Author's Reincarnation in a Fantasy Setting

"So, what are doing for the vacation?" I asked as I took a sip of my coffee.

"What do you mean by that?" Ellyn\'s expression was a bit on the surprised side as she said that.

"What I mean is, where are you going for the vacation? I don\'t believe that you\'re going home due to all the things going on between you and your father, so I was just curious." I clarified.

"Nowhere."

"Hmm?"

"Nowhere. I\'m not going anywhere, I\'ll stay in the dorms," she replied.

"Wait, you can do that?" I\'d be lying if I said I knew that.

"Of course, you can. If that were not the case then where do you think people like Leon would be staying?" she appealed.

"Well, that\'s true. So Basically, you don\'t have any plans, right?" I tried to confirm.

If I had to follow loli_pop\'s novel then she\'ll stay here with Leon, but that\'s all the information I have. There was a time skip and what happened during the one-month vacation wasn\'t shown, thus I don\'t know either.

However, for things to work out as I want them to, I must make sure of this.

"Yeah, you can say that. It\'s pretty lame, isn\'t it? I\'m being looked at as an idol by many students, I\'m a role model in their eyes. Yet I\'m not even capable of going home on vacations, the most basic of things which any student can do," she said.

Her gaze was down, falling on the cup of tea she was holding with both her hands but had stopped drinking it when I disturbed this topic.

"That\'s certainly a way to think about it, but I don\'t think it\'s lame," I said. She looked up. "I mean, you are the role model because you do things that the normal, average students don\'t. You are the odd one out, that\'s why you are treated that way. So I\'d say staying here and creating your own norm is just the thing you need to do if you want to continue being in the spotlight."

"Being in the spotlight, huh? I\'m not sure if I want it or not. Things have been so jumbled up recently, that I don\'t really know what I want to do or what\'s right," she mumbled, as those words left her lips I could sense the weight her voice carried; it sounded tired, crushed, and under a lot of burdens.

"I\'m afraid as someone who likes to operate in the shadows—the exact opposite of you—I can\'t provide my advice on that," I stated and took another sip.

And then there it was again. The long, calm, and strange silence stretched on for quite a while. I hate silence as much as I hate THAT side of mine, but right now it was different, as it wasn\'t just the silence that surrounded me.

There was the steam that rose up from the cups of my coffee and Ellyn\'s tea, there was the murmur of students as they entered the cafeteria while talking with their friends, there was the scratching shriek of wood as they slid the chairs backward, there was the clicking sound of mana as the night fell and the colorful magic lights lit up on the café\'s outer walls, and there was the gentle pressing sound of the snow as the flakes starting raining from the sky and collected down on the ground.

There sure was a silence, I wasn\'t denying that. But for now, it was just between me and Ellyn, and the rest of the world was unaffected by it. I was quite glad by knowing that, as I knew how scary it could be when everything around you goes quiet…

"If you aren\'t going anywhere, then would you like to come with me?" I asked, resting the empty coffee cup back on the table.

"Huh?" Ellyn\'s eyes widened a bit as her pupils enlarged for a split second before they went back to normal. "I\'m sorry, what did you say?" she requested.

"I said if you don\'t have plans then why don\'t you come with me?" I repeated.

She still didn\'t respond, rather seemed amused.

"Did I say something weird?" I asked.

"Huh? No! It\'s not that. I just…didn\'t expect you to make an offer like that," she clarified.

"And what\'s the good reason for that?"

"Well, you don\'t seem like the type of person who\'d invite me somewhere, and to their home especially," she said.

"Then what type of person do I look like to you?" I demanded. I was rather curious to know what she thought of me.

"Ah…" she was at a loss for words.

"And be completely honest," I added.

"The type who\'d lock me up in a room and then torture me for entertainment," she said in a breath.

For some reason, I couldn\'t find a way to argue on that. In fact, she was probably stating this based on the things she\'d seen me do, so in a way what she was saying was true. But on the other hand, she was not completely right.

The way she described me made me seem like a demon. I was no demon.

…Probably.

"Anyway, would you like to come?"

"Can I ask the reason why you\'re going out of your way to invite me?" she appealed.

"You do remember our contract, right? \'You will help me out with whatever I want and in return, I\'d protect you from your father,\'" I said.

"Yes I do, what about it?"

"I won\'t be able to play my part if you\'re so far away from me, and that\'d be the breaching of the contract. I don\'t want that," I replied.

"You…really care about it that much? I thought—"

"You thought that I was just manipulating you in the name of a contract and using you to get my things done and will abandon you when you\'re in trouble? Well, I\'d say that stained my pride even when I don\'t care about those things that much," I said, interrupting her in the middle.