Linri was taken back by how quickly she left the table. Just who was Zero? Thinking about it, through all the years he had played in the RP Club, he has only appeared once and that was the tutorial fight. After that, there was no mention of him, not even a little. Instead of feeling happy that he got the flash drive easily, Linri was feeling nervous. At every turn, something new was coming up. It was like being given the right to see the future. In the future that you saw, you are happy and smiling, but in reality, what happens is that you are actually dead and its"s your dead body smiling instead. That"s how drastic the changes are. Linri felt that it would be too idiotic to trust his future knowledge too much if everything he knows is at surface level. Thinking about it, surface level knowledge is like not knowing at all.He sighed while playing with the flash drive in his hand before, even though he knew it was a bad idea, he lit another smoke. It was not bad for him because it was harmful to his health, the real reason was he was afraid that his father would be able to smell the leftover smoke in his clothes and it would be really hard to explain it. Actually, Linri found that hypocritical. His own father, in reality, was the same. He was a heavy smoker that smoked at least 2 packs a day, but when he found out that Max started smoking when he was 20 he was furious. Look, if you want to smoke you can"t get angry at your son who is of legal age for smoking. If you don"t want him to smoke just stop smoking yourself! At least, when you get angry, you won"t be called a hypocrite by your son and there would be some chance of him listening to you. Otherwise, he would act scared and swear that he won"t smoke ever again while he is actually doing it behind your back. Maybe the father could also act somewhat understanding, that way he might control the number of cigarettes that his son smokes. Like, if he doesn"t do it behind your back, you can see how much he smokes, and the moment you think he smokes too much you can give him the occasional frown which would signal him to smoke less. Yeah, that seems like a great idea. If I ever have a son I will act like this... Nah, who am I kidding? I will probably be just like my father and get angry at him.
When Linri noticed that he was thinking of something so mundane he could not help but smile. This at least proved himself that he really was getting used to his life here and he started to lose his fear against this place. He smashed the cigarette b.u.t.t and went to take Brie from the playground. He saw that she was happily playing alongside the children inside. When she was like this she really was a sweet little m.u.f.fin. So he decided to lean back against the wall and watch her a little. Still, he himself knew that his reason for doing this was nothing pure like letting her have fun: the real reason was seeing her reaction when she notices he was standing there watching her. It was gonna be so fun to tease her about this. He even laughed evilly in his mind, like a cliché villain from the 90s kids" show.
It wasn"t long before Brie noticed him though and she immediately waddled her way through to him.
"How long?"
"How long what?" Brie blushed and asked while looking downwards.
"How long have you been waiting here?" Linri checked the watch on his left wrist lazily.
"For about 5 minutes." It was a lie, but there was no way Brie could know that. So she thought it was the truth and her face became beet red.
"Why didn"t you call for me?" Brie asked, her voice was so soft that it could be considered a whisper.
"You seemed to be having fun." Linri answered sarcastically.
"No, I wasn"t!" Brie shouted angrily and stomped her feet.
"Come on, no need to be shy about it. You even tempted me for a second to join you guys, but I figured it was no place for a 15-year-old male." Brie gave him a death glare.
"If you mention this one more time I will bite your arm so hard that I will rip it apart." It was supposed to be threatening coming from her, yet it only sounded cute. Linri patted her head and before she could protest he started to walk towards the counter and asked for the bill. They had a couple of drinks during their meeting and there were also the things Brie had ordered while pa.s.sing time in the playground. He hoped that Sarah would cover the bill, but he was disappointed to know that it was not the case. d.a.m.n, all these "meetings" were ripping a hole in his wallet. I guess it was time to coop up in his room for a couple of days.
"Let"s go." Brie dragged Linri by the hand as soon as they got out. She really was excited for her ice cream.
Upon buying her ice cream and returning her back to the orphanage, Linri started to think about today"s findings. He had learnt or rather inferred a little about Sarah and in turn Kris" background in this world. He also found that apparently, Zero was a big deal. I mean yeah sure he was the first ability holder to ever exist just like Pandemonium from R-Men comics. In the comics, Pandemonium was the first mutant and he believed that mutants were the superior race so they should rule the world and bring the end of the humanity, hence his name. What about Zero though? He was the first ability older of this world, so he should be immortal. He had a forcefield that could negate others" abilities but that had a condition. Albeit Luxor never told us what the condition was since we didn"t figure it out, but it was still troublesome. Zero was also supposed to be a G.o.d"s apostle and warned the school about the Renegades. This was going to be troublesome as "Renegades" was a big plot for the RP club: so big that, after Zero, their name was not never mentioned again and the players were told by the admins that Renegades were the mastermind behind every incident at Autumnfall. The problem was they left no trace so unless they did meta play, their characters had no way of knowing.
"Welcome home sweetie. Wash your hands and come to the dinner table." Linri had arrived home while he was thinking about everything he knew. He did as he was told and sat down at the table after was.h.i.+ng up. Everything was merry at his house as usual. His father and mother flirting, Jaime looking at them with admiration and Linri having a scatterbrained look. This was the usual scene of Harclaw family table: it felt natural and heart-warming. Sometimes, just a single meal together with the family was enough for one to forget about the problems of the mundane world, and this was how it was for Linri. It was good to be home with his family.