Evil Avalon - Volume 2 - Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Morning Depression

“Uh-oh, I’m gonna be late!”

I was going to be late, but not for school. It was the weekend, but I was supposed to attend Tachigi’s training session.

My hair was messy after I woke up, so I brushed it in front of the mirror before throwing on my school tracksuit. I’d overslept, and that was my fault for staying up the night before until the sun had come out.

“I need a new tracksuit,” I said to the mirror. I had to pull the drawstring as tight as it would go to keep my bottoms from falling now that I’d lost so much weight. This solution was only temporary until I could buy a new pair. I wondered what successful dieters usually did with their old clothes.

“Souta!” my mother called from downstairs. “I’m letting Kaoru in so she doesn’t have to stand out in the cold!”

Kaoru had come to pick me up a few minutes before and had been waiting for me to get ready. I finished dressing and leaped down the stairs. There, Kaoru was sitting upright and holding the cup with both hands, patiently sipping tea. She really did have impeccable manners. Her magnificent beauty was like that of a katana, fitting for a DEC heroine. Piggy’s mind was delighted!

“Oh, you’re ready?” asked Kaoru. “This tea is very nice, Mrs. Narumi. Souta, can you wait a minute while I finish it?”

I sat across the table from her, needing to catch my breath after my rushed morning routine. Then, I poured myself some tea and drank.

Ooh, the first tea of the season, I thought. She was right. It is nice!

We faced each other but held no conversation. I felt Kaoru didn’t look at me as hostile as the first days of school. This was probably because Piggy hadn’t done anything to annoy her since I’d taken over his body, like touching her inappropriately or hounding her to spend time together.

I couldn’t expect her to forgive everything he had done in the past, but I’d be more than happy knowing she felt a little safer around me. Maybe one day we’d reach the point where we could chat and laugh about nothing in particular on our morning commute. The feeling of joy in my heart told me that Piggy’s mind wanted the same thing.

Kaoru finished her drink, and we left my house to walk to the training session’s location. I expected that she would walk a few paces in front of me like always, but instead—

“As it happens,” said Kaoru, “there’s something I wanted to ask you today.”

—she started walking beside me and struck up a conversation, and that was out of the ordinary. She was tall for a girl, so when I turned my head, I saw my childhood friend’s beautiful face beside mine. My heart skipped a beat.

“Ahem.” I cleared my throat nervously. “What would you wish to ask of me?”

“That’s a weird way to phrase it,” acknowledged Kaoru. “Anyway, somebody told me you were speaking to Kusunoki the other day. Is it true?”

Oh, Kirara? I thought. Maybe my classmates had been gossiping about the day she’d found me to deliver her invitation. I replied, “I...did speak with her briefly.”

“You spoke with her?” repeated Kaoru suspiciously. “She’s a noble and heads up one of the school’s biggest factions. How do you even know her?”

Kirara was so famous that even Kaoru knew her name. Plus, it defied belief that an exceptionally beautiful and popular girl would decide to visit someone like me on the lowest rung of the school’s social ladder. I knew I’d need to come up with a plausible-sounding explanation. But I didn’t think it would be wise to admit that she’d invited me to her clan celebration. Instead, I told Kaoru that I’d run into one of Kirara’s friends in the dungeon, and she had come by to let me know how that friend was getting on after our encounter.

“So you don’t know her personally?” pressed Kaoru.

“No,” I replied. “How come you care so much?”

Kaoru took a moment before replying, probably debating whether to tell me. “You know our class is in a tough spot right now, right? If you were friends with Kusunoki, I hoped you could ask for her help.”

“I can’t see that happening,” I said. “We’ve only spoken once, and she’s probably forgotten who I am by now.”

I knew that Class E’s situation wasn’t great, but I was also aware things were only beginning to go downhill. Our plight would get much more dire if the game’s story played out. Some of our classmates would be driven from the school by the other students’ threats, bullying, and even physical violence. Should that come to pass, Kaoru would feel the strain more and more as time progressed, growing ever more distraught as Class E’s situation worsened.

But I didn’t want to experience that horrible future or watch anyone else suffer it either. Part of me wanted to take action to prevent these game events from taking place. The problem was that those same cruel situations would shape Akagi into a mighty adventurer; I wasn’t sure I had the right to take that away from him.

Only the game’s protagonist could overcome some of these events, and it would be impossible for me to keep a constant watch over Class E and prevent every little thing that could go wrong. Plus, I needed Akagi and his friends to become powerful or we’d be in trouble further down the line. As such, my best option was to let them put up with the humiliation for the time being and use it for their personal growth.

Of course, I’d step in if Satsuki or Kaoru were ever in real danger and take action to prevent the worst mistakes that could otherwise invite devastating casualties. To achieve that, I might need to mend my friendship with Kaoru and keep an eye on how Akagi’s party was progressing.

“I can’t make that happen,” I said. “But to make up for it, I’m ready to help if you need me.”

“You can help by taking today’s training seriously,” asserted Kaoru. With that, she picked up her pace until we were in our usual walking formation, Kaoru a few steps ahead of me.

I guess I can’t blame her for not believing in me yet, I thought.

While I could try letting Kaoru in on all my game secrets, I expected even that wouldn’t be enough to win her trust at this point. So, I had to win her trust back bit by bit over time without imposing too close a relationship on her, hoping that one day we could be true comrades.

At any rate, I had bigger problems to worry about, and one of the biggest was waiting for me at our destination.

I’d first discovered that when speaking with Risa the night before.

***

At the park, where the bright city lights obscured the night stars, the bollard lights illuminated Risa as she put a finger to her lips and smiled mischievously. “I do know one more.”

Without warning, she revealed something absolutely dumbfounding: she’d already made contact with another player.

“I think he’ll be at tomorrow’s training session,” added Risa. “It’s Tsukijima from our class.”

“Tsukijima?” I repeated. “You mean the poser?”

I recalled what I knew of Takuya Tsukijima. He wore his hair long and dyed it blond in flagrant violation of school rules, which was unusual at Adventurers’ High. He was a laid-back guy who didn’t care how his uniform looked and chatted to people with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Seemingly, he’d identified Risa as a player and invited her to team up with him!

“Guess what?” said Risa. “He actually memorized the face of every Class E student in the game. Can you believe it?”

Based on that memory, Risa was the only student besides himself who hadn’t appeared in the game. He must have realized she was a custom character.

In DEC, you could play as one of the protagonists, Akagi or Pinky, or create your own custom character. Choosing a protagonist meant you had to start with their skills and stats, but you’d get to experience the game’s main story. For custom characters, however, you could alter their appearance and tailor their build to your liking. However, you would only experience the game’s subplots and various romance routes.

The character selection worked differently in the tester mode update that brought us here, and we had to choose between a custom or random character. If you chose a random character, you’d become one of DEC’s preexisting characters, like how I’d become Piggy. Picking a custom character brought you into this world as yourself, as Risa had.

Basically, Tsukijima’s method of searching for characters absent from the game only allowed him to find players who’d chosen custom characters instead of random characters.

“Does that mean he hasn’t figured out how random characters work?” I asked.

“Probably not,” said Risa, faintly smiling. “And I don’t want to fix his misunderstanding. We’re better off that way.”

It appeared Tsukijima had initially thought there were three other players: Risa, who hadn’t been in the game, as well as the two protagonists, Akagi and Pinky. After he realized the protagonists weren’t players, he concluded that he and Risa were the only ones.

According to Risa, he’d invited her to team up with him and said, “I’m Adam, and you’re my Eve.”

Pretty creepy, to be honest, I thought.

***

That was how the night with Risa had ended. And now, I was heading to a training session that this Tsukijima guy would likely attend.

I didn’t know what he was like since I’d never spoken with him. His behavior in the classroom seemed rough around the edges, but nothing made me believe he was a bad person. I’d filed him away as an ordinary, boisterous high school student. But his player knowledge could shake this world to its foundations, which Risa and I could get caught in the aftermath. And so, I had to see him in the flesh and observe what kind of person he was. For that, it would be best to stick to Risa’s suggestion and let him believe there were no other players.

I just hope he’s a decent guy, I thought, walking behind Kaoru.