Kapitel 48: A New Week

[James's Pov]

Leaving sub-me at home, spending the day alternating between meditating and punishing the poor dummy in my practice room, my feet were carrying me over the academy grounds. Today, something was clearly different. The other students all looked at me with a range of different expressions, everyone seemingly having some kind of opinion on me after the tournament.

"Hey, James!"

The huge girl had arrived. Now jogging to get to me after she noticed my presence, giving me a lot of eye candy on her way as her curves couldn't quite keep up with the movement.

Looking up at her, it was hard to imagine that this innocent-looking girl, albeit large, had crushed someone's heart yesterday.

"Can I help you with anything?"

Her forehead creased as she spoke about yesterday, "So you are just going to pretend like nothing happened yesterday? First, you suddenly just skipped the tournament after playing around with Arthur for some reason I don't even want to know. Then you..."

My mind zoned out as she kept blabbering on and on about the events that had unraveled yesterday, so I just kept walking as she spoke.

Though I could hear her tone getting harsher, my mind just wouldn't allow me to focus on what she was vocalizing.

"Are you listening to me?!"

She had grabbed my shoulder in an unrelenting iron grip, making sure I wouldn't be able to move before I had gotten the sermon I deserved.

However, my mind was too tired, too exhausted after having spent most of the night thinking about anything and everything.

Turning my eyes up from the ground, I gave the woman a forced smile, "Please let go of me, Sophie. Honestly, I don't have the energy for this right now. You can beat me up later if you want, but for now, just let me get to class."

The anger in her face quickly started to disappear as the amazon became speechless, unable to comprehend what was happening.

So, she released me. "Thank you. See you in class."

==========

"As you have seen on your smartwatches, and as you can see around you, there have been a lot of changes after the weekend. Everyone, please make sure to welcome the newcomers to the class consisting of James, Sebastian, Suzan, and Adriana. They will be taking the places of Bellatrix, John, Sarah, and Peter."

After all was said and done, half of the class had been switched out, something that had seldom happened in the history of the academy.

The reason? All of the students were in many ways pretty even if one considered their stats, thus the first distribution had pretty much been randomized. Thus, the ranking event ended up shaking things up a lot.

However, this was a fact that was still unbeknownst to all of us. In my mind, the A- and the B-classes were now fairly representative of the strong and the weak. With me as a bit of an outlier.

What Mr. Laufeyson said had been stuck in my mind all night, and in the end, I was forced to look at myself more objectively. If I were to look at someone else's status right now, it would probably be obvious that I wasn't 'weaker' than them.

Though I had come to accept that I probably wasn't weak, I still didn't think I was strong. If I were to duel the monster that is Sophie, Arthur, or Sebastian, I would most likely never come out on top.

However, if I were to go up against Sarah, Bellatrix, or Peter, I would have incredibly good odds of winning.

I still didn't want to fight anyone though, but his words had somewhat woken me up from the 'unsightly' state I had put myself in. Therefore, I had already made the decision to go for a bit of a trip on the weekend to come, a trip that hopefully would help me shed some of that old skin of mine.

'He is so loud...'

Having been used to the sweet voice and appearance of Ms. Turner, I couldn't say I was happy about getting Mr. Brown as my homeroom teacher instead.

Though he appeared to be quite an easy person to deal with, based on his warm demeanor, I still felt like it would be better to at least get to distract myself from reality by watching Ms. Turner.

'Oh, are we done?'

At some point, he had stopped talking about whatever he had talked about and walked out of the room. As a result, all my classmates started getting up from their seats in order to get ready for the first real class of the day.

Just as I was about to follow suit, one individual decided not to walk out and instead come to the desk I was seated at.

"Hey, James! Nice job in the survival event! Though I guess it's inevitable that a commoner wouldn't dare to fight in the duels tournament, I'm still impressed!"

Mike had approached me, loudly praising me while at the same time insulting me, making my already weary head even sorer.

It didn't take a genius to conclude that he wanted to make use of me in some way, most likely maybe wanting to recruit me to his guild because of the utility my element could bring.

'Oh, hello Sir Denver! Thank you! But I'm unworthy of your praise!'

"Haaa... What a fucking drag to have to endure this idiot again..."

...

'Wait...'

Noticing how the fake smile of Mike slowly twisted into an intense scowl, I realized my mistake. An honest mistake to be fair, it was hard to control two bodies when my head wasn't in the right place.

"What did you say to me, commoner...!"

It was frustrating, having just lost one of the persons I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of. It was as if I played a gacha game and I accidentally killed off one of my heroines.

Knowing there was no coming back from here, I just brought out a bright smile, "Haha! Calm down there, no need to be so angry! Now, what about you just let me get to class and we will pretend like this never happened? Hm? Sounds good?"

At this point, I was legitimately afraid that he might suffer from an aneurysm. 'Wait, is that even a thing in this world?'

"You want me to forget about this?! How about you get on your knees and apologize, you filthy commoner!"

Suddenly, a very familiar move was used on the unsuspecting mind as a hand was placed on his shoulder, throwing him off his plans of showing me my place.

"Mike, get over yourself. James, come one, let's go."

Sophie had for some reason stayed behind when the others were leaving and after hearing Mike yelling, she had gone back into the classroom just to see the situation.

As I walked passed Mike, who was growling in frustration, I made sure to give him another big smile, before Sarah let him go and followed me out of the classroom.

Hurrying to my side, walking beside me in the corridor, she couldn't stay quiet, "James, what the fuck are you doing?! Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?!"

Turning to her with the same smile I had shown Mike, my patience had also reached its limit, "Sophie, I do appreciate you helping me, even though I was fine. But please, leave me alone. If there is something you want to talk about, you can come over to my apartment after class."

Having spent the last of my energy reserves, my feet started to drag me to my destination.

"Where are you going, James?"

"I'm going to sleep."

****

[Sophie's Pov]

"Stop. Let's take a break. Sit down, Red."

"Arg! Fine!"

Taking a seat in the middle of the arena, I couldn't argue with my instructor about stopping our sparring. And for a good reason.

"Now, I know there is something you are thinking about, but it's completely disrupting your flow. Because your mind is preoccupied your body is slow and mechanical. Take the rest of the lesson and get process whatever you are thinking about. I expect you to be ready to fight after lunch."

Letting my arms hold my body up, I leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, my thoughts still turbulent and confused. Not only was it not enough for James to constantly make me angry, but now, he had forced me to get worried about him as well.

It was stupid, idiotic even, as I barely knew the man. There wasn't much of a difference in the duration I had known him and my other classmates, yet the fact that we originated from the same world was somehow enough for me to feel some kind of connection to him.

"Haaa... Is it really just that you are tired?"

*Thud*

I let go of the power in my arms, making my body fall to the ground as I continued to ponder just what could have made the silly joker act like he had done this morning.

****

[James's Pov]

Large clouds of mist were dancing over a flowery field of green, telling me through their movement to follow them. Without me having to decide whether to do so or not, I floated behind them as we quickly passed eons of evolution, ending up at the time when humans were walking the lands.

It didn't take long until skyscrapers had been built and cars dominated the roads, slowly but surely clenching the world that had birthed them. Finally, we had reached our destination as the mist led me into a familiar house, a house I had seen so many times during my time on earth.

Flying in through the window, my vision was filled with the memory I never wanted to think of again. Luckily, my hero had come to save me once again.

==========

*Knock! Knock! Knock!*

"AAAH!"

I finally woke up, tears in my eyes and my body trembling with weakness, all thanks to the sound of a loud knock on my door.

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