Annaleigh and Liella

During sparring practice, Annaleigh was forced to spare with a golem since there was an odd number of students left and she didn't have a partner. Even though sparring against golems was troublesome due to their high defense, Annaleigh only treated it as something to occupy her body while she contemplated on Liella's change.

"Does she hate me? But why? Was it because I tricked those girls? Did I ruin her impression of me? Did someone slander me while I was catching up?"

Many ideas came to her mind, but there was little effort placed into finding a solution. She definitely wanted to be close with Liella again, but she figured that if she couldn't identify the cause of her attitude shift then any plan she thought of was doomed to fail.

By the end of combat class, she didn't make a move and Liella didn't wait on her so Annaleigh had to go to the club building by herself. She had originally planned on keeping on her gym clothes so that she could get out of being stripped and dressed, but the incident dulled her drive so she forgot and ended up changing out of them.

When she arrived at the club room, today's maid was already waiting so they went straight to the dressing room, but a strange mood plagued today's dance practice. The veteran members of the club could still dance without mistake, but it took effort to keep their eyes off of Annaleigh and Liella. Despite how the club members acted around her, they never let their fondness of Annaleigh affect their performance, but this time was special.

Even the fifth and fourth year members who had been members since Liella joined were surprised by the fact that she was acting distant with Liella while instructing her. They remembered her as an arrogant brat at that time, but she would always face them head-on as she found her path. Her boldness and dignity had forced them to acknowledge her, so it was surprising to see her behaving like this.

Many members of the club sent pleading gazes in the direction of Heina, but she shook her head with a wry smile. Naturally, she wanted to solve the trouble, but she sensed it would be better for the two to settle things themselves.

"That's it for today. You can review what you've learnt and come prepared for tomorrow."

As today's session came to an end, Liella said her parting lines to Annaleigh. Shocked that time had moved so quickly, Annaleigh franticly looked around the room to find some hint to extending her time with Liella, but it was to no avail. Most of her clubmates were getting ready to leave so it was indeed a suitable opportunity to say goodbyes, and without a decent reason to drive her, she couldn't find the courage to confront Liella.

"Okay. See you tomorrow."

"..."

While watched by the rest of the club, the two awkwardly broke up and Annaleigh left in a heartbroken manner.

Elsewhere, there was a lady in red playing one of the many novel games of Windwave City. She was an exotic beauty that could captivate anyone who saw her with her unique appeal, and yet not a single person seemed to notice her. She didn't appear to be hiding as she used the device in front of her while seated, but even if someone grazed her as they moved past, they would either not notice or quickly forget her.

Alia considered this technique a minor trick to prevent people from spontaneously admiring her, well aware of how glad Shui would be to learn it. While she disliked having to hide like this even when using her humanoid form, she didn't want to irresponsibly create any followers so this was the surest method.

Fortunately, there were many fun activities in Windwave City that didn't require other people to enjoy, such as the one Alia was playing. The device in front of her was on a short cabinet and consisted of a control system in the form of a flat surface with a protruding movable stick and six buttons, and two one foot-tall wooden puppets there were in a ring behind the control system. By using the stick, she could change the position of the puppet on her left, and by pressing the buttons she was able to have the left puppet do several different actions such as kicking, punching and blocking. The point of this activity was to use the left puppet to defeat the right puppet that could also perform various fighting techniques.

This activity wasn't very popular because it took time to get used to the controls and general opinion was that it was better to either fight with one's own body or watch others' fight, but Alia had taken a liking to it. Even without her full power, there was likely no one in this realm that could serve as a proper opponent besides the chimera lord if it restored its strength. However, she wasn't much of a fan of fighting to begin with so she was much happier with this proxy version that was both difficult and safe. Unfortunately, she was about to be forced to give up on this fun.

She started the game with the right puppet at the highest difficulty, but after a minute she had defeated the puppet without taking a single hit. It had taken her a full two days to reach this level of skill, so it hadn't been easy, but now that she was an expert, playing the game would no longer excite her. She considered trying to find the person who made the game and have them give her a harder challenge, but she wasn't sure if she would be able to find them while staying concealed. Furthermore, in addition to needing a break, something else was starting to bother her.

"I wonder what he's doing."

Although she could hibernate at will, Alia still had the capacity to feel loneliness. Over three days had passed since Shui left on a mission in Area B and they parted ways. Normally she would have joined him without thinking, but he told her that he wanted her to look after the twins so she stayed behind.

Even though she was playing around, she left a spiritual mark on the younger twin so she could rush to their aid if there was trouble, but so far nothing of note had occurred. When the twins finally decided to leave the hotel and walk around, she had followed them and drove away pests that were suspicious or too forceful when hitting on them, but the two were still unaware of her existence. She wanted to keep it that way, but living like a phantom with no one to talk to opened her conscious mind to bad memories.

"It's not too far for me to send a telepathic message, but since I can't lock on to his presence it'll likely be intercepted. I don't need to say anything special, but I imagine he won't be eager to respond. Hmm..."

Alia began thinking of how to contact Shui, but it didn't take long as she didn't have anything complex in mind. Without alerting anyone, she had entered the building, and she left the same way.