Chapter 19: Social Anxiety

After we were both seated, I decided to leave it up to Florence to start the conversation. After all, my mind was far too occupied dealing with the forgotten feeling I had gotten when interacting with others to actually start the conversation.

Social Anxiety. The fear of those judgmental faces crept up on me, and suddenly, the room felt too hot and suffocating. I could feel sweat forming and I tried to keep my focus more on the sweets and tea than on Florence, slouching and avoiding eye contact.

What if I end up on bad terms with him? Will he ignore me? How is he viewing me now? Panic circled around my brain, the mental shadows growing bigger and stronger by each passing second. I felt like something was crushing my chest, squeezing out the air. That imaginary thing compressed tighter as my breaths grew more shallow and---

'No, I need to calm down. Nothing is happening to me. Just breathe. Relax the muscles...'

Slowly, I forced myself to calm down, my breaths regaining stability along with my mental state.

'Ugh, so much for looking forwards to meeting him'

"So should we start with introductions first?" He said gently in English, seeming to not notice my mini panic attack. He paused to let me take his words in. "My name is Emile Valin and I found myself in this world around 2 weeks ago. I met with a being that told me to call him a god. He explained how I was accidentally reincarnated along with you into this world. Does this happen to ring any bells?"

"Hm? Ah, the self-proclaimed god?" I blurted out without being able to filter my words.

'Aaah! What did I just do??' I internally cursed at myself 'There goes my good impression...'

I looked over to Florence who had a slightly taken aback expression on his face. However, to my surprise, it morphed into a small chuckle.

"I guess you could call him that," He smiled. I felt the tension in my shoulders drop along with some of my anxiety.

"Yes, I think I have met with him, although not in person. Actually, I am in contact with him. If you would like, I could show you."

"That would be a big help! Thank you!" He beamed, his radiant smile growing brighter.

I walked towards a desk and opened up a drawer. Taking a quill off of my desk, I inserted it into a small hole under the drawer and revealed a fake base.

I took the phone from underneath and walked back to the chair while opening the text app.

"That is a smart way of hiding it,"

"Thank you," I placed the phone on the table, displaying the messages sent between me and the self-proclaimed god (that were made on the phone). "Feel free to browse it and send him messages through here."

Florence took the phone and scrolled through the chat. After he finished reading it, he placed it back on the table.

"So I am guessing that you know what the system is?"

"Yes. It is slightly hard to explain, though. It is slightly like a game system. There is a store, stats, messaging, etc. although currently, the only person I can message is 'god'" I made air quotes around god before pulling up the system to my view. "I just pulled it up. I am guessing you can't see it though."

He nodded right before a knock on the door was heard.

"You may come in," He replied.

Neither of us was worried about being overheard because noble rooms are made with such thick walls that it is practically soundproof unless you want to talk to the person outside. In noble society, rumors can be detrimental to one's success, so rooms are purposely soundproofed in order to minimize the amount of loud-mouth servants going around talking about things they overheard.

"The lord requests that you both dine with him." The servant says after opening the door.

"I see. Sage, let's continue this conversation later if you don't mind." He replies "It's been a long time since we have been able to catch up."

"Yes, thank you very much for the pleasant conversation."

Sitting at the dinner table with Florence and Marquis Jade was, in simple terms, terrible. It wasn't that they were just talking to each other and not to me, I am used to that and would actually prefer it then to be involved in the conversation. It was the fact that Marquis Jade was continuously attempting to involve me in the conversation. With his intentions for this unclear (remember, that man hates my guts), it was not only awkward for me due to my failure of small talk skills, but also extremely nerve-wracking trying to figure out what exactly he was aiming at. So far the only thing I could get out of what we were talking about is 'I don't want to leave out my daughter and make her feel ignored so I shall try to start a few conversations with her' and 'I am genuinely interested in whatever my daughter likes and dislikes'. Perhaps he was trying to gather information? Or continue the act of me being the favored person in case the servants were going to gossip…? I mean, that would be an understandable reason why he called me to a meal in the first place (calling Florence to dine with him while not I could be seen as favoritism). Either way, I was definitely not enjoying it.

Or maybe it was just to torture me. I mean if short answers, avoiding eye contact, and obviously disinterested body language doesn't scream 'I don't want to talk to you', then what does?!

Letting out a sigh, I cut another piece of the steak (even the delicious food didn't help calm me down much). However, I almost dropped my fork when I heard what the marquis said next.

"So, what did you learn in school?"

Oh god. Details like these were never included in the game. While there were many details of Rubwin high school, nothing was mentioned about Rubwin academy. In other words, Emil does not have any idea about what to say even if he knew the otome game!