Thanks to the lack of dead people, I suppose.
Overall, aside from the festival stalls that turned into a mess and the academy garden, there wasn’t much damage.
It’s just that we made a pretty big fire to burn the bug corpses, and it turned into a late-night campfire.
“Oof, what’s that smell?”
“Probably because we’re burning bugs.”
Tana and Eve were crouched down beside me, cooking pancakes, and I couldn’t help but grab a bite.
“Yuck, one-biter! So gross!”
“Didn’t you say you weren’t going to eat?”
“Did I?”
I sighed unconsciously while staring blankly at the campfire. My mind was going blank, to the point where I couldn’t even remember what I just said.
Seeing me like this, Tana and Eve whispered to each other about what was wrong, but sorry, I could hear you.
Eris, who left saying she was going to meet the Dean, had vanished.
I wasn’t sure if she was still talking to the Dean, but it had been half a day already, and I couldn’t hold back my lips from twitching, desperate to talk.
‘She isn’t just going to leave like that, right?’
Even without remembering my past life, I thought I could at least say a word as a comrade who helped take down Apviel.
Coming from a distance, the blonde elf approached, covered in the soot from the campfire, as if to ease my worries.
With her overwhelming appearance and unusual aura, the surrounding students buzzed and gawked, but Eris didn’t give them a glance and came straight to me.
“Wait, she’s not blonde, she’s black-haired?”
“Ah, it was a wig earlier.”
I casually touched my hair to answer, and Eris chuckled with a “Hmph.”
“That suits you better.”
I felt embarrassed for no reason. Thank goodness the campfire made it hard to see my face.
“You really worked hard today, Daniel. That magical beast was quite strong, and you did great on your own.”
Eris calling me by my name instead of Sherpa felt awkward yet made me smile slightly.
“Yeah, thanks. You worked hard too.”
I had just been thinking about how I should talk to her when I actually met Eris, but my mind went completely blank.
Had she always been this pretty?
Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen her in a long time, but she looked enchanting as if I were mesmerized.
Tana and Eve, munching on pancakes, suddenly voiced things like, “Wow, this is hilarious.” and “As a loser in reality, I’m the center of attention of an elf at the festival?”
“Sorry about the misunderstanding earlier. I came to meet someone chosen by the god Helios, and you gave off a weird vibe.”
“Well, misunderstandings happen.”
“…Um, do you usually speak casually?”
Eris asked me with a pouty expression.
I was used to it from the past, and while I didn’t intend to change it, I wanted to show her that I still remembered her.
Shrugging my shoulders without answering, Eris sighed and nodded.
“Fine, today I’ll allow casual speech as a recognition of your valor and belief.”
“Thanks.”
“More importantly, I’m looking for someone chosen by Helios. They’ll likely feel hot like the sun or warm like sunlight.”
“…”
Someone popped into my mind, but I absolutely didn’t want to introduce them.
I was about to say I didn’t know, but then Tana tilted her head and answered.
“Ares?”
“Oh, I thought of Ares too.”
“He’s the sun? Sunshine?”
When I asked back snarkily, they both casually replied.
“Well, isn’t that a similar vibe?”
“I hate the sun. It hurts my eyes when I look at it.”
Eve, a true homebody and bookworm, got Eris’s attention as she abruptly turned to ask.
“Ares? Who’s that?”
“Right on cue, there he goes.”
Ares and his gang were passing in front of us.
It seemed a bit small to be called a gang, though, as Sen was resting in the infirmary with Rin due to injuries, and Hayun was naturally absent, while Adriana was nowhere to be seen.
In the end, only Arni Duratan and Elise remained beside us.
Ares scratched his head in response to someone calling him and looked our way.
And then I noticed the strange mark on Ares’s right hand.
As far as I remembered, Ares didn’t have a mark like that, but Eris, upon seeing it, nodded vigorously.
“Exactly! That’s the mark of someone chosen by Helios…”
After checking Ares’s face, Eris’s expression began to shift oddly.
“Do you know about this mark?”
Ares must have realized it was about the mark on his hand and tried to ask something, but Eris stepped back, covering her mouth.
“Um, I’m sorry, but could you not come closer?”
With a disgusted expression, Eris politely yet sharply requested Ares.
“What?”
“I just don’t like being in the same space with disgusting people.”
“What do you mean?”
“Judging by the mark on your hand… Ha, did you really get chosen by Helios? The one who rejected the hand of the woman who begged for her life and ran away?”
Ares’s face instantly turned red.
Arni and Elise looked at Ares with a “no way” expression, prompting him to speak urgently.
“T-That time, I had no choice! I couldn’t win against that magical beast…!”
“Who said you had to win?”
Eris scoffed.
“With the power of Helios, you could have easily escaped with that female student, right?”
“B-But!”
“If Daniel had been even a bit slower, that female student wouldn’t be alive now.”
“…!”
It was a relief that the surrounding students didn’t realize that female student referred to Adriana; if they had known, it would have severely damaged Ares’s image.
But Eris didn’t miss a beat and added more.
“Her name was Adriana, right? Even if that female student is dead, you couldn’t say you killed her. But you willingly threw away a life you could have saved.”
“Without knowing anything, what the hell are you…”
“I saw everything. I have quite good eyesight.”
Eris pointed to her blue eyes with a slight raise of her finger. For a moment, a mark appeared and then vanished in her pupils.
Recognizing it to be a different mark from his own but similar in nature, Ares looked at Eris with realization.
“I’ve been watching everything unfold through these eyes on the way here. To be honest, I don’t know what kind of plan Helios has for you, but that power is beyond what you can handle.”
“…”
“Please, make sure to use a power that suits your capacity.”
“No, I’ll actively use this power instead.”
Ares clenched his fist and stared intently at Eris.
“If I were stronger, I wouldn’t have abandoned her and would have faced the magical beast. Belief comes from strong power. A belief without ability is simply a delusion.”
“Seriously…”
Eris, now with completely cold eyes, delivered a sharp retort to Ares.
“That’s a disgusting way of thinking. Belief built on strong power ultimately belongs to the mighty. Such a belief is selfish and arrogant. You clearly aren’t suited to possess that power.”
Eris casually placed her hand on my shoulder.
“You are positioned opposite of Daniel. He possesses power yet holds the belief of the lowly, while you seek the belief of the strong despite having no power.”
“Are you saying I’m worse than this punk?”
Ares’s voice dropped dangerously low, as if I had touched a nerve.
Arni Duratan and Elise beside him even took a step back, startled.
Ares was filled with rage, but Eris nodded without hesitation.
“Isn’t that obvious?”
Suddenly, the mark on Ares’s hand glowed, and his fist launched forward.
With incredible speed and a level of destructive power that no mere punch could achieve, I hastily tried to respond.
Boom!
Eris, who possessed the title of “Guardian of Yggdrasil,” granted only to the strongest of elves, stood before him.
In short, no matter how much of a stormy transfer student Ares was at Aios Academy, he was no match for her.
Before I knew it, Eris had her foot firmly planted on Ares’s wrist, looking down at him.
“Kid, get a grip. I came to teach you how to handle Helios’s power, but I’m also here to punish anyone who misuses the god’s power if it falls into the hands of evil.”
With every word from Eris tinged with a lethal aura, Ares’s face became contorted in shame.
“You’re still young, so I’ll let this slide, but behave yourself.”
Eris gestured with her chin to get him lost.
In the end, Ares just bristled in anger, dusted himself off, and left with his companions, Arni Duratan and Elise, awkwardly following behind.
‘It’ll just hurt his pride more if he goes.’
While being humiliated by Eris, it was probably the most severe shame for Ares to face such a situation with so many watching.
‘Well, I personally found it refreshing and great.’
My wife is the best!
Cough.
I thought it inside, but feeling embarrassed made me cough, causing Eris to turn and look at me.
“I really don’t get why Helios chose someone like him. Sigh, this is a bit of a problem I need to think about.”
“Are you really going to execute him if Ares is not qualified?”
“Of course, even though he’s a man chosen by Helios, if he lacks that qualification, he needs to be cut off. It’d be awful if he abused that power and became a villain.”
I thought about how she just insulted someone like that, but Eris smiled without any regret as she changed the subject.
“The campfire is nice, isn’t it? We’d be in trouble if we did this.”
“Yeah, since it’s the forest.”
“It would have been more poetic if we weren’t burning bugs.”
“Well, this isn’t bad either.”
“True that.”
We whispered softly, gazing together at the dancing flames.
