Faceless Mask

Angelica's POV

The second day I went to school, I was surprised to find that the girl named Cilia didn't have that sort of aura around her anymore, no matter how hard I looked at her, she just looks like a normal student now. Is it possible to control the 'aura' to the point that one feels like an ordinary person? As far as I know, I have never met such a person before. Even the expert that had saved me back then also exposed his domineering aura for all to see. There has to be a reason behind this, if such thing is possible, then people like me could be taken by a surprise attack which could results in either grave injury or possible dying without knowing why and how it happened. 

I really just wanted to walk toward Cilia and enquire her until she spills the truth, but not having the knowledge about the girl's 'real' origin makes it hard for me to make a move. I had done a background check of the two girls and found out that both of them, although one is from an influential family, both of them is from the generation of ordinary families. They had no special bloodline, no connection to the circle, nothing abnormal at all. Everything about their origin told me that they are totally an ordinary two highschool girls. 

But there's no way an ordinary person could have that kind of 'aura'. It's also possible that Cilia had just entered into the supernatural world, but that's merely one of the many hypotheses I had come with. There's also the easy way to figure it out by using the first method, and that is to 'test' her. But mother had told me that I shouldn't put my hands on innocent people unless there's proof that the person is actually from our circle. 

The 'proof' that I required didn't include the fact that I could feel the 'aura' around Cilia since there's also some group of ordinary people that ended up having such thing happened to them due to living in a 'special' place for a certain period of time. I didn't know the exact reason why, but I had seen some that had experienced it. The father of Sheila, Anthony, is also one of them. He was just an ordinary competent businessman, but because he had once visited a site where it was known to be special, Anthony ended up staying there for too long which caused him to experience strange thing happening around him. 

I had come to know about it when I did some research on Sheila's family, though I would not have gotten much in the first place if not for another person helping me getting that information. 

Ring! Ring! 

While Angelica was pondering deeply on such thoughts, the sudden ringing bell startled her, and her consciousness was brought back to reality. She looked around her only to realise that it's already lunchtime, and when she saw the two girls getting up and heading toward the cafeteria, she immediately followed right behind while putting a bit of distance so that her presence wouldn't get detected by them. But not knowing that Sheila had Presence Detection skill, her cautiousness was a waste as Sheila could tell she was being followed.

It appears that Cilia is kind of upset at Sheila for some unknown reason, Angelica had seen the awkward atmosphere around the two when they walked into the class a while back. But because of the disappearance of the aura around Cilia bring a huge shock to her, Angelica let it slipped off her mind. 

When Cilia went off to find a seat while Sheila would be the one buying their food, Angelica decides to get on the long line instead of walking to Cilia, while observing her surrounding. Although the two girls are her current suspects, there is still a possibility that it was actually someone else. Angelica wants to ask her mother if she knows anything about her mission, but her mother had been busy as of late. Because she didn't want to disturb while her mother is working, Angelica decides to investigate it herself.

After getting her food on the tray, Angelica immediately searches for an empty seat and luckily found one not too far from the two. She initially wanted to get the seat on their table but veto against it since she is not that close to them. Angelica wasn't in a hurry since there's plenty of time for her to meet up and interact with the two since the festival event is happening soon. 

When Angelica sat down on her seat, she tried to eavesdrop their conversation, but she couldn't hear anything since Sheila was whispering to Cilia instead of talking normally like the other. But she was surprised when Cilia suddenly 'shrieked' and still couldn't understand the context of what they were talking about even after that. One thing she heard about is that Sheila wants to show something to Cilia and that something caused Cilia to act out of character, perhaps due to excitement. But what Angelica finds even more suspicious is that Sheila had told Cilia that school is not a good place to show such a thing. 

What was it that required Sheila to keep it hidden from the public's view? If it's not for the 'aura' and the little incident back then, Angelica would have ignored them by now and thought it was simply not her business to meddle in other's business. Could she possibly stalk them? But she won't get anything if the two decides to do it at their house. Angelica didn't know why, but she feels a sense of danger whenever she had thought of invading their house secretly. This was also the reason why Angelica decides to retreat after getting their address instead of moving forward. 

But this also showed her that the two is not normal! Why would she get a sense of danger when it involved Cilia and Sheila? She won't feel any threat if they were really a normal person since they wouldn't be able to hurt her. It encourages her even more into investigating on Cilia and Sheila. 

***

Ring! Ring! Ring!

The final bell started ringing, signalling that the school has come to an end as the students quickly put the book into their bag before bidding farewell to the teacher and sprints out of their classroom. The same goes to Sheila and Ria, but they didn't sprint like the other students and merely walked on their own pace. Sheila noticed a familiar presence ended up trailing behind her right after she steps out of the classroom, but she ignored it since she knows who it is. 

To be honest, she really wanted to know the background of Angelica Ernest because she appears to be someone who was also in the same world as her. Sheila knows that it's possible for someone like her exists out there, but she didn't expect to meet such person so soon. Although she had gotten stronger, Sheila didn't think it was enough to protect herself since even though with her current agility she could easily dodge a bullet, that doesn't mean she's completely invincible and unkillable. She could still get injured and possibly die too.

When Sheila was browsing over the shop in the system somewhere in the past, there is one item that stood among others, and it was something that she desperately needed. But the cost of such an item is very much expensive, even though she had saved up the gold up until now, it is still now enough. Only when she gets that item in her hands would she be able to breathe in relief.

As the two walking side by side down the street, Ria without hiding her excitement opened her mouth and said.

"Can you show it to me now?"

Looking to her side, Sheila could see a girl full of the energy of excitement, and she could also see Ria's eyes gleamed when she looked into her eyes. Sheila couldn't help but release a sigh out of her mouth and said.

"Calm down, I have it in my hands, so you don't need to worry about it disappearing or anything like that. I swear I'll show you once we reached home."

Ria pouted in response but kept her silence since she knows it would be bad if someone found out about the mask, especially Angelica, that red-haired girl might have still trailing right behind them even now. She is just too delightful about it couldn't keep her excitement on hold without seeing it with her own eyes, but Sheila's words brought a bit of her sense back which caused her to cooled down a bit.

After walking for more than five minutes, the two finally arrived in front of Sheila's house. When Ria finally steps inside the house, she couldn't wait no more and put both of her hands on Sheila's shoulders before shaking her while asking for the mask. Sheila couldn't do anything to stop Ria from shaking her unless she gives her what she wanted. Thankfully she was prepared for something like this happening and grabbed the side of her cheeks before pulling the mask off her. Yes, she had been wearing the mask ever since early in the morning. 

Sheila had thought of surprising Ria in the morning but didn't expect for the latter to get upset which she ended up going to school while wearing the mask. Ria was surprised when she saw Sheila grabbing onto her cheeks before a white mask with no feature suddenly appeared in her hands, replacing the supposed 'cheeks' that she grabbed a second ago. It was the Faceless Mask. 

"So, this is..." (AN: SPARTA! Sorry, I had to.)