Volume 16 - CH 9

Chapter 9: Eating Together

Location: Atlantis Time: 6:40AM

That night I stayed over at Randall’s place.

The next day, I woke up slightly later than usual, but the washing utensils and breakfast had already been prepared for me. I walked around the house and didn’t see anyone else. I guess they probably went out on a mission or something.

I originally wanted to say that I was voluntarily taking the day off, but I gave that up upon thinking that Senior might cast some inexplicable curse and the like. After finishing breakfast, I went out of the Count’s room along the same path I took yesterday.

As soon as I returned upstairs, I was surprised to see Senior standing in front of my room. He was wearing normal clothes, not his black robe, but there was a glove on his left hand. Yesterday’s injury must not have healed yet.

“Last night you were at Randall’s?” Upon seeing me come up, Senior immediately turned and asked in a strange tone.

“Uh ah…” Turns out the Count and Nile didn’t mention it, I thought they did.

“I only found out now.” Coldly snorting, Senior told me: “It was a mess at the Guild last night. I got back to the Black Dorm just ten minutes ago.”

Ah, you must have really worked hard then.

“Don’t go to class for now.” After thinking for some time, Senior glanced at me: “I already greeted your homeroom teacher…”

“Why can’t I go?”

Is it because of yesterday? Do a lot of people know about it now?

“All news of yesterday have been blocked off. Currently, ordinary students are completely unaware of it.” Frowning, Senior didn’t seem like he really wanted to answer this.

“But those who are not ordinary students do know about it, right?” I know the Guild spreads information quickly and there were so many people there yesterday. It’s impossible for no one to care about it.

And, I’m a bit scared.

“No, that veteran teacher already asked all the robe levels on site who know about it to not publicize this news, so at present, only the people from last night know.”

I looked at him. Although I fully understood what Nile told me last night, when I actually hear Senior talk like this, I still get this unexplainable sense of anger: “Then can you tell me why so many people say that I am part of the Dark Cult? Is this good or bad? I want to know, why is it like this?”

From the beginning till now, I always got the feeling that Senior seemed to know everything but wouldn’t say anything. It’s not fair. It clearly has something to do with me. Why won’t he even tell me a little?

As for the other questions, even if he told me privately, it would be fine. Writing it on a note would be fine too.

“A note…”

I saw Senior’s face go blank: “You’re not going to say that you forgot what a note is, right?”

“…”

Ok, I’m sorry, I’m the one who forgot that you guys are used to spells, my bad! At any rate, it’s fine if you just use a method to tell me a little…Under such circumstances, I was never warned that people would point at me and call me the Dark Cult, or that it was even kept from me for a long time. Do you think this is fun?

“Chu, I do not want to argue with you over this in the hallway.” Rubbing his left shoulder, Senior’s voice was indifferent: “And as far as I am aware, the current you is still not at the level where you are able to know everything. When that day comes, I will tell you everything you want to know, but it is too early right now.”

“How long is that going to take?” Andellar has already mentioned me by name, so how much longer do I have to wait?

“You have to at least get white robe, before I can tell you everything, all of it.”

“How long will it be until I get white robe!?” I looked at Senior and suddenly realized that he truly did know everything, only he never told me.

By the time I get white robe…how long is that going to be? And I’m so unlucky, I might never get it in this life or the next. Why does he have the right to decide when I can know about my own matters?

“This matter doesn’t just affect your personal issues. I will prioritize the current situation, so—”

“Forget it! Whatever you guys want!”

I’m not allowed to know anything, anyway.

“Chu!”

Because of my anger, I actually had the courage to not listen to Senior’s words and run down the stairs.

He didn’t chase after me. When I got downstairs, I brushed past Loen. He just so happened to be heading in the opposite direction of me, toward that floor we lived on. Faintly, I seemed to hear the sound of Loen asking Senior what’s wrong, but I didn’t bother with them. Just like this, I ran straight out of the Black Dorm.

The sky outside was bright.

As soon as I came out, I suddenly felt my legs growing weak.

Just now…I actually argued with Senior without thinking about the consequences.

It feels really uncomfortable.

“Yang Yang!”

Just when I was thinking about what to do now, a familiar cry came from behind me, just as usual.

Turning my head, I saw, like always, Miao Miao, Chifuyu and the others, the same as usual when they come to find me, “Yang Yang, we called your phone. Why didn’t you answer?”

My phone?

Hurriedly patting myself down, I discovered that I left my phone at the Count’s home. It probably rang to death there without anyone picking it up.

“I forgot to charge it.” I casually made an excuse that people usually used, before I remembered that phone can’t be recharged at all.

Luckily, Miao Miao didn’t ask any more questions. She revealed a wide smile: “Let’s go eat. Today we’re going to eat together and skip class!”

It was the first time in my life hearing those words from Miao Miao’s mouth. I looked at her in astonishment: “Skip class?”

“Yeah, the shops on the left shopping street are only bringing out limited-edition set meals for today. It’s such a pity not to eat them. Miao Miao really wants to try eating specially-made set meals. Yang Yang also wants to eat, right?” Bending my arm, Miao Miao showed a self-satisfied smile and took out a few tickets: “You see, we have complimentary tickets to eat for free.”

“It’s only one day anyway, just skip.” Chifuyu, who rarely said something like this, pushed his thick glasses and spoke in an eyeball-dropping tone, as if skipping class was a normal thing from the start.

“There are also limited-edition rice ball specials there.” The third class-skipper Ryan gave his reason for wanting to skip class.

“Let’s go, let’s go. Geng Geng must be waiting for us there already.” Seeing that I still seemed a bit hesitant, Miao Miao smiled widely as she pushed me into stumbling.

Ah…Forget it, I wasn’t planning on going to class anyway. My target only switched from the library to eating together.

While following them to the left shopping street, which I couldn’t be more familiar with, I slowed down somewhat intentionally to not join their conversation, thinking about the things that happened last night and this morning.

I actually feel a bit regretful. I went overboard with what I said to Senior…After all, even though Senior kept this from me, I think he really did it for my sake…

But it is true that hearing his kind of logic would make one want to burst into flames.

“Yang Yang, is there anything you need help with?” At some point, Chifuyu, who had also slowed down, started walking alongside me.

“Uh, there shouldn’t be…” At any rate, you wouldn’t be able to break open Senior’s mouth and force him to say it.

“Heh, it’s okay if you don’t want to say it. I just thought I could help you.” Chifuyu took off his glasses and wiped off the dust on top with his sleeve, “I already know about last night. If you think you don’t need help with anything, that’s okay too. But if you feel uncomfortable and want to talk about it, we will help you.”

I stopped abruptly and stared at him as if seeing a ghost.

Didn’t Senior say that no one else knew, apart from the people yesterday!?

“Don’t look at me like this. Sometimes the intelligence team’s news don’t always come from the Guild.” Chifuyu curved into a smile, then put his glasses back on his face: “But you can relax. The source came from the intelligence beast I placed at school. No one else should have received it. I didn’t even tell Ryan. And, I’ve actually had my suspicions in the past. Until we can confirm whether it is true or not, I won’t let anyone come to trouble you.”

Seeing how Chifuyu seemed to be half aware of it, I felt slightly relieved.

In front, Miao Miao and Ryan chatted as they walked far ahead. There was some distance between us, so they probably couldn’t hear our conversation, “It’s not what you think…” Although I don’t know what it is you think: “Because I can’t make sense of it myself. I don’t know anything, so I didn’t say it. I don’t know where to begin with.”

Chifuyu gave an “oh.” It looks like he probably understood what I wanted to say, “You’ve been too tense these past two days. Eat up later and take it easy before you talk about it.” He smiled and patted my shoulder: “When you want to talk about it, we’ll all listen, whether it’s Miao Miao, Ryan or me.”

“Nn…” I nodded, and so the two of us quickly caught up to Miao Miao and Ryan, who had already stopped and beckoned to us in the front.

The left shopping street wasn’t far. Unexpectedly, I had once been to the place Miao Miao led us to, that luxurious, so luxurious that it made me felt like a commoner like me had better not enter, high-end restaurant.

I remember coming here the first time I learned that Chifuyu was a red robe too.

Because it was still pretty early, around seven o’clock, there weren’t many people. From afar, we could see senior Geng standing outside the restaurant and waving at us.

“You guys are a bit late.” Geng stood smiling in front of us: “I already went in and reserved a spot; it almost would’ve been too late. Because of the limited special meals today, the entire place is actually fully booked. Good thing I came early, otherwise we would have to grab lunch boxes and find somewhere to eat outside.”

“Eating outside is fine too.” Miao Miao ran over and held her hand, “How about this then, Geng Geng, let’s go to White Garden to eat. The scenery there is great and it’s beautiful too.”

“But we won’t be able to eat all we want with White Garden.” Geng looked at us and asked with her eyes.

“I’m fine with whatever.” Chifuyu shrugged.

“…” Ryan was silent, but he was the kind of person who was alright with anything as long as he could get rice balls, such that he didn’t even have an opinion on where to eat.

“I’m fine with it.” Before Geng looked over, I immediately expressed my opinion.

“Nn, then it’s been decided that everyone will be going to White Garden to eat!” The very happy Miao Miao cheerfully raised her hands. Beside her, Geng laughed helplessly and canceled the reservation with the staff at the door.

And our destination once again changed directions.

I suddenly remembered that many things actually began at White Garden.

Including, meeting Ryan Scar here. I also did the Opening of the Eye with the five-colored rooster head here. Since that day, I’ve seen and sensed more contrasting things.

By the time our large group returned to the school’s White Garden of Wind with copious amounts of food, there was someone else waiting inside. Clearly, no one wanted to go to class today, skipping over here one by one.

“Four-eyed brat, what did you come here for!?” Completely not expecting us to show up, the five-colored rooster head, who was originally lying in the middle of the white grassland with his legs crossed, immediately got up. In that white environment, his hair was particularly striking and you could even faintly see many transparent Elves surrounding him and curiously peering at his head.

“Why are you sunbathing here early in the morning? Don’t hog the space, we’re having lunch here.” The invader Chifuyu immediately went to chase him off.

“Ha, this uncle just wants to take root and sprout here. White Garden isn’t even your family’s. Defeat this uncle first if you got the ability.” Falling back on the turf with a “pa,” the five-colored rooster head, who was obviously not leaving even if you beat him up, grinned provokingly.

“You…”

“Chifuyu, how about we all eat together?” To be honest, I’m usually too lazy to care about whether they argue or fight. But today I absolutely didn’t want to watch them quarrel, so when I opened my mouth, I also asked for the others’ input: “Is that okay?”

“That’s fine, I was just worried that everyone wouldn’t have enough to eat, so I exchanged for a few more people’s portions.” Senior Geng smiled softly.

“If Geng Geng is fine with it, Miao Miao is also fine with it.” It’s rare for Miao Miao to be in a good mood and not fight the five-colored rooster head either.

“…” Having rice balls and thus no opinions, Ryan naturally continued to have no opinion.

“Che, count yourself lucky.” Chifuyu humphed and kicked the five-colored rooster head off the ground.

“Ha, as expected, Yang~you’ve got some sense.” Also too lazy to care about Chifuyu)s kick, the five-colored rooster head stood up and dusted off the white grass, before letting senior Geng and Miao Miao spread the large square cloth on the ground.

Ha, I got sense, I just wanted to say that by the time you guys finish fighting, I’d probably have to switch from breakfast to lunch. We might as well all eat together.

While everyone prepared, the five-colored rooster head leaned over, looked me up and down and even took the chance to speak before I could: “Yang…You’re not in good spirits. Did you not sleep enough last night?”

“Really?” I immediately touched my face on reflex. That’s strange, when I washed up this morning, I didn’t think I looked like I didn’t sleep enough. How could he say that so suddenly?

“You think everyone is like you?” Pulling away the five-colored rooster head, Chifuyu said kindly:”It’s time to eat.”

“Ha, you need to have manners when you invite people to eat, didn’t your family teach you that, four-eyed brat?”

“My family’s manners are only used on normal people, not on abnormal people.” Not wanting to talk more nonsense with him, Chifuyu directly sat down on the large square cloth.

I pulled along the five-colored rooster head and found a spot to sit too.

The spread of the cloth was huge and the quantity we brought back from the restaurant was quite sizable as well.

When I just started grabbing food, I didn’t look closely because they were all packaged up. After opening them up, the still-lavish group meal immediately made everyone’s mouths water.

Speaking of which, it seems a bit sinful to eat so luxuriously so early in the morning.

“Ah…This is a masterpiece among rice balls…” Holding a rice ball box with rice that glowed for some reason, Ryan’s eyes lit up, before he looked at the box of rice balls in other people’s meal sets with the words “please give them to me, whether or not you’re eating them”written on his face.

I won’t get food poisoning from eating this type of rice ball, right? I’ve never seen glowing rice before. They must have exceeded the metal content, right?

“This is so cute!” Nearby, Miao Miao also let out a cheer. When I turned, I saw that she was holding a cotton candy bear, which should be a dessert, as she happily said.

To tell the truth, these meals really are beautiful. It’s not hard to see the maker’s efforts…Speaking of which, just when in the middle of the night did he get up to make them? And why did he have nothing better to do than to suddenly launch these things?

“I heard that today happens to be the hundredth birthday of the restaurant’s founder, so the ones launched today are all limited-edition special set meals. It’ll be different in the morning, afternoon and night.” Settling my doubts right on time, senior Geng smiled as she said: “If everyone thinks these are alright, we can try our luck again at noon. There are still some complimentary tickets.”

In fact, I’d rather ask how those complimentary tickets came about, because I could tell from the reservation before that this meal probably wasn’t too easy to get. It can’t be that you guys have some dark underground conduits?

“Agreed~~” Miao Miao, who was completely satisfied with the breakfast, held her cotton candy bear and looked as if she had decided to preserve and keep it her whole life.

“This doesn’t taste bad.” Grabbing the main course’s roasted lamb leg and stuffing it into his mouth, the five-colored rooster head, who surprisingly didn’t complain about this or that, actually made a bone-crunching sound in his mouth.

I finally know what happened to the bones from that competition.

Looking at the people sitting beside me, these are the ones I’ve known the longest. Their attitudes have never changed and after gradually becoming acquainted, we began to better understand each other.

I still remember that it was senior Geng who brought me along on my first day of school. At that time, I truly thought that she was beautiful, but later I thought that it’d be better to not offend her.

“Yang Yang, can you give me your cotton candy bear?”

“Yang Yang, can you give me your rice balls?”

After zoning out, I saw two heads simultaneously look over at me, like-mindedly voicing their wishful thinking about my food.

“Hey hey, why are you two unrealistically hoping for other people’s breakfast!” Seemingly on the side of justice, the five-colored rooster head protested for me, sternly condemning those two people who crossed the line.

“If you don’t want to unrealistically hope, just move your hand away.” Sitting beside me, Chifuyu reached out and pinched the rooster claw that was able to steal meat: “Yang Yang, if you don’t eat fast, you won’t be able to eat anything from the appetizers to the main course to the desserts.”

“Chifuyu is an evil spirit!” After seeing her cotton candy bear’s head get pinched off, Miao Miao pointed at her friend while shouting.

“Yang Yang, I’ll exchange my side dish with you.” Still not giving up, Ryan floated up in front of me with an entire box of potato salad.

“Uh…I’m fine with any. You can exchange it for whichever you like.” I didn’t dare to eat those rice balls with a seemingly high metal content anyway.

“Then I want to exchange too!” Miao Miao leaned over with a sweet soup.

Then, my side dishes and dessert instantly became the same double portions.

“Yang~I’ll exchange my cotton candy bear for your roasted chicken.” Following the others’ example, the five-colored rooster head proposed an unfair trade.

“Don’t even think about it, have you ever heard of eating candy for a meal?” Chifuyu immediately cut off his delusion and prevented him from trading.

“Ay ay, if you’re talking food, there’s still a lot left. Didn’t I just say that we have several extra portions? Stop fooling around.” Senior Geng exasperatedly told these people exchanging back and forth.

“The cotton candy bear is so cute…” Continuing to express her love for the cotton candy bear, Miao Miao looked very determined to carry off all the cotton candy bears: “Later I’ll bring that one to Liliya.”

Ryan started moving as if to take all the rice balls in the extra boxes.

As usual, everyone was very lively.

“Yang~this is for you.” Biting the second piece of chicken he grabbed, the five-colored rooster head took a paper box and gave me it. This box wasn’t from those meals we bought. It should be his own: “Third brother gave me it. Didn’t you really like this sort of thing last time?”

I opened the box. Inside were a few small cakes, from the original world, “Thank you.”

The five-colored rooster head froze for a moment, his face a bit awkward: “What are you thanking for!? This uncle can’t just let his servant eat wind!”

Although you’re calling me a servant, I’m still very thankful.

“Later, when we finish eating, who knows what we’re going to do.” Finally starting to eat, Miao Miao returned to normal, dismembering the chicken with elegant movements.

“Are we going to the library? Or are we going to those fun places?” Chifuyu pushed at his glasses and began to think of all the suitable places in his mind: “Didn’t we go to a forest for a mission last time? Yang Yang hasn’t been there, do you want to go?”

“Oh ah, that place is also suitable for picnics.” Miao Miao stopped and immediately frowned: “That won’t work, that forest is huge. We’ll have to stay the whole day and the lightbugs are only there at night, so we have to spend the night. Let’s go together during a break.”

“Alright, we haven’t hung out on our recent breaks. Let’s go together this week.” Chifuyu glanced at me and said.

“Nn, okay.” Nodding, I smiled back at them.

“How about I go reserve this meal while everyone gets ready later? At noon we’ll eat here and afterwards, we can all go watch a movie together.” Senior Geng thought of an activity that didn’t require running very far: “Yang Yang hasn’t gone to the left shopping street’s movie theater, right? It’s very different from the original world’s.”

“This is good too.” Miao Miao revealed a wide smile: “Let’s go together.”

“This uncle doesn’t want to go with you people, so loud.” The five-colored rooster head humphed and turned his head.

“The loudest one should be you. If it weren’t for Yang Yang who wanted to go, we wouldn’t have bothered to include you.” Immediately picking a fight with him, Chifuyu shot back: “I would find it troublesome if you did tag along.”

“Ha! Just because of your words, Yang~this uncle is going to watch a movie with you guys.” Arrogantly spitting out half a bone next to Chifuyu, the five-colored rooster head gave a provoking smile that asked for a beating.

“You bastard—”

“Stop, don’t argue, it won’t end.” Inserting herself right between the two, senior Geng looked over at me: “How about it, Yang Yang?”

I saw everyone casting their gaze upon me, all of them looking at me with a smile.

“Alright, let’s go together.”

But, I already made my decision.