Sight-Infused
Chapter 15

I sat down on the park’s bench, looking at the birds chirping in the distance while letting out a tired yawn. From the school, I could see Aliya wearing a casual, yellow dress walking toward me. I lift my hand up, prompting her to approach me.

“Good morning…”

“Good… Ranold, what happened?”

I let out a yawn in front of Aliya, covering my mouth with my hand.

“Sorry, I couldn’t sleep much last night. I need a coffee.”

“Are you sure you will be fine?”

I rubbed my eyes, before shaking my head, as if I could throw the sleepiness away.

“I will. Where are we heading?”

“Oh, have you eaten? I brought a sandwich in case you haven’t.”

She reached into her bag and brought out a cheese sandwich, handing them over to me.

“Oh, no thanks. I could wait until we get to…”

Then I realized, she never said that we would be going to get lunch. I was hit with the sudden realization that she hadn’t really told me anything, and I was the one to assume that we would be going out to get lunch together.

“Don’t worry about it. It didn’t cost much anyway. Here.”

“Thank you…”

I reluctantly accepted and ate it, munching through the sandwich quickly. It finally silenced my tummy, which had been shouting ever since I woke up.

“Alright, where are we going?”

I asked, standing up. Aliya stood up and motioned me to follow her.

“You’ll see.”

She led me outside the school, heading into the road. Using the vehicle booking app she installed on her phone, she ordered a car for us. It didn’t take long for a car to come pick us up.

“Miss Aliya?”

“Correct. Zuylu Street, please.”

The driver nodded and took off. I enjoyed the views of the city as we drove, looking at the buildings that passed by. Cutarvir had existed for a long time, resulting in a unique mix of old brick buildings with newer concrete structures. Some areas, like the ones near the high school, leaned heavily on the older structures, with a new building occupying a lot every few blocks. These buildings had probably been built on top of older, no longer safe ones. In order to make them not stand up, they had been painted similarly to the ones that sat next to them, albeit the difference in texture was still obvious.

The high school sat near the beach, so the surrounding area had been filled with spots that suited both students and tourists. Most of the buildings here were shophouses, with the first floors being used as cafes, restaurants, or shops, while the upper floors for storage and homes.

“Ah, one of my friends owned that cafe.”

Aliya pointed toward a shophouse sitting at the side of the road, near a traffic light where we stopped. It had a small garden on its front with a board showing the cafe’s opening times. The cafe opened from ten in the morning, all the way to twelve at midnight. The traffic light lit up green and we continued on our way, leaving the cafe behind.

“It looks nice.”

“Yeah, she invited me there once, but I declined because I needed to practice for the band.”

“Ah, your week has been really busy, huh?”

“Yeah, how about yours?”

I shook my head.

“Nothing.”

While some noteworthy things did happen this week, I couldn’t really categorize it as a busy week. I found no new friends… Well, no new friends outside the traveling club, and I spent most of my time in my room, reading through the books the school gave us. I only got ‘close’ to Antonio on Friday. Before that, we rarely talk, despite sitting next to each other in class.

It was a far cry from Aliya’s, who had been making new friends and joined a new band in her first week.

“Really? Nothing? I thought you had been spending a lot of time with Antonio.”

“Other than a few random dialogues, I don’t talk much to him before Friday. He helped me a lot after the Keeper’s training, though.”

“Yeah… sorry about that.”

She said as she looked out the window, her regretful expression faintly reflected by the car’s window.

“Ah, I wouldn’t blame you on that, you got the noble’s training anyway, right? … You’re not inviting me out just to apologize, are you?”

“Ah, no. It’s not it.”

She turned around and shook her hands. She then looked at me, her side leaning on the car’s chair. We looked at each other for a few seconds, but her cheeks went red all of a sudden.

“Let’s talk about it later!”

She quickly spun her body around, facing away from me.

… What?

We arrived at our destination. Aliya had paid the fare beforehand, so the car left after we got off.

“Sorry about that. It felt weird when the driver was hearing us like that.”

The driver stayed silent the entire journey. I wonder if he got the wrong idea of us?

“It’s fine. So this is Zuylu Street?”

“Yep.”

I searched about this place when we went silent in the car. The street existed long before the school, built around fifty years before the school was built. The road consisted of cobblestone, with large trees providing shade on both sides of the road. Old buildings stood on both sides, filled with various shops and restaurants. The buildings had been well preserved, evidenced by how nice and clean they looked. The one-kilometer road extended from the modern main road all the way to the city’s old town hall, the one used before Cutarvir turned into the modern city of today. After the completion of the city’s new town hall, the old one was transformed into a shopping mall, and the large garden that stood in front of it was then transformed into the Zuylu Street of today.

“To think all these happened two hundred and fifty years ago…”

“Huh?”

Zuylu Street was completed all the way in the mid fifteen hundreds, fifty years before the school was completed, two hundred and fifty years from this day, yet all the buildings looked relatively modern, a testament to how well the structures here were preserved.

“You want to grab something to eat?”

I nodded, the sandwich not enough to fill my appetite.

She led me through the street, which was filled with people. I expected it to be crowded, as this place could be considered a tourist destination, and this was a Sunday morning, the perfect time to have a stroll around the shopping complex. We entered an expensive-looking restaurant near the main road. The restaurant had a forest painting with mountains on one side and a painting of a beach on the other. Sets of tables and chairs occupied the space from the front end to the rear end of the room, filled with several people enjoying their morning.

“How can I help you?”

A waitress approached us with a smile. She wore a green dress with a yellow apron. Aliya smiled and said something. She then guided us upstairs. We chose a spot with just two seats near the balcony, with floor-to-ceiling glass giving us a great view of the crowded street below us.

The waitress kindly gave us two sets of menus. As expected, the prices were steep, albeit not as expensive as the steakhouse.

“What do you want?”

I looked for the cheapest possible option. While I would love to try the different kinds of pasta they served here, my budget wouldn’t allow it. I had used nineteen EC from my monthly one hundred and fifty EC allowance. If I spend more money here, I may not be able to survive till the end of the month, and I may be forced to resort to the one hundred EC backup fund that they gave me.

“What are you getting?”

Aliya asked, again.

“lykan sauce fettuccine.”

“Oh, interesting.”

Aliya said, smirking. Had she seen through me?

“Are you sure you want that?”

I nodded.

“Are you sure you’re not going to change to the classy spaghetti bolognese the second the waitress comes?”

“Umm…”

Yep, she saw through me. Whenever we ate together in an expensive restaurant, I would always try to order the cheapest thing. She used to think that I simply enjoyed them until she realized I was doing it way too often. One time I accidentally let out my dislike toward the food I ordered, despite claiming that I liked it. She stopped me from ordering cheap stuff ever since, making me feel bad. I then used a tactic where I would order something expensive, only to change it once the waiter or waitress was there to pick up the order, but she started to see through that as well.

I was genuinely interested in the fettuccine, but I couldn’t afford to let her know that. I picked up the menu and stared at it, thinking about what I would choose. I looked through the pasta, thinking of choosing the second cheapest menu, but there was more than one, and neither had pictures nor descriptions.

I really wanted that fettuccine, as that one did have a picture and looked delicious, but I couldn’t. I must resist its temptations. I must think about my future. I couldn’t be someone equal to her if I kept leeching off her kindness.

I forced my mind to choose so that I didn’t waste her time, but the menu glowed all of a sudden. It showed a very, very faint shade of blue, which meant it had been protected by water. The menu itself had been laminated, so the fact that they decided to shield it over that probably proves this restaurant’s status as an expensive place. I couldn’t grasp the reasoning, though. If the menu was not laminated then it would make sense, but what was the point of a water shield when the plastic would do exactly that?

Wait! Wait! Wait!

I shook my head and the glow disappeared. I looked at the menu and decided to go for beef fettuccine. Wholly prepared to make my declaration, I looked up, only to find the seat across me empty.

Oh, dear…

Aliya returned with a smile on her face. She purposely held the receipt in her hands and stuffed them into her bag, not intending on letting me see it. I let out a resigned sigh as she sat back in her chair.

“What did you get?”

“The same as you.”

“What did I get?”

“Lykan sauce fettuccine”

I did a little facepalm while she smiled at me victoriously.

“You don’t need to do this, though. Imagine working hard every day only to have this boy leech off your money casually.”

Aliya shrugged and rested on her seat. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the (F)indNƟvᴇl.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“I don’t mind.”

“How much did it cost?”

“Not telling you.”

The menu did show the price, but it excluded tax and service tax. In most places, the tax cost ten percent of the total with the service tax costing five percent. I calculated the three EC fifty cents price of the fettuccine and added the extra fifteen percent, totaling four EC two cents. I reached for my phone and opened my notes, adding the money to the list of debts that I acquired from her over the years. With each passing day, the list became harder and harder to pay off.

“You’re really adding it to the debt?”

“To be fair, you didn’t say that you’re paying for dinner.”

“Still, you don’t have to add every little thing into that. How long would it even take to pay off?”

“One month… if I found a gold mine.”

The more I added, the longer it would take for me to pay it all off, even though that was under the assumption that I managed to find a job. With my average scores and lack of skill, what job would I even be able to do? Would I actually need to join the military upon leaving high school?

“... By the way, when I finished paying, I went upstairs and found you still staring at the menu before abruptly shaking your head…”

I looked around the restaurant, making sure no one sat close enough to hear us. I then picked the menu up and flapped it around.

“This thing had a water shield.”

“And?”

“If I’m staring at something for too long, say, a minute, the shield that protected it would start appearing even if I actively try to not think about it.”

It was quite a nuisance, but I rarely stare at something for that long, so it didn’t really bother me that much. Before I realized that I had this ability, I could stare at something long enough without being bothered by a glow. I guess that would be the only downside of having this kind of ability… I hope that was the only downside, outside the inability to use magic, of course.

“I see…”

“But like the pointlessness of giving a laminated menu a shield, my skill is also pointless.”

“Why? I think it’s a cool thing to have.”

I rested my head in my arms. I lifted my right index finger and shook it left and right.

“Nope. That skill prevented me from using magic.”

“Oh, is that why you couldn’t use magic two days ago?”

“Yes.”

“I thought it was just because you never tried it.”

I shook my index finger again.

“That’s what Antonio said, though.”

“Oh, you haven’t looked into this skill yourself?”

I lifted my face up.

“I had, but I couldn’t find anything other than posts related to the Great Knight of the Highlands story. Now that I think about it, how did Antonio know about all this?”

“You should really ask him tomorrow.”

“I should.”

I wondered how our relationship would be tomorrow. I felt I had gotten closer to him ever since he helped me realize this skill. I didn’t know if he shared the feelings, nor did I know if my worth changed in his eyes. Maybe these last two days were just me forcing myself on him, thinking that I had gotten a new friend when I was only an acquaintance, or a tool even, for him.

I wonder if Aliya felt the same way. I wonder if all this time, it was just me misunderstanding everything.

The waitress broke up my line of thoughts with the smell of delicious fettuccine. She set down to fettuccine covered with red-colored sauce and a trio of meatballs.

“Please enjoy.”

“Thank you.”

She smiled and nodded, before turning around and heading back down.

“Let’s think about that later. I’m hungry.”

Aliya said as she picked up her fork and wiped it with a tissue, before stabbing it into her pasta. Seeing her, I picked up my fork as well.

“Thank you for the food.”

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