Having packed all my stuff, I proceeded to put on some casual clothes before heading out.
As I was locking my door, I felt a pair of hands covering my eyes.
"Guess who it is!"
I stayed quiet, but I knew exactly who it was.
If you hadn't noticed yet, I barely spoke in this body, mostly due to Akimitsu's memories affecting me, as he was mute.
He had been unable to talk since birth mostly due to having a defective soul that was a result of having been born artificially.
I had noticed some other things that I couldn't do in this body too, like I could hardly smile or make any other emotions.
'It seems like the muscle memory in this body is still unconsciously controlling some functions.'
Well, I guess I would be rid of this problem when I got out of this body.
I turned around and looked at the person in front of me.
It was a girl that was about the same age as me. She had a mostly slim figure, her body having not gotten the curves that came with puberty yet.
Her dirty blond hair cascaded dazzlingly down her shoulder, reflecting the sunlight.
Although her face was dirty, you could still tell that she was a beauty, and she had a certain commoner charm to her.
"Come on Arvil! Why is your face always so emotionless? I mean, it still is, even to me!"
I watched as her stigma lighted up and the space in front of us suddenly became denser.
Knowing what to do as we had had this type of interaction a few thousand times over the past 8 years, I quickly wrote a greeting in the thickened space with my fingers.
/Good morning Elvira./
I then did a little bow to greet her.
You see, when Raikato and Laramil had split into two, their cultures had also split apart.
Laramil had a more western-oriented culture while Raikato had a more Japanese, East Asian influenced culture.
It seemed like even though Akimitsu lived almost all his life in Laramil and even had the Laramillian name "Arvil", he still practiced Raikato customs like small bows instead of handshakes to greet another person.
Of course, I was fine with this as I had been born in a similar Asian culture back on my version of Earth.
"Come on! Be more happy or something!" She pouted.
The girl in front of me was Elvira, an orphan born with the space stigma. As she had the space stigma, which was an uncommon and powerful one, she had been deemed important enough by the government to get the same treatment as me, so 8 years ago, she had moved in next to me, and we had been friends ever since, although, on the outside, it seemed like it was more of a one-sided friendship.
Akimitsu had, at first, just ignored her, pegging her as an annoying little girl, but I guess she kinda grew on him as I could see in his memories that he had a soft spot for her, and had started learning how to write in a mirrored way just to be able to talk to her.
So, although it looked like a one-sided relationship on the outside, both of them could tell that they both cared for each other.
'I mean, this guy is always acting like a loner, but feels lonely inside. Ugh, just choose one or the other!'
(A/N: This is the MC complaining about the memories of the person he got reincarnated into.)
/Move Elvira, I need to go somewhere, and writing mirrored characters is really hard./
"I know it's not that hard, I mean you've been practicing with me since you were 8."
She stood steady in her spot, showing no signs of moving.
"Where are you going Arvie?"
/First off, don't call me that, and secondly, where I'm going is none of your business./
"Alright, alright, fine, but be back in time for dinner with me tonight."
...
/Uhm, I'll be gone for the next few days?/
...
"What! Did my lonely Arvie get a girlfriend or something?"
/Fuck off./
Not caring about touching her or anything anymore, I pushed past her and started walking down the stairs to the first floor of the building.
I watched his back as he descended down the stairs.
"Hmm, even though he always has that cold expression on his face, his eyes are always warm around me."
"So does he know, or does he not know? If he does, then was everything a lie? No, no, no, I refuse to believe that."
'Ugh, this kid, you don't have to be such a tsundere.'
I mean, this kid's mental state was really messed up.
I could literally feel his aggressive hatred towards the world through each and every movement that his muscle memory made me take.
But the thing was, his hatred for himself was far greater than his hatred for the world.
From his memories, I could tell that he often questioned the very nature of his existence. I mean, he was literally just a tool, a pawn that the "Monarch of Darkness" was using.
He was also a monster, an abomination, a lab rat, something that was never human in the first place.
He couldn't do anything out of his free will either, as he knew that there was always someone watching him, so a long time ago, he had gotten rid of all his emotions and had just focused on following orders.
And now that he got some of his free-thinking back through interacting with Elvira since she came, he had come to hate his "parent", who thought of him as nothing more than a convenient object, the demons and angels, as they were part of the reason that this had all happened to him, and finally, the whole world, as it seemed like fate had turned her back on him.
Of course, the only light left in his darkness was Elvira, his childhood friend, who was the person that he spent the most time with outside of training.
Of course, now I was the one stuck with the job of reigning in his moody teenage emotions.
"Slap!"
I slapped myself in the face.
"Slap!"
Again.
"Slap!"
Again.
"Slap!"
Again.
I spent the whole walk to the train station slapping this damn body, teaching it the lesson that I was the one in control of this body now.
It was only as I got onto the train that this body finally listened to me and stopped bringing up its never-ending rollercoaster of emotions.
It was only when I had a clear head now that I realized something.
"Smack"
Face palming, I groaned inwardly.
'Elvira, Elvira, Elvira... Shit, how could I forget? It was the name that the crown princess took when she was sent to live as a commoner, for he education, and it was also the alias she used when she joined the academy.'
'Damnit, two seconds in and I've already met one of the main characters.'
With her 7 powers of light, she would eventually become the greatest supporter of all time, being the web that held everything together in the MC's party.
'And this kid just had to be the childhood friend of a main character, the imperial princess no less, just how fucked up is his life?'
With this new information, I could basically guess that he somehow died trying to protect the princess when THAT accident happened during the entrance exam.
Well, I didn't really have to worry about that anyways, as I would just get myself my new body and leave all of this behind.
"Sigh, I hope the journey will be more smooth now."