As thin light slipped through the gap in the curtains, soft and pale, Soren pushed himself up from the edge of Lilliana's sofa and reached for his cloak.
Morning.
He did not need a clock to tell him; the air in her dorm already felt different from the night before, quieter, less like a shared secret and more like a place he was intruding on if he stayed too long.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" he asked, one hand on the doorknob.
Lilliana, still in her oversized nightshirt, hugged a cushion to her chest and nodded, her little bear ears twitching faintly.
"Mhm. I'll bring lunch again, don't run off again."
He smiled.
"I won't. Later."
"Bye, Ren."
The door shut behind him with a soft click.
On the walk back to his own dorm, the corridor was mostly empty.
A few early risers shuffled past in slippers, half-awake and clutching notebooks, but no one spared him more than a glance.
That suited him just fine.
He walked with his hands in his pockets, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips.
'She was really cute last night.'
The memory lingered with uncomfortable clarity, the way she had curled up beside him with her book, the way her ears had drooped when she talked about her past, and then the flush that had risen all the way to the tips when she had leaned down to drink his blood.
The closeness had been natural in a way that did not feel forced.
No expectations.
No demands.
Just two people leaning on each other.
After he had let her drink, the wall between them had thinned even more.
Whether it was because she had opened her heart to him again or simply because they were getting used to each other's presence no longer mattered.
For Soren, the result was simple.
He wasn't alone.
Every so often, his mind overlapped Aria's silhouette with Lilliana's, two figures in different worlds who somehow evoked the same aching warmth in his chest.
Aria, who had pulled him out of his family's house and given him somewhere to breathe.
Lilliana, who had pulled him out of his own head and given him somewhere to rest.
They both ignored distance in the same way.
They leaned in without asking.
They treated the space between them as something that belonged to them jointly, rather than something that needed to be guarded.
That familiarity had been suffocating once, back when he had only known how things ended.
Now, though, it felt like a hand at his back.
'So what should I do now?'
He let himself into his room and closed the door with his foot.
The quiet hit him all at once.
No humming water from Lilliana's bathroom, no clinking cups, no soft footsteps in the hall.
Just his own breathing and the faint rustle of the curtains.
'Study? Training hall?'
That had been the plan: return, cram a bit, then visit the training grounds to keep experimenting with off-hand circles.
It was logical, efficient.
Right now, however, logic and motivation were not matching up.
He dropped onto the edge of his bed and stared at the far wall.
Then an old idea bubbled up.
"Oh, right. The ring."
He clicked his tongue.
He had meant to do it for a while, ever since the status window had coughed up the [Inventory] function and he had realised just how suspicious it looked to pull items from thin air in the middle of the street.
On Earth, that would have been good for a social media career.
Here, it was a good way to get stabbed and interrogated.
"Spatial ring it is," he muttered. "Or… fake spatial ring, I guess."
He could already picture it: a simple metal band, etched with something that looked like an artificial magic circuit.
Nothing suspicious enough to scream "relic," but flashy enough to sell the excuse that he had bought it in some weird shop.
"I could also get a better axe…"
He flexed his fingers automatically.
Up until now, he had been using a basic, mass-produced iron handaxe, balanced for durability rather than finesse.
It had done its job, more or less, but after the gambling incident he had more than enough coin weighing down his pouch.
And gear meant survival.
He wasn't sentimental enough to pretend otherwise.
"...Axe."
The word circled his mind, and his gaze moved on its own to the corner of the room.
Leaning against the wall was the massive two-handed axe, Freya's weapon.
The axe the original Soren had worked himself half to death to bring to the academy.
Ever since reading Book 1 in the library, Soren had treated it like an altar piece.
He sharpened it, cleaned it, and polished the worn leather straps with care that bordered on reverence.
A quiet apology to the boy whose body he had taken.
'I wonder how strong it is?'
If Freya had considered it worth carrying, the axe had to be more than just a slab of metal.
She had stood on the edge of joining Trinity; her personal weapon would not be anything less than deadly.
That thought carried him out of bed.
He walked over and wrapped both hands around the haft.
The weapon lifted from the floor with a sluggish reluctance, as if it were testing him in return.
"Grrr… hhh…"
His arms trembled, and his shoulders screamed.
By the time he had raised it chest-high, he could feel his stamina bar dropping in real time.
"Ugh. Yeah, no. I don't think I can use you anytime soon."
He puffed out a breath and, with a grimace, shifted the weight just enough to slide the axe into his [Inventory].
The instant it vanished, the strain in his muscles eased, leaving only a dull ache behind.
'Someday, though…'
Not as a main weapon, two-handed axes didn't fit his style.
Just… something to swing once, properly, so he could say he had.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist, peeled off his clothes, and tossed them into a pathetic excuse for a laundry pile.
"Shower first, ring later," he muttered, heading for the bathroom.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
"Hmm~ Hmmmm~♪"
Later, clean and dressed, Soren walked down one of the main streets of the academy city with his hands in his pockets, quietly humming the tune Lilliana had been absentmindedly humming the day before while doing dishes.
He hadn't even realised he had started humming.
The sun was only just starting to climb properly, the light still soft rather than harsh.
The stone roads were mostly clear, save for a few groups of students in training gear, laughing as they headed toward the outer gates.
On weekends, the city never really slept.
It just changed customers.
Students and adventurers used their days off to clear nearby dungeons, collect materials, or simply test their limits somewhere they could swing steel without detention slips.
Shopkeepers had adapted quickly.
Most places opened early; the ones that didn't were either rich enough not to care or targeted at the kind of clientele who preferred the red-light district once the sun went down.
He passed one such district entrance, catching glimpses of gaudy signs and the faint smell of stale alcohol.
As expected from an academy full of people entering adulthood, there was a large market for both alcohol and ways to work off stress in less academic ways.
'Hard pass.'
He had enough regrets for two lifetimes already.
Gurgle…
Soren's stomach emitted a quiet, plaintive sound the moment the scent of sugar hit his nose.
Something sweet, fried, and absolutely not on any healthy meal plan drifted from further down the street.
'I guess I should eat something.'
Yesterday's accidental nap at Lilliana's meant he had slept through one of his meals entirely.
His mana could handle skipping food now and then, but his human body, frail as it was, still complained.
He followed his nose around the corner.
Nestled between a cafe shop and an empty stall was a small diner with wide glass windows and a hanging wooden sign.
Warm yellow light spilt from inside, catching on the dust motes in the air.
The smell grew stronger.
'Sold.'
————「❤︎」————