Inside an Incomplete Novel

Entering the recovery room, I first greeted the nurse who is in charge of Ruby with a semi-bow and kept the bouquet of red roses on the table by the side of her bed. As yesterday, I kept my hand on her forehead and sucked in the corrupted aura to speed up her recovery. Removing all of the corrupt aura at once would put a massive load on her physique and by doing that she would suffer the same pain she suffered while that negative aura was injected into her all at once.

I continued this process for the next thirty minutes. After extracting a limited doze of negative aura from her I exited her room and nodded at the nurse indicating her to continue with her nursing.

"She was supposed to be my date, now I feel like am her parent", ….Sigh.

Exiting the building of the infirmary I noticed Stella waiting for me on the sidewalk. I walked towards her, curious about what she wanted to talk about, "Hi, can I help you?".

"You oddly got close to her, it's only been two days since you guys met", she stated with a jealous tone.

"You seem like an idiot to me because you're jealous of a person who's bedridden at the moment", I replied.

"Am not jealous, I just wanted to know what really happened", she exclaimed and added, "Everyone only knows that she suffered a fatal injury from her sparring partner, after that all everyone know is that later her opponent got suspended from the academy".

"Just that?"

"Yeah, and I was hoping I could help in anything regarding her, I don't know anything about her or her parents, so the best approach was to ask your permission".

"I'll answer your questions but first, why are they here?", I asked as I pointed at Sun-Jung and Ji-Ho.

"Well, they said that they could also provide you with some assistance, they consider you as their friend", she replied timorously and added, "Would that be okay?"

"Yeah sure, should we continue this conversation somewhere else?", I asked facing them.

"Yes", "Of course", they replied in unison.

"Let's move to the cafeteria then", I said and strode towards the café.

Entering a serene restaurant we occupied the table in the inner left corner. Sun-Jung was neither horrified nor acted strangely in front of me now. Well, I don't have a perfect picture of the system he has or I could have guessed what he was going through. It's just an advanced version of the status screen with functions like 'shop' and assessing your opponent. And it's an AI, his system communicates with him in the form of messages that appear on his status window.

"Go ahead guys, order anything you want, the meal's on me", I said.

"Uh, ok", replied Sun sitting in front of me and beside Ji-Ho who was gawking at the menu on the table.

"So, will you tell us what happened? And don't worry they won't speak of it to anyone, I know them", Stella said as she gestured towards Sun and Ji-Ho.

"What do you want to know?", I asked.

"The level of security and pressure on teachers has increased by a major margin since your 'supposed' date got injured", she said and added, "So it's obviously not a normal incident of one getting injured during spar"

"Hmm", I nodded.

"What hmm? Spit it out, what happened?", she said as she raised her voice and that stunned the waiter who was approaching us and halted his steps. He had black hair, and brown eyes, and was wearing a second-year cadet uniform.

"Let's order something first", I said reverting my gaze towards the waiter as he stepped forward when the atmosphere calmed down.

"Cobb Salad with Potato Chips for me", I said to him.

"Maryland Crabcakes along with baked beans", followed Stella after me.

"Barbecue Ribs with BLT", order Sun-Jung.

"Green Chili Stew and chocolate-chip cookies", followed Ji-Ho after Sun.

The waiter noted the order and left and I faced Stella again.

"Her opponent was a devil worshipper and wanted to kill her. There was no specific motive behind it, it's just that Ruby got unlucky and got paired against her", I said.

"Wait, so there are like, people who have made a contract with devils in school, much less they are students", She said dismissively.

"Yeah", I replied while Sun-Jung and Ji-Ho were looking at me with pity.

"Why are you guys looking at me like that?", I asked.

"I feel bad for you bro", he said as he patted my shoulder and added, "Must hurt to see the woman you fell in love with suffer so much the next day you asked her on the date".

'I don't need your sympathy and get those filthy hands that you use to jerk from, off from my shoulder', I thought.

"Waitwaitwait!!!, what? She's his date?", Stella asked Sun as she pointed at me.

"You don't know? You didn't hear their conversation when they were flirting on the counter?", he asked.

"No, she doesn't, did you forget that you have the ability to enhance your senses while we don't, we just thought he liked her", stated Ji-Ho.

"Oh yeah, sorry for that, I thought it was obvious from the way you talked to him regarding her", he justified his actions.

"…", I chose to stay silent. In the meanwhile, our order arrived and the waiter placed the dishes on the table while sweating heavily in the tense atmosphere.

"My date was never a secret", I said as I opened the pack of chips and took a chip in my mouth while looking at Stella who was going through a set of complex emotions at the moment, which demon dog of hell knows why.

[A/N: Scan Stella (Disp(x)) – 'Syntax error']