Chapter 123 The Loosened String



Ember's eyebrows furrowed slightly, concern evident in her eyes.

"Two hours of sleep is not enough, you should take care of yourself properly, Zio."

"Huh? Why do you even care about my health?"

Ember turned her body adjacent to him, her eyes staring at him full of concern.

"I was asked by Si– your cousin to take care of you."

Zio brought his hands across his chest, crossing them to stand his ground.

"I'm not a kid. In the first place, why don't you just refuse her request? You know it's weird for me to be taken care of by someone whose age is similar to me."

Sighing, Ember decided to give up, not wanting to turn the conversation into a conflict. To soothe the situation between them, she changed the topic.

"Fine… So, how are you feeling?"

Feeling the same as Ember, not wanting to make the conversation into a conflict. Zio sighed, instantly giving the red-haired youth a thin smile.

"Worst. The truth is that I spent all my candy for this month. Just ate the last one last night."

There was no reason for him to lie when his sanity was on the line. Just last night, he almost did an inappropriate act to a ghost. To make things worst, someone had just to see him at that moment. That was the thing he wanted to forget the most in his life.

When he returned to his dorm, he couldn't even sleep because he kept thinking about that and the ghost girl, Zia. The whole situation wasn't something he couldn't apprehend. 

He kept thinking about whether the girl was actually a ghost or an illusion someone had cast on him. If that was an illusion, who was the culprit? Zio didn't know.

After sometime later of thinking, an extreme idea that he immediately rejected came up. It was the idea that he might have adopted a hallucination, a strong hallucination at that. That was the closest thing he could assume of his situation.

Tracking back to the first time he came conscious in this world when he was immediately greeted by the strangeness that occur around him such as the black cat, the creeping sound when claws grind the wall, the girl in the flash dungeon, and the shadow that occasionally passed by his window's dorm.

It had been almost six months but, the idea of him having hallucinations from the start was too overwhelming to be accepted. After all, those strange things he experienced could have been the effect of his Clairvoyance which said it could detect the thing that couldn't be perceived by a normal vision, or perhaps a supernatural activity.

Zio was neglecting his own situation over his goal but, he had recently realized that he might never achieve what he wanted to achieve if he couldn't solve what was present in front of him. He wanted to know more about Zio Varrez. This time, he would prioritize this first and leave everything else behind, unless something greater prevented him to do so.

Asking Ember about what she knew about him would be awkward since Zio didn't know much what was their relationship in the memory. Meanwhile, asking Shannon would make her become suspicious of him. 

He realized that he was glad because she seemed to not suspect him the last time they met, or maybe she had but kept it quiet.

But, a new option was presented to him by Valka.

He might get a lot of information about his past from her. His feeling also told him so. 

Though, he wondered about another twist that occurred in his life. After finding out Zio had a connection to non-existent characters, now he also found out he had a connection to an existent character. 

Who was the body he possessed actually?

"I still have some, do you want it?"

Interrupting Zio from his thought was a soft and alluring voice. The owner of the voice was Ember. Though, her eyes were unmoving from the crowd.

"It's fine. I will get it myself from my cousin this afternoon, and tell her to not bother you with a trivial task such as this."

Ember frowned at his statement, seemingly wanting to argue but quickly suppressed it, again.

"I see…"

Unbeknownst to her, the blanket around her shoulder gradually slid down, exposing her delicate yet scarred neck adorned with a burn mark.

"..."

If Zio had ever noticed it, he opted to remain silent and quickly threw his gaze away with a few words on his mind:

'Why is it that all the female characters in this world have such beautiful necks?!'

Realizing what had happened, Ember gently pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulder, ensuring it stayed in place.

Then the atmosphere surrounding immediately quieted down.

After sometime later, the crowd finally began to move as they apprehended the two first-year students accused of adultery, taking them to be judged by the remaining professors and the student council alike.

The students who peeked out from their rooms slightly stepped back to their rooms as the student council members marched through the corridor.

Zio who had stood in the corridor was pulled in by Ember to her front door so he didn't get in the members' way.

As they passed by them, a boy member narrowed his eyes upon noticing Ember and Zio. When his eyes made contact with Ember's, he gestured for her to follow.

Zio stared at them as they disappeared from his sight after turning to take the stairs just in front of the lift.

"If you don't have anything else then, please excuse me."

Ember gently pushed Zio before closing the door, leaving him alone in the corridor.

Just as she said, his business on this floor was done — he wanted to confirm the scandal event that was happening with his own eyes. With a nonchalant shrug, he walked to the lift and went to meet with Shannon.

They already decided where they should meet this afternoon.

The hunting field.

***

According to the experts, the forestry environmental hunting field proved to be the easiest and ideal place for a newbie to make a living. 

In hunting a monster, one couldn't only be considering what rank was the field but also needed to assess what the field looked like in geographical and environmental aspects.

A <E> rank mountainous and valley environment hunting field could be harder than a <D-> rank forestry hunting field. The reason was because of what was mentioned earlier, the environment, geography, and monsters.

Standing in front of the field entrance was Zio. He looked at his watch as he waited for someone. 

The entrance was a natural arching gate of tree branches. Other than him, some of the Enhanceds who were resting in the base camp were also there. 

Since the hunting field was located in a tropical region, the snow didn't reach this place, but the cold wind still carried through, spreading across the forest outskirt. But, it was best to note that even though the outskirt had cold air, it didn't mean that the forest — the main area of the hunting field was also cold.

Since the place was contaminated, the weather could be randomly changed as they pleased. It could be raining at one second, then the next second could be hot and dry like a desert.

Sometime later, when he was immersed in watching raid footage in his Nova Watch, a soft and mellow voice broke his focus. 

"Cousin!"

As soon as he heard that voice, he turned his head toward the source of the voice coming.

There, he caught a familiar face he had only seen through his Nova Watch screen for the past six months. A perfectly shaped face, long silver hair tied up into a ponytail, and gray eyes that stared at him happily.

"Have you been waiting for long?"

Closing his Nova Watch, Zio nodded his head slowly in response to her question.

"Yes, Shannon. I've been waiting for a long time to meet you. Like, six months, can you believe that?" He said half-jokingly.

Shannon grinned and reach to wrap her arm around Zio's shoulder and pulled him close to a playful hug, her other hand was stroking his hair as if he was a kid.

"I see you're still the same as before, cousin!"

Zio chuckled as he enjoyed the playful hug from Shannon. Her presence brought a sense of familiarity and warmth that he had missed during the past six months.

"Well, some things never change, right?"

Shannon released him from the hug and took a step back, her gray eyes gazing at him blankly while the person in question didn't even realize they had made such an expression.

"Indeed."

Indeed. As Zio said, some things never change. But, that meant some things had changed, and the very evidence of what had changed was clear.

Noticing the flashing blank stare from Shannon that contradicted her action, Zio couldn't help but feel something had changed in her cousin, Shannon.

"..."