Ch.186185. Reunion (6)

# 185. Reunion (6)

Last night, there was an unexpected commotion.

I woke up recalling the memories of that time.

“Ugh…”

My body was too tired to properly get up.

But waking up wasn’t all that sad.

I looked at my body, which had undergone some changes.

“It’s back…”

Fortunately, I had returned to my original state, both my body and my hair.

I got up from the bed where she was still lying and headed to the bathroom.

“Yes… this is it… it felt so unfamiliar all this time…”

Seeing the familiar reflection in the mirror, I couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

With that sense of relief, I washed my hair and face.

When I came back to the living room, she was there to greet me in her pajamas.

“Good morning.”

“When did you wake up?”

“Just now. By the way… you’re back to normal.”

“Why do you look disappointed?”

“Do I? It’s just your imagination.”

But no matter how I looked at her reaction, she seemed disappointed that I had returned to normal.

She must have liked that appearance in her own way.

Of course, I hated it—absolutely hated it.

“For the record, I’m never doing that again.”

“Isn’t it okay once in a while?”

“Absolutely not. I hate it. Absolutely.”

Still, she didn’t seem particularly disappointed, unlike Aelin or Luna who would have been more upset.

It seemed more like she had a twisted preference for seeing me embarrassed.

“That’s a shame, but it doesn’t really matter. I prefer the current Albert anyway.”

“I figured as much.”

“You’re quite confident, aren’t you?”

“You’re the same, aren’t you? It’s similar.”

“I guess so. I’ll go wash up now.”

About an hour later.

She approached me, having finished preparing to go out, just as I had.

“What do you want to do? You came all this way.”

“Is it okay for you to hang out with me like this? As a Legion Commander… don’t you have a ton of work?”

“It’s the weekend, isn’t it? I can go out, but because of what happened yesterday…”

“I guess you have some things to take care of?”

“Yes… once that’s done, I should be able to go out, probably…”

To be honest, it didn’t really matter if we went out or not.

It’s not like I was staying long anyway; I just came to see her face briefly.

“I don’t really need to go out.”

“But I want to…”

“Ah~”

“And you’re not staying long anyway…”

She seemed to feel sad about that fact.

Despite being so busy that she couldn’t spend much time with me anyway.

“About a week?”

“That’s actually quite long.”

“Yes, surprisingly so.”

She seemed to have thought I wouldn’t even stay for a week.

In a way, it was a reasonable assumption.

Since we don’t get to see each other much, there’s no particular reason or need to stay long, and I’d just be wasting training time.

After finishing our preparations, she and I stepped outside the building.

As she guided me outside, she said:

“I’ll come as soon as I’m done.”

“Is it really okay to let outsiders in like this?”

“Of course not.”

“You’re quite bold, aren’t you?”

She said this while confidently squaring her shoulders.

Then she spoke even more boldly than her posture suggested.

“If anyone has a problem with it, let them say something.”

“That…”

“Yes, I’m copying you. See you later.”

After guiding me this far, she headed back toward some building.

I just stood there, watching her back.

Then, some familiar voices called out to me, snapping me back to reality.

“You’re back to normal? What a shame…”

“If you pull that kind of stunt again, I’ll really kill you.”

“Ah… sorry~”

She didn’t look sorry at all, but there wasn’t much I could say about it.

It’s not like she would listen anyway.

“But why are you the only one out? What about the unnies? Isn’t it possible to go out today since it’s the weekend? Especially after yesterday’s battle?”

“They said they’ll be out soon, though not right away.”

“Then let’s go somewhere else. It’s awkward waiting here.”

I agreed with that opinion.

I didn’t want to stay in such a chaotic place for a long time.

“Let’s go downtown.”

“By the way… I’ve been wondering, why do you all look like that?”

They were all covering their faces with various accessories.

They weren’t like this yesterday, but today they were.

Aelin lowered her orange sunglasses slightly and answered:

“Someone recognized us earlier.”

“Who?”

Aelin pointed at someone walking toward us from a distance.

“That person.”

The one Aelin referred to as “that person.”

As soon as I saw his face, my fist almost flew reflexively.

“Ah…”

“What’s with your face? It’s practically rotting.”

“Why is that bastard here?”

“He said he was looking for you.”

“Me?”

When I looked at him with a puzzled expression, he returned the same look.

“I… never said that.”

“Weren’t you looking for that woman? The beautiful woman who hard-carried in the battle.”

“Yes…”

“Well, this is the person, though they look a bit different now.”

In reality, I don’t look that different.

Just the skeletal structure and hair length, that’s all.

Still, he seemed to believe I was a different person from yesterday.

I spoke to Greg, who was looking at me suspiciously.

“I’m a different person from that one.”

“I thought so! But you look familiar somehow. May I ask your name…?”

“Albert Veros.”

Greg was greatly flustered when I said my name.

He probably never imagined I would be here.

“Ah, I see…”

Greg was sweating as if he was scared.

Even though I hadn’t done anything.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ah… I thought you might have something to say…”

“So you do know.”

“Pardon…?”

I then spoke the words he had referred to as “something to say.”

“Stay away from my woman if you don’t want to die.”

Greg had the expression of a rabbit being chased by a tiger.

I turned away from him and spoke to the others.

“So where are we going?”

***

At a military meeting where high officials from the Orion Kingdom and the Kainis Empire gathered.

She, as a high-ranking personnel of the Kainis Empire who had fought numerous battles on the front lines for nearly a year, naturally participated.

“Legion Commander Elizabeth, how was this battle?”

“We were certainly short on troops… but we managed well with the help of the mercenaries.”

They would have won even without Albert, but there would have been significant casualties.

“Looking at the battle footage, there was an unfamiliar face… who was that person…?”

“Do you know the name Albert…?”

“Yes… I know it very well.”

It was clearly such a famous fact that everyone seemed to know.

In that situation, she explained the identity of the girl from yesterday.

“That person yesterday was Albert Veros.”

“But… isn’t he male…?”

“He needed a disguise to come here, so he just had that appearance, but inside, it was him.”

When she explained this fact, most people couldn’t hide their admiration.

“So he has that level of skill while still being a student?”

“Yes, he’s similar to me or perhaps even better. And by the second half of next year, he’s expected to come here and defend the front lines.”

Of course, this was assuming Albert would become a special forces member and receive the mission to assist her, but it was more than possible.

And if not, he would simply defend the front lines as a mercenary.

“From then on, our casualties will be minimized. So I would appreciate your attention until then.”

“Understood.”

“And by that time, we might be able to properly launch an offensive from our side first.”

***

I scolded Aelin, who had promised to take me somewhere fun but instead dumped me here and was just playing games.

“A PC bang is the best place you could come up with?”

“There are lots of books you like here too. Don’t grumble. And you can play games too, like you used to.”

“I used to, which is why I don’t anymore.”

To be honest, it looks fun just watching them play.

But I didn’t want to play.

Even though I know I’ll never go back to that time, it still didn’t feel right.

Experience is truly a fearsome thing.

So I was just reading a book next to Aelin and Leo, who were engrossed in their games.

“But people seem to recognize you two despite how you look, yet they never recognize me?”

“I don’t think so. They recognize you first, and that’s how they recognize us.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, that’s right. They just avoid eye contact with you because you glare at them so fiercely.”

People were indeed looking at us.

But I wasn’t glaring fiercely, at least not by my standards.

“I didn’t do anything like that.”

“What do you mean? You were glaring at that guy earlier like you were looking at a monster.”

“Ah… I admit I did that to him.”

He got off easy, though.

“But I was actually being very lenient.”

If I hadn’t been, he would no longer be in this world.

However, Aelin didn’t appreciate my excellent character.

“But why are you like that with him? It’s not like he did anything to you. He was hitting on your sister, but there are plenty of guys like that, aren’t there?”

“There are indeed many.”

“Right, and your sister will reject them anyway, so why are you being so meddlesome?”

She had a point.

And I had known this fact even before coming here.

But I couldn’t hold back my words.

“I will never forgive that bastard.”