Descending Into A Novel

"You even got this signed by Leo himself? Ellen...are you God?"

Lucy stared at her figurines of the band members. Scribbled on marker on the base of each of them, the letters LEO were clearly seen written on black ink.

Ellen’s head was about as big as the moon with all the praising she had been receiving. Holding her chin up high in the air. Making sure to flaunt each one to Noelle, who was quietly clenching her fists sitting on the edge of her seat.

Lucy raised an eyebrow, "Wait. I thought Leo was kidnapped mid concert. How did you even get this? Is it...a fake?"

"Let’s just say I got an exclusive fan signing meet with Leo."

Seeing the slightly crazy glint in her eyes, Lucy chose to retreat. She was smart like that.

"Impressive."

Crash

A small pile of boxes situated on the table got knocked over, looking at the culprit the two girls saw Erin. Sneakily trying to hide behind the table. Her wings and tail pressed flat against the ground as she did so.

"Erin?"

"..."

"I can see you behind the table."

"Hiek!"

Lifting her up, she turned her head away. Refusing to look directly at Ellen.

For the past few days, Erin had suddenly started acting up more then usual. While her previous actions were always more cute then annoying, her recent increase had been suspicious for both Raymond and Ellen. With their only explanation for her current behavior being.

"Erin. Are you still angry because you can’t see grandpa and grandma?"

"Hmph."

Her tail swung madly side to side, causing Lucy to almost start drooling at the sight.

Noelle also was extremely curious about Erin. It was only the four of them currently in the apartment, and this was the perfect opportunity to find out more about dragons.

A real dragon, in the flesh. For Lucy, whose powers came from her contracted beasts like Ashfield, Sparky and most recently Vesper. A dragon like Erin was a tempting treasure, practically dangling in front of her.

Unfortunately, whether she could actually form a contract using her Art with Erin was an entirely different ball game. It was an equal partnership both ways after all, the two of them had to be at roughly equivalent levels and support each other constantly. If one side was too weak or too strong, it dragged down her and the rest. Thus, rather then forming contracts with any strong monster. Forming contracts with young ones that had lots of potential for growth was better. That way, they could support each other’s growth together.

Erin was too far out of her league to form a contract with. Maybe if her potential score was higher then 94 or if she was at a higher level. But for the far foreseeable future, it was unlikely.

"Hmph."

"I know you’re angry, but you can always talk to them whenever you want. You can see them whenever you want as well. Didn’t Raymond already teach you how to make calls?"

"Hmph."

Repeating the same stubborn hmph, Erin escaped from her grasp before running away again.

Ellen let out a sigh at Erin’s behavior. If Raymond was here, he would have been able to calm her down easily. Except he was off doing his damn modeling and wouldn’t return in a while.

Why was her Shadow always gone when she needed him the most? Ignoring all the times he was there when she needed him, he was always gone whenever she needed him.

Her mind already planned a minor little punishment for Raymond. But first, she had to get Erin to stop being so grouchy.

Meanwhile,Noelle and Lucy both stared at the directiok where Erin had ran.

This...is a dragon?

Elsewhere...

Raymond, taking a sip of water during his break suddenly trembled. A shiver running down his spine.

Putting his bottle down, he stared at the ceiling. This was a sign from his body warning him that something would happen to him soon.

"...hmm."

Was it Erin? She had been a bit grumpy lately, likely due to her desire of going to school still being delayed. But Sienna still hadn’t managed to obtain an elixir that could help, trying to find one that was actually effective enough for Erin was proving to be difficult. So her mana blockage issue wouldn’t be solved anytime soon.

He made a mental note to buy ice cream and bring it back later.

Just then, the door to the break room opened. Peeking in and finding Raymond, Lily excitedly strolled in. Carrying a flyer in her hand that she waved in front of him.

"Raymond, did you hear? The academy drama club is having a play!"

He raised an eyebrow, wondering what exactly was so important about this news.

"Why is this important?"

"It’s important for us in the modeling club, each time. The drama club always offers for us to become actors in the play in exchange for money and points."

He crossed his hands, resting his chin on his interlocked fingers. "I’m interested."

Handing him the flyer, he immediately recognized the two main faces on it. With Lily explaining the details to him. "This year’s theme is based on the love between Killian and Viviana. I think you could make it as Killian."

Lily naturally had a secret reason for telling Raymond this information of course.

The modeling club and drama club were quite closely intertwined. Because the drama club loved attractive people, and the modeling club was basically filled exclusively with attractive people like Raymond.

So Lily was actually quite close with the theatre director, getting access to the script early on.

Which let her know that at the end. There would be a kiss scene between the main character(Killian) and his love (Viviana).

He tilted his head slightly, "Killian and Viviana were never dating nor were they ever confirmed to be in love though?"

"You need to read in between the lines Raymond! Think about it, they were the last two members of the hero party to have survived the second Human-Demon war. There had to have been something else in between them!"

Raymond was pretty sure Killian didn’t mind creative liberties being taken in a retelling of his story. He seemed like a chill guy, and Viviana would probably be the same. But was this really okay?

And wasn’t this a little too much creative liberties?

Just because they were the last to survive didn’t mean they magically fell in love.

It was like saying Raymond and Ellen were in love just because they were the last two people on Terra for a brief several hours before he turned back time.

"I don’t know if I could make it. I don’t even look like Killian."

Raymond had seen Killian’s remnant will left behind in the inheritance after all. He was someone with slicked black hair, tanned brown skin and brown eyes. He was also about 184 centimeters or about 6 feet. Basically the exact opposite of Raymond in everything.

She waved him off, "It’s fine. They know their makeup."

"But I’ve never acted before."

"There just looking for ho- ahem. They’re offering you about ten thousand dollars to audition."

Raymond nearly jumped out of his seat at that number.

Ten thousand just for him to audition?!

"Was the drama club so rich?"

"They’re one of the biggest clubs. Of course they have the budget."

That explained it, bigger clubs tended to receive quite a lot from the academy and graduates. It was how the big five—Sky Soaring, New Elites, Mages For Life, Dungeon Camping and Fight remained as the big five. The number of members and funding they received let them practically do everything they wanted, within academy limits.

But Raymond had no idea the drama club was so popular. In the previous timeline, none of the group members bar Thomas had ever interacted with this particular part of the academy. He didn’t even know about this play until a few days ago when they started putting up flyers and posters every where in the academy.

"Now I’m very interested. When’s the audition?"

Lily smiled, once Raymond set his mind to something. He always followed through.

"Next week. It’s in the auditorium, I recommend you learn about acting and all that before. Although you’ll probably get accepted anyways."

They were offering him so much money to audition, there was no way they would ever reject him unless he was somehow so unbelievably bad at acting that he ruined every scene he was in. Something she doubted, it was difficult to be good at acting sure. But it was even more difficult to be extremely bad at it.

"Are you also going to audition?"

"Yep! Thomas is auditioning as well so you two can talk with each other while you’re there."

It wasn’t even surprising that Thomas was also participating in this play as well.

He was involved in just about everything, how he even managed when he had the same amount of time as the rest of them was unknown. He juggled classes, training, dozens of clubs, friendships and extracurriculars without a sweat. Raymond couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Thomas tired outside of combat.

Compared to him who felt burnt out just from attending classes and Ellen who only ever spent her free time training. His productive life made theirs seem quite sad and dull.

Comparison really was the thief of joy.