I waited for the slap to come, but to my absolute surprise, what I felt was her arms wrapping around me, and her face gently resting on my chest.
My shirt under the leather jacket felt a bit hot, and I noticed she was crying.
"What the fuck happened to you? Where did you go? What did they do to you?"
She was really crying, but wasn’t she an oracle? I thought she could know or see mostly anything.
"I, huh..." I didn’t know what to say, I mean, didn’t she know what happened?
"Kurt..." She looked at me with her eyes gleaming in tears. "I can’t see anymore."
I raised my brow and held her shoulders gently, so I could back her slightly away.
"Wait, what do you mean?"
She looked at me and breathed in deeply, and while she prepared to answer, I took the time to use [PRYING EYES] on her.
If I could see my sealed skills with the system, perhaps I could see if there was something wrong with her.
[NAME: EVELLYN SMITH
RANK: A+
AGE: ???
CLASS: Traveler
STAMINA: 200/200
HP: 300/300
MP: ???/???]
[BASIC STATS
Strength: 40
Dexterity: 25
Agility: 35
Perception: ???
Intelligence: ???
Vigor: 80]
[SKILLS
Infinite consciousness LVL ???
*** ** *** ****** LVL ???
Smoke screen LVL ???
????? ???? LVL ???]
"Something happened after Rodrick died. Everything seemed as okay as possible for a few days, but then we voted for a new leader, because the guild wouldn’t resist for long without a leader, and the next thing I know, my visions are gone. I can’t see the future, even in my dreams. Kurt? Kurt, are you listening? Oh... You’re using one of your abilities on me, aren’t you?" She grimaced.
But I ignored her frown completely.
"Did anything happen that made you feel inexplicable pain?"
She looked at me, shocked.
"How did you know?"
"Someone sealed one of your abilities. And you can already guess which one, right?"
Evellyn looked at me like I was the oracle instead of her, the surprise was almost palpable in her eyes. She fell silent, thinking, probably trying to remember when or what.
"You probably won’t remember, because if someone did it to you, they waited for you to sleep, so that you wouldn’t notice, but the real question is..."
"Who could be able to get past a precognition ability without triggering it?"
"And why are you talking to me like we just met on the weekend?"
"Huh?"
Evellyn punched me in the chest and turned away from me, crossing her arms.
"You really don’t get it, do you?" And she started walking.
We were going the same direction, to the same place, so I started waling too, gathering some courage to speak my mind.
"You... You don’t hate me?" I finally asked.
She stopped, and I felt something coming from her. But it wasn’t mana or anything threatening.
She didn’t turn to face me, so I just heard her voice.
"When I told you about the crystal, I knew Rodrick was going to volunteer to go with you, and after you two went there, I went to sleep. I dreamed of Rodrick’s death, so I knew it was going to happen. I woke up and told my friend, Zalla, to take me to the mansion, but when we arrived, it was already too late, and Leblanc was taking you down. Rodrick and Octavius were already..."
"Dead."
She nodded and we started to walk again, but I didn’t dare look at her face.
"The guild is in shambles because of Rodrick’s death, but it’s not your fault. I know that if I was in your place... Or rather, if ’anyone’ of the guild’s members were in your place, they would’ve done worse. So don’t beat yourself up, okay? We all loved Rodrick, but he was a human above anything else. He wasn’t going to live forever, and neither are we."
I felt surprised by the strange coldness in her voice, despite her words, but what she said didn’t regard only Rodrick.
She was a human being too, and she was allowed to feel however she wanted or needed to, because she was a human.
She totally had the right to hate me, because whether I liked it or not, I was the one who killed him.
And there wasn’t a single thing I could say or do that would bring him back.
It didn’t matter if Arias told me that the old man didn’t blame me, I did, and I don’t know how long it will last, but I did.
I still do.
"It’ll just take a little time, to understand that he’s gone. It’s been one month and I still wait for him to knock on my door to tell me that he’s going to eat all the breakfast if I don’t hurry. Can I ask you one thing, Kurt?"
"Sure." I felt the mood becoming heavy, but not aggressive.
Just heavy.
"Do you know why I kissed you that night?"
I felt my eyes widening, that question definitely caught me off guard.
"Hum... Because you needed to get inside my mind to help me see some things that I wasn’t seeing by myself?"
"Come on!" Then she turned towards me, we were almost at the school’s entrance, and a few students were already glancing at us. "I know you have some more malice than the usual, and yet you can be so naive sometimes..." She sighed.
I sighed too.
Why? Wasn’t that the goal of the whole kiss thing?
I mean, it had to be, right?
"After the little show you put on, there are some monitoring division agents patrolling the school grounds, so we can’t be seen together for a while. Use your cover and come find me at the rooftop, after class."
She kissed me in the cheek, and sped up towards a little group of girls.
Would there be a day when I would be able to understand her?
And what kind of class was a [TRAVELER]?
I knew that no one could answer these questions but her, so I just moved forward and got ready for my day.
The presence of the monitoring division at school might as well be a signal of their next big move.
And I had to stop them, somehow. The only thing was that I needed Evellyn for that.
"So the two lovebirds finally met again, huh?"
"Don’t tell me that I didn’t..."
"End the call before getting all personal? Nope." Nadia laughed. "But you two look cute together. And I won’t ask about wielder stuff, so don’t worry."
"Shut up." I ended the call and entered the building.
And as soon as I set my feet on the school grounds, the system beeped in my head.
[EMERGENCY QUEST]
[BUBBLE BURST]
[HIDDEN NEST LOCATED AT BLAKE’S LIBRARY IS GOING TO BURST, LIBERATING ALL ITS BEASTS TO ROAM FREE.
THE PLAYER MUST STOP THE BURST FROM HAPPENING.]
[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL BURST: 5 DAYS, 15 HOURS: 13 MINUTES: 36 SECONDS]
[REWARDS FOR COMPLETING THE QUEST:
MEMORY FRAGMENT FROM OCTAVIUS BLAKE X1
STAT POINTS X10
HIDDEN KEY – ROOM OF FIRMAMENT X1]
[PENALTY FOR FAILURE:
BURST IS GOING TO OCCUR, COUNTLESS PEOPLE WILL DIE]
[ADDITIONAL CONDITION:
PLAYER WILL ONLY HAVE ACCESS TO THE HIDDEN NEST 01 HOUR FROM THE BURST]
You gotta be fucking kidding me!