Chapter 351 Night & Fire
As I opened the steel door in front of me and stepped forward I was suddenly hit by a gust of cold air.
"You're late," the girl standing near the railing said.
"I had some things to do," I replied.
She turned toward me, revealing her face. Her long red hair was coming over her shoulders, covering the sides of her face. Her eyes shone a little as they reflected the moonlight.
She looked beautiful—which to say, was the way she always looked. However, this time her face was a little stressed up. Her cheeks puffed up and her brows furrowed as she stared right at me.
Perhaps she was a little angry at a certain someone who had been late to arrive at the said destination.
Right now I was on the rooftop of the Silver Garden Academy and the girl waiting for me was Ellyn. I'd told her to come meet me here at night yet I was the one who ended up getting late.
"It's not good to keep a girl waiting, you know. I'd been standing here for about half an hour now," she said.
"I went to see my parents. Naturally, anyone would prioritize their parents over a girl," I replied as I walked closer and stood next to her.
"No, I think that's just you," she said.
"I guess I'm the only nice guy left in this world then."
"I wouldn't want to hear that from you…" ｂｅｄ𝚗ｏ𝚟𝚎𝚕.𝚌𝚘ｍ
'Ah, she'd seen some of my true nature,' I thought to myself.
"Still, I'm grateful that you kept waiting. I mean, it's pretty cold up here," I said.
"You had something you wanted to know, didn't you? I couldn't be helped," she said, looking away. For some reason, her voice got quieter toward the end of the sentence even though she started really loud. She looked away and at the same time, a gust of wind passed by, making her hair flutter that hid her face even more.
"Well then, I'm not wearing a coat or anything like that or I would've given it to you. But I can at least do this," I said.
Afterward, I raised my hand a little, and using my elemental magic I created a fireball. It floated in the air in front of us and then I increased its size. The flames flickered and soon the heat reached us, making the atmosphere a little warmer.
"It's fueled by magic so there's no risk of it being blown away by the wind," I added.
"Woah! I knew you could use magic without using a magic circle or incantation but seeing it in person is still amazing," she said while looking at the fire, her eyes wide in astonishment as the faint glow of the flames fell on her face.
Her face was a little red too, mostly likely because of the cold.
"Now then, getting to the main topic," I said as I leaned back against the railing.
"Yes, I've got all the information available about him," she replied.
"Let's hear it then."
She took a breath and then began to speak. "Akumi Kotsusube. Back when we were still in the Zaforths academy he was in class 1C. His grades were average in the entrance exam however he was more of a battle type of student than a study one.
"He didn't have many friends. I asked some of the people who were in class 1C and all of them only knew him as just another classmate—some didn't even remember his name. However, he changed after the attack of the demons started and we were teleported here.
"In the reevaluation exam, he was in the top three and was transferred into class 1A. He became really social too and since he had good looks it didn't take him much time to get popular. He's not quite on the level of Leon but I heard that there's a good number of girls who're after him.
"Then when you disappeared and Anya was depressed, he started talking to her and motivated her to get things back on track. This was something I saw personally, if it hadn't been for him Anya would've been depressed till the moment you came back.
"From then on he became friends with Leon and me too. Although not on the same level as he is with Anya," she explained. "That is all."
"I see, I see. What about his family background?" I asked.
"About that, I tried looking for it but…"
"But?"
"There isn't one."
"Hmm?"
"He has no family record. In fact, before the entrance exams for the academy there is no record of the person named Akumi Kotsusube," she said. "It's as if…"
"He never existed…right?" I said, completing her sentence.
"Yeah…"
"Hmmm. This certainly is something interesting," I said. However, that was not really the case. I was fifty percent sure that I'd find something like this.
"Umm, is Akumi an enemy?" Ellyn asked, looking at me.
"What do you think?" I asked back.
She took a bit of time thinking about it before she said anything. "It's true that his background is suspicious and he suddenly got strong without any training or anything. But from what I've seen, he doesn't seem like a bad person."
"Is that so?"
"At the very least, he is not a fake person. He doesn't try to pretend to be someone he is not…like I do," she said, lowering her gaze.
"Now, I wonder about that," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"You never really know how a person truly is until they want to show you themselves. That means you can never be hundred percent sure whether or not someone is faking their personality or not. Since you don't know what the real person is like you can't tell if what's in front of you is real or not," I explained.
'Just like you don't know that all the things I do around you are pre-planned and done to get your trust and alter your feelings.'
Ellyn had developed an inferiority complex. She hated herself—no, that won't be the right word. She was so disgusted with herself that she automatically thought everyone else was better than her.
It was one of her major flaws. Though it proved useful to me so I didn't really care.