"Ah! What? Reincarnation? No! I would never do that!" I stumbled over my words as Devin hit my biggest secret on the nose.
"Judging by the lack of eye contact, I would say that you're a bad liar. Where did you come from?" Devin spoke like exposing peoples' secrets was just another Tuesday.
'I guess there are no more reasons to lie.'
"I came from Tenus." I sighed "You probably don't know where that is."
"Yeah, I don't, I came from Earth."
I took a double-take.
"Wait wait wait! You came from another world too?"
"Yeah, that's why I noticed the signs."
'What are the chances?! He was literally the first student I spoke to.'
"Well that and the mission the gods gave to me." Devin continued
"You got one too? What's yours?"
"My mission is to help 'The Engineer' save the world."
'So this is no coincidence, the gods pulled the strings.'
"Of course your engineer is me. What are you supposed to do to help?"
"I don't know, I came from a technologically advanced civilization, but I was just an artist, I have no inkling on how a *computer* works" (AN: Remember * means that Ingen doesn't know a word.)
"What's a conputar?" I unknowingly butchered the word.
"A computer is a machine that does math."
"A Powered Calculator (TM)? I know about those, kinda, not really."
"Anyway, just know that you can talk freely about reincarnation around me. We'd better get back to the others, Laura will cut my head off if I keep you too long."
'I wonder what he means by that? Laura hates my guts.' I thought as I left.
'Well, she clearly likes me now.' Orin shared through my mind.
When I got out of my workshop, I saw Laura brushing Orin's hair and calling him a "Good boy" Orin was eating it up.
"I see you've changed your mind about my demon."
"I have, as it turns out, a certain someone beat some sense into me."
"And all it cost me was my arm, glider, golem, and six days of my life."
"Yeah, and almost your whole life, all because you were stupid and tried to carry two people on paper and hollow wood."
Devin was long gone, it was now just me, Orin, and Laura.
"I like to think what I did was a brave defiance of fate."
"More like a reckless risk that almost killed you."
"Yet it saved you."
"That wasn't a guarantee."
"It doesn't need to be, it was guaranteed that you would have died if I had done nothing."
"Stop trying to sound like a hero! You're not a hero! You're just a stupid reckless brute!" Laura shouted, running away.
'What the hell was that all about?'
I went to Teacher's room, I needed his help enchanting my arm to be controlled by thought.
"Teacher! Are you here?" I shouted as I entered his classroom.
"Ingen!" Teacher came out of his backroom and rushed towards me. "Are you ok? I heard you lost an arm!" his eyes met my new wooden arm and shock spread across his face.
I put my hand up and spoke "Calm down, I need your help. The doctor said that my arm couldn't be reattached because of how it had been ripped off uncleanly, so I replaced it. Now, manipulating it with matter manipulation is taxing on my focus so I'd like to control it with my mind instead."
"I can do that but first we need to talk about what happened, I knew you were reckless, but I could never imagine you losing an arm."
I told Teacher about the fight, the guy in a professor's uniform, and the fall, omitting the details of my vision.
"I see, is it possible to take off your prosthetic?"
"Yes, it will need to be compatible with matter manipulation before we put it back on though."
"Let's do it then."
Teacher and I enchanted my arm to be as precise, strong, and flexible as possible. I had experience from golemancy on how to make an artificial arm, and even how to enchant it, so the process went smoothly, we weren't able to finish the entire thing in a day, so we left it for tomorrow.
I figured that I may as well test my new glider now that I have a little free time before bed. I made a temporary living wood arm to balance my weight in the absence of an arm and took off. It wasn't very long before I reached a decent height, but when I looked down like I had done thousands of times before, I felt an intense fear, I vomited and I saw myself falling again, I had lost focus and I was diving at the ground. I snapped out of my stupor and took action.
'I was prepared for this, I've fallen too many times.'
I pulled a cord on my back and a parachute deployed, setting me up to land safely.
'This is where Spirit would nag me for being reckless. I miss him.' I mind-sighed
I landed without issue and saw a certain angry redhead walking towards me.
Laura pushed me to the ground.
"Why are you still flying?! You just almost died from falling! Why can't you just do safe things!"
'She's starting to sound like Spirit, that kind of pisses me off.'
I stood up and got in her face
"Don't nag me, woman! I'll do as I very well please! Since when have you cared about if I lived or died? Oh, and by the way, I'd appreciate it if you would stop mentioning my near-death experience every three seconds."
Laura's face turned yellow "I'm only mentioning it because you should care and clearly don't!" She backed up.
"So that's your reason for harassing someone younger than you?"
"Only by a year!"
Laura was considered a prodigy like me, but to a lesser extent, she was still in my year though because the grade you're in has nothing to do with age, just when you get your spirit core.
Laura and I quarreled about just how much younger I had to be considered younger than her until Orin walked past Laura with well-groomed hair and sat on me.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Organ damage!" I lied, I had been fully healed for two days.
"Devin is right, you really are a terrible liar."
"Why are you on her side! What happened to being my companion?"
'Come now Ingen, this way you don't have to argue for the next ten minutes without admitting wrongness.' Orin's mind-message contrasted with his words.
"Laura groomed me better than you ever have."
Laura started giggling and left.
'Clearly, you are a better liar than me.' I thought
'More like you just really suck at lying, I can't say that's a bad trait though, just stick to being honest.'
'Sure thing.'
"Ingen?" Headmaster Sivor had approached Orin and me without making a sound.
"That's me!" Orin got up and freed me.
"I've come to inform you that you may skip the rest of this year if you so wish. Give me an answer tomorrow morning." Headmaster Sivor's form dissipated and I was left with a scroll detailing the full agreement.
'Well, that's a flat no.'