How To Survive A Calamity

"...And that's what happened," I said, my voice drifting with a tinge of listlessness.

I turned to the side where a familiar young man with reddish-orange hair and eyes was walking next to me. He whistled as he listened to me finish up my story.

Then Arslan laughed. It was that typical, amused and strange laugh of his.

"Sounds like you've gotten yourself into some pretty interesting mess," he said, then shook his head. "For someone who brags about wanting peace, you seem to attract a lot of trouble."

"No," I quickly shot back. "I'm not dragged into anything. I made that clear. She can do whatever she wants as long as she leaves me alone."

Needless to say, we were talking about Ceres. It had already been a few days since then, and the only person I'd told about what happened was Arslan.

Arslan shot me a side glance.

"You don't really believe that, do you?"

I paused for a bit. Hesitated, actually.

"..."

"Haha. You really have a knack for attracting all sorts of trouble," Arslan laughed.

It wasn't funny though. At least to me, it wasn't.

The whole thing with Ceres was crazy. But Arslan was right; I really didn't think this was the end of it. As much as I wanted to openly deny that I wasn't going to get involved with Ceres or whatever messes that came along with her, a sixth or seventh sense of mine that I'd developed precariously from running into multiple red flags and event triggers consecutively since coming to this world was tingling quietly at the back of my mind.

"So what do you plan to do?" Arslan hummed.

"... I'm not sure."

In fact, I didn't think I 'planned' to do anything.

Arslan's striking eyes drifted forward.

"Hmm. But for that little girl to reveal The Garden to you herself — she took quite a risk. That means she must like you that much."

"Like is a strong word," I quipped back, thinking back to how murderously she strangled me. "I didn't feel very liked."

But Arslan said something interesting.

I turned to him.

"So she wasn't lying then? About..."

"No, she wasn't."

Arslan cut in before I could finish.

Damn... I went silent for a few seconds.

He laughed to himself.

"You must be pretty shocked to find out Awakened were artificially being created under systems and procedures."

"..."

Actually, I wasn't. Not really anyway.

Wasn't my own Awakening also a bit unconventional from the norms?

Even though the method and circumstances may have been different, Meta had stirred awake my latent Awakening potential manually.

The reason I told Arslan about my encounter with Ceres, even if our relationship was still strange, was because it didn't seem like there was anyone else I could talk to about it.

"A secret facility that creates Awakened weapons within a controlled environment. When I put it that way, it sounds just like Aegis."

Arslan smiled. "Aegis trains Awakeneds into powerful Heroes. Garden designs them."

"You know about Ceres' background. That means the Academy does as well," I said.

"Not quite. Ceres is more special than you can imagine," he replied slowly. "There are prevailing circumstances, and usually knowledge about Garden is akin to a state secret. People like you would be persecuted if you ever found out."

I shuddered a little.

I guess that explained the mystery behind Ceres Walker's background.

"But persecuted? Dammit, I knew I couldn't just know about this and live away from it," I scowled.

Arslan laughed in amusement before speaking again.

His carefree behavior withdrew, and his voice dropped a bit.

"You should be careful around that little monster. She hasn't told you everything."

"What else am I missing?"

Arslan merely smiled mysteriously at my words and picked up the pace, strolling ahead of me.

I figured he wasn't going to tell me no matter how much I tried, so I filed the matter away in my mind.

I paced to catch up behind him and looked around.

"And where exactly are we?"

Arslan and I were in the middle of what seemed like nowhere, deep inside a forest. Surrounded by tall trees and green bushes as far as the eye could see.

Arslan continued to march ahead.

"A forest."

I frowned.

"I can see that. I meant, why?"

Aegis Academy had a sprawling amount of landmass. It would even be fitting to call it an island if only it were surrounded by water.

But it was large enough to be a small city in its own right, so there were quite a lot of facilities, but even those couldn't cover all of the territories and landmass.

So there were small- to large-scale forests like these ones. Although in most cases, these seemingly untouched wild areas had their own purposes, and entry was restricted to just about everyone without a certain level of authorization.

Usually, a mere cadet like me had nothing to do with being allowed to venture into one, but with Arslan on my side, I got a free pass.

"We're almost there, just keep walking. In the meantime..." Arslan pulled out a white envelope from his inner pocket and handed it to me.

"Your 'Sponsorship' has been sorted, and going forward, your welfare in Aegis will be covered by the Academy. In other words, me."

Arslan smiled. The envelope he passed contained a sponsorship letter.

I stared at it curiously, feeling a bit strange and uncertain.

"That was fast."

"Of course. To fully seal the deal, all you need to do is sign here and you'll get a copy of the documents for yourself."

Arslan was going to take me as his student. But for whatever circumstances he hadn't properly disclosed to me yet, to do that would draw a lot of dangerous attention.

So a little disguise and misdirection was in place by first of all becoming my backing with a sponsorship under the banner of the Academy. Aegis did that a lot— that way, it would just seem like the Academy was putting interest and investment in a promising talent. But in truth, the one who was really sponsoring me was Arslan.

And throughout all this, the real nature of our relationship would be kept on the low.

It all sounded tedious.

Taking the strange and curious pen Arslan handed me, my gaze skimmed through the sponsorship letter.

"Just infuse a bit of your Aura into the pen as you write. That's your signature," next to me, Arslan said quietly.

So I guess this was it. I was officially coming under Arslan, someone whose aspirations, identity, and motif remained a mystery— and possibly danger— to me.

I became overly aware of the paper in my hand. 'Why does it feel like I'm selling my soul off in a contract?'

Arslan continued to smile quietly.

'And with a demon, no less...'