Episode 49. Prince in the Cage pt.3

I walked away from Stevent to go somewhere. The place I thought would be the place where I would find myself again. Hopefully, it's true.

"Rasyid!" A female voice from far away called out to me.

I turned my face to the source of the sound, the girl that I forgot if she was my girlfriend is walking closer to me.

"Ha... I thought you didn't teach today because you were absent?" Dahlia catches her breath after chasing after me.

"Actually it was like that, but it didn't happen. The meeting that was supposed to be held was canceled... Haah..." I lied as usual while taking a deep breath to reassure her.

"Too bad... Just hope it will never happen again!" Dahlia seemed to believe what I said.

"It's okay, I've also canceled my absence permission, but I can only start to teach tomorrow," I smiled flatly at her.

"Really, surely your students will be surprised when they see your face again." She laughed until her eyes were closed.

"Hopefully not, they'll think that I'm doing a nasty plot."

"Don't worry... your silly face will make your students never believe you can do something like that." Dahlia smiled mockingly.

"How dare you(soft)..." I rubbed Dahlia's soft hair with my hand.

Her hair which is tied into 2 balls really bothers me when patting her hair. Why is she using that kind of hairstyle? She would look so stupid if she only understood the current fashion trends.

"By the way, where are you going now?" Dahlia suddenly asked for my privacy.

I was actually a bit annoyed when she asked this, but never mind...

I'm not my brother. I just follow her wishes, but still within reasonable limits.

"Going to the mall, looking for something..." I don't need to tell her, she'll find out on her own when she gets there.

"Something like what...?"

"Why, why are you so curious?"

She pouted and pursed her lips. Her cute face when annoyed can be seen in front of me.

'Come on, she's already this cute but why can't I feel it?!' I could only stare blankly at her.

"Then, I'm coming!" She grabbed my right hand and wouldn't let go.

"If you really want to know, then, whatever..." My eyes narrowed that already know this would happen.

With that, I went to the mall to look for something with Dahlia embraced on me. If someone looks at me... this will be very embarrassing.

My eyes glanced at the people around me. They didn't seem to care about us, but a few eyes were watching us.

Is it because of envy? Or something else, could it be the group that Nova said?!

No, I'd better just leave it be. I'll just pretend I didn't notice them. Besides, I heard that the action figures at the mall are limited, if I'm late I'll run out.

"Let's go!" I told her to move.

"Okay okay!" Dahlia is still holding me and seems like there is no sign of wanting to let go before she knows my destination.

When we arrived, about 10 eyes were aiming at us. Dahlia certainly didn't notice. But I realized, that my Anitya power can see what they see.

About 6 people glanced at us, and all of them looked at me with sharp eyes. While the remaining 4 just stared at Dahlia and me with envy.

"Come on Rasyid, where do you want to go?"

"It's upstairs, let's go!" I told her while looking around.

The number of eyes increased, but the ones that stared intently at me were still the same. I don't need to worry anymore, their number is still the same.

We walked to the second floor and got to where I wanted to go. A toy shop, looks weird but that's how this Nusantara still uses that name.

Some of them still use the word 'toy' to sell their action figures. People also don't seem to mind it, they have been trained to know what's in the mall room before complaining to the mall.

"Toy shop? Isn't this a toy shop for OTAKUs? The name looks deceiving, but it actually sells things like anime's figures, console games, etc., right?"

"Hmm (nods), 100 points for you! There's a figure I want to buy here," I said as I turned to her with a slight smile.

"Oh... what figure are you going to buy, Syid?" Dahlia looked at me confused.

"Just something related to history..." I said while hiding a bit of my excitement because I was about to get it back.

"I hope it's not something that..." Dahlia put her mouth to my ear. "...lewd.." the gust of wind hit my ears, making my ears tickle.

"Relax, this is a real historical figure," I say it with a face that looks very trusting.

"Alright, come on in!" Dahlia walked with a big smile ahead of me to the place.

"Hmm(nods)..." I followed her with a little smile on my face.

When she got there, many anime-related items were on the store shelves. Everything there looked brand new and no one had touched it.

I took Dahlia to where I wanted to go. A place that I look forward to coming to.

Limited figures, characters of the romance of three kingdoms, from their leaders (Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan), to their proud generals are standing on the shelves.

Note: The character form is taken from Dynasty Warrior 8, I was a big fan of that game.

"So this?! What are you looking for?!" Dahlia looked at me in amazement.

"So what?" I asked flatly.

"Well, I think when you say historical characters my mind goes right there..." Dahlia smiled blankly at me.

"Then excuse me... I'm on the verge of taking a big catch!" I bowed slightly to Dahlia before finally buying it.

---

---

---

It was dark, I was done shopping and got what I wanted. The figures I bought were the figures of the leaders in the story, from Cao Cao, Liu bei, Sun Jian, Sun Ce, Sun Quan, Yuan Shao, Dong Zhuo, Zhang Jiao, Lu Bu, and Sima Zhao. There are still some I want to buy, but my room is too small for that.

Now, just take her (Dahlia) to eat... Usually, that is what people must do to their girlfriend, right?

When I see her, she smiles at me and says.

"You look so different back there!" Dahlia stretched her arms to relax herself.

Her tone returned to politeness. Maybe she only does that when she's with me in certain places.

"Honestly, you look like you are more fun than usual. Your silly smiley face always brings laughter to the people around you, you even made the waiter laugh with your silly look." Dahlia laughed loudly as she remembered what I did at the shop earlier.

I just kept silent while smiling when she said that, this side of me was a bit surprising. It's rare for people to see this side of me. If I remember, only Sophia and Erika know it.

"But, those two is still part of you, if one of that behavior is missing. Maybe Rasyid is not Rasyid anymore." Her eyes closed slightly.

When I saw her like that, I remember something...

Everything I accidentally did to my student back then. That is the impact of my old nature when I was still in high school.

My self who likes to help without ulterior motives, and move in the shadow to solve mysteries at school. It's all part of me.

I raised my palm hands to look at it. Is this the real me? Am I back? Hopefully so...

"Dahlia."

"What?"

"Let's go to the cafe and get something to eat?"

I reached out my hand trying to hold his hand.

She didn't answer, just smiled typical of a kuudere as she reached my hand.

---

---

---

"Hey hey, look what we found here?" A white, tall, and have blonde hair men greeted us.

Westerner huh? What are they looking for at here?

"A teacher, with a student... alone in the night? Are you two are dating, uh... what a lame love story..." The person did odd mocking poses.

ZASH

An ice slash from Dahlia shot towards the foreigner.

TANG!

That person crushed the ice chunks with his bare hand that was imbued with fire magic. His condescending smile made Dahlia even more annoyed

"What do you want?!" Dahlia glared at that foreigner.

"Oh don't worry, I won't hurt you. Moreover, Mr. boyfriend is with you." His smile grew even more annoyed.

"But it's different if I surround your boyfriend first!" The foreigner tried to call his gang and told them to surround me.

Now Dahlia and I are separated, I can still hear what they're saying. But the faces of these foreigners annoyed me. I was made to look up just to see their annoying faces.

"Yo, short local. Let's play a little bit..." said one of them who mocked my short height.

"I've got information about your Anitya, so don't fight, understand?!" They tried to intimidate me by casting ice magic which they flaunted in their palms.

As usual, what they got was false information that was in my school's data.

I sighed seeing how stupid they were. After all, Dahlia is in trouble. If I don't save her, I'll be in trouble.

Unfortunately the bag I was carrying bothered me. I can't fight in a professional way like this. Then I just use the old way.

"CODE NAME: UNKNOWN, DESTROY THE BONE OF EVERY MAN AROUND ME: DO ONLY ONCE, AFTER IT: DO NOTHING" I cast a forbidden spell that only 3 of Anitya users have it.

"Eh, why my body?!" They began to feel pain in their bodies.

CRACK!

Everyone who surrounded me fell down with terrible dislocation all over their bodies.

The leader foreigner who was still teasing Dahlia was immediately shocked after seeing his subordinates defeated.

"How could?! They all lost in instant?!" The foreigner was scared, but instead of being afraid, he came to face me with an angry look.

"Short bastard! How dare you!" He readied his pageblug and try to shoot me.

BANG BANG BANG

About 24 shots were fired at me.

I tried to avoid it by running sideways.

PRACT!

Unfortunately, the bag containing the items I just bought fell and was destroyed by the shot from the Ak-47's bullet.

My eyes glared sharply at that damned foreigner and ran fastly towards him.

His eyes didn't look scared at all by my arrival. He even looked like he was welcoming me.

I tried to do a medium kick to hit his stomach. But instead, he caught my leg and cast electric magic on my leg.

It seems this man doesn't know that I'm immune to a magical attack, but it would be weird if Dahlia saw it.

I made a sword from the ground which I later swung at him.

Instantly, I let go of his lock in my legs and backed away. He wasn't trying to target Dahlia at all, maybe his plans had changed since I destroyed his subordinates.

It's quite a distance now. Maybe it's time...

"CODE NAME: UNK-

CRAT!

A knife of burning ice hit the foreigner's stomach.

Dahlia's face, who was staring intently at the foreigner, could be seen from here. She's like she's fed up with his rambling

"Dahlia?" I looked at Dahlia who was also bravely fighting with me.

I closed my eyes and thought about my actions. Maybe I should not rely too much on the power of CODE.

I took out pageblug and activated it. "Dahlia back off! Let me finish it!"

Dahlia quickly backed away from that person and gave me a way to slash him.

When the condition I feel is safe, I run towards him and slash him quickly when the distance between the two of us is already close.

SLASH!

I slashed the person's body, he immediately fell right after.

Maybe this is too much for him. He wasn't even given time to use his magic.

"Rasyid?! You did it!"

"Ez, don't worry..." With a little arrogant tone.

---

---

---

But my face was sad again after seeing the thing that I just bought. They all lay on the ground crushed by the bullets.

Dahlia saw what I saw.

She couldn't think of a word to calm me down.

All she could do was pat my shoulder.

"It's okay, it's just a figure..." I said while patting her soft hair.

---

---

---

They had made their move, and now it looked like they were aiming for the students.

My gaze was suddenly distracted by the car that accidentally pass through both of us, inside the car...

There is someone...

"Hakam?!" My eyes widen in surprise.