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Chapter 64: The First Time I Met Him

"Pftt--Cough!Cough!"

I turned toward the sound of the person coughing only to be met with none other than Julianna, who was sitting in the corner of the cafe on one of the two cushioned seats that were around the circular round table.

This gotta be a joke

"Y-You, w-what are you–"

"Calm the fuck down. Let\'s talk once I order something"

Once I made my order, I sat down on the empty cushioned seat, face to face with Julianna, as I laid Lucy on the ground, letting the rod on the circular table support her back, which didn\'t work and she fell sideways on the floor.

I decided to just ignore her.

Julianna sipped on her iced latte as her eyes followed Lucy on the ground and then me as she finally popped the question.

"So? If you don\'t give a good enough explanation, I will report you" With her eyebrow arching, she declared.

"I found her unconscious, I just wanted to eat something, so I went looking for any place that might be open and now I am stuck with this girl" I replied.

It wasn\'t a lie.

Not completely.

"...And you thought it was better to come and eat first instead of taking her to the health center?" Is she tryna be passive-aggressive with me?

"That is exactly it"

"You are unbelievable" her voice dripped with exasperation as she shook her head.

I rested my head on the table, I was tired. I had spent 36 straight hours in the virtual world, and right now I was too exhausted to engage myself.

The virtual tech made everything feel as real as the physical world—the passage of time, hunger, sensations, and even the impact on your brain. That meant, while your body remained unharmed, your mind didn\'t. Any trauma or mental strain faced there carried into reality. If your brain died in the virtual world, chances were, it\'d happen in the real one too. But that kind of advanced tech wasn\'t for everyone—only the rich or powerful had access to it.

What kind of virtual tech I have? Duh, the high-level one.

How? I stole it from Enyo\'s world.

Anyway, the point was with the time spent in the virtual world and after what happened with Lucy, I wasn\'t really in the mood for any other crap.

I need to think about what I am going to do with Lucy once she wakes up.

Just then, the waitress brought my order, a grilled cheese sandwich and an expresso. I turned towards her to express my thanks but all I could say was

"Um.... did you come earlier than us?"

The waitress in front of me was undoubtedly a girl who seemed to be around the same age as me, in other words, she was also a student in the academy, not the person I had given the order to.

But I still knew her.

Well, duh I did. She is fucking member of the main cast.

Ketharine, Ketharine Wright.

"I did" she replied, a little taken aback by my out of nowhere question but she quickly understood what I me

"What\'s the pay like? Not in the normal currency since we are only allowed that AP shit that the academy introduced us about" I asked.

I knew from the novel that she had been working a part-time job in the academy but not where exactly, not only that I also didn\'t know how much her job paid her.

Ketharine Wright wasn\'t raised in the slums or anything but she wasn\'t some rich or even a middle-class citizen, her family barely made ends meet. When Kethraien left her house, she didn\'t really buy anything with her, she left with just her old clothes and spent most of the time in the academy with the classes, trying her best to keep her scholarship as well as working part-time jobs and sending money to her family.

The AP that she has could be converted into money and sent to the outside world, and that was what she planned on doing.

It went without saying that she barely made any friends until she got tangled with other main cast characters.

"650 AP a month" She replied and with a little hesitation she continued with a question "She is—"

"She is asleep. Heavy sleeper." I shrugged at Ketharine whose eyes darted around the unconscious Lucy and me.

I could also feel Julianna glaring daggers at me.

Ketharine after a moment of silence, spoke up "I understand. Please, enjoy your meal" With a bow she was ready to leave but she seemed to notice Julianna\'s glass which was empty, Julianna had finished drinking, which she did with her mask on which she wore when she saw me coming towards her.

Julianna really seemed to be hell-bent on not showing her face.

"Would you like a refill?" Ketharine asked.

"Hm? Uh, no." Julianna replied and then continued with her own question "Why did you take a job with only 650 AP? I don\'t mean to offend you but it doesn\'t really sound like a good offer"

At her question, I just decided to begin eating. Does she think we are going to get 20,000 AP every month?

"This was one of the best offers I\'ve received. With how few customers come in at night, I have plenty of time on my hands to use however I wish."

"I see...." Julianna seemed not convinced but decided to not pursue the topic.

With that Ketharine left, she is probably going to resume her studies behind the counter, that\'s how she usually spent her time according to the novel.

"What do you think would be acceptable pay?" I asked taking a bite of my grilled sandwich.

"Around 1500 or something"

Oh, she is up in the clouds. She is so up in the clouds that there\'s no coming back.

Man, it\'s gonna be fun when she finds out the amount she is going to get next month from the school.

I should prepare some popcorn and cola when that time comes.

"Enough about this. You, you just lied to her about this girl?" Julianna barked at me with a whisper.

Hm? Julianna was kind of considerate in a weird way.

Even back when we were in the class and I had lied to the professor, Julianna didn\'t out me and right now as well.

In a sense, she was the type of person to not snitch, or more accurately if she saw a murder happen and saw the culprit, she wouldn\'t tell the police or anyone else who the culprit was but at the same, she wouldn\'t try to save the culprit either.

In cases like this, it was mostly because either the person didn\'t like troublesome stuff or they themselves had secrets to hide.

Whichever the case it was, Julianna couldn\'t be considered an upright person, her moral compass didn\'t align with good but she didn\'t seem to be a bad person either, which meant her actions would mostly depend on the circumstances.

"I did"

"And you lied so easily. It\'s making me hard to believe you just found her on the road" So, you are suspicious?

"Just ask her then," I said, pointing at the twitching Lucy, who seemed to be regaining her consciousness.

I took a sip from my espresso as Lucy slowly stood up from the ground, her eyes darting from me to Julianna to the cafe around her, Julianna looked at Lucy with concern as she voiced out "Are you okay?"

But Lucy didn\'t answer her, rather she glared at me with wariness in her eyes.

"Where are we?"

At her words, Julianna who was looking at Lucy in concern turned towards me and asked "Why does it seem like she knows you? You said you just found her unconscious"

I decided to not look at either of the two, actually either of the three. I could feel ketharine looking at us from the counter. So, I just looked at my expresso and took slow sips from it.

"We are in a restaurant. I knocked you out earlier."

"Oh god! You fucking abducted her!?" Julianna slammed the table while Lucy took a step back with raised wariness.

I take back what I said, Julianna wasn\'t the type to watch a murder happen and not tell the police about it, she was the type to shout so loud that before the police came, the murderer would find her and kill her.

"Um.. should I call the authorities!?" It was Katharine who posed the question to the two brats, as she shrieked.

Julianna silently looked at Lucy, which made sense. In the end, Lucy is the one who has to make a call.

"Come on, what are you thinking about, you gotta report this asshole!" Julianna tried to convince Lucy.

Lucy with her eyebrows arching, stared at me for a few seconds before she brought another seat and placed it between Julianna and me.

"Thank you for the concern but there\'s no need for that. Please bring me a classic mocha."

"Oh, okay!"

Of course, Lucy couldn\'t really call the authorities even if she wanted to. I was sure she had screwed around with the cameras where we were and removed herself from the video, that was why she came to meet me, coz she wouldn\'t be recorded.

But if the investigation were to begin right now and I tell them where I knocked her unconscious, everything would start becoming contradictory and well, she might get caught.

There\'s no way, she doesn\'t realize it. She is the person with the highest intelligence stat after Noah.

The second and the only survivor of the experiment which Noah was part of.

Soon after, Ketharine brought Lucy\'s order, and I focused on my food, Julianna remained silent, not knowing what to say, and similarly, ketharine also remained silent observing the situation from behind the counter.

Lucy remained silent, sipped on her mocha, and seemed to be contemplating with her calm expression, once her drink was finished, she spoke in a composed tone.

"I seemed to have lost my cool back then. Let\'s continue our conversation from before in the room." her serious eyes locked with mine, and she seemed to have notched her wariness down a level toward me.

Nah, man.

No matter how you cut it.

"With that mocha mustache that you got, it\'s hard to take you seriously. Well, you are rocking the look though."

At my words, Lucy froze, her hand instinctively hovered over her face, her eyes darting at Julianna, who simply averted her eyes which resulted in Lucy\'s embarrassment becoming worse. Flustered she hurriedly used the tissue to wipe it off.

The calm composure that she was managing was gone, replaced with a flushed face and red ears.

.

.

.

.

"If something happens just shout I will come running. I am in the room across the hall."

We can see that Julianna, Lucy simply smiled at her and replied "I will for sure"

What kind of bullshit are they on about?

"You both know that the rooms are noise-proof, right?" I said and as expected Julianna didn\'t like it.

"Huh!? Why do you know the rooms are noise-proof? Did you test it? I am telling you gal, you should not be alone with this fucker! There\'s no knowing what he might do! What if he tries to kill you this time? I think I should come with you" Julianna urged, what kind of image does she have of me?

"I can\'t trouble you this late at night. I will be fine. The academy is also always watching through the cameras if he were to try something, I am sure the academy would help out."

What kind of response was that?

"Do you think I will kill you?" I asked.

This is absurd.

"You knocked me unconscious"

"You should shut the fuck up"

Lucy and Julianna both shot their replies quite fast.

My character is being questioned here and I don\'t like it but I can understand their frustration, before coming back to the dormitory we had hit the arcade and they both lost to me miserably.

But I just decided to shut up and wait for Lucy to deal with Julianna.

I was still hungry, I had eaten the grilled cheese sandwich with an expresso but that wasn\'t really enough, I wanted to eat a burger but my stock was over and I needed to wait till morning and refill my burger stock from the shop.

I was going to put them all in my dimensional storage ring since they will remain preserved at their original temperature. Another one of the good things about the dimensional storage.

Julianna reluctantly entered her room, still looking at Lucy with concern, and then, glaring at me, her face was hidden as always behind that mask and her hoody, but I could tell when someone glares at me.

"If you did anything t–"

"Shut up, can we just ignore her and go inside the room?" I turned towards Lucy as I opened the door and urged her to enter it which Lucy slowly did then I entered the room and before I closed the door I spoke up "Fuck you"

Before she could reply I shut the door close and her voice cut off.

Lucy was standing still, her fingers tapping on the holographic blue-colored screen. It was a tablet, in this world, the tablet was the size of a small 12 cm scale, which you could carry around with you. It\'s the holographic screen, something that didn\'t require a physical form.

I swear, I am taking all the tech that doesn\'t involve magic and shit back to my world and earning myself a fortune, hell lot of fortune.

Removing my shoes, I started walking towards the living room as I spoke up.

"You can do whatever you are doing while following me, right?"

Lucy didn\'t reply but quietly followed me.

I sat down on the sofa and she took the seat on the other side of the table.

Soon after, done with whatever she was doing, she closed her tablet and put it inside her pocket.

"We can talk now," Lucy said.

I nodded.

In just a minute or so, she hacked into the system and made sure our conversation wouldn\'t be heard or recorded.

Yup, her skills are important to me.

"So–"

"Does in your world, people don\'t offer the guest any drinks?" Before I could speak Lucy cut me off.

"You just had a mocha, you indulged in it enough to get a –" She cut me off again.

"Don\'t you dare say it"

I slowly nodded.

I am okay with people glaring at me and all that but did I just feel a killing intent?

She just seriously let out a killing intent towards me over this?

The hell is wrong with her?

"So, now you believe that I am from a different world? What\'s with the change of mood? Also you can just go in the kitchen and take whatever you want from there."

At least it means she was listening to me back then but what changed to her to finally stop going in a frenzy and a talk with me now?

I thought once she woke up she would go bonkers on me again but she seemed quite calm.

"I still don\'t, what I know is that you are definitely not Noah. It\'s just... you seemed to be wary of me"

"...What?"

"You are wary of me, it wasn\'t like that when we met but then suddenly you jumped back and became wary of me before you knocked me unconscious, and ...you have been wary of me this whole time"

Was I that obvious? No way.

"How could you tell" I asked.

I am not some amateur who would get caught this easy.

"It was the same." Her voice came out in a whisper and honestly, I didn\'t know what she meant but then she looked at my eyes and spoke up.

"The way you reacted. It was the same when I met Noah the first time"