The Hidden World

Yuna obeyed and sat down on the couch next to the left edge. Yuki sat down as well but distanced himself a bit. Then he turned his head and looked at her expectantly. She shifted around and looked around the room for a bit before turning back to Yuki.

“I wanted to talk about the potential traitor,” Yuna repeated.

“I know that,” Yuki replied. “What about the traitor is it that you want to talk about?”

She didn’t answer immediate and began to squirm in her seat on the couch. She seemed to be considering her words carefully. Either that or she felt uncomfortable for whatever reason.

“Do you have anyone particular in mind?” she asked.

“Are you asking if I have someone that I believe is the traitor?” Yuki asked. “Or are you asking if I have crush on someone?”

“The traitor, I’m talking about the traitor,” she said hurriedly.

‘Good, now this conversation can actual begin,’ Yuki thought to himself as he nodded.

“No, I do not have anyone in mind,” he replied out loud. “But I do have an idea as to the occupation of this person or persons.”

“Really?” Yuna said, surprised.

“But before I answer, I want you to think about this problem yourself,” he said. “Try to see what conclusion you come too.”

Yuna nodded and fell quiet as she mulled over the question in her head. The deduction needed to get to the result that Yuki did was not difficult. At least, not difficult to Yuki. There were a couple of important pieces of information that had to be examined.

First was the timing of the attack. When Yuki thought over it more and more, he came to the conclusion that either the attacker was alerted as to when they should attack or that the hunt was scheduled so that the attack would have the best possible chance at succeeding. Both of these led to the idea that the person who planned the attack would be staff member of the Academy rather than the students. This was because the students only had a one day notification that they would go hunting while the people that planned the day would have known days if not weeks before.

Another thing that pointed toward the staff was something that Yuki discovered during the battle with the golem. When he had broken the sword to create his daggers, he had found something interesting and worrying; the sword was abnormally dull. Since these weapons were loaned to them by the Academy themselves, Yuki would expect them to be at least as sharp as the ones on Earth. If anything, they should have been sharper than anything Yuki had seen since the materials available to the weaponsmiths here were better than anything on Earth. But these were dull which suggested tampering. And tampering of weapons that belonged to the school could only be done by someone that worked at the Academy.

With all of this information, Yuki came to the assumption that whoever was the one orchestrated this attack was someone inside the Academy. Students did not have such access to the things that were necessary to plan this out and because of that, it left only the faculty.

“It’s someone who works at the school?” Yuna mumbled to herself as her mind seemed to fall on the same conclusion as Yuki.

“Yes, that is the logical assumption,” Yuki replied.

“Really?” she said, looking up at Yuki. “If that’s true, then things have just gotten more complicated.”

“That is correct,” Yuki agreed. “There is also the problem that this person is most likely a teacher.”

“A teacher? Why do you think that?” Yuna asked.

“Because teachers would be the ones that most likely planned out the whole day and prepared for that day,” he explained.

“Oh, that would make sense,” she said. Then she looked down at her spot on the couch with a perplexed expression. “Why was my seat warm?”

“Because I was sitting there before you knocked,” Yuki replied smoothly. “I am wondering about why you want to know about the traitor so much.”

“I was just interested,” she said, wringing her hands.

“Is that so?” Yuki said through slightly narrowed eyes. “Okay then. Is there anything else you want to know?”

She looked around the room again and her eyes landed onto the laptop that Yuki had placed on the glass table before he had went to open the door.

“Is that a laptop?” she asked. “Where did you get one?”

“I bought it,” he replied shortly.

“Ah.”

“Speaking of buying, I need to pay you back,” Yuki remembered. “Can I see your watch?”

“Why?” she asked.

“So I can transfer credits to repay you for when we went shopping together,” he explained. “Just give me your contact information and I’ll send it right over.”

“Oh, okay,” Yuna said as her eyes brightened and she handed her smartwatch to Yuki.

Yuki found her contact information and put her into his list right next to the only other person on there, Mabel. She was the one that let Yuki know that there was a thing for contacts. Once he finished with putting Yuna in, he transferred the 200 bronze coins into her account. Then he gave back the watch.

“There,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

She thought for a little before shaking her head as she put the watch back around her wrist. Then she seemed to stare at Yuki’s eyes who tilted his head in response.

“Thank you,” Yuna said out loud. “You have gray eyes.”

“I know I do,” Yuki replied.

“The elf that I saw defeat the golem also had gray eyes,” she remarked. “But they were more, I guess you can say magical?”

‘My eyes are magical,’ Yuki thought to himself. ‘That’s good to know.’

“Is that so?” he said out loud. “Is gray a common color for eyes?”

“I don’t know actually,” she replied, scratching her arm. “I just thought that it was interesting.”

“I see.”

“Well, anyway. I don’t think I have anything else to talk about,” Yuna said. “I’ll be going then.”

She stood up and Yuki followed her to the door to make sure she left. Then she hesitated as she was about to cross the doorway.

“Do you, um, want to go shopping again on the weekend?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“I’ll be busy doing some things, so I can’t,” Yuki replied. “I’ll see you later.”

Yuna nodded in understanding and walked out. Yuki peeked his head out slightly and watched as she entered the elevator before he closed the door. Once it was shut, Akira popped out.

“She didn’t stay to eat,” Akira remarked.

“I know,” he said. “Gives me more time to do my work.”

He went back to sit down on his usual seat in front of the couch. Akira flopped down on her usual spot on the couch. Yuki opened his laptop and crack his fingers before he began to type.

“My seats all warm now,” Akira complained.

“Good to know,” Yuki replied as he worked.

“How close are you to finishing?” she asked him as she watched.

“I’ll be starting the magic phase of the project,” he said. “That should be considerably faster as I’m sure the spells are all working correctly. I’ll be finished before the weekend.”

“Great~,” Akira said. “Then I’ll let you get going with your work.”

“You don’t need to eat?” he asked.

“I might eat a lot but I don’t need to eat often,” Akira replied. “I can last a while without food. I just try to eat whenever I can so that if there is ever a time where I can’t eat then I’ll be prepared.”

“I see,” Yuki said. “I’ll most likely make something in an hour or so. I need to eat before we go out to train.”

“Okay,” she replied before grabbing Yuki’s arm and slipping off his watch. “I’ll watch some videos or something like that before then.”

“Alright,” Yuki said before turning his attention back to his laptop.

He began to type again as he was finishing the final touches on the code part of the project. As he did this, he also finished up with his calculations and schematics for the spells that’ll be used in the system.

After that, he went and cooked dinner for both himself and for Akira. When they were done, he changed and headed toward the training room. He noticed that Akira seemed to be trying to ask him question and with a little thinking, he understood what she wanted to say.

“I’ll be done by tomorrow,” he said. “Just in time for our little trip together. Don’t worry about.”

Akira’s expression immediately brightened and she hummed to herself as they walked.

“Thank you,” she said both out loud and mentally.

Yuki looked at her with a slightly raised eyebrow before turning away.

“Like I said, don’t worry about it,” he repeated.