Chapter 146: Alex and Princess’s Feelings

"So, you have finally leveled up," Princess Eva said, gazing into Alex's azure eyes. Alex nodded.

They were hiding on the stairs from everyone else, hoping no one would find them. He had told her to run outside earlier, but then made her stop on the stairs instead, because he didn't want to be seen in his pajamas and feared that stepping outside the dormitory entrance would draw too many eyes.

"Yes, I'm now level twenty-five," Alex said, and watched a smile spread across the princess's face.

She looked absolutely thrilled for him. "I knew you could do it," she murmured, clenching her fist at her side before narrowing her dark eyes at him. "I want to know everything about it, in detail."

"I'm not telling you." Alex took a step back, chuckling. But just as he stepped away, his foot slipped and his body arched backward.

The princess caught hold of his pajamas just in time to stop him from falling, though his body still hung arched back over the steps. "Thanks," Alex said. Instead of pulling him upright, she loosened her fingers one by one.

"Are you really not telling me how you leveled up, or would you rather fall down the stairs instead?" She smirked, letting go of another finger.

Alex quickly grabbed her forearm. "I'm not falling, not anymore." He smiled and pulled himself back up slowly but stopped as he heard the princess’s words.

"Really?" The princess's smile widened across her face, and for a moment Alex thought he saw a devil wearing human skin.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Footsteps echoed on the stairs, coming from above, growing louder with every step.

The princess's smile froze. In what felt like a single instant, she pulled him upright completely, threw open the stairwell window, and leaped out, her hand still gripping his pajamas. Alex had no choice but to follow her.

He braced himself for the fall, ready to grab the nearest tree branch, but instead found himself floating upward into the open sky.

A giggle sounded beside him, and Alex turned his head to find the princess floating in the air just as he was, a tiny fairy sat on Princess Eva’s right shoulder with her arms crossed in front of her.

The fairy was small, with pale white skin and a pink floral dress. Her translucent wings lay still behind her, and her short hair fell loose to her shoulders level.

"Little fairy Elle, it's been some time since we last met." Alex reached out his hand, and she fluttered her wings and flew over to settle on his fist.

"You're radiating power, Alex. Congratulations on leveling up," Elle chirped.

"Ahem!" The princess gave a fake cough, and Alex glanced over at her.

"Are you two forgetting about me?" she said, planting her hands on her waist.

"Well, I did, for a second." Alex winked at Elle, who nodded eagerly in agreement.

The princess pouted. "Stop teasing me."

Alex laughed, and Elle joined in. He had always loved teasing her. When they first met, she had always gotten the better of him, but over the years he had mastered the art of teasing her back. There was something satisfying about finally being the one to make her pout.

They soon reached the top of the building and landed softly on the roof of the boys' dormitory. Thankfully, no one seemed to have noticed them, at least not yet.

Alex sat down on the slanted roof, choosing a spot that couldn't easily be seen from the ground. The princess sat beside him, and Elle had already flown back to the princess’s shoulder.

"Bye, Alex, I have some work to attend to." Elle waved goodbye with both hands and vanished.

"She's my summon, yet she acts like she is your summon," the princess grumbled.

Alex nearly laughed again but held himself back when he saw how genuinely down she looked.

"Are you really that upset that your summon likes me more than you?" Alex teased, though he had only meant to console her, and instead only made her grumble harder.

"No, she likes me more," the princess declared, full of confidence, and they both burst out laughing together. They had only been teasing each other, and her grumbling had only ever been for show.

Her laughter faded, and she turned to face him. "I'm happy that you've leveled up, but Alex, I want to know everything about it." She paused, as though worried she might be overstepping some boundary, as though he might not want to tell her, though nothing could have been further from the truth.

"If you're not comfortable, you don't have to," she said, her shoulders sagging.

"It might be hard to believe what I'm about to tell you, but I'm not going to keep it from you." He looked at her, and she drew a breath and nodded.

She looked ready to believe whatever he was about to say, and it was better that way. If their positions had been reversed, and if he had been the one listening to a story about how he leveled up, he probably wouldn't have believed it. So it mattered that she would believe him and his story.

Seeing the resolve settle into her dark eyes, Alex began telling his story, starting from the moment Eldric had stopped him in the hallway and dragged him to the restroom.

Alex left nothing out. He told her everything, and she listened in silence, biting her lower lip from time to time, clenching her fist, occasionally reaching out to rest her hand against his.

"So the goddess rejoined a golden thread that had been severed, and I opened my eyes to find myself back inside the gate. The goblins were gone, all of them eliminated, and when I checked my status window, I found my level had risen to twenty-five." Alex drew in a breath, steadying the excitement rising that overshadowed the pain that he felt from telling his story. Telling how he died only made the feelings and images resurface to his head and it did not feel pleasing to him. However, the last part made his blood pump harder. "And I unlocked two classes. One is Unclassed, and the other is Death Swordsman." He finished and watched the princess's eyebrows lift.

"Unclassed? And Death Swordsman? You've unlocked some rather unique classes." The princess smiled at him, though her confusion was plain to see. "But what is Unclassed? I've never heard of it before. Death Swordsman is probably tied to the fact that you came back from death, its name says as much, likely some evolution of the swordsman class. But Unclassed? What could that even mean?"

Alex held up his hand, palm out. "I don't know either, and neither do my parents. It says I'll need to reach a higher level before I find out."

The princess seemed about to say something else, then thought better of it. "No need to worry about it for now. Just focus on leveling up. You've already got a good class, Death Swordsman, and since it says the unclassed will be revealed later, I'm sure it'll reveal itself in time as you will increase your level." She smiled, clearly trying not to make him worry.

Alex nodded. "Yes, I won't worry about it too much. I already have a good secondary class. Most people only get one, so I'll just treat Unclassed as if it doesn't exist and count myself as having only one."

The princess hesitated, then nodded. "That's the spirit." She still seemed to worry that the class Unclassed, which could only be understood at a higher level, might leave him feeling as though he had only been pulled out of one bad place and dropped into another.

They stayed silent for a while, simply staring at each other, before turning their gazes toward the golden-hued sky as it slowly gave way to blue. The sun climbed steadily, already well above the horizon. The princess had come to see him the moment she learned of Eldric's punishment, and it was still early morning.

They both gazed at the sun, and slowly, almost without meaning to, they shifted closer to one another.

"It must have been so hard, going through all of that," the princess murmured, her voice breaking.

"Mm." Alex nodded. She didn’t ask much about the goddess and the battlefield because he had already mentioned that he did not know much about the goddess nor about that battlefield. He had made sure to tell her that he was telling her everything without hiding anything. So, she didn’t press any further questions about those things that he didn’t have any answers to.

They sat together in silence for a long while. They were both certain of their feelings for each other, even if neither fully understood the responsibilities that would come with their decision of going against the emperor. However, they knew that over the years they had grown utterly inseparable.

***

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