Chapter 38: An ’unexpected’ encounter.
Walking through the quickest routes his memories could remember, in no time, Asher arrived at the building known as the Elite Lounge, platinum building. It was here he had stayed before everything went to hell, while he was still a student at the academy. He looked around carefully, noting a young girl seated in a wheelchair trying to push forward up a steep inclined path that led upward, just beside the stairs that led to the building.
’Well, aren’t I fortunate,’ he thought, the gears in his brain spinning as he realized he had just found a quick way to speed up a certain part of his plans. He then schooled his expression into a jovial one and walked over, moving toward the girl instead of the stairs. She was too focused on rolling upward to even notice the approaching individual.
"I see you need help," she heard, but before she could say anything, she felt someone grasp the handles of her wheelchair from behind and push it up.
"Eh?!" she blurted at the sudden acceleration as she was pushed rather quickly up the inclined path.
She looked back quickly, her almond eyes catching sight of a disturbingly good-looking young man with a gentle smile looking down at her.
"Who are you?!" She had never seen this handsome stranger in all her life, so her first reaction was as expected—she panicked. Pretty badly at that. She wasn’t used to having strangers talk to her or approach her, and with time, she had grown accustomed to this solitude as her friend further drove away anyone who tried to approach her, stating they could take advantage of her condition and situation to use her. So she was literally a loner with a capital L.
"Hey, calm down," said the young man, stepping a few paces back with his hands up in surrender.
"..." Seeing him retreat, she calmed down a bit and also rolled a few more feet away from him. At this, the young man smiled rather wryly and sighed. "Sorry if I scared you. I just thought you needed some help," he said, and she suddenly felt bad. Yes, she did need help, and this situation was all because of her ’idiot’ of a friend, who had completely forgotten she was supposed to meet her here and probably just stayed with her brother and his various friends, completely forgetting about her, as usual.
’That idiot,’ she groaned internally.
She was still afraid and wasn’t used to dealing with strangers. It was usually her friend who took care of that.
But that aside, it wasn’t that she couldn’t roll up on her own—she actually could, with the use of ether or her abilities. However, the use of such powers was strictly forbidden within dorm zones and other specified areas, so she couldn’t use her abilities or her ether to do it. She could have just ignored the rules and done it anyway, but she didn’t, and that was because she was a practical example of a model student. Because of how shy she usually was, she feared deeply any sort of punishment the authorities would impose on her if she was caught, so she relied on her physical strength, hoping for her friend’s return.
"I-I am s-sorry for my reaction... I was just scared. Thank you for your help," she gave a literal ninety-degree bow while seated in her wheelchair and then tried to escape.