My second afterlife started at the girl’s dormitory.
“That’s a familiar figure.”
“What?”
Brianna, who had her nose buried in something that looked like a piece of paper on the small table between two beds, raised her head and asked. I looked over at the pink butt, which she was coloring diligently.
“‘Adam Willie?’”
“‘Willie?’ Oh my god, Dalton, are you a genius?”
Bree exclaimed, putting down her pink crayon and picking up a thick-tipped quill. Then she wrote the words ‘Adam Willie’ in a very fancy way. It felt very comical when combined with the portrait drawn on paper of Walsh’s head with a pig’s body attached to it.
“This is ‘Adam Willie’ from now on. It’s the perfect mascot character for a slut bastard like him.”
As if bursting with pride, Bree picked up the masterpiece she had just created. The poster of Adam Willie, dressed in extravagant clothes and giving a thumbs up, looked like a typical promotional poster for a candidate for king of the banquet. If it weren’t for the perky pink buttocks and cute hooves underneath the stylish dark brown shirt, you could have really mistaken it for a normal looking one.
The frowning portrait seemed unhappy with its new body, which appeals to me to look much better than the original. A small speech bubble poked out of his snout, and it read: ‘My staple food is griffon feces, and my hobby is changing girlfriends!’
The last time Walsh switched girlfriends was while on vacation. Apparently, this afterlife was during school vacation. But that being said, there were some parts I didn’t understand.
“It’s vacation after a long time. What am I doing at the academy?”
“What are you talking about? You said you had some work to do during your vacation. Don’t you remember when Villard grabbed you by your pants?”
‘This is a big problem; you’re still this young, yet your memory…’ Bree shook her head as if she were truly feeling sorry.
“Well, it’s fine for me. I’m not bored, and I get to take revenge through this alliance of ex-girlfriends.”
As far as I can recall, Walsh didn’t know that his affair had been revealed to the world until the beginning of the second semester, so the two were still lovers. However, Brianna Mosley described herself as Walsh’s ex-girlfriend. In other words, he is already a hundred miles away from Bree’s heart.
Nevertheless, Bree’s eyes were red as she forced herself to be excited. I liked her cynical side, but her heart was too weak, and she was too affectionate.
Also, I think Bree really loved Walsh, unlike me, who just wanted to try dating. That’s why she took the magic circle understanding class on his behalf, and that’s why she couldn’t abandon Walsh even after the Cleveland Incident and the Banquet Queen Incident.
Bree was a very smart girl, so she knew that Walsh was an unredeemable piece of shit and a waste of her time and emotions. However, she was infatuated with that unredeemable piece of shit.
Perhaps the reason Brianna was so hung up with Anais was because she saw in Anais both her despondent self before entering Fitzsimmons and her foolish self, who could not let go of Walsh. Perhaps many of the criticisms she hurled at Anais and Donnelly were directed at herself.
My nose suddenly felt stuffy. If I can safely return to the original world this time, I will have to hug Brianna Mosley.
Willy’s buttocks were being polished with correction fluid and Bree was hiding her sniffling…
…when a cuckoo bird chirped somewhere. To be exact, it was the sound of a person imitating the cuckoo bird’s call. It was shockingly sloppy.
“Whoever it is, they’re not very good at it, are they?”
After saying something casually, Brianna became very serious.
“Dalton, you’re not really sick, are you? It’s a signal calling you. You went out yesterday because of that too.”
“Me?”
“You…”
“Oh, right. I did. I was fine until last year, but this year it’s been really up and down, you know? Miluanians get old quickly. Jaden Spencer too, look. What kind of body is that for a 19-year-old?”
Bree was now crying like crazy. I swallowed hard, trying to think of something to say to soothe her, and then, sensing that it wasn’t going to work, I jumped to my feet.
“I will be back! In the meantime, enhance our awesomely disgusting creation with some glitter!”
***
When I opened the dormitory door and found a person leaning in the hallway, I was so shocked that I almost fell backwards. The person who had sent me flying into another dimension was right there.
“What the hell? How far have you been following me?”
“What the hell are you up to today? Let me tell you, I am not in the mood to fool around with you, so just shut up and follow me.”
Pannington continued as if he were sick of it.
“And can you please stop making me impersonate this damn bird? I am an Illestia’s shadow and not a clown, alright?”
“What? I was the one who ordered you to do that?”
“You said. if I. didn’t. you. wouldn’t. come out!”
Pannington was pounding the wall with his fist and was furious. Only then did it occur to me that he was a different person from the Jimmy Pannington I had seen earlier. If he was an assassin who had traveled across worlds to kill me, it should have been me, not the wall, that got crushed by that fist.
I took a step back to guard against him, but realizing there was no need to do so, I then squared my shoulders. At least in this world, I seemed to have the upper hand over him.
‘That’s right.’ So I became very relaxed.
“We are carrying out a mission after a long time, so shouldn’t you feel good?”
Then Pannington’s reaction was funny. He shivered as if to say, “Please, just once, stop the bullshit.” In other words, it seemed like I had already said something similar before. As expected, I’m still me in another world. I slapped my palms together and shared the fun with another Ariel Dalton.
Pannington didn’t object to the word “mission,” which made me guess that the reason I was spending my precious vacation time at Fitzsimmons was because of some secret work.
And why was a spy from Illestia hired to carry out that secret work? It was obvious. There were only three people at Fitzsimons Academy who could summon and use someone like him on such short notice. The omnipotent student council president, the crown prince of the Holy Empire that ruled over half the continent, and Keran Illestia.
So now there is only one thing left to check.
“You know, Pannington. What was her name again? The student council secretary with flowing blonde hair, eyes like violets, and looks like a porcelain doll.”
“Florence Belle?”
Bingo.
***
As I followed Pannington to the magic tool production lab, I didn’t even encounter a single ant.
As far as I remember, it was the first time I stayed at the academy during vacation. Maybe that’s why I felt strange walking around Fitzsimmons in the middle of the day, when it was depressingly quiet.
“I feel lonely for no reason. Is this what it will feel like when I graduate?”
“Who cares.”
Pannington responded bluntly and stood facing the wall, which sensed divine power. His hunched back made his shoulder blades stand out awkwardly.
It was certainly rare for a teenage boy from a noble family to be as thin as this guy. Since the social world did not impose any standards on their appearance, they often gained weight as a result of eating and growing up well.
Even if he had a naturally lean build, he wouldn’t be skin and bones. There was a clear difference between a well-nourished body without excess fat and a body that had never received enough nourishment. Moreover, his posture was always hunched, and dark circles loomed under his eyes. There was something undeniably suspicious about him.
“What is your real name?”
I suddenly became curious and asked. Pannington turned his head to look at me for a moment, as if he didn’t understand, then answered in a dismissive tone.
“Jeremiah Meyer.”
“Don’t bullshit me. That’s Primo Uomo* from the Illestia Court Troupe, one of Kaitlyn the Great’s favorite concubines. I know that much.”
*(the principal male singer in an opera or opera company.)
I knew this because Adam Walsh, whose father was another concubine of Kaitlyn the Great, used to chew on him when he was bored. What did he use to call him again? A ‘pretty-faced whore’?
A whore insulting another whore? Thinking back, it was really funny.
“You caught me. Then, I am Beatrice Miller. Call me Betty.”
“That’s a pretty name, Betty. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Does that matter?”
Pannington snatched my hand and held it in annoyance. As divine power flowed from his hands, I was lost in sentiment.
When I felt like the first nine months were repeating themselves, my only desire was to graduate. But now? Well…
I learned too many things to only think about my own safety. I learned about the pain Kyle had endured. I learned about Kerans’ missing memories. I learned that everyone is moving like puppets, tied by the threads spun by fate. Could I really just graduate and live my life as if nothing had happened, as if I were not aware of anything?
There was no way to prevent the repetition of time unless the system collapsed. That is why, whenever Kyle wasn’t being harassed by Blossom these days, he was stuck on the ‘Witch’s Path’ looking for a way to stop the ‘Spinning Wheel of Fate’ (I was in charge of all the support for that. Thanks to the small-scale but resourceful Dalton Merchant Guild, it was safe to say that there were almost no items that could not be obtained.)
Physical force? Useless. Magic? It was possible to extract mana, but if you tried to draw any magic circle with the extracted mana, it would disappear. Magic tools? We couldn’t even bring them in. Clearly, there was a reason why Kyle, who had experienced infinite repetition of time and knew every movement of the system, had repeatedly failed.
In conclusion, we hadn’t made any progress, and the graduation ball was approaching. Meanwhile, the invincible Rosemary Blossom grew stronger by the day. Kyle said he could now feel her dominance even without her using cheats.
The situation was utterly hopeless, yet strangely, I couldn’t give up. It wasn’t because of personal greed, nor because of a shallow sense of justice. It was because there were only us. No one will solve the problem if we give up.
So, to speak, it was a struggle.
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