After Elska-sunbae tried to forcibly lift Blida-sunbae and ended up falling, leading to the two bickering in a small incident.
Skadi glanced at me, gauging my reaction, and quietly spoke up.
“Um, so… are you feeling alright now~? Is there anywhere you’re still hurting~?”
“Ah, yes. I’m fine, so there’s no need to worry.”
“That’s a relief~.”
“Yes, it is.”
“……”
I maintained a strictly formal attitude and answered politely, and Skadi seemed to feel a sense of distance from this and looked a bit awkward.
After all, when I deal with Professor Radbisin and the other graduate seniors, I do relax a little, so…
The sense of distance probably feels all the more stark.
It made me feel awfully guilty, as if I was being unfair to her for no reason.
But there’s nothing I can do about it… That thought kept coming. It’s because I’m too cowardly and selfish.
But why does Skadi try so hard to get closer to someone like me?
“A-And~! It was a good thing the opponent you faced in round 2 was such a kind person~! Seeing the way they acted at the end, they must’ve caught you so you wouldn’t fall~! Whoever it is, they’re a really good kid~!”
Perhaps desperately trying to keep the conversation going, Skadi frantically grabbed at topics to talk about.
But of all things, it had to be about the Original Protagonist.
‘Objectively, Reysir is a kind and good person!’
That thought naturally came to mind, but I didn’t want to admit it out loud.
Recalling how he usually teased and messed with me.
And honestly, his pose at the end of the match and what happened after wasn’t the least bit appreciated—in fact, it left me feeling annoyed.
Now people will remember Reysir and me as ‘the ones who danced at the duel tournament and exited with a princess carry pose.’
Is there a more embarrassing black history than this in the world?
It was mortifying and painful.
But I couldn’t just deny Skadi’s words and badmouth the Original Protagonist, so…
I was about to just go along with a vague “Yeah… well…” and let it pass.
That was when the graduate seniors joined the conversation.
“He isn’t just kind to everyone. He probably looked after you specially because you’re his friend. He was totally ruthless to the person he faced in the finals.”
“That’s right! He knocked out his opponent with lightning abilities and then immediately spun around and left the stage—he looked so cold-hearted….”
The seniors didn’t know how much Nidhr had boasted in front of Reysir or what ridiculous things he’d said.
So it wasn’t unreasonable for them to misunderstand and think the Original Protagonist gave me special treatment.
“Ah-ha~! So the person you faced in round 2 was Karbaldr’s friend~?! Is it a student I know? A boy with black hair and an eye patch? Right??”
“That’s right, but he’s not my friend.”
“Why not?! Did you two fight again~?!”
Back in Chapter 71, when I said Reysir wasn’t my friend, Skadi assumed it was because we’d fought.
She jumped to the same wrong conclusion this time as well.
“We didn’t fight. We just never became friends in the first place.”
“Uh~? Really? If you two aren’t friends, then what are you…?”
“We just occasionally eat together, and this time we met up on weekends to practice for the tournament. That’s all… just ‘acquaintances’.”
“……??”
It’s not like I said anything complicated, but Skadi tilted her head, looking as if she couldn’t understand.
Still, her reaction was better than the graduate seniors’.
Because they responded like this:
“Eh…? Sunbae, what did our junior just say?”
“Not sure? I think I heard, ‘We eat together every day, and on weekends, we spent time preparing for the tournament, but we’re not friends.’ I must have misheard, right?”
It wasn’t that they doubted their own hearing.
They were just so flabbergasted at what I’d said that they couldn’t help but question me.
“You heard correctly.”
I once again stated my stance clearly.
But the graduate seniors and Skadi still looked unconvinced.
So I decided to explain further, to make my argument more credible.
“Let’s imagine this isn’t the Academy, but a workplace. Just because you have meals together and prepare for a company event, doesn’t mean you’re friends, does it?”
“Yeah, I guess~?!”
Skadi, the office worker, immediately understood my point.
But the two research students flirting in the lab did not.
“Professor Skadi? Why are you agreeing with that? This is the Academy!”
“But for me, the Academy is my workplace…?”
“That might be true for you, but our junior is a student! A First Year, who just enrolled!”
The graduate seniors sat on either side of Skadi, who was in the middle.
Then they started arguing that for students to eat together meant that, by tacit agreement, they were basically friends.
The reason was simply that that’s how they themselves made friends.
‘So research students, of all people, are trying to persuade someone with nothing but their own personal experience, without a shred of logical evidence or objective data…’
I shook my head and picked up my fork.
Since they weren’t really talking to me anymore, I decided to just half-listen to their argument and focus on my cake.
But I didn’t even get to eat a full bite before I had to put the fork down.
Because Professor Radvisin let out a sigh and asked me a question.
“Huh… Then, Karbaldr-kun, what do you think it takes to become friends?”
The elderly professor’s expression as he looked at me was unusually grave.
So I also answered in a very serious tone.
“I think there needs to be a moment where both sides open up and acknowledge each other as friends.”
“That’s a very interesting viewpoint. So what would count as such a ‘moment’?”
“Overcoming a life-and-death crisis together, saving someone from long-standing mental or physical suffering, rescuing them from the brink of death, or…”
“Wait, wait. Karbaldr-kun? Don’t you think the bar for friendship is a little high?”
Professor Radvisin interrupted me.
Because of that, I couldn’t even get to the most important part: ‘or saving someone’s life itself.’
“Junior? Did you maybe learn about friendship from novels…?!”
Blida-sunbae asked this with an expression of utter shock.
She was right. I’d never made friends before, so I learned about friendship through novels.
That’s why my opinion is correct. This is a world inside a novel, and Reysir is the Original Protagonist.
‘Without a dramatic narrative, there can be no friendship. And the more dramatic the narrative, the deeper the friendship!’
It’s not that I’m making excuses just because I don’t want to recognize Reysir as my friend.
Web novel protagonists just can’t make friends that easily.
Calling someone a friend just because we had a few meals together?
I could never accept that. The lack of plausibility is just too outrageous.
Besides, didn’t this possessed body actually bully Reysir?
‘And I’ve only ever hinted that I have a backstory, without ever actually explaining why!’
If the Original Protagonist and Karbaldr are to become friends, the protagonist needs to understand the reason he was bullied.
He has to learn about Karbaldr’s family circumstances, understand his loneliness, and reach out to pull him out of isolation.
Even though it was Karbaldr who was in the wrong.
It’s so unreasonable that the one who has to put in all the effort to become friends is the victim, Reysir.
But what can you do? That’s the burden a protagonist has to carry.
‘But I have no intention of actually explaining Karbaldr’s backstory, and even if I went through all that, I’m not really Karbaldr. In the end, I can’t actually be comforted or saved by Reysir, can I?’
The only ones who could understand these thoughts are my Familiar Yor and the readers who are reading this narration.
Which means there’s no way to say it here.
So I just put on a sullen face and silently ate my cake.
“…Junior? Are you sulking? We asked you to speak your mind, but maybe it feels like we aren’t taking you seriously?”
As expected, that’s the kind of reaction I got.
I had expected it, but hearing them ask if I was sulking made me feel embarrassed.
No matter how I think about it, they’re obviously treating me like a kid.
“Miss Blida, you’re in the wrong here. Asking someone if they learned about friendship from novels? You shouldn’t say that to a sensitive teenager.”
“What?! But Professor, you said yourself that the bar for friendship was too high…!”
“Sigh… I can’t help but feel sorry. After all these years together, do you still not understand my true meaning? I was only trying to set up the message: ‘Friendship doesn’t exist on a pedestal so high you can’t reach it. Don’t overthink it.’ That’s all. But now you’ve put it on the same level as asking if he learned friendship from novels?”
“……”
Overwhelmed by the elderly professor’s rhetoric, the Doctoral Graduate Student had no choice but to retreat.
It seemed clear that you’d have a hard time winning an argument with Professor Radvisin.
Not wanting to be persuaded by accident, I decided to keep up the sulking act and keep my mouth shut until the topic changed.
Fortunately, that moment came very quickly.
“Let’s move on from this topic for now, shall we? It’s something that time will solve anyway.”
Maybe noticing that I didn’t want to continue the ‘friend’ conversation, Professor Radvisin took charge of moving things along.
That was fine, but…
Suddenly, he turned his gaze to Skadi.
“However, not all problems are solved with time. Some problems become even harder to solve as time passes. You must remember that.”
That was a clear warning and piece of advice.
Professor Radvisin would never say something like that without reason…
‘Did Skadi go to Professor Radvisin for advice while I wasn’t paying attention?’
That was the only conclusion I could reach.
Otherwise, why would Professor Radvisin sound so much like he was urging her to solve the problem quickly?
And that problem was, with almost certainty… no, definitely about me.
Back in Chapter 88. Skadi pleaded with me not to reject her teaching, saying she wouldn’t feel at ease until she’d done something for me, along with her apologies.
In response, I’d even mentioned the word ‘compensation’.
Hearing that, Professor Radvisin must have gotten curious. After all, I’d also expressed a desire to help Skadi back in Chapter 66.
‘So did he ask Skadi about it? About what she’d done to me?’
Most likely, Skadi willingly talked about it.
She must believe that her actions wounded me and that the hurt hasn’t healed.
She probably asked eagerly what she should do.