As I looked Kyle in the face, I recognized that he looked much worse. The kid's definitely lost sleep.
"Hunh? What'd you say?" He asked.
I reminded him once again. "I forgot where my dorm room is. Do you remember where it is?"
Kyle looked, concerned. "Uhh... Who... are you?"
Great. A questionaire.
"Arthur. Arthur Leo." I said, with a charismatic smile. My movements were meant to be very comforting, but I could tell it weirded him out a bit.
I shook his hand, and he said something strange. "My name is Lyke. Lyke Gra-"
He quickly adjusted his words, and re-introduced himself clumsily. "It's Kyle."
Did he just... lie? Either way, now I was unsure if his name was Kyle or not.
Was it Kyle? Or was it Lyke?
"Well, nice to meet you, maybe we could hang out sometime." I said, feigning happiness. "Anyway, about my dorm room..."
At that, Kyle stood up straight and laughed. "Haha! I'm sorry. I'm new here too, Arthur. I don't have any knowledge of the interior. Didn't you recieve one of those information techbooks? I thought everyone had them."
I have no idea what the fuck that was, you stupid little abortion.
At least, my inner thoughts couldn't be portrayed out loud. I made up a response in reaction.
"Oh, uh. Yeah. I got one, but I lost it." That's all I was gonna say. The less information given, the better.
For example, if I had given an excuse, and said something along the lines of the techbook being "Broken", I'd probably have to explain how it broke. Getting caught in a lie was the worst possible outcome.
In contrast, saying that I lost it means that I don't have to explain how, I could simply say that I didn't know where I lost it. Plus, if there's a lost & found box or something, I could have easily gotten it.
"Oh", Kyle said, "Well, you'd have to go to Lake personally for that. She's the one who controls the techbooks, and losing it is a big no-no. You'd be screened HARD. Plus, they'd have to do a thorough examination."
FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.
"Oh, don't worry Kyle. I lost it in my dorm room, thats why i'm asking. I still know where it is."
At that moment, my brain did a double take.
Lake? I knew her! How couldn't I?
She was the woman who was trapped in my dreams, and the only other person to help me beat Libertas 8 years ago.
Nostalgic memories rushed through me, and I nearly shed a tear.
I couldn't keep it together, but I had to be strong at that moment. I simply had to pretend I didn't know her & move on with the conversation.
"Hey, do you wanna sit with us?" Kyle asked.
There was NO way in hell I was going to sit around lunch & relax, when the REAL Arthur Leo was romping around campus.
In humor, I asked him, "Us? You mean that there are more?"
Kyle laughed. "Yeah, Arthur. There are 3 others that I made friends with. We should hang out."
I tried to shut this conversation down, but a familiar face came from behind Kyle.
"Hey, Kyle. Is this guy joining us?"
To my shock, it was her, the Wild Animal. I remember fighting her in that forest.
"Ah, sorry. I'm not joining you two. I apolo-"
"Of course he is. He already promised." Kyle interrupted me, enthusiastically.
I thought a million different ways to kill him at that moment. I wanted to skin him alive.
Now, I had no choice but to sit with these fucking inbreds, and they were certain to prevent me from killing Arthur Leo.
"Kill the boy. Further the plot."
Meanwhile, this STUPID orb was continually repeating this phrase so much my ears nearly started bleeding!
"Sure. I guess I'll join in." I reluctantly agreed.
I saw a familiar girl, who waves at me. Kyle smiled. It's her.
"Shit." I mumbled in a grumpy tone. The girl waving at us, whose table we just sat at. She was the same stupid fucking girl that was in Krieg's daughter's room. The one I audibly gagged at, because she was an ugly moron.
The 2 of us sat down with her, and I couldn't stomach this interaction.
"Arthur. Why have you been avoiding me? Didn't you love me?"
I quickly shut it down.
"No. I'm not attracted to you."
Thank me later, real Arthur Leo. Women are trouble, and this one seems incredibly ugly, and definitely annoying. I'm doing you a favor. You can do better than this.
At least, that's what I told myself. I expected her to cry, but instead, she instantly turned to Kyle. "Okay. What about you, Kyle? Do you have a girlfriend? Let's date!"
Wow. She got over that quickly.
Either way, I was glad she wasn't pissing me off any more.
From the conversation, I learned that her name was Sophie.
Kyle was kind of confused. "So... you two know each other? How'd you meet?"
Oh fuck! He was looking directly at both me, and Sophie.
"Well, you tell the story, Kyle. You're always good at telling the story. It was really funny, too." Sophie added.
I had to quickly think of an excuse. "Look, i'm kinda tired. Can we not tell this story again. Let's just say we met due to fate. Anyway, Kyle. What's your story? How'd you end up here?"
As I said that, Kyle tried pushing back. "It's not that important. Anyway, I'm really curious how you two met now."
Before I was able to respond, another woman sat down at our table. She was much, much older. She seemed to be around 20.
"Ah... Cinderella. It's you." Sophie called out to her.
"Cinder...ella?" I questioned. "Like the movie?"
They all looked at me. "What movie?"
Uh oh. I goofed. These people weren't transmigrators, and I just mentioned something from Earth.
But why? Why was her name Cinderella? It just didn't make any sense.
I quickly made an addendum. "Oh, sorry. I don't know what i'm talking about, forget it."
Cinderella interrupted me. "Art... why are you acting so weird? Did something happen with Bart again?"
Bart? Who the fuck was Bart? This was way too much information to process. Far too many names at once. I figured it'd be pointless to memorize all of them. I just stuck to the things that were easy to remember. Kyle was here, along with the Wild Animal, and 2 other girls.
I stopped bothering to remember names, anyway.
For a moment, I looked into Cinderella's eyes, and realized that she was insanely beautiful. She had pale white skin, and bright blue eyes.
I blushed, but quickly snapped back to reality.
"Look, i'm just a little under the weather today."
As I said that, a strange woman walked by us. She stared at us with a superior expression.
I recognized her, but couldn't remember exactly who she was.
She had this smug, almost 'I'm better than you' look.
All 5 of us looked at her, as if entranced by her beauty.
"Who is that?" Kyle asked.
"You don't know?" Sophie lamented. "That's the Puppetmaster. A Chaotic Demon turned Celestial Angel. People like her, they're different from us."
Cinderella also piped up. "Yeah, everyone wants to be a Celestial Angel like her. Unfortunately, us normies are stuck as just soldiers. We don't even have the right to stare at her feet."
Wow. What was wrong with these people? I was confused at their self-doubt and insecurity.
Plus, I didn't think that Puppetmaster lady was all that great. When she walked by, I could definitely smell a foul stench coming from her. And her skin, why did it look so... fragile? Like it wasn't real.
Clearly, I'd met that Puppetmaster woman before, but I couldn't, for the life of me, remember.
Either way, she was irrelevant. She just walked by, and we didn't see her again.
Kyle, however, spat out his food in detestation. "Chaotic Demons. They'd all just betray you eventually. Why do you even care if those people have superpowers anyway?"
Sophie sarcastically retorted, "You don't think she's that special? But... she's an amazing Celestial Angel. You know what I heard? I heard she fought... the Freedom Junkie!"
Kyle, instantly spat out his food & stood up. "I've gotta go."
Clearly, he was uncomfortable.
Sophie asked me directly, "Do you know what's up with him? Seemed like he got angry for no reason whatsoever."
I smiled with uncertainty. "Look, I don't... I just met him? I dunno why you're asking me."
Luckily for me, I now remembered exactly who that woman was. She was one of those Chaotic Demons that attacked me in the forest. She worked with the Arsonist to try to kill me. She had porcelain skin, and was very unnerving.
Hopefully, I wouldn't be seeing much of her afterwards.
At that point, Cinderella pointed over to a spot near the edge of the cafeteria, stopping our discussion entirely. "Hey, Art. That guy looks just like you."
I looked over, only to see, on the far end of the cafeteria, my target.
The real Arthur Leo!
It was unmistakable. Down to the last minute detail, we shared every feature. It was him.
"Oh, that's a coincidence. Anyway, I have to go back to my dorm. Maybe I'll speak to him on the way there." I said, feigning ignorance.
I wasn't even remotely certain that they bought it, but I quickly got up, and faded into the crowd.
My excuse was rushed, and they could clearly tell something was amiss, but I had to ignore them for the time being. My real focus was on the shitstain I needed to kill.
I thought to myself, if I just followed the real Arthur Leo, I'd find out where his dorm room is, I could steal his techbook, or whatever the heck it is, and I could even take over his life & make it easier to 'befriend' Kyle.
Of course, all of this was leading up to me being able to kill Kyle.
I began to stalk Arthur Leo, but he sat back down, eating alone.
It wasn't an ideal situation. I waited.
Eventually, he finished eating his food, and got up to leave the cafeteria, but before he could, he stopped to talk to someone.
"God damn it, kid! Just move already!" I grumbled.
He really was a playboy! Talking to a woman, who was clearly attracted to him. This Arthur kid clearly wasn't new to smooth talk. Unfortunately, this was very bad for me, because it seemed like he was going to move out of the cafeteria, with this chick along with him.
As I tried following them both, a giant projector screen lit up the entire cafeteria.
It was absolutely massive, and it illuminated the whole cafeteria.
Then, I noticed, from the windows, many other projector screens all lit up around the island.
This was clearly important.
On the gigantic screen, General Krieg's face, brightly smeared in color, flashed across the screen.
In my absolute horror, on the screen, were giant words plastered all across the screen.
"Attention. A student has been found DEAD near the rocks!"
Aw, fuck! Already? They already found my kill!?
But how? I hid it perfectly! I even waited until the blood washed away in the water!
And then, to my shock, even more surprising than the first shocker, the students around me started clammering.
"Again? This is the third time this month." One student worried.
Another student, very fearful, said it best.
"6 kills over the course of the semester. 3 this month. That's a new record. Looks like this Serial Killer is getting even more reckless!"
What? Serial killer?
What did that even mean?
I know, for a fact, that i'm the one who killed that latest kid, so that must mean...
There is another person out there, butchering the innocent!