My days in this institute spanned only a week. But that is not to say I didn’t learn anything. I’ve learned a lot actually. One point is that I did not need to be here. As for the second thing I learned: food tastes great.

While I may not interact much with my surroundings, I don't think it is a necessary part of the experience.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

I was just… Well. Who knows what I was doing.

I said I’d train, but I was really fooling around aimlessly.

It makes one wonder if I ought to be alive when I’m wasting this new life.

‘It’s too boring here.’

I’m too boring here.

Either way, I was misplaced; not meant to be.

Out of the countless eggs and sperm in the world that unite to form a zygote, in a mathematical sense, wasn’t I just a mistake? Wasn’t everyone a mistake?

Such thinking was foolish, but it wasn’t necessarily false. Yet, the truth was crippling sometimes.

I wasn’t of any belief that suggested natalism or anti-natalism—all I think I know is that everything in the world is stupid. Of course, if everyone is stupid, no one is stupid which is a perplexing phenomenon.

But knowing that I happened into this world because someone circumvented my death purposefully… I just don’t get it.

I may not have liked living on Earth, but I did enjoy brief moments. Particularly those flashes of light right before my ascension. Or descension.

Probably the latter.

Back then, did I enjoy the fact that I was dying?

Maybe. But not anymore.

I’d like to reflect more on it, but I know I can’t just do that. It wouldn’t hit the same way; like scrolling through an album, it wasn’t the same as experiencing it first hand.

No memory could replace that experience.

I was a selfish thing.

For me, it was roughly forty years. And according to him: thousands. That’s how long we haven’t interacted for. Heck, I thought he was dead. I thought he was a dead motherfucker. But he pulled a deus ex machina out of nowhere and got transported to another world as if it were some anime.

It would have been fine if I didn’t know that. It would have been a lot better if I was left assuming the illusion to be the truth. But he had to drag me into this reincarnation mess.

Forty years.

I thought he was dead.

I thought I was dead.

Yet, here we both were, speaking as though nothing has changed over a plate of food.

What the hell.

Even in heaven, I didn’t want to see his face again. At least that’s what I thought.

So how could we possibly slide back to the way things were before?

How long does the average friendship last?

Not long I’d suppose.

I was a lot less naive than I was then. He was the same. We parted ways long ago, so it ought to stay that way. But I couldn’t help myself.

It was only when I was alone could I think this rationally.

I know I had no good reason to think like this. But I also need to figure out what I’m doing with my life. I can’t do that if I’m not alone.

Solitude was the greatest remedy after all. If my previous life had taught me anything, putting myself in danger was the fastest way to give purpose to my livelihood. Whether it was survival or for the heck of it, it made life bearable.

‘Why?’

As I walked, I came upon a certain person.

As for who she was, I did remember a rather cutesy name

Melly, if my memory serves correctly. That was what he called her. An elf, if I wasn’t mistaken. With her ears concealed to look like a human, she had the same black attire from when we first met. A time when I was one-sidedly obliterated.

“Master? No, you give off a different aura.”

“Yes.”

It was awkward. Definitely. I was only a couple centimetres off the ground with milk still in my mouth while the person before me was akin to a giant that roamed the earth.

The first words that came out of her mouth, Master.

A funny thing to say under most circumstances.

“Who are you? Why are you in his clothes?” she said with twisted eyes, quite different from the ones I saw in his presence. I ignored such affairs though.

Lifting the cloak revealed my face.

“You…” Seeing my face, she eased down her aggression while resuming a more dignified demeanor.

I didn’t normally say or ask such questions since my deductive ability could usually answer them. Yet I struck up a conversation anyway. I don’t know why. I just did.

“Be honest, why did you bring me here.”

She took the time to scrutinize my words, looking down on my body.

I rephrased my words: “Why did you bring me to this academy.”

And she responded with a cold demeanor.

“You don’t need to know that.”

But I think I already knew why.

“Was it because I looked like him. Your ‘Master,’ that is.”

She didn’t give an answer. Or she was still thinking up a response.

Either way, I believed my judgment to be right. She brought me to a place surveilled by her or someone like Scarlet who was the headmaster because I simply looked like the ‘Master’ she was infatuated with.

“You don’t need to answer that.”

Her killer eyes stared straight into my eyes, making me a bit uncomfortable—that wasn’t to say I couldn’t handle the rawness in those reptilian eyes.

“hee…”

She seemed to wheeze a little, putting a stop to her laughter.

Her way of breathing was too vulgar for my likings.

It looked like hyperventilating, but at the same time, not as severe as hyperventilating. It was the natural panting of a dog that barked “woof woof” to its owner. I may or may not have taken it too far with that analogy, because she was looking at me as though she read my mind.

“Just because you no longer have the same use, doesn’t mean I can’t use you for something else.”

She said “Same use,” implying that I held some sort of value to her before. Evidence to show I was right. Who she was after was Benni, not me. And with Benni’s existence found, my value had depreciated in her eyes. I could sort of tell from their Disney princess-style reunion back during the exam.

“I suggest you ignore me,” I said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Me and your ‘Master’ are in a fascinating relationship, you should know that.”

“And?” I could hear the panting die a little. As for the reason…

“Ignore me and I will get out of both your ‘Master’ and your life. I’m sure I’m a nuisance for you,” I said.

By the end of my sentence, her panting had died all the way. As much as it could have been my delusion, I’m pretty sure she did do that.

“If I wanted you out, I could just erase you. But you have other uses.”

“Know that, boy.”

She lifted her gaze from me and said with a lighter tone.

“Where is he right now?”

“And why should I tell you?” I responded in a rude—

Before I could react, she was already in front of me with her hand in the air just milimetres away from my eye. I involuntarily blinked; the small hairs brushing against her finger.

“Be a good boy, understood?”

“...”

“Unless I allow it, you’re not going anywhere and you’re not going to have any say on what I need from you.”

“...”

“Anyway, that girl wanted to give you this,” the woman said, dropping the envelope on the ground. She did that on purpose.

“Now where is he—no. Nevermind. I know.” Like that, she left.

Once I could no longer hear her footsteps, I turned around to check the coasts before bending down for the envelope.

It was thin. Thin enough to be torn through. With how roughed up and crumbled it was, it was hard to believe it was still intact.

There was no seal so I opened it with my tender hands.

Inside there was a note bathed in ink.

As for its contents, there were three giant words.

Crude words with a similarly crude intent. Crude as in ink smeared like blood on a cutting board.

That’s all I could tell.

It was in times like these that I wished I could read.