284 Chapter 284: End of Exchange Session (1/2)

”Where are your hotdogs and cola?” Dong Fang Yue Chu asked me. I stared at him, utterly confused.

”Huh? What hotdogs and cola?”

”Aren't you supposed to bring them to some other dimension to share them with your friends from some empire, one of them being a prince?”

”…I have no idea what you're talking about.” actually, I did, but I couldn't be bothered to give a straight man's retort to Dong Fang Yue Chu's nonsense. He stared at me suspiciously, then turned away and dug through his backpack.

”Here! This is for you, it's a perfect disguise!”

…and he produced a clown costume that he presented to me. I stared at him dumbly, this time genuinely not understanding.

”…uh…”

”Put this on!”

”Hell, no!” I screamed and slapped the costume away. ”Why the fuck would I dress up as a clown?! I mean, I enjoyed the movie adaptations of Stephen King's It, but there's no way in hell I would wear a clown costume!”

”But you don't have a choice. You need a disguise to hide your identity before you go to the explorer's base.”

The guy was making less and less sense. I shook my head, struggle to comprehend what he was trying to do.

”Okay, slow down. What explorer base?”

”You know, the explorer base! So that you can exchange the treasures you got from the tomb in another dimension for money, and then help me out when I participate in the auction that my Assassin clan organized!”

I struck him in the head, causing him to sprawl on the ground and drop the clown costume. Stepping on the fabric, I knelt down to glare at him.

”You are not from the Assassin clan…because if you're a member of the Assassins Guild, I will kill you right here and right now. Besides, why the fuck would Assassins hold an auction?! They should leave that to the merchant class.”

Then I paused and frowned.

”And what the hell are you talking about? What tomb? What other dimension? What treasures? I never got any treasures from anywhere, nor do I have some way of traveling to another dimension while having some stupid chibi clown ghost float around me. And what the hell is this explorer base? I've never heard of such a thing in this universe.”

”Aw…” Dong Fang Yue Chu looked disappointed as he got back to his feet. ”And here I thought you were going to continue ripping off Wang Zhong and Battle Frenzy.”

”I may have been making references to poke fun at the story many times, but I'm not going to copy it entirely.” I sighed as I rubbed my forehead. Waving a hand, I cast a simple fire spell to burn the clown costume into ash. ”Anyway, what brought this about? Why are you pulling this nonsensical stunt all of a sudden?”

”Because the exchange session is ending soon, and we're about to return to Jing Tian Academy. It's just that, according to the chronology of Battle Frenzy, you're supposed to randomly go to the other dimension in the middle of the exchange session, get a bunch of treasures, go to the explorer's base in a disguise, approach Lilith to get her to show up in the auction to support me, and…”

I decided to leave Dong Fang Yue Chu to ramble by himself, and he began panicking.

”Okay! I'll get serious! But we really are returning to Jing Tian Academy tomorrow. So I was thinking we should say goodbye to the people who helped us out a lot during the past week or so. We had a lot of practice matches!”

”Yeah, it feels like an intense practice session right before the Global Starcraft League Code S,” I agreed, rotating my arm to loosen my stiff muscles. We had just completed another practice match against Yves Academy earlier that day. Fortunately, I got to sit this one out because Harrison wanted to rotate the squad and give other members a chance. There were ten of us in the team, after all, and I couldn't be in it all the time. That said, Yue Chu had a point, and I tilted my head thoughtfully. ”Aren't they holding a farewell party tonight?”

”Oh, you're right! But that's exactly why I'm here! We need to do something for the party!”

”…if you're asking me to dress as a clown and entertain everyone tonight, I'll have to refuse. Hell, I'm going to hit you for suggesting such a stupid thing.”

”Ha ha…” Yue Chu looked a little sheepish. ”I guess that idea is out.”

”Should I hit you for coming up with it in the first place?” I was beginning to ball my fists. Yue Chu wisely retreated, holding both his hands up in a placating manner.

”All right, all right. I'll talk to the others as well, see if they have any better ideas.”

I watched him leave and shook my head. Yeah, this story began as a joke after reading Battle Frenzy, but it was never my intention to copy that story. I was merely having fun parodying its tropes and criticizing Skeleton Wizard, even though my writing was much more horrible than his, so truthfully I wasn't in any position to make fun of him. But seriously, all those tropes he used were just begging to be made fun of.

”Hmm, so this exchange session is going to end soon, huh?”