“Ahaha… By the way, Pret? Shouldn’t you ask for permission before joining us?”
Reysir gave Hailga a faint, awkward smile before turning his head toward Pret with a serious expression.
It seemed the misunderstanding that Pret was trying to approach me to exploit the status of my Possession Body had yet to be resolved.
‘Wait…? There’s no guarantee it isn’t a misunderstanding, is there?’
In Chapter 183, the reason Pret asked Reysir about how we became close must have been to satisfy his curiosity.
However, he was the successor to the head of an information guild.
There was no way he hadn’t calculated that becoming close to Karbaldr would make it easier to obtain various important pieces of information, including those regarding the Austri Ducal Family.
This meant Reysir’s suspicion and wariness weren’t entirely baseless.
‘The original protagonist’s intuition really is quite accurate.’
“Whoops! My apologies. I thought Professor Vanahilda was being misunderstood, so I felt I had to step in and correct the misinformation! It ended up being a post-notification, but since I’m already seated, may I join you? Along with Svein?”
Pret gave an embarrassed smile as he apologized, yet he made no effort to get up from his seat.
In fact, he even asked if his classmate could join them, showing he was quite shameless.
‘Wait, Svein…?’
It seemed this supporting character from the original work hadn’t come alone but had brought the traitor of the original work with him.
I turned around and finally spotted Svein standing there with a tray, looking like he didn’t know what to do.
I was feeling a bit uneasy when I heard the following conversation:
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Oh, dear… Svein, he says you can’t.”
“Not Svein, you. I’m talking about you.”
Reysir’s attitude toward Pret was incredibly firm.
I felt a sense of pity.
‘If you’re going to be wary, I wish you’d be wary of Svein…’
Even if Pret intended to use me, it wouldn’t be a problem.
Not only could I shift things into a “deal” since I knew his identity, but Pret was also a character whose setting emphasized that he valued loyalty and trust quite highly.
Furthermore, while Pret might appear mysterious at first glance, his way of thinking was surprisingly simple.
Therefore, the one who was truly dangerous and unpredictable was Svein.
In the original work before the remake, his betrayal was extremely sudden, and the reason for it was never even explained.
“Did something happen with that junior yesterday?”
Sensing an unusual atmosphere from her childhood friend’s attitude, Hailga asked while tapping Reysir’s arm with her index finger.
Reysir whispered something to her in response.
Soon after, Hailga’s expression changed as if she had bitten into a bitter persimmon.
Since the only thing Pret did yesterday was ask Reysir how he became close to me, she probably couldn’t help but react that way if she heard he was being wary over just one question.
“Both of you, just sit down.”
Hailga let out a deep sigh while pressing her hand to her forehead, looking like she had a headache, and gave Pret and Svein permission to join.
Since these freshmen were slated to enter the Demonic Realm with us as companions in the future, she likely judged it better to maintain a smooth relationship with them for that day, whenever it might be.
“Oh! Thank you, Senior Hailga.”
“Tha… Thank you…”
Pret chuckled smoothly and thanked Hailga.
Svein bowed his head with a somewhat timid attitude before taking a seat, but his positioning was quite unnatural.
“With this seating arrangement, wouldn’t it be more common to sit next to me?”
It was just as Liolikin said.
If three people were sitting in one row and four were on the opposite side, it was standard for the next person joining to sit in the row of three.
That way, no one would feel isolated.
However, Svein chose to sit next to Pret instead of in the empty seat across from him, deliberately choosing to remain separated.
Naturally, everyone felt suspicious.
It was Pret who cleared it up.
“I keep telling you that Senior Liolikin doesn’t seem like a scary person.”
Apparently, Svein found Liolikin so frightening-looking that he was reluctant to sit next to him.
Despite his rough appearance, he was actually the most timid and gentle person among us.
“Ah, that…”
“You should state the reason clearly. Otherwise, Senior Liolikin might get hurt, thinking you’re not sitting there because you dislike him. We should avoid that, shouldn’t we?”
“……?”
At Pret’s statement, Svein looked at Liolikin with an expression that seemed to say, ‘Hurt? That senior?’
When his eyes met Liolikin’s, he jumped in surprise and quickly lowered his gaze.
No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t seem like an act.
‘Now that I think about it, in the original work before the remake, there were frequent descriptions of Svein getting scared after seeing monsters!’
It wasn’t because Svein was a particularly cowardly character.
In the original work, Svein was described as just an “ordinary person” until his betrayal.
He would get scared in front of terrifying monsters and admire Reysir’s specialness.
In a way, he felt more suited to being an extra.
On the other hand, to break out of that “ordinary” mold, he showed efforts to muster courage, asking Reysir to accept him as a companion and trying to fight terrifying monsters instead of running away.
However, the author Senna portrayed this not as a “growth process” but as “part of his ordinariness.”
That was why the shock when Svein suddenly betrayed the protagonist was particularly great.
The act of driving a companion who had crossed the line of death with him toward their demise was not ordinary in the slightest.
As a result, Svein transformed from an ordinary person anyone could empathize with into the most inscrutable character.
“That’s right. I’m hurt. Also, I’m not a scary person.”
Liolikin said this while making a pitiful face, but it only had the opposite effect.
Although I described it as a “pitiful face,” that was merely a subjective description.
Since I was used to Liolikin’s face and knew his personality well, that’s how it felt to me.
However, the impression of someone seeing Liolikin for the first time yesterday would be different.
I guessed he probably looked like a scammer who would shoulder check you first and then threaten you for medical expenses.
“I-I’m sorry…”
Svein apologized with a pale face, hanging his head low.
It didn’t sound like a sincere apology, but more like a plea for mercy to a thug.
At this, Pret spoke up with a troubled expression — .
“Maybe I should have just sat next to Senior Liolikin. I thought if you sat next to him and talked, you’d quickly realize Senior Liolikin isn’t a scary person. That’s why I purposely sat on this side…”
“Compared to someone like me, Master Yor is much, much, much scarier.”
“He looks quite docile right now, though?”
“Well, that’s because Junior Pret has no fear. If a cowardly stranger sits next to him, it’s really no joke. Until he fixes their mindset, he’ll hiss, glare, and act like a total beast…”
Liolikin argued that the truly terrifying one wasn’t himself but Yor.
At that, one hypothesis came to mind.
‘Could it be that this situation is a result of the original author’s intention to change the seating arrangement and place Svein next to Reysir?’
While there was a possibility that I was overinterpreting things because I was too conscious of the author Senna, it felt strangely unsettling to just dismiss it and move on.
In the past, when Liolikin had tried to sit next to me and Yor hissed at him, it was because Yor found him contemptible for showing no signs of remorse for using Karbaldr.
It wasn’t because he was a stranger.
And the reason Yor went as far as using [Dragon Fear] to fix Liolikin’s mindset was because he was worried Liolikin would become a burden to me and put me in danger.
Liolikin being a coward should be seen as the cause, not the reason.
Liolikin surely knew this as well.
Then why did he spout the false premise that Yor hated “cowardly strangers”?
Moreover…
“Pret. Didn’t you also see Liolikin for the first time yesterday, just like Svein? Why do you speak as if you know him so well?”
Allowing such words to come out of Reysir’s mouth was unlike the successor to the head of an information guild.
On the other hand, the author Senna sometimes dropped foreshadowing in awkward ways, as if she were anxious to release information only she knew as quickly as possible.
I couldn’t help but keep thinking that she was trying to provide a hint that the mercenary who appeared during the kidnapping incident was Pret, while also securing a justification for the seating rearrangement.
“In our circus troupe, there was one older brother who was built like a bear but had a very kind and delicate heart. That’s how I learned it. The life wisdom that a person’s personality should be determined by their tone and eyes, not their size.”
Pret escaped again using the circus troupe as an excuse.
Reysir didn’t completely withdraw his suspicion, but he didn’t press any further.
A gap in the conversation emerged, so I quickly jumped in and raised an issue.
“Reysir. Isn’t that what you should be focusing on right now? You should be pointing out that rude behavior of joining someone else’s meal uninvited and then avoiding a seat while claiming someone is scary.”
“Yeah… that is also a problem.”
The Protagonist of Another Novel replied with an embarrassed expression.
I gave him a glare for no reason, then turned my head to snap at the traitor of the original work.
“You. You said you’re Svein? You don’t think we’re going to change seats just for your sake, do you?”
“I didn’t think that…!”
Svein countered with an aggrieved expression.
Since the freshmen had only just joined the meal, they weren’t in a position to boss anyone around regarding the seating arrangement yet.
The author Senna wouldn’t unravel the story in such an illogical way either.
I guessed that later at lunchtime, seeing Svein worrying about whether to sit next to Liolikin or Yor, Hailga or Reysir would step in and move Liolikin next to Yor.
Therefore, I decided to strike first so that such a thing wouldn’t happen.
“Even though you’ve openly shown your reluctance toward someone while joining them, you certainly talk a lot. If you’re going to keep acting like that and creating uncomfortable situations, just sit elsewhere. It’s common courtesy, isn’t it?”
“……I’m sorry.”
While the face of this Possession Body wasn’t as fierce as Liolikin’s and was actually quite handsome, perhaps it was because my eyes were rather sharp.
When I glared with force and spoke sharply, Svein cringed with a look of pure terror.