The Rebirth of Evelyn Knox

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Thankfully, aside from the so-called Champion's Club, no one else really came to bother her, which almost felt weird to Evelyn given how much trouble she had gone through in the first couple of days here. 

Without further external disturbances, she was able to focus on improving herself and figuring out how to better use her 'new weapon'.

In the process, she also realized just how much of an advantage her father's skill had given her in trying to learn a bow. After all, not only was her accuracy while aiming improved, she was also able to grasp the skill much faster.

At this point, perhaps only her own physical limitations, as well as those of her equipment, would be the 'limiting factors' when it came to how far and accurately she could shoot an arrow with her bow.

Of course, she could always improve that by getting a better bow and enhancing her strength, but that was something she could work on when she had the chance.

When compared to her progress with shooting, the training with the spirit sphere seemed to be almost at a snail's pace.

Thankfully, even with her low mastery of the thing, it was still quite useful in the end. Unlike arrows, it wasn't as prone to breaking, and just like them, she could also infuse her 'searing soul' into the thing, giving it a lethality that few would expect from its aura alone.

Another interesting thing about the spirit sphere was that, unlike a bow and arrow, it was also more useful while defending.

Moreover, Evelyn thought that, given enough time, she could even learn how to use multiple ones together to increase her defensive capabilities as well.

Evelyn didn't think there was any need to limit herself to just one weapon, and perhaps a combination of them would give her the best result instead.

'In theory, I should be able to use a few spirit spheres to protect me and act as 'emergency measures' while I'm shooting arrows. This way, my 'downtime' between each shot won't leave me vulnerable to interruptions.'

All of this was possible thanks to the fact that, unlike most other weapons, the spirit sphere didn't occupy even a single hand of the user, and could be operated using spirit power alone.

But in the worst case, she could still infuse it with her cultivation technique and just throw it like a ball. With her strength, it would already be a devastating metal death ball to her peers, and infused with her cultivation technique, they wouldn't even be left with an intact soul.

Rufus felt a chill down his spine as he turned to look at the pink haired girl, who was staring at him while bouncing the metal sphere up and down. He hurriedly turned away and pretended she didn't exist. 'F-Fuck! She's got that murderer look in her eyes again. When is that stupid cousin of mine going to finally get rid of her?!'

Ever since that day in the market, he had been reporting which classes the girl went to, but the boy hadn't taken any action at all.

"Hey, Rufus, is it really true that you have a crush on Evelyn?"

Recalling his cousin's plan, Rufus tried his best to not let his face twist into a grimace. "Y-Yeah?"

The black haired boy hadn't known Rufus for long, and thought that although the boy was talented, he was too stupid and needed someone to guide him.

As a responsible older brother to four little munchkins back at home, Dolan felt that it was his job to set the boy straight as well. "I know she looks cute, but take my advice, keep your crush to yourself. Even if she turns out to be nice, just think about how mean that teacher of hers is. It's definitely better to avoid trouble!"

Rufus almost sighed, wondering how long he had to keep up this farce. "T-That may be so, but I can't help my feelings, alright?"

Of course, while Rufus was giving his very awkward explanation, Evelyn had already turned her sights back to Amber.

"By the way, where do you live?"

The auburn-haired girl pointed at herself. "E-Eh? Me?"

Evelyn nodded. "Un. Who else is there for me to talk to?"

Recalling the magnificent palace Evelyn had entered when she followed her back on the first day, Amber felt a little embarrassed as she scratched her now blushing cheek. "W-Why do you want to know?"

The pink haired girl rolled her eyes. "Well, it's alright not to tell me. I'll be dropping you off anyway, so I'll know then."

"W-Why?!"

Evelyn knew that she was already the target of hatred for many, including the so-called champion's club. And she knew that some of them were sure to try some underhanded tricks on Amber.

After all, even if they couldn't hurt her directly, they could hurt her friend.

So, just in case, she decided that spending a few more minutes every day to escort the girl to her 'hostel' should be the least she could do.

Evelyn's first thought had actually been to tell the girl to come live with herself, but that would be too much.

Of course, she couldn't really explain all of this to Amber. The little girl was too young, and still quite innocent.

Evelyn sighed. "Mhm, well, you don't have to worry about it. I just feel like walking with you. Can't I?"

Amber looked away, her face red. "Y-You can, but my place isn't that good. Un, I-I also share the room with others."

Evelyn rolled her eyes as she ruffled the girl's hair with a smile. "Why are you being so shy? I also share my room with others, though maybe it's a little larger than yours? Anyway, I always welcome you to my room, and you can't say no to me either! You said we were friends yourself, did you not?"

"O-Ohh…. Ohhh?"

Looking at the girl's stupefied expression, Evelyn couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "What?"

Amber looked down, feeling even more embarrassed than before. "I-I just thought that whole palace was yours."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Evelyn's intuition had really been on point, and she was glad that she had acted on it as soon as she realized, because she could see a few familiar figures scuttling away as soon as they spotted her.

After seeing how vicious her five-year-old cousin had been back that day, Evelyn had long realized that not only were the children in this world not any better than the ones in her own, in some cases, they might even be worse.

Evelyn considered trying to teach them a lesson, but it would be difficult to do without breaking any rules, and who knew if some professor was just waiting for her to make a mistake.

After all, she had only escaped the previous two times because of Aurora, and she wasn't here right now.

Deciding to play on the safe side, Evelyn just escorted Amber to her 'hostel', which was called the 'Green Leaf Villa', and was quite a bit larger than Evelyn's White Lily Palace. Of course, the number of students living here was many times more, and the whole place looked far less 'immaculate' with all sorts of children littering about.

As this was their 'home' in the academy, there were almost no restrictions to their behavior, as long as they didn't end up harming others, and many students didn't even bother dressing up properly, running around in just their underwear.

Evelyn had heard from Cecilia that the Green Leaf Palace was one of the academy's most 'free spirited' accommodations, with the least amount of rules, and most random of occupants.

There was no gender segregation either, and the only thing that really seemed to matter was that the student couldn't be over thirteen years old, or perform too well, at which point they would be moved to better accommodation.

"I-I'm sorry about them, t-they're idiots!"

Of course, Evelyn hadn't had a particularly 'good' upbringing in her previous life, and such 'undignified' sight didn't bother her as much as it would have had this been her only life.

Evelyn squeezed Amber's cheek. "It looks even bigger than mine, what were you acting all embarrassed for?"

Amber was too shy to really mention what she was apologizing for, and just looked away. "Uuu…"

The pink haired girl sighed. "Anyway, I'll be leaving now, but since you agreed to be my friend, you also have to take care of my reputation, understand?"

Of course, this was her ploy to make sure that the girl didn't wander around to deserted places while she wasn't there. This way, there was less of a chance for her to be troubled by those hoodlums.

Amber gave her a pitiful look. "I-I don't get it? What do I do?"

Evelyn smiled. "It means, you have to stay at home and cultivate diligently till I come to pick you up again. You can't slack off! In the future, you want to stay side by side with me, right?"

"U-Un! I understand!"

"Good girl."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

~ To be continued ~

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━