Chapter 315 Volume V - Chapter 33: Visitor Abundant Boulder
"Celine...?"
"Adrian?"
We both paused for a moment as we spoke at the same time. Celine, first thinking that there might be someone else in the area, quickly pulled her hair up and put her hood back over her head. She looked around briefly. Then, with a sigh, she turned her eyes back upward, toward me.
"You're here to relax a bit, I suppose?"
"Ah, yeah... There's been a lot going on lately. Even though it's a bit hard to lie down, it's also relaxing to watch the sky or the sunset."
Her eyes, half-hidden just under her hoodie, focused for a moment on my face, or rather on the sides of my face. It was as if... she was looking at my ears.
I sighed and pointed with my hand to the tip of my right ear.
"That's also one of the things that happened lately, of course."
"I see..."
She finally took her eyes off my ears. She didn't seem to have much of a problem with me being an elf. If she did, she wouldn't have spoken to me in the same tone as before.
That aside... I noticed how she was studying the rock as she began to look at it, as if she had stumbled upon it for the first time by chance, rather than coming here from time to time.
"You don't seem to be here for the same reason, were you looking for something?"
She nodded her head while still studying the boulder.
"Yes. And I found what I was looking for... It was the boulder you are standing on currently. It wasn't easy to find, though, since it was my first time in the forest here."
"I have some snacks in my bracelet, do you want to climb up?"
Celine hesitated for a moment. She lifted her arm and looked at her watch, then sighed slightly. She shook her head from side to side before turning back to me.
"I don't have time right now... sorry. I just wanted to find out where the rock was and see what it was like... I guess I'll come back later."
With that, she gave me one last look and then waved. I waved back in the same way.
"See you."
After receiving the same answer from me, Celine turned around, looking around carefully. At that very moment, I looked at her back, focusing my mana into my eyes, while I poured a small amount of mana into the Friend of Mana.
Streams appeared in front of my eyes, moving through the air like a liquid. The trees, the grass, the ground, the air... it surrounded everything and even moved through it. It was moving inside Celine, too. Of course, what looked like liquid was mana.
As I examined the mana in Celine's body, I couldn't help being slightly surprised, but without letting me examine the mana in her body too much, Celine disappeared into the bushes from the direction she came from.
Sighing slightly, I stopped the mana I was focusing on my eyes and my passive skill and stared in the direction she had gone.
Just like when we met a few days ago, she didn't look me in the eye even once. It will be hard for her to improve in this regard, I think... But she seems to be getting stronger strangely fast. The flow of mana in her body feels more evenly distributed, dense, and pure than that of an E+ grade. But not as much as that of a D- grade person.
A month? Or two? It looks like she'll reach D- grade in that time. She'll start the second year ahead of her peers again.
I paused for a moment with this thought, and then a question that I wasn't sure of the answer suddenly appeared in my mind.
Now that I think about it... She spent almost half a year not attending any classes. Her theoretical classes weren't very good either, at least that's how it felt in the study group... So will she repeat the first year? Or will she go straight into the second year?
And what about Aiden? Although they'll probably let him go to the second year because he's pretty well at studying... But I'm not sure what Celine will do.
"Haaaa..."
Every day, instead of finding answers to my questions, more and more questions are popping up in my mind... I started to get frustrated.
I turned my gaze between the main building of the academy and the mountains in the distance. The sun had already set and the eastern part of the sky was already darkening. The sky, which had gone from blue to shades of orange, was now slowly turning black. Soon, the stars would appear.
With a slight smile on my face, I lowered myself back onto the hard surface of the big rock, squinting my eyes slightly as I watched the night slowly dominate the day. But... only a few seconds had passed when a figure came between my eyes and the sky.
It was so sudden and unexpected that I almost jumped out of my place and sent a mana-laden punch upward. But... I stopped my fist in mid-air before it reached the figure.
I felt the soft, silvery hair falling over my fist tickle my skin. Immediately afterward, wrinkles appeared on the forehead of the person with the hair. Her dark eyes squinted as the sky behind her slowly took on the color of her eyes.
"Is the first thing you do when you see someone now is to swing a fist at them?"
She slowly moved her hand over my fist, then gently pushed it aside as she smoothed her loose hair.
She took a step back as the wrinkles on her forehead disappeared.
I straightened up and turned around, looking at the figure beside me. It was indeed... Alice.
I hadn't opened my mouth yet when Alice's eyebrows raised curiously.
"You seem to have changed your preferences since our conversation after the attack."
For a moment, I couldn't think of anything, as if my brain had stopped working, but then I remembered what she was talking about, and I couldn't help my eyes widening slightly.
That's right... Alice was the one who drove me away from my unattainable dreams. She had also done it right where we were now. I had forgotten that such an event had even happened.
"Ah, no! It's your fault for appearing in front of me out of nowhere!"
Really, she climbed up on the rock with not a sound of a footstep. She didn't step on a single branch? No, where did all that rustling sound go when there were bushes everywhere? She did the same thing a few months ago... How does she do it?
Alice frowned one eyebrow and raised the other slightly at my words.
"I thought that you would notice when I thought you were much stronger than me. It seems that I was wrong, then."
Wait a minute... now she's telling me I'm weak?
I couldn't help squinting my eyes as I took a deep breath in and out.
"You do it on purpose, don't you?"
Alice shrugged her shoulders without saying anything. But when I saw what she had done before I could speak again, I stood where I was for a moment, unable to do anything.
Alice slowly turned her head to the side before I could open my mouth. Normally, such a movement wouldn't have mattered. But the direction she turned her head... was where Celine had disappeared only two minutes before.
"That's up to me to answer... but I didn't expect to see something like that."
She saw... She clearly saw Celine.
When I opened the 'new group' that Celine was in, I didn't send the invitation to Alice. Not because I didn't trust her, not because I didn't see her as one of the group. But... it was because I had no idea what Celine's opinion of her was.
Even if Alice is present in our study group, she does nothing more than 'being present'. She comes to most of the meetings and actually studies. And if someone asks her a question, she doesn't hesitate to answer it. But... that's it. She is not active on the chat app, and she probably doesn't even have a single message. I don't think that she's in the upper positions for anyone when it comes to being a 'friend'.
That's why I didn't send Alice the group invitation, as I didn't want Celine to feel uncomfortable. Now, what happens when she finds out on her own?
Alice is not the kind of person to announce it publicly. She will probably keep it to herself, again, as a secret. But... will her view of our group change because of this?
I looked into her eyes, studying her expression directly in the silence that fell between us, and Alice... after a brief moment, her eyes narrowed slightly and she simply sighed.
"Anyway, it doesn't really matter."
Oh, she doesn't care? Well... that was one of the possibilities, I guess. I'm not too surprised...
Although, now that I think about it... Why is she here? Does she come here sometimes, given our encounter a few months ago?
While I was lost in my own thoughts, Alice slowly lowered herself to the floor and sat down not far from me. Since I didn't expect her to do something like that... I found myself unable to think of anything again.
What exactly is her purpose...?
Alice spoke nonchalantly as she tilted her head slightly to the side, as if reading my thoughts.
"Since you don't own the rock... I don't think there's anything wrong with me sitting down, is there?"
She's not wrong, but...
"If I'm bothering you, just say so."
After these words, she turned her face away from me without saying anything else. She let herself fall on the hard surface of the big rock, just as I had done a minute or so before, leaving me alone with my questions.
I... can't really comprehend what is happening and what I should do in a situation like this...
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