Chapter 4: Stephanie

What bloomed before my eyes, a cute girl with black long hair and round beige eyes, wearing a shirt, and over it was denim jeans. She looks like a kid, but I noticed we’re about the same height. This is probably the neighbor who’s always grumpy whenever she visits me to give food that her mother made—Her name was Stephanie.

If I recall correctly, I did saw her in one of the scenes in the game although she only has a few dialogues, a side heroine in the story. I don’t know anything about her other than the former Claude treats her as a pest, the same could be said to her. Stephanie’s hatred stems from how Claude treats her.

The past owner did say some bad things to her like insults such as the b-word, annoying, and pest. Ever since he got exiled, Claude started this belief that he can only trust himself, and other people could just kiss his ass. I can’t even refute that since what his family did to him. In short, Claude became a douchebag to everyone else.

Stephanie was holding a small bag in her hand with her angry eyes, staring deeply at my face as if she’s about to stab at any moment. In reflex, I backed off. Stephanie then showed me a plastered smile before handing me the bag.

“Here you go. Mom told me to give it to you. Don’t give me those spouting bullshitery of yours once again, you ungrateful bastard. Be grateful for once, my mom took her time to cook this dish for you.”

I took it off her hands which seemingly surprised her, then I said. “Ah, sorry about that. Thank you then. I’ll give this back to you later.”

Stephanie was taken back, as her eyes are about to pop out of their sockets at how dumbfounded she is, from how I’m acting right now. I can’t even blame her for that. The attitude that I showed is like night and day in comparison to what she’s used to seeing.

“Who are you?”

Yep, I knew she would respond to me like that. So I responded in a stupefied manner.

“I’m Claude? Who else can I be? There’s no one in this house other than me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You can believe anything you want. I know that we certainly started off on the wrong footing, and I apologize for my actions and the way of my speaking. But as you can see, I’m basically an orphan with no family to rely on. I apologize for my behavior.” I slightly bowed my head to her.

“Who are you?! You’re not Claude! Claude, that I know, is a selfish, arrogant, and depressing prick. What did you do to him!? He would always greet me with hateful words and slam the bag in my hand down before closing the door to me. That’s our daily greeting initiation to each other!”

Wait, you’re treating that as a greeting? Is she for real...? It kinda does make sense for a greeting...

Maintaining my composure, I smiled softly and said. “There come’s on part of our life, where we need to mature as we grow up—”

While speeching about maturity, Stephanie’s face is filled with disgust. “You literally just closed the door on me, yesterday. What nonsense are you talking about?”

“—Ah.”

I stood there frozen as I brood over the things that Claude did to her. He never accepted any of their kind offerings to him, but her mother still persists. While Stephanie is so sick of doing it every day with the same scenario, doing it all over again, she still obediently obeyed her mother’s wish. What an obedient daughter.

Now, I need to think of an excuse because I can’t stomach myself acting like Claude. It’ll leave a nasty taste in my mouth. I started devising an elusive plan to deceive Stephanie into thinking that I’m legit. But then, I suddenly remembered why would I need to do that? When I have the memories of the old Claude.

“You were overjoyed when you saw me because you thought you can finally have a female best friend, but I immediately shut you off by dragging your hand to my—”

Stephanie instantly covered my mouth with her hands. Her face was dyed with redness, as she’s ashamed by the past actions of her younger self. She then gradually removed her hands out of my mouth shyly.

“Let’s not talk about that...” Stephanie bashfully said.

“You don’t believe that it was me so I had to tell.”

“I know! I know!” She frustratingly stomped her feet to the ground.

“Then thank you again...”

I slowly closed the door on her, but at the last second, she gave me a sharp gaze before I completely shut the door on her. I felt a chilling breeze behind my back when I saw a small glint reflected in her eyes.

“Yep, better not to make her angry.”

I took the small to the kitchen and opened it. There’s a small insulated lunch box inside it, opening it, there’s a pork cutlet and rice. Honestly, I’m surprised by what I’m seeing. I forgot that the developers for this game are Japanese too. Tasting it, tears formed in both corners of my eyes.

I don’t know if it’s the nostalgia emotions of Claude or mine are that made me cry, but the food tastes good. After eating, I washed them nicely, and of course; I ate the cup noodles too. For that reason, as to why my stomach is so bloated. I could feel my stomach exploding at any moment.

Sitting on the sofa while holding my stomach. The amount of food that I just ate is not even considered good for 2 people, but I felt like I’ve eaten worth 10 people. Claude’s body is so skinny and unhealthy that I bet it would die by just having the flu.

“Phew, what to do now...”

Claude doesn’t have any hobbies or whatnot, he just drowns himself in studying. If I remember correctly, he applied for the academy on where the protagonist will enter, however, he's in the research department.

A letter...

I went upstairs back to the room, searching for a piece of letter. After searching for the letter in my room, I ended up in the study room. Books are all neatly placed on the shelves, and the papers are all stack together cleanly. That’s why I was able to locate the letter easily. The old owner of this body may not care about his body, but he’s pretty organized on his stuff and knows how to clean the place, not even a speck of dust can be seen at the house.

Opening the letter, I started inspecting the words written to me that were contained in the letter. Spot-on, Claude got into the academy with his research something about an outer dimension or a dimensional plane that exists between the transcendental line of realms.

“Claude is quite impressive...”

I neatly placed the letter back in the place where it’s used to be and started walking back downstairs.

“So, I have 5 years before the main storyline would even start—” Then I saw my pale appearance in the mirror just right beside the living room, scrawny body with no muscles just thin flat arms, eye bags underneath my eyes although not really noticeable.

“I would probably die before I could even attend the academy...”

My feet ended up in the unused garage of Claude in the house. In here, there’s a training dummy in good condition but it’s so dirty, full of cobwebs and dust. Unfortunately, that’s not the only worst part, as the entire room reeks a strong smell of ammonia that’s strangling my nose—It’ll probably fall off from the smell. So the only thing I did the entire day was cleaning that garage.

The next day...

I made a training regime for myself every day which involves me running at least 10 km a day, 20 pushups, etc. It’s only a beginner type of training menu that I remember back from my old world, a kendo training menu that my instructor or aka uncle gave me before I got hospitalized. I’ll increase the intensity of my training every other week because my body won’t probably last that well if I increased the regime by every other day. I. Will. Die.

I cleaned the whole garage yesterday. Honestly, I could count that as an exercise. I cleaned the whole place for the entire day. The only break that I took is when I ate my dinner are the cup noodles since they’re the only food that exists on my food shelf.

Upon cleaning the whole garage it surprised me because the whole garage is full of gym equipment from weights, press machines, etc. Lastly, there is some wooden sword that is all still in good condition, probably 10 of them. The house is owned by the Belmont’s, so it’s not really surprising since they’re a chivalric knight, noble family. Claude hasn’t gone down to the garage, not even once since it would only remind him of his failure.

Claude was not gifted in swordsmanship, mana, and brain—Though he was able to get a scholarship with a research paper, that doesn’t mean he’s a genius. Claude achieved it via hard work and determination. Wait, even hard work won’t be able to achieve that feat...? Nevertheless, he’s just a disappointment to the Belmont Family, unlike his brother the talented one.

I swear, I’ve seen this type of development before...