Chapter 98: What exactly are you?
The supervisor checked on Caeril’s condition. He hadn’t taken any specific action to stop what had been happening—after all, even though he’d been genuinely startled, that didn’t mean he’d been unable to follow along with what was happening.
He was someone at the Luminous tier, a rank substantial enough to give his standing weight comparable to that of a mid-level noble.
After checking on Caeril’s condition, he glanced over the now-silent arena. It was obvious that plenty of them had no idea how that fight had unfolded, or how it had ended the way it had.
But for now, none of that mattered, since everyone was waiting on the supervisor’s ruling. He raised his hand, then announced in a voice loud enough to carry:
"Alen Hazelia wins this duel."
One second, two seconds, his voice sinking into the silence, and then, in the space of a few more awkward seconds, one student started clapping.
One person, two people, then dozens, until nearly every student was clapping and cheering at the top of their lungs.
Their voices echoed throughout the stands. It was something none of them had ever imagined would actually happen, but Alen had proven it could be done.
A first-year student defeating one of the elite from the second year—what could possibly be more thrilling than that?
"Alen! Alen! Alen! Alen!"
The students chanted in unison.
Meanwhile, Alen just stood there, gasping for breath, his breathing ragged. His wounds were severe, sure, but not enough to bring him down. His biggest problem lay somewhere else entirely, as those whispers began influencing him more and more, making everything around him feel like it was overlapping, blurring together.
The echoing voices, the faces of the cheering students, all of it started twisting into something dark.
"Praise the most exalted one! Praise the most exalted one! Praise the most exalted one!"
Cold sweat poured out, spreading across his face and his entire body. His stomach churned with nausea, as though every organ, every bit of food he’d digested, were being twisted from the inside out.
That feeling grew so severe that—
"Alen!"
"....!?"
Alen flinched hearing Niana’s voice, rushing toward him with obvious worry. That warm touch, that anxious gaze, that concern and careful attention, made Alen pause for a moment, then he felt himself relax.
"Are you okay? Ah, you’re h-hurt all over... We need to get you to the medical room right now...!"
Watching his sister panic, Alen narrowed his eyes, then gave a small smile.
"See?" he said suddenly, making Niana look at him in surprise as Alen added:
"I could win."
A statement dripping with confidence, though Niana took it entirely differently.
"Win, my ass?! You’re hurt like this! You can’t ever do that again!"
Alen let out a low breath, and those whispers finally faded away, and the next instant, he felt noticeably better. The noise and cheering of the students became nothing more than background static now.
"Congrats on winning your girl, Alen!" But one of the cheering students made Alen freeze up, genuinely irritated.
Right, they still didn’t know that Alen and Niana were adoptive siblings. They probably didn’t even know Niana’s last name.
***
"Haaah..."
What Eiros felt watching Alen win was relief. He felt genuinely relieved seeing Alen prove himself competent and reliable.
He’d been afraid this world might genuinely fall apart if Alen turned out to be completely incompetent. But Alen had just proven right here that he could actually beat a second-year student.
Caeril—Eiros thought about the moment he’d have to face Caeril himself someday. And the answer came simply enough: his odds of winning were slim, genuinely slim, slim enough that Eiros decided he’d rather not fight the guy in a formal duel.
Outside of a duel, where anything was allowed—ambushes and the like—Eiros would stand a chance. But a duel didn’t work that way.
Eiros would lose easily in that situation.
His lips twitched.
Right then, Lovia, Valkas, and Godon ran over to Alen, celebrating their victory together. Eiros didn’t join them, staying put where he was, genuinely lost in thought. After that, he rubbed his face and got up to leave.
’...I need to get stronger.’
Whether it was Valkas or Alen.
’If that fight had actually been to the death, I might’ve eventually found a way to win. But how many times would I have to die first?’
That was essentially the same as admitting Eiros still couldn’t match their strength. Why was that, though—hadn’t Eiros already received more resources than they had?
What was holding him back was his stigmata.
Right...
’I’ve got a stigmata card, I probably need to find something suitable soon, something that can cover for my weakness.’
Sure, Remnant of Red Light wasn’t a bad stigmata, but compared to what the main characters carried, Eiros’s own clearly couldn’t hold a candle to theirs.
Eiros left the noisy stands, moving through the quiet corridor as he headed back toward the library.
Midway through, Eiros stopped in his tracks the moment he spotted a girl with hair as soft-looking as snow, standing right in front of him.
That was Inara Crudela.
Inara leaned against the corridor wall, as if waiting for someone. Her expression was blank, showing no signs of life whatsoever.
She genuinely looked like a hollow doll.
Eiros paused for a moment, wondering what Inara was doing here, but that thought quickly faded as he remembered the original plot currently in motion.
Coincidentally, this hallway happened to be the closest route to the medical room for first-year students. Which meant Alen would surely pass through here soon, and would inevitably cross paths with Inara in the process.
Eiros hesitated for a moment, then took a step, walking past Inara without showing the slightest interest.
"What exactly are you?"
Eiros’s footsteps stopped the instant he heard Inara’s voice—so soft, so devoid of emotion, low like a whisper. He was startled for a moment, then turned around, finding the corridor empty.
Just him and Inara.
’Is she talking to me?’
Then, right then, Inara finally moved, her hollow eyes meeting Eiros’s. Their gazes locked.
"...Are you talking to me, senior?"
"Hmm... tell me, what have you done to your body?"
"Huh?"
Inara wasn’t normal in the slightest. She didn’t care about Eiros’s question, didn’t care for small talk, going straight for whatever she was curious about.
That caught Eiros off guard for a moment.
’My body? What’s wrong with this body?’
Was she seeing the corruption seed, or something like that?
Eiros felt cold sweat spill down his face for a moment.
"I don’t understand what you’re saying, senior."
Inara nodded, closed her eyes, then let out a small breath and said:
"Your body, your soul—they’re at odds with each other. Like a song being played at two different tempos."
"..."
’This doesn’t make sense.’
Could she see something wrong with his soul?
The fact that the current Eiros was a fake, and the fact that the real Eiros’s soul might already be dead—could she actually see that?
Eiros felt his heart pounding faster and faster. Maybe this was some kind of trait Inara possessed, which might explain why she was drawn to Alen.
But that wasn’t the point right now. Because Inara had just noticed something wrong about him.
"Something dark is growing. And... your stigmata isn’t accepting your soul, no, it is accepting it, ah, no, they’re..."
Inara went quiet, appearing to struggle to put into words something she couldn’t quite grasp herself. To Eiros, that was a genuinely strange, confusing thing to witness, but strange enough to leave him both intensely curious and on edge.
He had no idea what else Inara might see. Inara stayed quiet for a fairly long moment, staring at Eiros blankly, then let out a small sigh and said:
"Ah... I see..."
She seemed to have arrived at some conclusion. And then, what happened next?
She stopped talking, going quiet again, no longer paying Eiros any attention, leaving him standing there, frozen, feeling genuinely awkward.
Of course, everything Inara had said might well be true. Even though Eiros didn’t know the full secret of his own body, he could roughly grasp a few of the things Inara had mentioned.
His soul being out of sync, since he wasn’t really Eiros to begin with. That dark thing, more precisely, would be the corruption seed, and the mismatch and match of the stigmata itself...
’Is she talking about how the original Eiros’s stigmata doesn’t match my soul? Or about the stigmata I copied through Stigmata Imprint?’
Eiros looked at Inara for a moment, then quickly looked away. He let out a small sigh, pressing his fingers to his temples. After saying goodbye to the indifferent Inara, he immediately walked off.
His thoughts were in complete chaos.
’This world really isn’t a safe one at all.’
Why were there so many monster-like figures with such uniquely bizarre traits?
Going forward, Eiros probably wouldn’t even be surprised anymore if he ran into someone who could rewind time, or pull off something even more insane.
His footsteps quickened through the corridor, his heart pounding faster too, and before Eiros even realized it, he sensed Renessa’s presence approaching him.
His body jolted.
***