Chapter 22 | Abandoned Dorm! (2)

Running through the forest, I flew through the trees, jumping and swinging on branches while letting my strength go loose.

I was obviously leaving behind quite a trail of destruction, but I was having too much fun to stop.

Sheou too, seemed to have given up and just watched while floating beside me.

"Dragon! Dragon! Rock the Dragon! Dragon-Ball-Z!" I hummed while fully indulging in my dragon powers.

"Huh, what's that...?" All of a sudden, I noticed the figure of a person walking down a path in the forest.

Losing my concentration, I didn't look where I was going and stepped onto a flimsy branch.

"Snap!" With a loud snap, I suddenly found myself speeding to the ground with all my momentum.

"Oh, Shi-" I shouted, but before I could even finish, I landed face-first into the ground with a loud thud.

"Son of a -!" Luckily, since my bond was still active, I didn't feel much pain. Unluckily, it seemed my little accident was very loud.

"Who's there!? Come out!" A woman's voice shouted from behind the bushes, slowly approaching me.

'S-shit! Shit! Sheou, quickly turn off our bond!' I panicked and called out to Sheou who was floating beside me. If I was caught in this form, I would definitely be captured and experimented on or something.

I'm pretty sure there was a monkey they were experimenting on, on this island too.

'No.' Sheou answered back through our bond.

'What do you mean no!?' I screamed back at her.

'First, say Dragonmaid is better than Red-Eyes.' She smirked while looking down on me.

'Seriously!? Now of all times?'

'Yes, 'now'.' She adjusted her glasses, the sheen of her glasses making her expression unreadable.

"Come out, now!" The voice grew closer and closer.

'Fine! Dragonmaid is better than Red-Eyes!' I shouted.

'and.' Sheou urged me to continue.

'a-and I-I would never want to use a Red-Eyes deck over a Dragonmaid deck!' I stuttered over myself in a panic.

'See, was that so hard?' Sheou said smugly.

Suddenly, my dragon-scaled arms, tail, and horns turned into light and disappeared, returning me to my normal human appearance. Just in time the person calling me finally reached.

Suddenly, a kick shot out from behind the bush and met me square in the face, it hurt a lot more now that I was back to normal.

"Huh? Illumi?" The person, Alexis deadpanned at me embedded into the ground. Her stance looked like 

"H-hi Alexis..." Now finally, able to calm down I realised the voice was quite a familiar one and awkwardly scratched my head.

"Were you... stalking me?" Alexis accused me with a glare.

Hearing her acquisition, I jumped back up and waved my hands in a panic. If such a rumour went around, I'd be in some deep shit. "N-no! I swear I wasn't!"

Alexis gave me a suspicious once over, before asking, "Then... what were you doing here?"

Feeling my throat go dry, I looked upwards at the broken branch, Alexis followed my gaze and her expression soured when she saw the broken branch.

"You were... in the trees?" She looked at me incredulously, as if looking at an idiot.

Not seeing any way of bluffing my way out of this, I just sighed and told the truth, "Haa... I was... swinging around the trees."

"L-like a monkey...?" This time, it was Alexis's turn to be rendered speechless.

"Yes." I just shamelessly nodded without a hint of hesitation.

"..."

"..."

As an awkward silence fell over us both, Alexis finally gathered up the courage to ask.

"Why?"

But I already had the perfect response, "Because."

"..." Alexis waited for me to add a reason, but I didn't do anything of the sort. If she's going to wait for me to explain myself, she'd be waiting for damn long, that's for sure!

"Seriously?" She seemed to finally give up on getting an answer and just stared at me incredulously.

"Umu." I nodded, before asking her a similar question, "So... what brings you here?"

"Uh..." She trailed off suddenly being put on the spot but seemed to struggle to come up with an excuse, probably due to being too dumbstruck with my own.

"Because...." well, I can't argue with that.

"Fair enough." I pried myself off the ground and dusted myself off, "So where are we going now?"

"Huh? No why would you come with me?"

"I... don't know how to get back," I stated confidently.

"..." It seemed she needed a moment to let that settle in.

"No, why did you even go into the forest in the first place then!?" Alexis rebudled me.

"Because." But I still had the ultimate comeback prepared!

"..."

"..."

"Haah... Fine... follow me." Alexis seemed to cave in finally, under the pressure of my persuasion!

"Alright! So... where to chief?"

Alexis contemplated something before peeking at her bag and finally making up her decision, "I just have one place to stop by, and then we'll head back to campus."

"Sounds like a plan!"

"Seriously... what's wrong with you?" Alexis finally said, as if wanting to ask this from the beginning.

"Hm? I don't think theirs anything wrong with me...?" I arched a brow at her question.

"...Nevermind."