Heroine On Strike

“Ella, what are you thinking so hard about?”

Hearing Xyle’s voice, Ella looked around. At the outskirts of the capital, there was a marketplace. Within a remote alleyway inside the marketplace was the bar she was looking for. She was going to meet a being that could decide the fate of the continent of Redeemed. Although he looked like a boy, he wasn’t easy to talk to, so she couldn’t think about other matters. She remembered the hard time Luciella had in the books, so she tried to be alert, but it was difficult.

“Ella,” called Xyle once again. He looked concerned.

Impossible thoughts appeared in Ella’s mind. Just like how Xyle couldn’t resist her, maybe Cladis couldn’t resist Clara as well. If that irresistible feeling is a gift given to foreigners and not only to protagonists, then it all made sense. She couldn’t erase that theory, which she didn’t want to believe, from her mind.

Then, Ella asked, “What do you think of when you see me, Xyle?”

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?” Xyle asked this because Ella seemed to be drifting away right in front of their destination. She had completely stopped moving.

“Do you want to kiss me when you see me?”

“What?” questioned Xyle.

“Or do you want to feel me, deeper…”

“Luciella, wake up. What insanity are you talking about?”

His face blushed in frustration. Ella, however, turned cold as she analyzed his reaction and thought, ‘He didn’t even imagine it.’

She laughed hollowly. That laughter then became genuine and soon filled the alleyway. Ella commented, “Hahaha. I’m sorry. It was a stupid question. Wasn’t it? Forget what I said. I’ll forget I said it.”

“What the?”

“I mean, Xyle-” then a voice interrupted.

“Hey. Why don’t you come in first?”

Ella turned to the voice that interrupted her. A man came out of the bar that she was looking for and stared at them. He wasn’t the green-colored fresh boy she had read about from the book. Instead, a man with a very familiar-looking face stood there.

“Cha Jaeik? Hey, why are you here?”

Why was her arrogant cousin here? Her astonishment caused her to blank out. Ella forgot what she was trying to tell Xylem and ran into the bar where the man had walked back inside.

“Why are you here? What’s going on?” Ella shouted as soon as she entered the bar.

She then felt something was off and became silent. The bar was empty, and her cousin was the only one standing inside. Today, the boy Ella was looking for was going to face some trouble. It was a common type of trouble that often happens at a bar full of drunkards, even if it was early in the day. Because of that, he was going to cancel his plans to stay at the capital for a while and leave. It was going to be two months later when he reluctantly returned to the capital.

‘But… what’s going on?’

The man grinned at his puzzled-looking cousin and said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not your cousin, woman. I just borrowed his figure. I suppose it was going to be easier this way to talk to you. It’ll make things simpler to explain.”

“Who are you?”

Her cousin wasn’t polite, but he wasn’t rude enough to call his cousin “woman” either. Ella realized how foolishly she acted. She carefully waited for Xyle, who she thought would follow her, but it didn’t seem like he would be coming no matter how long she waited.

“Oh, if you’re waiting for Xyle, forget it. He won’t come in. At least not until we’re done talking.”

This man talked arrogantly, had an unexplainable appearance, and had the power to block Xyle, the Tower Master, so Ella asked, “Is it you? You’re the one who dragged me here?”

“No. We just sent you an invitation,” replied the man.

“Invitation?” asked Ella.

‘I received an invitation? When?’ wondered Ella as she tried to think of an instance of when that happened, but she couldn’t remember anything like that occurring.

“The novel, you read,” answered the man.