Walking out of the practice room into the spacious living room, I was confronted by the wonderful smell of newly brewed coffee in the air. Noticing the source of the fragrant aroma, a very casually dressed Dona appeared in my eyes, sitting on one of the couches.
A pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt were all she was wearing, and from the way her chest looked, I could quickly confirm that there truly was nothing underneath the white fabric. To be honest, it was quite impressive how such large endowments could still hold their shape to such an extent without support.
"Stop thinking weird thoughts and go take a shower! Also..."
Scanning my body up and down, her face gradually turned darker and darker. Wondering what she was looking at, I quickly realized the small, innocent mistake that I had made.
"Is that... the shirt and pants we bought yesterday?"
"Umm... I forgot to change?"
Yes, unfortunately in my quest for power, I had lost sight of the things in front of me. Or rather, on me, because I was still wearing pretty much everything that she had bought me in preparation for the party, barring the white suit jacket.
The results? They had unfortunately been unable to endure the workout that I had spent the entire night doing, so they were a bit... trashed...
Pinching her nose, she just shooed me away with her hand, a signal I wasn't going to oppose at all. Running away to the bathroom, I decided to take an extra long shower. Just in case I could spend enough time in there to make her forget about what I had done.
****
[Lydia's Pov]
"Hmm? So you want to try and get along with him? Why?"
"I don't know... I just feel a bit bad seeing him all alone all the time. Astor also said that we still don't know exactly what happened between him and Levi."
Sitting in of the many open-air cafes in Rellea with Peter, enjoying the warm sun, we had somehow begun talking about Aarick, which in turn had led to the topic at hand.
"Haa... Lydia, do you really think that even matters? Even if it's unlikely, as they have a reputation to uphold, do you think anyone can oppose them if the big fish start to move?"
It wasn't hard to realize which people he spoke about, but hearing Peter who also came from a quite well-known family say it did make my stomach sink a bit.
Currently, four freshmen at the academy stood above all the rest.
Naturally, Will and Levi had a higher standing than the other two, but in practice, it didn't matter much. Because they were also able to rely on their families no matter what happened.
Following this was Matthew, heir to the Maxwell family whose name was just a single step below that of the Phoenix guild and the Leviathan guild.
And then we had the last student of these four, a student that never used his name for anything.
Astor Loxley.
So with that in mind, and knowing that Astor was trying to get along with him, I still didn't agree with Peter.
"Wouldn't it be fine as long as Astor sees him as a friend as well?"
Pinching his nose, Peter wasn't exactly happy that I had a point, but he was still not convinced to the extent that he would accept it.
"And what if I say that I don't want any part of it...?"
"Then I'll say that you don't have to. But it would be a shame if a certain rumor started floating around about a young boy who..."
"Fine! I get it! But I won't go further than to not avoid him. Also, if I get to know him and I don't like him, then you have to accept that I don't like him!"
Seeing my flustered childhood friend finally giving in, as he so often did, it was quite unbelievable that he still tried his best to act tough and strong around people. Even though what he had done to Aarick on the first day was sort of harmless, I knew that he only acted like that because he was scared.
At our high school, he had continually had to defend himself against everything and everyone, protecting the position he held. Now, Augustus was a lot calmer than our old school, but there was no doubt he still felt quite pressured.
At the same time, he had also accepted his position at Augustus enough to back off a bit, acting a lot more than a background character than before. But even despite that, having him stand behind me when trying to bring Aarick more into our class was still incredibly valuable.
"But hey..."
"Hmm?"
"Why are you suddenly trying so hard to get along with that guy? It's only been a week."
It wasn't a hard question to answer, and as Peter had known me for long enough, I also knew that he would understand my answer.
"Because he is interesting."
"So it wasn't actually that you felt bad for him, after all. Figures."
"Ah, wait! No, it was absolutely because I felt sorry for him!"
"Sure. Anyway, should we get going? The others should have arrived already."
"Ah, right."
Having completely forgotten that we were just here to waste a bit of time before moving on, we both rose from our seats and started moving. Because thanks to Peter, we had gotten tickets to the fight that was about to begin.
A fight between two [B]-rankers, two of the strongest people that existed on this planet.
So, not wanting to let Sophie, Stella, and Celina wait for us, we walked at a brisk pace through the streets of Rellea.
****
[Aarick's Pov]
Now sitting on the wooden floor in the practice room, I was once again in awe of the amount of money that Dona must've spent on this place.
Because in front of me was a giant screen that had come down from the ceiling with the press of a button.
On it, the Blessed Fighting Championship, or BFC for short, was now about to show the world yet another great fight.
Or so Dona told me. In reality, I had never owned a TV so I had no idea what it was, but according to her, it would be good for me to watch it.
Staring at the giant TV, the screen suddenly flickered, and changed from the BFC logo to now showing a huge arena.
On both ends of it, two people were currently doing their last-minute preparations before the fight would begin.
On one side, a blonde man was fiddling with the metallic armor on his body, and on the other, a girl wearing a violet robe was quickly inspecting her wooden staff.
At the same time, the voice of a male commentator was currently explaining to the audience just what we were about to get to see.
It turns out that the man, very unsurprisingly, was a close-ranged swordsman with an electricity blessing and the girl was, also very unsurprisingly, a wind elemental mage.
And just like that, the fight was on, starting off quite slowly, with both participants sizing each other up.
However, while the mage was standing still, the swordsman was slowly inching closer while circling her.
It was quite exciting, knowing that he was just waiting to get close enough to start his approach, and the mage thinking of ways to keep him away.
Then, after taking just one more step, electricity quickly gathered around one of the man's feet, and his figure flew forward in a blur.
However, the mage reacted accordingly, sending out multiple blades of wind, successfully forcing the man to stop and deal with them.
And that he did, quite effortlessly as well.
Just like his speed dashing forward, his sword was also fast, alternating between dodging and parrying the blades that threatened to sever his limbs.
Seeing her attack getting nullified, the mage's mana moved, making her body glow a bright green, and though the swordsman tried to dash forward to stop her, he was too late.
On the screen, I got to see a massive hurricane being sent forward, and just as he was about to make an impact with the swordsman...
*Bzzztt....*
The power went off, leaving me in the dark still Clenching my fists due to the excitement inside of me.
"NO! NOT NOW!"
'-Fix it, Aarick! Fix it quickly!'
"I don't know how! How do I fix it, Lucifer?!"
'-I don't know either! Just! Do something!'
****
[Dona's Pov]
Coming home from doing some errands, I was surprised to not see a single light turned on in my apartment.
As I could quite quickly conclude that a fuse must've blown, I quickly opened up the box in the hallway and fixed them. Something like this didn't take more than a minute to fix anyway.
When my apartment was once again lit up, I was even more surprised to see a white-haired boy hunched up in a corner, covering his face with his knees.
"Aarick?"
"I don't want to talk about it..."
"Alright. But you still have training to do. I hope you got some inspiration at least from watch..."
"I said I don't want to talk about it!"