《A World Beyond》Chapter 14: Wait Who Are You?
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After finishing up the supplementary class with the two headmasters Hiro continued on to the rest of his classes. His classes were a mix of general education which he barely paid attention too mostly because he already had a good understanding of the subjects they covered. After all, he did live nine other lives before this one.
Following the general education courses, Hiro would take on some courses for Knights unless they were ones he was given special permission to be excused from. These courses typically included the close quarters combat sparring courses where students would spar with each other and courses designs to teach students how to use weapons and certain techniques.
He argued with the Headmaster of the Knight Division, Albert, that he was already well familiar with sword techniques and sparring with most of the other students would mostly be pointless. After all other than a few other children in the Magical Knight division, including Baldar, there were few other children his age could really match him in a physical brawl.
Instead, Hiro argued, it was more efficient to take the time that would have been wasted in such classes and use it to reinforce his body with mana. After all, according to Headmaster of the Magic Division, Miss Campbell, if Hiro spent the next couple years just focusing on reinforcing his body instead of going to class he could shorten the required three years to a mere two years.
Of course this meant neglecting physical training, which was rather counterproductive, and as a result, Hiro would miss out on his magic classes causing him to be behind all the other students. But if he could take the time to reinforce himself instead of going to a relatively pointless sparring match then it was likely he could slightly speed up the process.
Thus Albert begrudgingly agreed, though unfortunately for Hiro he was unable to do the same in regards to his general education courses. As for the time spent in his Magic courses, and Magical Knight courses, well he didn’t mind taking the time to go to those classes especially the Magic classes.
Hiro was never much of a mage, and after understanding his problem on why he couldn’t control his spells he strove to be able to control his magic. Plus taking the class allowed himself to familiarize himself with even more spells and prepare countermeasures against them.
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Though in the end this schedule did leave Hiro rather busy, whenever he wasn’t sleeping, eating, or in class he could either be seen running around the campus doing something bizarre as physical training, sitting in his room just constantly absorbing more mana, or in the library reading up on spells and other miscellaneous information.
While Hiro was in the library he’d also hoped to find more information about the Holy Empire or the Demon King, but in the end, it was only a school library. Most of the texts focused on Renton, the unexplored frontier, the neighboring countries, magic, combat, economics, and so on.
Though Hiro didn’t explore all of the library, however in the end, he doubted there was anything relevant that he wanted. So, for the most part, he gave up. But one day when he was reading a book in the library a girl with black hair suddenly walked up to him as he was reading a book and asked, “Um, excuse me. Are you Hiro Whitmore?”
Hiro looked up, at the black haired girl. She looked to be around his age, and when he looked over at her arms that were clutching a book he noticed that she didn’t wear a bracelet signifying her status. As Hiro looked at he felt like he’d seen her somewhere before so he replied, “Yes, I’m Hiro Whitmore. Also, excuse me, but have we met before?”
“Ah no, um, in a sense yes, but not directly.”
Hiro thought about it and looked through his memory and he recalled, “Oh, the girl from the infirmary, the one with the broken arms.”
The girl laughed wearily, “Yes, um I’m Karen, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, Karen, now did you need something from me?”
“Ah, yes! Um, by any chance Hiro is your father Viscount Whitmore?”
“Viscount? Well, yes, but my Father is a Baron, not a Viscount.”
“Um, then do you have a brother named Duk-” Karen coughed before continuing, “I mean Quinn?”
Hiro nodded his head, “Why what’s this about?”
“And do you have a sister named Eris?”
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Hiro paused, “Yes…”
“Um…”, Karne hesitated before finally asking, “Can I ask you a few more questions.”
Hiro stared at Karen, he wasn’t sure why she was asking him these things, but he didn’t feel it would hurt too answer a few more questions and nodded.
“Then by any chance have you ever heard of the countries China, America, Japan, Korea, Canada, Australia, India, Spain, France, Russia, or Germany?”
Hiro shook his head, other than the Holy Empire and the Underworld he wasn’t all too familiar with any other countries. However as he was waiting for the next question Karen seemed to lose herself in thought, so Hiro asked, “Karen? Are you okay?”
Karen snapped out of her daze and replied hurriedly, “Ah yes!”
“Is that all?”
“I’m sorry, but can I just ask you one more question. This is a bit weird, but… have you died before?”
Hiro’s eyes widened, and suddenly his mana flared up and he grabbed Karen by the neck and lifted her up causing the books to fall to the ground. He asked, “Who are you? What do you know?”
Karen panicked as she began hitting Hiro’s arm, “I give, I give, please let me down.”
Hiro glared at her, “Answer me.”
“I’m just a normal student, I’m Karen, part of the Magic Division.”
Hiro tightened his grip, “That’s not what I meant.”
Karen grew pale, “Please, I promise I’m not an enemy, it’s just that I can...I can see the future!”
“What?”
“Please, it’s too tight…”
Hiro loosened his grip and let Karen down causing her to fall to her knees and gasp for breath. Hiro looked down at her and asked, “What do you mean you can see the future?”
Karen looked around and said, “It’s a bit inaccurate to say that I can see the future, but I’ve seen the future in a sense. It’s difficult to explain.”
“How can I trust you.”
“You can’t, and frankly I’m not even sure if I can trust you. Frankly, this was a big risk, but things just went off track too much.”
“What do you mean?”
Karen looked up and stared at Hiro in the eyes, “I mean you aren’t supposed to be here.”
Hiro recalled the voice he’d heard back in his dorm, `you don’t belong here` it said. Hiro asked, “What do you mean by that, I’ve been told that before. What do you mean I’m not supposed to be here?”
“Huh? You’ve been told that before? Does that mean…”,Karen lost herself in thought again before shaking her head, “Well what I meant was originally according to the timeline I saw, you didn’t exist. The person known as Hiro Whitmore never existed.”
“...”
“According to my memories, Baron Whitmore and his wife gave birth to a single son, a prodigious mage and the Baron’s mistress a daughter who would go on to be a Magic Knight. The Baron and his wife would go on later to rise through the ranks becoming a Viscount and later perish in the War.”
“A prodigious mage? Quinn?”
“Hmmm? Is your brother not an incredible mage? Your father should have taught his a great deal of magic at a young age, but due to his frail body he wouldn’t take the path to become a Magic Knight and instead reach incredible heights in the arcane arts under the third prince.”
“What are you talking about, I haven’t seen Quinn cast a single spell in my life. He even chose the to take the general education course.”
“What!? No, take that back right now!”
Hiro was taken aback, “Huh why?”
“No, that can’t be...we need him!”
As Karen was stood up and was about to take off, Hiro grabbed her arm and asked, “What are you on about.”
“Don’t you understand!? No, of course, you don’t understand, no one understands! Quinn is one of Renton’s Heroes, well will be. Without Quinn... Renton very well might not exist in the future!”
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