Unexpected Situation (1)

Making my way to the checkout I paid for the weapon…well Cody did anyway. 

I was then dragged to have lunch with them. Alistair on the other hand had left me.

'Tsk damn traitor'

"Arthur, do you have any dungeon experience?" Cody asked and I shook my head. 

"No, I've been training my technique and my gift," I replied causing Cody to nod "Then I suggest you should, dungeon exploration is a very important part of your mid-terms." 

I thought about it for a bit and agreed. In the novel, Issac finds a lot of dungeons with a lot of loot which I could take advantage of.

However, I hadn't entered a dungeon but most importantly I hadn't hunted monsters. This means I'd probably have 2 reactions. I'd freeze or all my training would go out the window. This is why I needed to build up some experience. 

I then decided to head home but on my way, I bumped into Issac again which shocked me. 

"Hey," Raising my hand as a greeting I was about to walk away but he then called for me "Are you really Elena Monfort's disciple?" 

"I guess," I tilted my head "why do you ask?"

"Are you going to attend Nexus?" He then started to walk beside me

"Yeah, although I'm just gonna do the bare minimum to pass," I replied honestly which caused him to frown "Why? Don't you think it's better for you to get a high rank?"

"I don't like attention, but if I need a high rank it'll allow me to shoot up the rankings faster," I replied

Now I know what I said was a bit contradictory and arrogant but I think it was reasonable enough. He nodded "I see, well then take care,"

"You too,"

Separating I let out a sigh of relief. 

It wasn't because I separated from him but because Issac was alive and wasn't erased from this world. This meant I had a higher percent chance of keeping the original story how little it may be.

When I made it back to my house I found Alistair and started to talk "So you wanna go into the Grandde Forest to practice fighting against monsters?" 

I nodded "So mind becoming my bodyguard?"

Getting up from the couch he started to stretch "While I'd like to do that that'll probably cause me to get discovered which is something you probably wouldn't like,"

I stretched the back of my head.

The reason I wanted him was because I wanted to see what I could improve upon. While I could've texted Elena I knew that she was busy and didn't really want to disturb her. 

"Ah well," 

"But I can teach you a breathing technique that could help you," Alistair offered

"Ah for real?" 

Grabbing my phone I then texted Elena. After a while, she saw a car pull up and saw her assistant Amanda.

***

I looked at the snarling beast in front of me. It looked like a wolf however, it was 2 times bigger and had red glowing eyes. 

Beasts were fundamentally different from monsters. Animals from Earth who couldn't endure the changes in the world mainly mana changed shape. Of course, there were still some animals who were able to endure them but all they got was enhanced intelligence and a bit more tuffer.

The Dire Claw was just an overgrown wolf but that could've been said about any monster really. 

I quickly jumped back dodging its claws. Instantly lightning moved around me and in an instant I appeared behind the beast. Turning I looked at its headless corpse before it fell on the floor.

Then suddenly the area around me turned into pixels and a drone appeared above me. Taking out the earbud I let out a breath. 

At first, I wanted to train in the forest, however, I had completely forgotten that this world was super high-tech to the point where there was virtual reality like many of those popular anime and web novels but also augmented reality came a long way.

The earbud was called "AR Vision".

Essentially it augmented the reality around you to about 99.99% while VR replicates reality by about 97.45%. 

This should be expected as one is just manipulating your vision while another just…I don't know I just added in cause why not.

"Not bad," Amanda nodded while she fiddled with the tablet,

"Alright last monster," Hearing that I put in the earbud with a sigh the arena around me turned from a plain standard arena to a lush forest. 

Suddenly in front of me appeared a bear. It was pretty tall and had grey fur that was paired with its black claws made it look intimidating a little bit but I think that it was mostly due to how tall it was. 

The bear immediately swung toward me. I jumped to the side and swung my sword which didn't really do much. Lightning then crackled around me again as I prepared my stance and charged toward it however, to my shock the bear was able to move out of the way causing my blade to connect with its ebony claws. 

I was suddenly pushed to the ground but I instantly rolled to the side and used my technique again. This time I didn't miss and a large gaping hole appeared in his body. 

The same process happened as last time as the area around me turned into pixels. Handing over the earpiece to Amanda I had thanked her for her time. 

While this wasn't exactly what I was hoping for it gave me some sort of comfort. 

When I exited the guild building I made my way to a bench. Checking my phone for the time I nodded to myself.

'Should be around this time'

After a bit, I saw a person dressed in black walking past me. But as he did I raised my pointer finger and ring finger on my left hand and I also made sure that he saw it. After he walked past me an old man sat beside me a few minutes later. 

"What would you like?"

"A black coffee," with that reply the man gave me a card that was black in colour. There wasn't anything on the front but on the back there was a purple symbol. Putting it in my pocket I then got off the bench and made my way to a gaming cafe.

In my previous life, I had read many novels where a reader or author is transported into their novel. However, sometimes they don't get the memories of the person they possess and it is later revealed that they did something traumatic which would cause them problems.

And considering that I didn't have any information about Arthur Irwin the character that probably never should've existed I would need to get a lot of information and fast.

For all I knew I was a part of a cult or something. 

As I walked I then noticed something out of the corner of my eye. There stood a church with a banner of a crescent moon on the front.

'The church of stars'

It was a place where every believer of the Lady of Stars went every Saturday. From what I could observe some people still came here almost every day. 

But then a sudden thought crossed my mind.

What if I never existed in this world?

What if I was summoned here and everyone in the orphanage had their memories change? 

But that was frankly impossible.

One reason was that I didn't look anything like my past self. Another was that Elena had probably done a deep dive into my past. If I had done something shady she probably wouldn't have accepted me or made me a PEN student for the White Lotus guild. 

'Ah whatever'

I then started to scratch the back of my head.

'Not like I wanna know a way back'

That was true. Frankly, if I'm speaking honestly I had no desire to go back to my original world as this place was my salvation in high school and still was. 

As I made it in front of a cafe I noticed someone standing in front with a serious face. They seemed to be around my age and were super handsome which caused my brow to twitch. He had black straight hair that was styled to one side and ebony eyes. 

'Black hair and black eyes sound…that sounds familiar'

I then instantly knew who he was.

Noah Winslow.

One of the few strongest supporting characters in the novel that had the talent to rival Isaac. 

However, currently, he was glaring at the gaming cafe.

'What the hell is he doing?'