She slumped down on the nearest chair to recover after getting chewed and spat back out by the professor.
Let’s try not to get myself into her office again.
Lively students walked past her up and down the corridor. Everyone seemed to be rushing toward somewhere—most likely on their way to classes. It was Monday. Sitting at the side, she watched the passers-by the same way she would as she waited for the school bus to arrive. Wherever you were, people felt so familiar.
From the corner of her eyes, she noticed a tall figure walking up to her. Contrary to her expectation and silent prayers, the person stopped right in front of her to stare down without a word for a long time.
Just when Alira got comfortable with blankly staring at the wall dressed in a uniform before her, the aforementioned wall spoke.
“We need to talk.”
“You got the wrong person,” Alira said.
“Stop messing around.” Raine bent down to meet her eyes. He earnestly searched for an answer in them. From the imaginary frown lines that had started to form on his forehead, she guessed he couldn’t find what he wanted. “What else do you know? The deal you want, what is it?”
Alira turned her eyes away from his gaze, finding the ceiling more pleasant to look at. “Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We’ll start on Wednesday. Meet me at the library.”
“For what?”
Alira sprang up to her feet, their faces coming close together. It was his fault for invading into her space. Raine stepped back to put the much-needed distance between them, almost bumping into a group of girls behind him in the process. He said sorry without a smile. And Alira swore the girl melted into a puddle of blushing mess from that.
Taking advantage of Raine’s sudden busyness, thanks to his unintentional seduction of young women as always, Alira promptly made her escape.
“What a blessing to get people to like you without even trying,” she grumbled. She always had to try so hard to shoot her shots. And they would miss most of the time. She remembered her latest interest right before she got abducted from Earth. The cute barista girl. Her mood soured when she wondered if she’d lost her chance with the girl after all this.
{ Jealous? }
“No way,” Alira snarled.
The following moment, she squeezed her eyes shut in surrender and fought the urge to facepalm as she failed her attempt to ignore that specific voice in her head. Raine caught up to her thanks to the delay.
“For what?” Raine repeated himself. “Didn’t anyone teach you how to properly make a deal with someone?”
Alira shrugged. “I already got myself the deal. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“...” Raine held his breath for a moment and sighed at last, as if defeated. “Why not start today then? You made me wait two whole days already. We have the time to do whatever you want me to.”
“Why don’t you just kill me? I’m already half dead, so it wouldn’t take much effort,” Alira spat. She got discharged just yesterday. No one mourned for the wicked, apparently. “Plus, it’s lunchtime. A girl needs to eat. Or else, my girls won’t grow.”
She blamed her empty stomach for her terrible mood. Since that time she randomly lied about not feeling hungry, she found herself rarely ever getting hungry at all. So when she finally did, she made sure to fulfil all the wishes of her stomach.
Raine fell a step behind. “Your girls? ...Never mind. Forget I asked.”
The black-haired duo stepped into the common cafeteria building. Alira couldn’t believe Raine succeeded in convincing—actually, no, threatening—her to have lunch together.
{ You sure make it easy for others to deal with you. }
How was it her fault? What else could she do when Raine insisted that if they didn’t start today, the deal was totally off? She couldn’t tell for sure whether he was joking or not with that resting, dead serious look on his face.
Xia wasn’t any better either. Slamming the artifact Bridge open whenever he felt like it with no regard to her privacy. Alira could only keep shutting it down once she noticed, and he had been getting sneakier every day.
She wondered whether the goddess’s actual plan all along was for her to get bullied by the two protagonists to atone for her sins. Staywes might just be her personal hell. At least the devils were beautiful. She knew Raine was. While she didn’t know what Xia looked like, with all of his illustrations gatekeeping his face, the dozens of paragraphs solely dedicated to describing him promised a handsome one.
After the two of them had grabbed their lunch to go, they had to circle the campus thrice before finding a secluded spot with the least amount of staring eyes. Not zero, but there were few enough for her not to lose her appetite. With Alira having made it very clear that she wouldn’t be entertaining him during her meal, they wolfed down a tray of food that likely would cost her entire monthly budget back on Earth.
At least, she was eating well as the princess she was here. A duke’s daughter was a princess all right. Alira managed to recover most of her energy after a good meal, so she didn’t feel too reluctant to start with Raine today.
The two of them took the transportation spell to the Academy library. Alira was positive she would definitely miss such a fast and convenient travel method once she’d left this world. Earth could do better.
Looming titans with books as their scales greeted them as they walked out of the transportation chamber. The bookshelves stood tall in whichever direction she turned, circling the central lounge area lit up with brilliant light colored through the rose-stained glass window above. The first time Alira was here, she had spent a good few minutes stunned in place, taking all in with her jaw slack.
Alira found an empty corner, taking her spot on a bay window to get down to business.
Maria was having her extra class as a magic specialist, which the two of them didn’t have as generalist students. Without the girl around, Alira had to regress back to using the classic storage medium called a backpack, from which she brought out a book three fingers thick. This was a different book from the one she had been writing down everything she knew from the novel—that one would be her final goodbye gift to Raine.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Raine pulled a chair in front of her to sit on it. He stared directly at her, hands on his lap, prepared to handle whatever fate she would bestow on him. He appeared almost tense, his posture stiff, as he glanced at the leather-bound book in her hands as if it contained spells that would eat him up.
Alira tossed the heavy book to Raine. He caught it easily, the book seeming to weigh less than it did when she held it. He turned through the first few pages of the book as his pretty face wrinkled in confusion. Alira took in each of his features and had a thought that no man should be allowed to look this beautiful. Then, she remembered that Raine was actually a woman in disguise. Fair enough.
“Alchemy,” Raine murmured. “Are you saying this has something to do with my mother?”
Alira felt a twinge in her chest when Raine snapped the book closed. She spent hours on dozens of textbooks, taking notes to craft this masterpiece on the topic. And this ungrateful person didn’t marvel at its greatness. Back on Earth, people would die and kill to get her notes. Alira wasn’t crowned first in every class because of her cute face.
She shook her head no. “There are six sections in the book for you to study. I will...ask for an answer to your question for every ten alchemist’s ranking you progress through.”
The plan was to basically act as Raine’s personal system to reward and motivate him until he was as powerful as she needed him to be. Despite the fact that this was an all-win, no-loss deal for him, Raine’s face didn’t light up as Alira expected.
She still couldn’t guess what was brewing in his noggin, even as someone who knew him better than anyone else.
“I will give you a free one,” Alira said, “for a taste of it.”
Raine tossed the book, which disappeared into the air. It wasn’t the same as the spatial magic she’d seen Maria use. With her novel knowledge, Alira guessed it was Air Pocket, one of his many artifacts.
“Tell me about the artifact,” Raine said.
Alira’s eyelids twitched. “Nope. Ask about something else.”
“Why?” Raine spat.
“No means no. Do you want to hear it in Rafelian? Ha’ek.” Alira lifted her chin, smirking.
Raine inhaled. “About my mother...”
Alira shook her head before he finished. “I don’t know.”
Even at the end of book three, after Raine tore down House Ravon, there wasn’t solid enough evidence regarding who killed his mother, let alone one that pointed to the duchy’s direct involvement.
“Fine. Tell me about the cultists, then. The professors and even the Vice-headmaster refused to speak a word about who they were.” Raine trailed off, seemingly lost in thought. A second later, he quickly added, “Don’t tell me things I can find out from mercenaries.”
Mycorrhiza merchant guild had been Raine’s main source of information throughout the novel after he’d formed an eyebrow-lifting friendship with one of the guild leaders. Alira considered for a few moments what information she could give to Raine that they couldn’t. Outwardly, she pretended to have some sort of divine visions with her eyes closed to remain enigmatic to the protagonist.
The cause of death of his mother remained a mystery until the furthest point of the novel she’d seen. Alira didn’t know whether she should blame herself or the goddess for not reading or seeing the novel until the end. She couldn’t remember why she stopped reading it, so she wouldn’t blame herself for it. Surely, it was the goddess’s fault—she should have and could have made sure Alira stayed awake for long enough.
Warmth caressed her back from the sunlight that had crept in through the window behind. Alira felt like she was playing a prophet too hard. The world around her seemed to slow down and sharpen at the same time. Without her vision, every little sound was more pronounced than it was. She could hear faint whispers echoing throughout the library and muted chirps from among the trees right outside the building.
The smell of old books and the steak she had just eaten mixed in her nose. Huh. Alira caught the scent of iron. Within the solid black that was the back of her eyelids, she somehow made out darker black that resembled the figure of a person. Was it Raine approaching her? The figure came from her left, moving right past her, and it crouched, falling down to bow on all four.
A frown emerged on Alira’s face. She turned her head toward where the figure was bowing. There she saw another taller, darker shadow. It stood still like a statue. Alira ‘looked’ harder, squinting her eyes shut tightly. Both shadows appeared to be of women. She ‘glanced’ upward to the taller shadow. There were no features or details—the ‘face’ shifted. Its ‘eyes’ met Alira.
Alira’s eyes shot open, her heart drumming. She jerked too hard and ended up falling off her seat onto the floor.
What. The. Fuck.
Through her shaken-up field of view, Alira saw her ‘old friends’ crawling into existence.
[ fiend: My guess is that she doesn’t have the complete original novel, but rather has visions that include fragments of it. If that’s the case, her Role should actually be a Prophet, not a Transmigrator that most outsider narrators have. ]
[ Reader1236: What’s the difference? ]
[ fiend: Not much. ‘Seeing the future’ is what the Transmigrator Role allows, anyway. They normally read about the ‘original’ timeline. The runes she could see made sense. They could be a form of prophecy in her world’s language. ]
“What’s wrong?” Raine said. She registered his voice just enough to quickly shush him.
“Give me a second,” Alira said. They were finally discussing something she’d been waiting for. She didn’t forget to solemnly turn her gaze down as if she were in deep thought.
[ AllHailMother: Mother! That was Mother just now! I bet on my vocal cord!! Great Mother!!! ]
Mother? The creepy, tall woman? Alira inhaled with difficulty. For some reason, when she met eyes with that being, she thought about Lady Goddess’s dead fish grey eyes.
[ LoveFurries: ? < AllHailMother > No one wants your vocal cord, damn bird. ?? ]
[ AllHailMother: ? < LoveFurries > Got a problem with birds? ]
[ LoveFurries: ? < AllHailMother > Yea u squeak too loudly ?? ]
Come on, guys...
[ fiend: ...Guys, does no one care about the story? Reminder that the camping period is almost here. ]
[ salty-as-sea-salt: Don’t talk to me. Busy trying to get a refund. Can you believe no one died?? I was hoping that at least the purple girl would end up dead. This SUCKS. The entire class died in og novel, but somehow MC saves everyone with zero casualties. -100000/10 ]
[ Reader1236 (Guest1236*): ? < fiend > So, here’s what we know so far (feel free to correct me, but I’m sure I’ve got everything right):
- Alira is a transmigrator → Scene 1 & 2
- She mentions ‘original novel’ and that Raine is the protagonist → Scene 4
- She definitely doesn’t have complete knowledge of the original novel or know the ending (She has limited knowledge, for example, of the Duke being a Grand Alchemist.) Though this could be because she followed Raine in the original novel, and he didn’t know or didn’t mention.
- She claims she ‘sees’ the future, drops oh-I’m-so-mysterious words → Scene 22
So, it could be that:
- She read the original novel before the transmigration, and the prophet thing is just a cover.
- She gained the ability to see the original novel after transmigration (her Role), and the ability is Prophet.
But! If she could see the future, she would’ve known how the spell worked and that it would summon the cultists once triggered. She didn’t—she didn’t panic when the spell was triggered, only when the cultist showed up. All she knew was that there was a Lock spell that trapped the students and prevented outside interference. This would make sense if she’s relying (heavily) on her knowledge from the original novel. After all, Raine wouldn’t have known how the spell was layered, only what it did.
It seems to me, you’re more aligned with B. But I would argue it’s A and that she’s just really good at faking it. ]
[ fiend: ? < Reader1236> True. Only you’re assuming that the prophetic abilities would be comprehensive and detailed. It could be that she just hasn’t mastered it yet. Plus her reaction just now seems pretty real. She actually looks like she saw something. I think her Role does allow her to see the future. ]
[ fiend: One more thing. A and B aren’t mutually exclusive. As I said, the difference between Transmigrator and Prophet Role is really not much. So, a mix of both? She has read the novel (not until the end), and her Role is a prophet. It sounds right. She’s a prophet because she knows the future through the novel, and her Role lets her see bits of what she didn’t know from the novel.
[ fiend: We can literally reach inside her head and read her thoughts, so I don’t think she can fake it to us that well... More importantly, she had no reason whatsoever to. Unlike the Outer camp, the Native camps aren’t aware of us, after all. The Balance makes sure of that. ]
With this, we're getting closer to the mid-point of Book 1, as Alira tangles up the OG plot more and more. I sure hope things go her way, and that she doesn't end up stepping on her own tail. ^^