“Oi, wake up, you sleepyhead. When are you going to wake up?”

“Hm, just a little bit.”

“You’re going to be in trouble, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Give me a sec—If you want you can sleep beside me.”

I boldly told Stephanie. We’re currently in my room, I’m in the bed all sleepy while Stephanie went to my room, waking me up. After I said that, Stephanie slapped my back hard, which made me cry in pain.

“Ahhh! That hurts!”

“Deserved.”

While I’m agonizing over the stingy pain on my back, Stephanie opened the curtains, which blinded my eyes.

“Damn it! My eyes! It’s burning me!”

“Stop overreacting, you imbecile.”

“Why must you have forsaken me like this, my lovely Steph?”

“If you ever call me like that once again, I’ll make sure to decimate you into pieces,” Stephanie said in a threatening tone.

“Geez, I’m just kidding around. Why do you always take everything seriously?”

Stephanie didn’t respond, ignoring me completely as she went out of my room without batting an eye. That’s so like her. Our relationship improved drastically from before where she really hated me to the core, but now, she can now converse with me casually and joke around, despite her aggressive personality to me.

I stood on my feet and started stretching my body.

It’s been a few months ever since I became Master Irene’s disciple. However, we haven’t done any ‘actual’ sword training because my body is incapable to endure the harshness of the training that Master Irene prepared for me. For that reason, Master Irene whipped my body into shape. Right now, my body became more robust and slightly bulkier than my old usual self, which’s just plain skin and bones. But now, I should say my body finally reached the threshold of the average chart body of boys my age.

I then went to my bathroom and started brushing my teeth. Staring at my own reflection in the mirror, the old pale face that I’ve had was nowhere to be seen anymore. What blooms in front of me was a healthy young boy or girl—Because I haven’t got my haircut yet, as my hair finally reached the shoulder line making me look more feminine.

Why? A reason for this might be correlated to my master, Master Irene. She’s the one who told me to grow my hair as long as possible. And the reason for that? I don’t know, as she said to me. “I’ll let you know when the day comes.”, like one of those cliche lines that an old man would say.

But in truth, it only creeped me out. I’m positive Master Irene is a shotacon because, from the way she looks at me whenever I would get sweaty, she would watch me intensely. Stephanie noticed her odd behavior too, which she warned me to be cautious around Master Irene. Or else, something will get pop. Right after she said that I knew what she’s talking about, but I’ve been waiting for that for months! She hasn’t made a move on me yet. Damn it.

Before that, I need to get stronger first. I have two primary targets which are the main heroine Adelle and the elf princess Lily. Why not? I’m in an eroge world where the countless possibility exists, although I considered about plot armor of the protagonist. It’s a hypothesis that thought about the world, on whether the world revolves around the protagonist or not. Although Pix answered my question by saying, there's no such thing as definite in this world. No clue about what she's talking about.

I should’ve asked more questions...

For months, Master Irene was the person who helped me in my daily life alongside Ms. Jessy and Stephanie. Although Ms. Jessy was wary of Master Irene at their first meeting, in the end, they started getting along as time passes.

My daily routine is eating breakfast at Hart’s household then continue on my workout. However, today is special because this is the day where I will start my sword training lessons with Master Irene.

“Good morning, Ms. Jess”

“Morning, Claude~” Ms. Jess greeted me with her bright smile while cooking in the kitchen, wearing an apron with her black hair tied up in a bun. Upon greeting her, I saw Stephanie sitting on the dining table with her cellphone. It’s been like this ever since.

Well, there’s this one time when Stephanie met Master Irene she acted normal because, at that time, I thought Stephanie knew Master Irene’s identity, but she doesn’t have any idea who she was or has ever heard her name as the Sword Blade Saint. Master Irene didn’t really introduce herself as such, but I asked Stephanie if she knew who Sword Blade Saint was or any information about that name.

“Sup, Steph.”

“Sup, are you going to be training with Ms. Irene today?”

"Yeah."

“Good luck then.”

“Thanks, I recall that you’re going to be having your Spirit ceremony today?”

“Yes, my lovely Steph will finally have her own spirit. That’s why I’ll be accompanying her later. Do you want to join us, Claude?” Ms. Jessy interjected.

“Sorry, I know it’s a big day for Steph, but I can’t join. I’ll probably ruin her day if I join along.”

“What are you saying? Steph would love to be accompanied by you—”

“Mom! Please, don’t say any unnecessary things!”

“What? I’m just saying the truth. Hehehe...” Ms. Jessy giggled.

Stephanie shifted the blame to me, with her eyes glaring at me. I then responded with. “As what Steph said, it looks like I’m not welcome.” I shrugged my shoulders.

“If you say so~ Shall we eat then?”

“Thank you for the food.”

During our breakfast, I saw Stephanie’s eyes with a hint of sadness, presumably because of her mother’s teasing or because I wasn’t able to accompany her on an important day of her life. But, I’ve known the answer, and it’s the second one.

Actually, I’ve only learned recently that she liked me, which came from her odd behavior sometimes. Not really, because there’s this one time where I caught her sniffing my underwear while masturbating in her own room, the one I just used that day. Luckily, my lack of presence helped me at that time. But for real though, it’s either she liked me or she’s a pervert. Those are the only plausible options that I could’ve thought of.

At that moment, I did find her disgusting but over time, I gradually understood how terrifying my dazzling appearance was to people and accepted Stephanie for how she is. I can’t blame her for something she can’t control. But there’s a line that she needs to cross if she wanted a piece of my ass.

Stephanie needs to level up her game and need to stop her tsundere personality. Honestly, it’s quite irritating whenever she acts tsun-tsun. I admit it looks cute, but she won’t get anywhere with that. That’s why I reached a conclusion, by pushing her to be honest with her feelings. If she can’t be honest with feelings, then it’ll be useless. What a good friend I am.

After finishing our breakfast, Ms. Jessy went to the kitchen to clean the dishes. While Stephanie sat on the sofa, I went behind her and whispered. “Sorry, I’ll make it up to you.”

“Huh?”

Stephanie turned around in bafflement. She looked me into my eyes with confusion, but before she could even say anything. I pressed my lips against hers. This took her by surprise that made her eyes widen, making it look like about to pop out of its socket. It took her some time before she gradually realizes that we’re kissing, her face flushed in redness.

I pulled my lips then waited for her initial reaction, but that didn’t come as she’s staring deeply into my eyes, seeking answers. Her expression is priceless, it’s so adorable. Instead of answering her questioning gaze, I smiled and left their house, leaving the speechless Stephanie.

“That should probably do it.”

Instead of pushing me away, I felt a tongue invading my mouth that time, but before she could even do it; I pulled my lips away. Yep, that answered everything inside my head. There are two reasons I kissed her; First, it’s whether or not she liked me, but it could be just lust. Second, to push her into being honest with her feelings about if she really liked me. It’s basically a high-risk and high-reward gamble.

Then I went my way back to my own house, where Master Irene will teach me about the world of spirits and other various stuff. The world of spirits is a vast existence that even only a few people understand. Because of that, I’m excited to learn from a person who traveled across the world—Master Irene. Even though with Claude’s memories in my mind, there are a lot of things he still doesn’t understand. For instance, the dungeons, labyrinth, portals that exist beyond the world, and etc.