"You’re really not a girl dressed up as boy?"
Stingham asked, standing in the doorway to Rinloran’s room. His eyes were locked onto Rinloran, still carrying the spark of a hope.
"Teacher Carter, what is it?"
Rinloran walked into his own room with his usual aloofness and said in an ice-cold tone, "If there’s nothing of importance, I’m a little tired and would like to rest now."
"It was still alright back when he freshly joined the school, but he seems to have grown colder and colder ever since I asked him to join the school team, grown more and more distant…" Carter sighed in silence and nodded helplessly at Singham. "This is Stingham, he transferred to our school just today. I already talked it over with the teacher in charge of the dorm, and we’d like to let him stay in the same room with you if you don’t have any objection."
"I have no opinion if that’s the school’s arrangement of the school." Rinloran didn’t even look at Carter, Stingham, Ayrin, or Chris. He coldly said, "Just remember, don’t touch my things, keep clean, and also don’t randomly leave things around."
"You’re really a boy?" Stingham shouted gloomily without a care for Rinloran’s expression. He finally gave up after a long carefully examination of Rinloran.
Ayrin looked at Rinloran’s face obviously filled with black lines, and softly whispered against Stingham’s ear, "You’re sure you want to live with him? He doesn’t seem to like this idea. Maybe you could just not disturb him and let teacher Carter arrange a room just for yourself instead? Or you can live together with me too, anyway teacher Carter said that Belo is training and won’t be back for a little while."
"Get lost! Stay away from me, don’t you go thinking I’m not aware of your evil intentions. If I roomed with you, or if I lived alone, what would I do if you crawled on top of me while I’m dead asleep. Please conduct yourself with propriety!" Stingham clenched his teeth and cursed Ayrin. He immediately walked into the room and sat his ass on the bed, then pulled a towel and wiped his hands and his face.
Rinloran’s face turned green all of a sudden. He said in an icy, murderous tone, "This is my bed, get the hell up!"
"Is that so, aren’t they both the same." Stingham stood up subconsciously. He saw Rinloran completely ignore him and directly change the bed sheets instead, tossing them into a basin nearby together with the towel he touched.
"What’s your meaning?"
Stingham was dumbfounded, then he started shouting as if he received a huge blow to his self-esteem, "Is there some kind of disease on my person, am I especially dirty?! Did you need to go that far?"
"Sorry." Rinloran fell back a step. "But please stay away from me, otherwise you’ll spray your saliva on my person."
"Aren’t you going too far?" Stingham was so angry even his nose was about to become crooked.
"I merely hope you can show me some respect. I will also give you sufficient respect. If that doesn’t suit you, you can busy yourself on that side of the line and just stop paying attention to me." Rinloran nodded coldly at a line drawn in the middle of the room. "I won’t cross to your side either."
"…" Ayrin, Chris, and Carter couldn’t resist sharing a look between themselves. They all felt that Rinloran’s obsession with cleanliness was even more severe than what they imagined.
All three of them thought that Stingham surely wouldn’t stand it, that he would turn on his heels and walk out straight away, then request another room from teacher Carter. But what they didn’t expect was, Stingham actually laughed out loud after staring for a moment, then leaped to that side of the line and sat his ass straight on the bed. Then he suddenly leaped again back on this side of the line.
Jumping back and forth, he even laughed at the same time. "Haha, there are actually people playing with dividing lines in a male dorm like this. I’m jumping here, and here I jump away again…" Suddenly, Stingham went oh damn and pretended to fall. He fell on Rinloran’s bed, then watched Rinloran with a very apologetic and pitiful look after that. "Rinloran, I’m really sorry, I accidentally fell on your bed. Now you have to wash the quilt and everything underneath, you won’t be able to sleep like that. Do you want me to help you with the washing?"
"That’s really low…" An evil chill shuddered through Ayrin and Chris when they saw the scene, the same thought popping in their minds.
Stingham was still dissatisfied watching Rinloran’s increasingly icy face. He kept talking, looking as if he were looking for a beating, "Also, when I sleep I like to spray out saliva everywhere…"
Rinloran clenched his hands and said, "Since you like it, then you can sleep on this bed. I can go sleep in the forest of giant trees." Then he immediately jumped out of the open windows.
"Hmph, you won’t make me believe you can live inside the forest." Stingham lay down on the bed and rested his legs on the quilt after removing his shoes.
"Teacher Carter, I’ll go find him with Chris!"
"It might be better if I don’t interfere." Carter was about to chase after Rinloran, but then a thought flashed in his mind when he heard Ayrin’s voice, and he halted his steps. He looked at the seemingly very satisfied Stingham laying on the bed and couldn’t help but think, since he even managed something impossible like making Stingham transfer to Holy Dawn Academy, then it might not be impossible for Ayrin to convince Rinloran to join the school team using his own methods.
…
"Don’t follow me."
Rinloran leaped from tree to tree when he suddenly halted. He steadied himself on a tree branch, turned around and said, "I truly very much loathe the idea of joining the school team and participating in this tournament."
"Ah…"
Ayrin cried out in alarm. He swayed on his feet after his sudden halt and fell down. Chris grabbed his back with one hand and lifted him beside her.
"High-level elven bloodlines are really amazing, you won’t fall even with this kind of sudden halt and turnaround. It’s really like teacher Carter said, the nimbleness isn’t something a normal person can compare to." Ayrin spoke without the slightest sense of shame, then he looked at Rinloran and seriously said, "Stop lying to Chris and me, I already saw you watch our match. You definitely want to participate in the tournament deep inside you, you definitely like this kind of battle, am I right?"
Rinloran’s body stiffened faintly all of a sudden, but he immediately turned aside and said in an icy tone, "I merely went to encourage my school team as a student of Holy Dawn Academy. This doesn’t mean I like matches like these. Also, I can even tell you that I have no desire whatsoever to become a battlemaster, I only want to join Holy Dawn Academy’s medical classes and become a medical master."
"But…"
"There’s no but, stop coming to find me for this, or else I won’t talk to you anymore, because I really very much loathe this tournament, loathe these fights."
"You must have a reason even if you loathe them right?" Ayrin looked at his side profile and shouted, "I won’t bother you anymore if you really have a reason for your loathing."
"What the hell do you guys know!" The fire of an unprecedented anger suddenly ignited inside Rinloran’s eyes. He shouted out loud in a stern voice he never used before, "It’s your own business if you guys like fighting and want to become battlemasters who defend the kingdom at the cost of your lives. Don’t go thinking that everyone’s life is the same as yours! Do you know how it feels to grow up without your parents?!"
Many skylarks took off inside the forest, scared by the cold sternness in his voice.
The forest of giant trees quieted once again. Rinloran had no desire to say any further word; his strength seemed to have deserted him. He only wanted to find a quiet place and stay by himself.
However, he actually heard Ayrin say, "I know."
An icy anger once again surged in Rinloran’s heart, but he heard Ayrin continue to say, "Because I also lost my parents ever since a very young age."
The anger in Rinloran’s heart vanished all of a sudden. He couldn’t resist turning his head around and look at Ayrin.
"You.." He watched the calm Ayrin and wanted to say something, but no words would leave his mouth at this moment.
"There used to be some precious gem stores in the area around our Cororin town. My parents were employees in one of the last gem stores left. I heard it was because they were careless and breathed too much airborne gem dust, so they both fell sick and passed away." Ayrin turned around and glanced at Chris. Chris seemed to understand his meaning and nodded at him. He immediately added, "It’s not only me, Chris also lost her mother."
"I’m sorry." Rinloran stared blankly for a very long while. He lowered his head. "I see you so happy every day, I didn’t imagine that…"
"The grim reaper wants to snatch away our loved ones, snatch away our lives. That’s why we have to live to the fullest and fight against the grim reaper. Living in Cororin isn’t something easy. Everyone there thinks like this." Ayrin raised his head very naturally and looked at the sky. "Everyday, when we walk out from the mines and see the sunlight, all of us are very happy."
Chris looked blankly at Ayrin. Her mind was previous filled with training, arcane skills and the tournament. Only now did she realize she truly neglected many things. She previously thought that Ayrin was the same as the vast majority of students, born in an ordinary yet wealthy family. Even when Ayrin came to her house, when she told him her circumstances, all she thought of was the tournament. She didn’t even ask Ayrin’s situation.
She felt very ashamed all of a sudden, shrouded in grief and distress. She had trouble imagining Ayrin’s life in a place like Cororin’s mining area. She couldn’t help but stretch out her hand and squeeze Ayrin’s hand. She wanted to apologize for her negligence, wanted to give Ayrin her warmth.
Rinloran saw Chris’ actions. He who shared the same fate didn’t have any other thought but an understanding of Chris’ feelings.
"No, you guys still can’t understand. What happened to me is different from you." He still firmly shook his head and resolutely turned around, leaping away. "I hope we can be friends, but I really don’t want to participate in the tournament, I really don’t like to fight."
"Don’t like to fight?" Ayrin stared blankly in the direction he disappeared in. "If he doesn’t like to fight, then when did he come to our aid and fought with us when we were at a disadvantage… What on earth happened to him that made him this way? Is he really going to live inside the forest?"
"Is it because of his parents?" Chris shook her head and held Ayrin’s hand, softly saying, "No need to worry for him though. It’s the high-level elves’ nature to live inside forests, it’s also beneficial for his training. If he wants to, he can very easily make a treehouse."
