NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 254: Anxious Heart.
All night-long duels rang out through the ballroom. After the way I started things out everyone was too excited to get any sleep, and because of that, there weren’t any rogues sneaking around trying to steal marks either. In an ironic twist, I ended up causing what was probably the most honorable first day in academy history…
Isy dozed off a few times only to be woken by a loud cheer, but I stayed alert, looking for potential new members for my guild. Someone strong was ideal, but the strongest all had formed their own guilds, bringing their friends along with them. Since I lived tucked away my whole life I had no acquaintances, and I didn’t really feel like trying to sneak my way into clicks that formed years ago without me, so my ideal candidate would be a really strong commoner girl who was honest, but didn’t care about all the garbage the nobles cared about… Of course… That girl didn’t exist… There were a few, but they all seemed a bit to… sneaky. Just from looking around it seemed that for some reason commoners still worked like normal humans, in other words, there was a larger gap in strength between males and females, so even finding a commoner girl at all was extremely hard, much less one that was strong enough.
‘Having a guy wouldn’t be that bad… I guess…’ I sighed. ‘Maybe it would only be awkward for a little while, once I got to know him it would be just like talking to Finlo right?’ I paused, scrunching up my shoulders as I shook a little, trying to think about him. ‘On second thought… I’d be a lot more comfortable if we were all girls, at least to start out… Maybe a noble would be fine, they just can’t be all uptight about the whole honor thing… Otherwise, we might but heads when I start using basic tactics like retreating…’
I sighed again resting my eyes, starting to feel the strain from analyzing so many people at once. ‘I need to let my manna recover, if I spend too much I won’t be able to enhance my body if I need to…’
Before I knew it the sun had risen and the door to the outside world had been unlocked. I was still empty-handed, but I survived I guess.
“Huh? What’s going on…” Isy groaned. “I’m so tired… I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without sleep.”
“They’re letting us out, we can go back to the room and get some rest there.”
“Oh…” She yawned, softly squeaking. “Good idea…”
The more I walked with her the more I started to smile. Although the exact reason perplexed even me. After exiting the ballroom she went the wrong way, forgetting how to leave the building, and then after leaving the building she confidently walked off in the opposite direction our dorm was in… I wasn’t sure she was really all that directionally challenged so much as just dead tired, but it made me glad I was there too look after her… And a bit worried about what might happen if I sent her out on her own again.
When we finally made it back to our… Or I guess my room, she immediately collapsed on the floor, stretching out on the soft carpeting, rubbing against it like a cat before letting her whole body go limp. “Finally, I can relax… But now it’s daytime…” She groaned. “Now that the sun's up it’s almost like I’m not even tired anymore…”
‘You could have fooled me…’ “It may feel like that, but trust me, you’ll fall asleep as soon as you try, take the bed so you can properly rest your shoulder. I’ll sleep on the ground.”
“Can I really?” She asked excitedly, jumping onto the bed and lying down before I answered.
“Yea of course.” I closed the curtains, but since my eyes were perfect in the dark, it didn’t actually make me feel much more tired at all.
“Oh, before I forget. I had my blankets sitting in the shower, and they were left untouched for some reason, so I actually have those still if you want them. I left them over there.” She pointed to the corner of the room.
I slowly grabbed them before lying down. “Why were they in the shower?”
“The room was way too big… And I wasn’t comfortable sleeping on a bed… So I was planning on sleeping in there. It felt safer…”
‘Yet you seem comfortable sleeping on my bed… Well, whatever.’ “Goodnight Isy.” ‘She dozed off a few times, so let’s try for 6 hours of sleep and wake up early, that way we're still up before noon and can do some work. In case something happens though I’ll have to sleep lightly.’
I closed my eyes and dozed off, all of my senses heightened to the max. Eventually, they alerted me enough to wake me, but not enough to warrant me jumping to my feet. A soft sniffling came from the bed next to me. ‘It’s been a few hours, shouldn’t she be passed out? Is she sick now? That wouldn’t be good… But if her constitution is as high as Lu’s then not even poison would keep her down for long.’’
I slowly brought myself back up to my feet and looked over at her to see her body shivering as if it was cold. She was curled up under the blankets and as I slowly peered over her, I could see pretty plainly that her cheeks were wet. ‘Maybe she just had a bad dream?’
“Hey Isy… You uh… You feeling alright?”
“Not really… Hey uh… Not every day is going to be like this– Or I guess yesterday… Right? Or… Sorry, we should be getting sleep, even if it is, not sleeping would only make it even worse right…”
‘It’s funny how tough she is… While also being really soft… To say she had a rough day is kind of an understatement…’
“The bed is really soft… But when I lay in one I always feel like I’m going to get yelled at… So I end up being too nervous to sleep… I thought I’d be too tired for that to matter but… I had a nightmare that woke me up so… Then I started thinking about how I was going to spend the next several years here… I mean a few months and I could survive… But years?”
‘Yeah… I know how that feels.’
She sniffled again, wiping her nose as she rolled over, staring blankly into what must have been a black void in her eyes from how dark it was. “I just need to start with making it through a weak… Then I know I can go a month… Maybe by then I won't even miss home anymore… Or maybe tomorrow will be even worse…” Her voice suddenly fell flat.
Her words in a way were confident and full of drive, but that confidence seemed false, and her voice shaky. ‘I don’t think either of us will get much more sleep at this rate… But if we get up now we will probably crash long before we finish everything we have to do today…’ I sighed. ‘It’s starting to feel like sometimes everyone needs a big sister looking after them.’ Lifting up the blankets I crawled into the bed next to her. It was so cramped that I almost felt like I was hanging off even when we were touching, which I wasn’t really expecting to be honest. From the way she stiffened up, I imagined she was as embarrassed as I was, but eventually, she moved over, creating a little more space. “H-hey, what are you doing? Oh, I can sleep on the floor if you change your mind…” She eventually muttered.
“Just lay back down, we can share. If anyone bursts in here trying to yell at you I’ll just beat them up.”
“Share, but that’s… We can’t do that?”
‘And yet, you’re no longer shaking and significantly more relaxed…’ I sighed again. “You’re not going to wet the bed are you?”
“NO! I don’t! I don’t normally have that kind of problem!”
“Then it’s fine… I’m tired so just go to sleep already…”
She let out an uncomfortable groan, and after a short pause, sat up again, standing all the way up on the bed before jumping over me, tripping in the dark, and letting out a dramatic yelp as she fell.
‘Ugh…’ “What are you doing now?”
After standing up she felt around, as if trying to make sure she was ok while I opened the curtains a little to let some light into the room. “I’m going to the bathroom…”
‘Yeah… It was probably too soon to bring that up…’ In the end, though she came back, much calmer than before, and fell into a sleep so deep I couldn’t even recognize her heartbeat. It was almost more like a coma if anything.