Chapter 46 Volume II – Chapter 12: Counter Betrayal

“Hahaha! Look at his face! I told you this would be easy!”

They made fun of me, and everything that happened made me collapse even more, making me tremble, but there was still hope in me.

I looked at Aiden, waiting for an explanation.

He turned his gaze to the sky as if he didn’t give a single damn about me. There was a robotic, spherical, eye-like device floating in the air.

It was one of the cameras used by academy officials to monitor the preliminary, and there were several of them in the area.

Traces of hatred suddenly appeared in Aiden’s emotionless eyes, but after only a few seconds they vanished as if they had never existed.

Aiden turned back to me. He didn’t look like he was going to give me an explanation.

I clenched my fist, looking him in the eyes.

“Why?!”

I don’t understand what he’s doing. I’m slowly getting angry, but I don’t want to hate him.

Maybe… Maybe it’s just a game? Just a… nightmare?

My head started to throb, the world seemed to be closing in on me.

Aiden unsheathed his sword and gripped it tightly. He was determined, and when I saw that, my world turned even more upside down.

Why had he befriended me if his intention was to betray me in the first place?

Why give me hope when I was already broken enough?

I thought about Julian and all the times he’d had fun smiling at me. He’d never looked like he was faking it, and he didn’t look like he was faking it now.

So I realized.

I was… betrayed… again…

Aiden pointed his sword at me and I clenched my fist.

Again I trusted someone and again I am betrayed.

A breeze, centered on Aiden, suddenly swept through the area and flowed toward his sword, giving it a teal-colored glow.

Why does this always happen to me? Isn’t it enough that I lost everything once? Why… Why can’t I trust anyone?

Why am I alone?

“Let’s start.”

The other students surrounding me drew their own weapons, but I didn’t care.

Because the silhouette that until now had stood behind Aiden like a ghost was fading away and I was left standing there again.

I… am not dreaming.

The last objections in my mind disappeared with this image. I felt the intense anger rising in my veins. I gripped my spear tightly and took a deep breath.

If I have no right to be happy… then I will erase anyone who tries to take that right away from me.

Friendship? Smile? Who cares…

I was alone in this rotten world from the very beginning.

I took the first stance of the spear style my instructor had been trying to teach me for the last month, and the moment I did, some of the people around me were surprised.

The reason was simple. Almost everyone who trained at the academy was still trying to improve their basics, but I had already practiced them with Lithoa for almost seven months. So instead of teaching me the basics, my instructor started teaching me a proper spear style.

I couldn’t use it for very long, since even the beginner level of the style was equivalent to a C level, and my limit was probably ninety seconds.

That was enough.

Aiden and I locked eyes again and I prepared to lunge at him in a rage, pushing my muscles to the limit, but then, something unexpected happened and I paused.

From just below Aiden, a wave of energy suddenly spread out and surrounded us in a transparent sphere.

‘Hmm?’

I heard Lithoa’s voice in my head, who had been silent until now. What I saw must have surprised even him, but then I realized something else.

It wasn’t just me and Lithoa, but also the students surrounding me. Aiden was the only one whose expression didn’t change.

What… is going on here?

Aiden let out a deep sigh. Then he quickly swung his sword, which was glowing teal due to the intense wind quality, horizontally.

In an instant, a wave of wind separated from his sword spun around, and hit the students close to him, knocking them all back.

The students who were hit were knocked into trees by the force of the strong wind.

Something is happening here, something I can’t understand…

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

The owner of the angry voice coming from my right side lunged at Aiden without a care in the world.

The double-sided battle axe he held in his hand was rapidly approaching Aiden, but before it could reach him, it was blocked by a wall of wind and thrown back like the others.

Aiden fixed his gaze on me again and this time, the emotionless expression on his face suddenly changed. It was no longer cold and calm… although it was definitely still calm, he was smiling bitterly.

“I’m sorry Adrian, I’m going to explain everything and I know it’s not my right to ask, but… can you help me?”

“He tricked us! Attack them both! Quickly!”

The students surrounding me rushed at us both, but I still hadn’t recovered.

First I was happy to have made a friend, then I was devastated to be betrayed, and now the same person I thought had betrayed me was apologizing in front of me.

Aiden continued to smile, and then a gust of wind from his body pushed back all the students who had attacked him.

“Why are you just standing there?! Use mana!”

I heard a voice again and this time the students started attacking using the skills they had.

“I’m really sorry, Adrian.”

Those were the last things Aiden said before he turned his back to me and then he took a basic stance as he had learned.

‘Move, you idiot!’

My world suddenly brightened with Lithoa’s voice echoing in my head. All of the thoughts that had been rattling around in my head until just a moment ago quickly faded and I calmed down.

There were a few people who attacked me directly instead of Aiden, but I ignored them and thought.

Why did Aiden do such a thing? Why did he have the same eyes as that man…

I… I don’t know. I really don’t know, but one thing I do know is that he’s on my side right now.

I don’t know if I can trust him after what happened, especially after I realized how much he looks like that guy, but…

I guess… I’m happy.

One of the students swung his spear at me with a war cry, but his stance, his grasp, was so full of holes that I took a deep breath, not even paying attention to him.

The mana that had been hiding inside me until now suddenly exploded and spread throughout my body. Every part of my body, down to the cells, absorbed this mana and the world slowed down in my eyes.

I raised my spear and, using the style I had learned, I quickly lunged at the students who were attacking Aiden. I ignored all of the students who were lunging at me and just walked right up to them and then swung my spear horizontally.

The seven students targeting Aiden were thrown back by my attack as their screams filled the space.

“Holy shit…! Watch out, he’s strong!”

The students ignored Aiden after my attack and started attacking me.

They realized who the real danger was. So one of them swung his sword at me, but I blocked him with the blade of my spear and hit him hard in the face with the handle.

I ducked quickly when I heard a crack from behind me and a fireball shot out of me, hitting two of them.

About three people swung their weapons at me at the same time, but they were all knocked back as I spun my spear around my body.

The fight had only been going on for half a minute, but they were already wary of me. They were now keeping their distance from me instead of attacking recklessly.

I drove the shaft of my spear into the ground and looked at Aiden, who was watching the fight as if he had known this was going to happen all along.

“I hope you make your explanation good.”

A smile appeared on his face and he gripped his sword.

“You’ll agree with me.”

Those words were enough that I didn’t need to hear anymore.

I turned my back to him again.

I didn’t want him to see me crying because of the relief I felt, so I kept fighting.

*******

Honestly, I feel a bit bad… I was pretending to fight so as not to tire myself out, but shouldn’t I have let Adrian beat them all up?

“Now, explain.”

Adrian looked at me sternly, sweat pouring down his face as he stabbed his spear into the ground as a habit.

I could tell from one look that he was relieved, but I think he still had his doubts.

Well, he has a point. I would have doubted myself too.

“There was a group threatening me with my sister to crush you. So I had to pretend.”

I got the gist of it all in one go, and Adrian was stunned.

“Crush me? Is someone targeting me?”

“There’s a lot of people targeting you. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re really out of touch with life in this world.”

He doesn’t even know the simple things…

“In this world, especially in a kingdom like ours, the nobility is very much in the forefront. So for someone like you, who has no noble blood, to come out of nowhere and not only break records like a nobody but also come in the first place, not only gets on their nerves but also causes them a lot of trouble.”

“I… cause them problems?”

He’s not stupid, but he’s so naive.

“Very much so. So much so that they wanted to use me because I was your only friend. It’s my fault too… I shouldn’t have left my sister open like that.”

Adrian frowned with concern after my last sentence.

“But you haven’t betrayed me now? Isn’t your sister in danger then?”

“No, she’s not.”

I stepped aside and pointed to the spot where I had bent down when we first entered the clearing.

At the exact spot where I bent down, a glowing device stuck in the ground stood out.

“That fellow over there is an illusion device. I’ve prearranged everything so that anyone watching this area from the outside will think I’m fighting you along with those idiots we just beat up.”

Adrian raised his eyebrows like an enlightened scholar.

“And the students you deceived? Won’t they come to take revenge on you?”

Instead of answering Adrian, I smiled slightly.

Justin will definitely come after me when he finds out what happened, but I had already thought about that.

“You’ve already thought of everything, haven’t you…”

I widened my smile and again said nothing, so he knew that I approved of him.

He looked around him, specifically at the transparent sphere created by the illusion device, and sighed.

He was truly relieved. He was not full of anger or brain dead because he had let off steam after beating up the students.

“What do we do now?”

“It’s quite simple actually, we wait here until the device breaks down.”

“Excuse me?”

“The device can stay on for fifteen minutes, but if we supplement it with our own mana it should last for twenty. It’s already been a long time during the battle and even if it breaks down after a few minutes, it’ll be all over for them anyway.”

Adrian looked at me blankly, but I just let myself fall to the ground.

I was tired, even though I left almost everyone to Adrian and didn’t move a muscle.

It’s not easy to pretend…

Anyway, if I know the guy well enough, and I think I do in my six thousand hours in the game, I have nothing to worry about.

The people threatening me won’t even have time to mess with me.

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