Trickster: The Apostle of Loki

As I was meditating and training my proficiency with my scythe, I was incredibly content with how my third day at the academy had gone. There hadn been a need to interact with anyone throughout the entire day! Pure bliss!

With the time now nearing evening, I was getting confident that I was going to get to keep my serene environment all up until the courses start tomorrow. Alas, woe is me.

*Knock! Knock! Knock!*

As soon as I had started to fully relax, someone was knocking on my door. Although I could choose to not open it, it wouldn be polite to do so. Therefore I quickly recalled my clone, letting my scythe fall to the floor in the practice room and making my body feel how hard it had worked today. It hurt a lot.

Mustering all the energy that I barely had left, I went to the door and opened it. Lo and behold, I was met by the stupid pair that I had shared a meal with yesterday. ”What do you want…? ”

Though I didn mean to sound rude, I was now so incredibly exhausted that I couldn force myself to act overly polite. Looking up at the pink-haired woman, I could see that she did not appreciate my blunt approach as she crossed her arms and her eyes got filled with annoyance.

”So, Arthur here was thinking of inviting you to dinner at the academy bar, to celebrate that our classes start tomorrow. At first, I told him that you probably didn want to, because you were too busy training, but looking at you now, you don have a drop of sweat on you. So you are coming with us. ”

I could clearly see that she knew what she was doing, now pretty much forcing me to come with them. Never did I ever think that the fact that the sweat from my clone didn carry over would lead me into such a horrible situation. The worst part was that now I couldn refuse them, it wouldn be polite to do so.

It was one of the things that I appreciated and hated most about myself. My mother had taught me from a very early age what was socially acceptable and what was not, and I stuck to her words almost compulsively. It was just unfortunate that my stupid mind had gotten the whole easing is a sign of friendship thing wrong.

”Yea, come with us! Its going to be fun! You can just train all day anyway, that would be psychotic! ”

Arthur had stepped forward, making me feel like a vampire who had stepped out in the sun, his whole ambiance burning my very soul. Go away, daywalker!

With a sigh, I resigned myself to my fate, although I had some added conditions, ”Fine, Ill come with you… But only if we can find a corner table and you can promise me that I will be back within two hours! Oh, and please wait outside for a second so I can freshen myself up. ”

In my head, these were completely reasonable conditions for me to leave my cave, but the two people just looked at me with pity. One of them because he thought I was addicted to training and the other because she knew that I was an inherently pathetic being of a man.

****

Fuck!

There had been a corner table vacant for us to sit at, something that wasn part of my calculations. I knew that they were the most popular places to sit on Earth but here that didn appear to be the case as most people sat in the middle of the restaurant.

”See! It isn that bad! ”

The happy woman in front of me, with me sitting as close to the corner as possible, tried to convince me that this wasn the worst thing I had experienced in a long time. ”Sure… ”

”Stop! You are souring the mood, you know? Now, what do you guys want to eat? ”

The more I was around Sophie, the more I could understand her character. When we had met each other because of the god, I had assumed that she was a complete shut-in, like me. However, this wasn the case at all. The tall woman was incredibly comfortable with social interactions, even to the extent that I would call her the E word… Yes… An extrovert… Ugh!

”I want the boar steak! Oh, and a big beer! ”

Arthur was very excited about this whole thing, almost making me wonder if he had ever been at a restaurant before. It was even weirder as this was one of the Academy restaurants where you got to eat for a selected amount of credits every week, meaning it was, in fact, free.

”Ah, its so good that we don have to spend any unity state dollars to eat here! ”

What did he say…?

”Im sorry, what? Unity state? Whats that? ”

Turning his head up from the menu, he looked at me with his usual gentle expression, ”Oh, you know, USD? Like the collective currency of Mensch and Aldon? ”

Oh no, Im an idiot!

My stupid ass had assumed that USD would mean the same in this world as it did on earth which, while thinking about it, was so incredibly moronic that I wanted to cry. I was just happy that I got to know this information now instead of maybe making a horrible mistake at a bank…

”Im going to order the giant salmon! I heard from some other students that it was supposedly really good! ”

Both me and Arthur looked at the girl who had just spouted insanity. Other students? Did that mean she actually… mingled… with people? Before I could comment on her craziness, the golden boy intervened, ”Oh… You are already talking to other people as well… You sure are popular, Sophie… ”

He went back into the pitiful state that I had seen yesterday when we talked about ranks, full of self-depreciation showing his awful self-esteem. As fast as a bullet, Sophie picked up the crumbles of the man who had just imploded, ”Don worry, Arthur! Im sure you will be popular as well in the future. No, I know you will! ”

Disregarding the fools at my side, I made my order to the waitress who had already made her way to our table. ”I want a boar stake and a glass… no… a bottle of whiskey, please. ”

Though she seemed incredibly disturbed by my order she kept a professional demeanor and wrote it down before taking Sophies and Arthurs orders as well. It didn take long for our orders to reach our table and we started our feast.

While Arthur and Sophie kept on making small talk while we were eating I kept mum in order to pay respect to our food, not because I had nothing at all to add to their conversation…

This whiskey is pretty good…

One of the biggest pleasures in my last life had been this godly drink, invented by some kind of super genius a long time ago. The biggest reason why I made the choice to order an entire bottle was that, for some reason, I had an incredibly hard time getting drunk. Like now, where I had emptied almost 3/4s of a bottle and I was barely feeling a buzz.

Not minding the looks of disgust that my company gave me, I continued drinking after having emptied my food. All in all, it was a pretty horrible experience, but at least the food had been great.

As I got ready to take my leave, a group of three students started to make their way to our table, clearly not having something good in mind. Two of them were guys with red and green hair respectively and the third was a girl with dirty blonde hair.

So this is where the bullying starts…

Having a feeling that this would not be a pleasant experience, I resolved myself and stood up. ”Sorry guys, it seems we have company… And not the good kind… ”

Sophie also stood up, with Arthur meekly following suit, now also seeing what was about to go down and not having none of that. ”So James, what do you think we should do? ”

Turning my head back towards the tall girl, I let my grin reach new heights as I released a devilish smile, ”Trust me. I have a plan that will solve this. ”

And with that, I used [Swap] to switch my main body with the clone that I had left in the room and released the clone, making me disappear from the restaurant.

****

[Sophies Pov]

”Trust me. I have a plan that will solve this. ”

And with that, that moron went up in smoke and disappeared. It took a couple of seconds for me to understand what had just happened, to understand that James had just ditched us completely using some weird kind of skill.

”FUCK YOU JAMES! ”

I couldn help but scream, accidentally startling my beloved in the process, as I saw that we were now going to have a 2v3 situation. Before I knew it, the group of students had reached our table, with the red-haired guy taking the lead.

”So, you actually dared to show your face here Arthur? Shouldn you be out on a farm somewhere, shuffling shit? ”

All three of them started to laugh at the obscene joke that, as I now realized, Mike had cracked. As my thoughts spun, I realized that I knew all three of the students in front of us. They had all been part of the game that I played after all.

Mike Denver, the rude and obnoxious noble who used a fire-based Manual to fight. The green-haired underling of Mike was John Steward who used a wind-based Manual. Lastly, the blonde short girl was Bellatrix Rue, an archer.

They dare talk shit about Arthur… I will ** you up…