Studying is doubting your ability to perform under pressure, though.


    Studying is doubting your own pottial.


    And I never doubt myself!


    One of these answers had to be correct, no?


    Walking into the dining room with no answer to the question, those were thoughts swirling a in my head.


    But... as I looked a the room and saw basically everybody staring at me, my expression turned grim.


    Putting my hands on my head, I stayed silt for a second.


    This wasn''t a multiple-choice question that I could guess; it was a free response...


    As the room became unbearably silt and everyone''s gazes remained locked on me, I sighed before finally speaking.


    Partial credit was better than no credit, right?


    " *ahem* Actually, it was the craziest thing... I was just walking a the clearing wh.... wh... a bunch of demons sured me! I was about to be robbed and killed wh suddly a lightning bolt appeared in the form of the que and saved me!"


    "..."


    "PFFT"


    Turning my head to face Ruby, who was desperately trying to cover her mouth in order to stop theughter from leaking out, I put on a deadpan expression and asked.


    "Is me almost dying and being robbed funny to you...?"


    "PFFFFFFFFFFT"


    Of course, this just caused Ruby to break into moreughter, and Ire, who was next to her, also beganughing.


    That, I had no idea why.


    Wasughter really contagious, like people say?


    Thus, the atttion was sessfully redirected to the two peopleughing as everyone else turned to stare at them with confused expressions.


    "PFFT"


    To Ruby''s right, Liam also startedughing uncontrobly... while pointing at me?


    ...wasughter really that contagious? ...I wasn''t feeling any urge tough.


    Looking back at Lily, I saw her practically dying to ask me more questions as her hands trembled, but thankfully, she decided to stop for now.


    Crisis Averted!


    As the waiters reappeared, bringing more tes of food that were unfortunately not from Earth, the table slowly broke off into cliques.


    Kevin, Liam, and Zach were chatting about their ns for the rest of the day while Ire and Ruby were snickering about something.


    Seeing those two girls together just felt right... yet a bit weird at the same time.


    Two future-powerful viinesses were chatting andughing happily... while sitting next to the protagonist and his party members.


    The only area of the table that waspletely silt was mine.


    Alya clearly wanted to talk to Lily, but I was in the middle. Lily wanted to ask me questions, but she didn''t want Alya to hear for some reason.


    Thus, the three of us were left in a stalemate.


    Seeing our awkward silce, Liana looked at Alya with a weird expression before asking.


    "Say, Alya, wer''t you nning to go shopping this afternoon? Why don''t you bring some frids along.... like. Oh, I know! You can bring our new frid, R!"


    "..."


    "..."


    Alya stared at Liana siltly, her eyes colder than usual, and I pretded not to hear her by staring at my te, resulting in the table bingpletely silt once again.


    Either taking advantage of the situation or wanting to help her frid, Lily broke the silce and replied.


    "Oh, I was thinking of going shopping...why don''t Ie with you two?"


    Before Liana could ev reply, Alya immediately responded.


    "Yeah, sounds good!"


    Seeing Alya agree to the new n, Liana begrudgingly nodded her head and gave us the thumbs up.


    Since I had giv the story of the que being my savior, I would have no right to disagree with the n in front of everyone here, so I just siltly nodded my head in agreemt.


    It wasn''t like I had any ns to train, especially after what had happed inside the tree... but Jin and Han wereining about me not going out with them...


    Sneaking away could be a possibility... but Lily would probably hold me back.


    But... it wasn''t like I had to pretd to like Lily anymore, as the time had far surpassed wh I had to act like R.


    So, th, couldn''t I just leave and ignore her?


    Yet... I didn''t want to... or I guess I couldn''t.


    It was weird... it felt like a part of my body was telling me to do one thing while the other was saying the exact opposite.


    All the other emotions or lingering feelings of R had disappeared... so why was I still feeling like this?


    They say one can''t reincarnate or go to heav if they still have lingering regrets...


    The real "R" had notpletely disappeared from this world yet... there was just one regret holding him back from going to heav...or maybe hell, considering his behavior.


    His first love.


    No matter how cursed or forced his love for Lily was, one''s first love is always special and important.


    Unfortunately, in "R''s" case, his first love was unrequited...so his regret and emotions probably built up over the years, leading to thisrge pt-up feeling of regret in my body.


    Sighing, I turned to Lily to see if she still had any of Lily''s emotions, but simply looking at her didn''t tell me anything.


    She hadn''t flinched in disgust at all despite being so near to me, in differce to wh before her eyes flicked whever she saw me.


    Still, it was hard to tell if she was going through the same dilemma as me and was just hiding it.


    Well... if its a simple shopping trip, I can deal with it if it makes this weird feeling go away...


    Having all the power in the world wouldn''t mean shit if I didn''t ev haveplete control over my own body and emotions...


    Going with Lily on the shopping trip now was just a temporary solution, so I needed to figure something out soon.


    At least, the problem wasn''t too bad as the feeling only appeared asionally wh I was with Lily.


    However, as I continued to nod, I felt a cold gazeing from right in front of me, instantly causing me to shiver.