26 Chapter 26: A New Sigil (1/2)
Nadran groggily opened his eyes as rays of morning light streamed across his face. Squinting, Nadran stretched his limbs, then sat up… and froze.
He looked across the room toward his chair, blinked, rubbed his eyes, then confirmed there was indeed a girl sitting in the chair. After some of the remnant haze of sleep was cleared from his mind, Nadran finally managed to recall who this girl was, and why she was there.
[Actually, wait, why is she still here? I appreciate her helping me to my room, but did she actually just stay here after I fell asleep? Leaving aside for now the fact that a virtual stranger spent the night sitting in my room while I slept (which I probably shouldn't), doesn't she have anything better to do?]
Nadran had been injured and exhausted upon being brought back to his room, so he had quickly fallen asleep upon reaching his bed, but now that he was awake again, he learned that Rethara had never actually left. This revelation was perplexing, to say the least.
”'Morning,” Rethara said casually, glancing up at him as he sat up.
”Good morni- wait, no, why are you still here?”
Rethara paused, looking confused, then began to speak. ”Why ca…” She quickly trailed off, however. Rather than finish her thought, she instead gave him a slight smile and said, ”It's a secret.”
Seeing that he wasn't going to get a straight answer out of her, Nadran sighed before climbing out of bed. He began getting ready for the day ahead, trying his best to ignore the uninvited guest.
Not long after, he left his room, walking out into the morning sunlight. Rethara followed a distance behind him, looking about randomly and pretending she wasn't blatantly following him. [Have I… gained a stalker?] Nadran thought as he glanced at Rethara out of the corner of his eyes. She was now humming an upbeat tune as she walked down the street, which formed a strange contrast from her seemingly calm and emotionless exterior. [Why does that melody sound familiar…]
Nadran cleared his thoughts as he arrived at his destination: the sigil hall. Despite the impressive repertoire of sigils he had accrued over the years of sneaking into lectures, he felt that none of the sigils he had learned were perfectly compatible with his fighting style. They would function well as auxiliary sigils that aided his overall combat prowess, but for core combat sigils, he was currently only relying on the wyvern claws sigil to fight. He felt that he needed another primary sigil to complement the abilities of his claws, preferably shoring up any weaknesses that they have. Since he had a substantial amount of contribution points from the survival challenge room and the alchemy request he had completed, he figured that he could spend some of them on a new sigil.
Nadran walked into the building, which was much emptier than the last time he was there, and began browsing through the sigils. After spending some time looking around, though, he began to get frustrated. There seemed to be nothing wrong with the sigils he was looking at, but just like the sigils he had previously 'acquired,' they didn't feel right. It was a strange feeling that he couldn't describe, but whenever he imagined using the sigils as a core part of his battle strength, it seemed… wrong. The feeling was as though he was watching someone else using the techniques rather than himself, and this disconcerting feeling was stopping him from actually choosing a sigil.
”So, you're looking for a sigil?” a calm voice spoke out from behind him, causing him to jump in surprise, spinning around to face the speaker. Nadran had gotten so immersed in examining the sigils that he had forgotten Rethara was following him.
”No, I just felt like staring at sigil descriptions for half an hour,” Nadran responded sarcastically. [You ask a silly question, you get a silly answer.]
Rethara rolled her eyes at his response, then began speaking again. ”I might have some sigils you'd be interested in. You want to see them?”
[When did Rethara turn into a shady shopkeeper?] Nadran questioned in his head upon seeing her strange behavior. ”What, are you saying that you have a better selection than the sigil hall?” Nadran asked in exasperation.
”Yep,” Rethara replied without missing a beat, causing Nadran to stumble on his way to the next sigil pedestal.
Nadran turned around, looked straight into her eyes, and said in a monotone, ”You're saying that you, by yourself, have a better assortment of sigils than the entire sigil hall of a major cultivation academy?”
”Mhm,” Rethara nodded in agreement. ”Let's go back to your room so I can show them to you.”
”Wait, your sigils are in MY room? How did they even get there?” Nadran asked, feeling like his head was spinning. He had so many questions, but he felt like he would go insane if he asked them all. [Someone who was a stranger before yesterday stayed in my room overnight, followed me around, and claims to have some incredible sigils that she is willing to show me for some reason… and the sigil manuals are in my room?!]
”No, the sigils aren't in your room, they're in here,” Rethara responded calmly, tapping her forehead with her finger. ”I just don't want to be showing them off in public.”
[But you're willing to show them to me?] ”Whatever, let's go,” Nadran sighed, feeling the start of a headache forming. [Is this all some kind of weird fever dream? Well, under the assumption this IS real, I don't see the harm. She's stronger than me, and if she had some ulterior motive, she probably wouldn't use such a strange and complicated method to achieve it. Why would she wait until I'm recovered rather than forcing me to do something when I was injured and unable to fight back? She is probably being sincere, and I'm overthinking it because of how odd this situation is.]
Having finally convinced himself to go along with Rethara's suggestion, he began walking back toward his room.
A short while later, Nadran was back at his room, looking at Rethara with a skeptical expression on his face. ”Alright, now what?”
”Hm, let's see,” Rethara began. ”What type of sigil are you looking for, exactly?”