Magic of Arteria Volume 1. Reunion Arc                       

Chapter Four.

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I stood there, frozen. A single person stuck inside my mind, the peach-haired girl who stood outside the elevator a few seconds ago. I kept wondering, why was she here? What is her purpose in coming to my school?

 

“What’s wrong, Elder Sister?” Alina asked as we stepped out of the elevator, I felt afraid to tell her. I didn’t want to tell her, who knows what she would do if I told her. I made up my mind, to tell her a lie instead.

 

“Nothing. I felt like I saw someone familiar, but it was just my imagination,” I said before she tilted her head.

 

“Is that so, then let’s head to the restaurant already. I am quite hungry now,” she said before running up to Yui who had already walked far ahead.

 

Without wasting much time, I decided to shake off the thought for once and ran up to them, catching up within a few seconds as we walked out of the glass dome building, yawning. It was already evening; the sun was already setting. The streets were completely filled with students, who similar to us, had just been released from their classes.

 

Most of the students around the streets were in groups. I suspect half of them are also heading to restaurants to eat out with their friends, like us. After all, the first few weeks of class are meant for everyone to get to know each other. It would be a waste spending it without eating out since it is also the most relaxed period within the school year.

 

While walking down the streets, we kept hearing rumors about the Queen-ranked appearing in the lobby. I was confused at first about who they were referring to as Queen but remembered the rank displayed on my hologram. Everything they described about me was exaggerated, from how I could teleport to how I was the most beautiful person in the school.

 

The rumors made me cringe, how could one manage to exaggerate rumors that much, but then I realized the Government exists, the number one organization to exaggerate everything. Though, having rumors about you feels weird. I don’t know if I should feel proud or embarrassed.

 

“It seems like going to the main lobby was a mistake,” Yui giggled.

 

“I should probably avoid populated areas in the future, who knows what rumor I would trigger next,” I said before, all of a sudden, a chuckle came from Alina.

 

“Well, if you really want to avoid populated areas, then you should probably start running now, Elder Sister because I feel like a large crowd of fans will appear in a few minutes,” she said while smiling.

 

I was confused at first over what she meant, what kind of crowd of fans. I clearly don’t have fans, after all, I never went to television stations or shows. How could I have fans? That was what I thought at first until I saw a large group of students standing in the distance with paper and pens.

 

“Can I run away from here?” I asked while trembling as I stared at the crowd, and like buffalos, they suddenly started running towards us. I felt shivers on my spines, thinking of what would happen. Are we going to be stomped to death?

 

That clearly didn’t happen as the crowd quickly caught up to us, carrying their pen and papers. They surrounded the three of us in a circle, what was strange was how organized they were. The circle had enough space for us to move around, but we couldn’t escape. They formed several lines, with each person asking for autographs.

 

I hesitated for a few seconds whether to follow along, I looked at Alina and Yui who were calmly handling the situation. The two of them took up the pen and papers that were handed to them, signing it before handing it back to them as they left. I wasn’t too surprised over how Yui managed to handle the situation, I was surprised over how Alina did.

 

But, I didn’t have enough time to think over how she managed to be calm in this situation as the line in front of me was already getting restless, I decided to follow along with them and took their papers, or what they wished to be signed and wrote a simple cursive A on it.

 

The whole autograph signing session took a total of twenty minutes off our time, at first, it started out with only twenty people in all three lines which slowly grew up to a hundred which surprised me. My hands were close to dying, had the police not arrive on time. I would have collapsed already from tiredness.

 

The police had dispersed the crowd fifteen minutes in, and questioned us for a few more minutes, letting us ago after we answered all the questions with honesty. It’s not strange for the police to arrive at situations like these, after all, we were blocking traffic.

 

After we were released from questioning, we continued our walk towards the restaurant we had planned. And a few minutes of walking led us in front of a wooden building. It wasn’t a grandiose building like I had expected.

 

The building was just an ordinary wooden building, like the ones in medieval movies. Everything was made out of wood, with the exception of the handles and windows. The windows were crystal glass, a somewhat expensive material.

 

“I wonder what wood they used to build this,” I mumbled before touching the wooden wall with my hand. The texture of the wall was coarse, it was somewhat smooth or should I say, glassy. It was different from a redwood tree and also different from the ordinary wood we are used to.

 

It felt like one of the more ancient trees which had gone extinct for hundreds of years, the smell had also fitted the description. It smelled like rainwater and mud, mixed with the scent of an ordinary tree.

 

“Is there something special about the wall?” Alina asked.

 

“I don’t know, it felt and also smelled like the extinct ancient wood from the ancient eras. Though, I can’t make a concrete conclusion as ancient wood is not something you can find as easily as air,” I answered before Yui walked over to the wall and touched it.

 

“It also doesn’t feel like a replica. The replicas you find in malls are glassier in texture and lacked the earthy smell this one has,” Yui said.

 

As we were inspecting the wood closely, a flat-sounding voice spoke from behind. The voice was similar to when someone finds something disgusted, or when someone sees a pervert.

 

“Is that your new habit, sister? I never knew you had a wood fetish,” 

 

Immediately, Yui and I both turned around at the same time, taking notice of a red-haired twin-tail girl that stood behind us with eyes of disgust. Behind the girl was another girl, who wore glasses with long blue-hair.

 

I was puzzled over who she was referring to as “sister”, was it Yui or me? I never met this girl before, and I clearly don’t have another sister except for Alina. Feeling perplexed, I stared at both Yui and her for a few seconds before noticing traits that were identical to each other.

 

Both of their noses were flat, their eyes were also the same. Their cheeks were also both chubby, everything matched. The question I had inside was already answered, the girl was Yui’s sister and from the looks of it, she was her younger sister.

 

“Hannah, what are you doing here?” Yui asked.

 

“Why can’t I come here? I heard there was good food here, never thought I would see the highly-revered sister of mine’s secret fetish on the way. Also, the real question here is why are you here? You shouldn’t be the type of person to go eat out in a restaurant with friends from what I know,” the twin-tailed girl said while brushing her hair.

 

She sounded arrogant, almost like those rich people that I met in America. I could also see from her eyes that she despises Yui, not by a tiny amount. It was as if she had marked Yui as her rival, from the looks of it, she has an inferiority complex over her sister.

 

“Why can’t I come here as well, I have money. I don’t have to be stuck at home and study every hour,” Yui said before the twin-tailed girl responded with a sigh, grabbing the glasses girl who hid behind her.

 

“Do whatever you want, after all, you are the elder sister here,” she said while dragging the glasses girl inside the restaurant.

 

Seeing the two of them enter the shop, Yui heaved a sigh. It seemed like both sisters didn’t get along. I had always thought that sisters would get along like sugar, but it seems like I had been delusional all the time. I was too used to Alina’s obedient personality, which made this experience somewhat new to me.

 

“Sorry about that, it’s just my sister really hates me for no reason. I don’t know why, I kept trying to ask her, but it seems like she refuses to answer,” Yui said while staring down at the ground. You could tell that she didn’t want to talk that way to her, she most likely acted on impulse.

 

“Don’t worry, how about we head inside for now? It seems like Alina is hungry already,” I patted her back while winking at Alina, who followed suit before Yui looked up to us and smiled as the three of us entered the building.

 

Contrary to its exterior, the inside of the building was very spacious. It had long tables placed everywhere, the tables were enough to fit seven people and even with that, the place was still spacious. The only light sources inside were the several incandescent light bulbs hanging on the ceiling and a single fireplace.

 

It didn’t have many light sources, but even with only those, it was still bright. The incandescent light bulbs and the fireplace made the place feel warm, the tables of the restaurant were all made out of wood. The chairs were red long sofas.

 

“They managed to properly mix modern and ancient style, what an impressive achievement,” Alina said with both of her eyes shining. It seemed like the restaurant had triggered the designer soul inside her.

 

Alina really loves to design buildings, houses; rooms, decorations; clothes, accessories, and more. It was a way to relieve her boredom, from what she told me. A lot of her designs were used in some of my companies, with the head of each project begging her to make more.

 

It didn’t take long for a butler to approach us. He had brown hair, ordinary face, thin, almost like glass and short. He held a tray in his right hand, with smooth glassy papers on top of it. The glassy papers were the menus.

 

“Welcome to the Fubuki Restaurant, how may I serve you?” the butler asked.

 

“We would like to dine-in on a table for four, please,” I said before the butler nodded, leading us to a table by the window. The table was slightly larger than the tables in the place, after guiding us. He handed the two menus to Yui and me.

 

The three of us sat down on the comfortable sofa, I was centered by both Yui and Alina who clung to me for no reason. I did ignore them, opening the menu, and looking at the several pages on it. In a way, I wasn’t disappointed over the dishes on the menu.

 

The first page contained only pasta dishes from lasagna, spaghetti to carbonara. The page next to it was all flour-based dishes, like pizza and cakes meanwhile the page behind that page was dishes meant to be eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or rice meals.

 

At the last page were the drinks, there wasn’t much to expect from the drinks. It was the ordinary soda to shake. Overall, the menu looked good but what surprised me was not the dishes, but the prices. They weren’t expensive, they were too cheap!

 

Take the lasagna as an example, a normal lasagna is in normal cases, priced from 50 to 100 Talis, while the restaurant charged you only 23 Talis for a single plate of lasagna. It was also a fairly large lasagna from what I am seeing.

 

“What are these prices, aren’t they too cheap?” I said before Yui looked at me with a surprised look. I was taken aback from her reaction; did I say something wrong? I shouldn’t have spoken something wrong, right?

 

“Those prices are cheap for you?! Even a single lasagna is about half of my daily allowance, how is that cheap?” Yui asked with her eyes wide open.

 

“Huh, isn’t the daily allowance for everyone about two thousand Talis minimum? How do you only have 60 Talis per day?” I asked before a sigh came from Alina, once again.

 

“Elder Sister, you never take into consideration of other family’s wealth. The normal daily allowance in the country is about twenty Talis, the two of us are exceptions. Members of elite families earn about one hundred Talis a day, but that is in normal cases.”

 

“The two of us are different from ordinary members after all, or rather you are the one that is different. I always kept telling you in the past about how twenty thousand Talis was expensive for vegetables, haa…” Alina said before Yui shouted in surprise.

 

“Twenty thousand Talis for vegetables?! What are those vegetables, made out of diamonds?! That’s an insane amount for just vegetables!” Yui said.

 

Hearing their conversation brought pain to my heart, I felt embarrassed over something that shouldn’t actually be embarrassing. I needed to change the topic.

 

“Enough about that, how about we order something for now? I’ll pay for the entire meal, you two can go ahead and buy as much as you want!” I said while sweating nervously as the two of them looked at each other while sighing.

 

“Oh well, Alina is quite lucky to have such a sister though. I’ll have some of these cheese, mozzarella sticks, and a plate of spaghetti, paired with mango shake, please.” Yui said while placing the menu she held on the table as the butler who had been waiting patiently beside our table with a bright smile, noted her order.

 

“I consider myself lucky as well, even though she is a useless bum, Elder Sister is still adorable,” Alina said before taking out a paper, writing down her order and handing it to the butler.

 

“I’ll take a plate of lasagna, and one can of soda please,” I said to the butler as he wrote it down in a fast pace before reciting our order.

 

“A plate of spaghetti, mozzarella cheese sticks, two plates of lasagna and two cans of soda. Is there anything missing?” the butler asked as the three of us shook our heads.

 

“Well then, that will be a total of 96 Talis. Would you like to pay by card or through cash?” he asked with a professional smile as I took out a pink crystal card from my pocket. The card was my main card, it has no restrictions and contains 90 percent of all my money.

 

The butler was a professional one, he didn’t waste time and grabbed a flat metallic device with a cat design from one of his pockets and waved it in front of the car before the phone in my handbag vibrated for a second.

 

“Thank you for your patronage, the dishes should arrive within ten minutes from now,” the butler said as he bowed down and left. After he left, I checked my phone and saw the receipt. Everything was alright, the merchant and the price.

 

As I was scrolling through the bank application on my phone, a cry echoed within the restaurant followed by the sound of glass breaking. The cry sounded like one from a child, which made me surprised as I turned around and saw a little girl crying on the floor with a muscular man looking down at her.

 

“I am sorry… I didn’t mean it…” the little girl cried.

 

Beside her was shards of glass, from the looks of it. It seemed like she accidentally bumped into the man. The shards weren’t exactly made out of ordinary glass, but transparent crystal which is a fairly expensive material, it is generally used a lot in expensive sculptures.

 

“You little brat! Did you know how much that sculpture cost?!” the man shouted in anger as he kicked the girl back towards the wall.

 

It didn’t take a second for my heart to crack, as I watched the girl fly backward at a super-fast speed, crashing into the wooden wall of the building. The impact of her crash was strong, it was enough to make the entire building shake for a second, it was also strong enough to make the girl spit out tons of blood.

 

As if that wasn’t enough, the man was slowly approaching the girl with a terrifying face. The girl’s eyes were full of fear, she was crying. Her fear, the feeling of hopelessness. I felt it from her eyes, her face went pale as the man was rose his foot once again.

 

I couldn’t keep myself restrained, there was no way I was going to sit down and watch. Everyone was frozen from shock, and by the time I realized it. I was already in front of the man, holding his neck up in the air.

 

My heart was blinded by anger. Pure anger, the beat of my heart sped up. I couldn’t keep my mind straight; my hand tightened the grip on the man even more. I felt like killing this man in front of me, this person should not live. He shouldn’t live…

 

My mind drowned in anger, as I stared at the man’s face, slowly turning pale. He tried to resist; his foot kept trying to kick me. His hands attempted to hit me. It didn’t take long for bubbles to form out of his mouth, his eyes looked like it was about to pop.

 

“People like you, don’t deserve to live in this world,” I mumbled in anger when all of a sudden, a cold hand grabbed my foot as the girl’s cry entered my ears.

 

“Stop it, don’t kill him…” the girl cried loudly, clinging to my foot.

 

Hearing the girl’s cry, the anger inside me dissipated like dust as I threw the man to the side before kneeling down beside the girl as she held my foot with reddened eyes, pale face, and bloodied cheeks.

 

The clothes she wore was that of rags, she looked like someone who lived on the streets. Her hair was black, her eyes were blue like mine. It didn’t take long for her hands to release my foot; her body had no strength anymore.

 

I grabbed her body before it was about to fall down, she was very light. A fragile feather. As I was holding her body in my arms, the coldness of her body engulfed my hand. She wasn’t cold because she was dead. It was different, her body was cold because of the type of body she has.

 

Her body was exactly the same as mine, the strongest body a person can have at birth and also a curse for the holder. The Frost Empress’s Body, a body containing almost all of the Frost passive spells in the world…