course he knew! However, he had too many questions right now to care; questions that could be answered if he played along with Ander's matchmaking game for just a little bit.

"Okay, bother me all you want."

"Great! Then I guessed that you changed your mind after seeing her face?"

Glenn let out a noncommittal grunt. Until he found out what all of this meant, he wasn't going to commit to any plan. 

Seeing this, Ander patted Glenn's shoulder. "Come on, you're obviously heads over heels for her! Just look at you rubbing your face on her armor earlier!"

"Okay fine, think whatever you want. Now, are you going to answer any question I ask? If no, then I'll have to excuse myself."

"Tch, they'd better be about your future plans with Erika."

'In a way, he guessed right.'

Pushing that thought out of his mind, Glenn started asking; starting with the biggest question on his mind.

"How come her eye color changed?"

"Hmmm... all I know is that it's related to her powers."

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"Powers?"

"Yes, you can actually guess what set of powers she is going to use based on her eye color if you watch her fight long enough. She told me that it's something related to her being a Hero."

Glenn hung his mouth in shock upon hearing this. "She's a Hero?!"

"Ah!" Ander gasped in realization. "I wasn't supposed to tell you that. Well, I guess it goes without saying that you shouldn't go and blabber about this to everyone." Upon seeing Glenn nodding, Ander smiled in relief. "Good."

Still slowly recovering from the shocking information that he had just fought a Hero...and came out victorious, Glenn continued with his questions.

"W-What about her past?"

Ander grinned. "Ah, of course you want to find out more about your future w—"

"Just answer the damn question!" Glenn raised his voice impatiently. Somehow, Ander always managed to get on his nerves.

Ander wasn't particularly offended since he was pretty used to it right now. "Alright, all for my dear future son-in-law. I'm sure you know about the prophecy. Eight year ago, a great disaster befall her and robbed her of her parents. Then, for the next 3 years, she—" Ander caught himself before he could say anything more. "You know what? It's not my place to reveal about it."

"Is it one of your schemes to get me closer to her?"

"Maybe." Ander shrugged. "But it's also something called 'decency.' I really am not in any position to talk about her past without her consent, especially when..." He let his words trail off, clearly not wanting to continue his sentence.

"..."

"Anyway, I think that's enough. Now go, I have to prepare for my next class."

'I think I just made Ander moody...'

With that in mind, Glenn nodded and briskly left the room.

...

With the question-and-answer session with Ander ending sooner than he had expected, Glenn walked through the unfamiliar corridors of Kevlas; his speed nearing a sprint yet still slow enough to be considered walking. As he scanned around for the slightest sign of Lilith, Katherine suddenly flew out of him.

"We need to talk."

'Not now,' Glenn responded curtly.

"But it's important!"

Halting for but a second to consider Katherine's words, Glenn continued looking for Lilith again. 'Then we can talk while walking.'

Katherine nodded and opened her speech with something completely unexpected.

"I want you to learn my swordsmanship."

Due too all the... sudden revelations that he had received today, Glenn merely gave Katherine a weird look at her surprising words. 'I thought you told me that my body is crap?'

"It still is, but the body of your...other form isn't. In fact, it's perfect for my Art!"

'You mean...Glynn?'

"Yes! You have so much wasted potential! That swordsmanship you showed earlier was shoddy at best! It's a disrespect to show that kind of swordsmanship in front of me, the Sword saint!"

'Okay, why is she acting like Kevin now?'

"I'm not acting like Kevin! It's Kevin that acts like me when I'm excited about things! Anyway, did you see the girl that you fought? She had amazing techniques! If she didn't, she would've been swung by the huge sword that she was wielding and not the other way around!"

Glenn blocked the yammering of an uncharacteristically enthusiastic and excited Katherine out of his mind and considered her offer to train him.

Power was power, he didn't need to think much about it. The real problem was Glynn. He was still extremely uncomfortable in that form, so much so that he always wanted to tear his own skin out after just a few seconds. Sure, he might not have that urge in a life-and-death situation, but training in Glynn's form was something he didn't even consider until now.

One more thing he didn't consider what that since he was deep in his own thoughts, he wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings. Thus, he crashed into a group of 3 people unknowingly.

"What where you're going!" One of them shouted.

Glenn massaged his head and looked up to see whom he had crashed into.

'Nope, I don't know these people.'

As he was about to apologize and just get on his way, one of the students pointed a finger at him.

"Hey, isn't he the one?"

"Who?"

"You know, the commoner who got kicked in the face after trying to molest lady Erika."

Judging by the contents of their conversation, it seemed that they were nobles, that that they were students of Ander's class. However, there was something that Glenn didn't quite understand.

'Molest? I merely hugged her!'

"Well, it did look like you molested her from an outside perspective," Katherine suddenly interjected.

Whatever the case was, Glenn knew that it wouldn't do him any good to associate himself with nobles. In fact, him knowing Annie, Hugh, and Ander was already too much for Glenn to handle. As such, he tried to get away as fast as possible.

However, before he could turn away, one of the students grabbed his collar and spoke in a menacing tone.

"I want to have a word with you, mister molester."

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