Reincarnated Hero System

Trial 10 Phase 2 Arena.

Cavern of Trials I

Dungeon City Vuegan

November 30th

Year 1053

Jealousy

The Kasteblum Standard Dictionary would define it as an emotional response characterized by feelings of unhappiness and anger when someone possesses something or someone desired by another. This mental uneasiness from resentful suspicion may manifest as feelings of insecurity, resentment, or possessiveness.

It was without a doubt what I was feeling right now.

Except mine was a bit…distorted.

“Evan…

…who was that?”

Those words escaped my lips right after the Replica dissipated upon its defeat. There was a notification showing the Dungeon was calculating our rewards, but both Evan and I clearly weren’t paying any attention to this.

I was curious…NO, I was dying to know just who that was.

Just who she was.

‘She looked young…probably around her late teens or so. I’m sure she’s older than I am at least.

Is she perhaps someone from…’

My thoughts came to a stop there as a part of me didn’t want to consider that possibility.

It hadn’t even been up to 30 minutes since Evan had just blatantly revealed to me that he was a Reincarnation.

When Evan first told me that he was a Hero years ago, he had used a word I didn’t put much thought towards at the time.

He said he was ‘sent’ by the goddess.

Over the years, I came to notice some discrepancies in his words and actions, things he probably did unconsciously, which allowed me to understand his word choice from then.

Mostly his speech patterns.

Always saying ‘This World’ or ‘You people of Aidos’.

It was almost as if he didn’t consider himself to be Aidosian.

There was also how he simply didn’t refer to any of his family members by their Familial Titles. He never referred to the Duke as his ‘Father’, nor the Duchess as ‘Mother’ either.

He had a strange look in his eyes when he called Arnold ‘brother’, and after that one time, he had never done so again.

When I asked him about it once, he said it simply didn’t “feel right”.

Funny, it wasn’t long after that when Roselia came to me and told me she had asked Evan if he was an Otherworlder.

I was stumped.

It reminded me of when Kuro asked me what I’d do when I ended up discovering ‘that Evan isn’t really who I think he is’. (Chapter 328)

I’d already long since had my assumptions and conjectures since then, however, I hadn’t concluded on anything.

No…I had simply refused to conclude anything. I was purposely ignoring it.

But Roselia forced me to face the reality I was ignoring.

She told me Evan had dodged her question, and shot back with another question, succeeding in derailing the conversation and ending it.

…

Evan finally turned around to face me, most likely having reined in his emotions and regained control of his facial expressions.

He seemed a bit taken aback when he looked at me, probably because I had closed the distance between us to no less than a meter and was staring at him with a blank look on my face.

I love Evan.

I really do.

It was precisely because of this that I paid a lot of attention to him. His likes, dislikes, and those tiny little habits he probably didn’t realize he had.

Like the way he’s repeatedly double-tapping his left index finger atop his thumb as he’s thinking of a way to explain things to me while leaving out what he doesn’t want me to know.

If I’m to guess, he’s probably using his Time Difference Skill as well.

Him avoiding Roselia’s question was strange.

If anyone asked Evan something and Restrictions were preventing him from saying it, he’d usually straight up tell them that he couldn’t say it. Either that or he’d try to find a roundabout way to avoid them.

If he had nothing barring him from answering, then he’d answer.

If he didn’t want you to find out everything about something, he’d only tell you part of the truth, leading you on and making you form conjectures on your own, successfully fooling you into thinking he had told you the full truth.

Evan hardly blatantly avoided questions like this.

The fact that he avoided Roselia’s question, was pretty much an affirmation in itself.

Thankfully, Roselia told me this when Evan was out of the Country, so I had time to sort out my thoughts.

A part of me was scared that the Evan that I was talking to at the time was not the same person I had met in Luka three years ago.

But after spending some time thinking about it, I realised that the Evan I met had never changed.

With him pretty much revealing to me that he was a Reincarnation a few minutes ago, I’d already come to a conclusion.

Evan was someone from another world.

That’d explain his unnaturally close relationship with Artemisia. Maybe she…no, she DEFINITELY is the one who brought him here.

‘What I don’t know is if she did this when the Duchess was still pregnant and he was born into this world as Evan Eris.

Or…’

Looking up at Evan, I infused a bit of Life Energy into my eyes, remembering what my Uncle had told me last year.

‘…if he had taken over from the Original Evan Eris at some point in time…sometime before he met me.’

Pressing my fingers to my forehead, I tried to bring my thought train back to the current situation.

‘Leaving aside if he’s really an Otherworlder or not, Evan has definitely been to another World for an unknown amount of time…’

My gaze went to the platform where the Replica had just appeared as my thoughts continued.

‘Maybe, she’s someone he met in that other world.’

Returning my gaze to Evan, I asked aloud.

“Are you done sorting your thoughts out? I’m still waiting for my answer.”

“…”

Seeing him remain silent, I crossed my arms in front of my chest and quoted his exact words from earlier.

-“HOW are YOU in This World.”-

“There’s a lot I can deduce from just that.

Firstly, they’re from another World. Maybe like you.

Secondly, you are close enough to them to have that kind of intense reaction to their presence here. Even if it was just a Replica.”

“My reaction wasn’t that intense…”

Hearing his mutter, I felt my brow twitch and the nasty emotions I had been trying to keep at bay began bubbling to the top.

“Evan, did you forget that there’s a contract between us? A connection that allows us to sense each other’s emotions?

You normally have a tight grip over it, only letting whatever you want to flow through.”

Pointing at the Replica Platform, I continued speaking, feeling my voice grow louder with each word.

“However! You were so worked up in that instant that you COMPLETELY lost control! I didn’t even need to see the look on your face to know how worked up you were.

But you know what irks me the most about this?! It’s the fact that there’s someone out there who can rattle you so much…someone who could shake your emotions up that much!!

And that person isn’t ME!!”

The look on his face when he heard my words was enough for me to know how dumbfounded he was.

Clearly, this wasn’t what he thought I was concerned about.

I understood that as well.

In situations like this, girls would usually be curious about who the ‘other girl’ was, but for different reasons.

They’d usually be more worried about if that was their partner’s Ex, or if that person posed a threat to their current relationship.

I don’t have much experience with relationships, but I’m pretty sure not many would be so focused on what I was focused on.

“Okay, so this is NOT what I was expecting…”

Hearing Evan say that, I raised a brow in question.

“What were you expecting?”

“Well, I was kind of expecting you to bombard me with questions about her. You know, like, who she is, how I know her, what our history is, that sort of thing.

Hell, I was even scared you might get the wrong idea about something.

I mean, you girls have complicated minds so for all I know, you could have assumed I was cheating or something…”

Evan nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders when he said that and I couldn’t even hold the exasperated sigh that escaped my lips.

“Really, Evan? That’s not even on my radar, right now. Heck, do you believe I’d have let you fuck me if I thought you were the type to cheat?”

“Oh wow…you can be pretty forward when you want to.”

“That’s not the focus of our conversation here!”

I somehow felt like he was trying to steer the conversation away from the main focus, and I don’t know if that was just my anxiety messing with my head or not.

What I was sure of, was that this jealousy I was feeling was the main thing filling my mind right now.

That girl…what right did she have to elicit such a reaction from Evan with her mere presence?

I should be the only one able to prompt such an intense reaction from Evan.

The thought of another girl having such an impact on him gnawed at me, fuelling the flames of jealousy even further.

Evan was mine. No one else should have that kind of influence over him.

Whether or not Evan could deduce my thoughts from the look on my face, he heaved a deep sigh before running his hands through his hair as he spoke.

“I do know someone with that appearance, but I’m not sure if the person who showed up before us, is the same one I know.”

“…and why is that?”

“Well, for starters. That person isn’t supposed to have any power whatsoever, much less enough power to be considered the ‘Strongest Mortal in my Memory’.

Don’t forget that Laurene, David and I went to the Regal Void Expanse and we met Transcendents there, and yet, the Dungeon considered her to be even more powerful than them.

That means she’s stronger than even ‘The Five’ as well.

That’s a whole lotta power, power I don’t know her to possess.”

He held up his hand and conjured a bright red flame within his palm as he continued.

“Magic…shouldn’t be a real thing to her, or anyone around her.”

I took a moment to process his statement and mixing it with my conjecture of her being from another world, I asked.

“Are you saying Magic isn’t a thing in their world?”

“Yes.”

“Is that even possible?”

“I asked myself that question not long ago as well. Magic isn’t supposed to be a thing in that world, at least as far as I know.”

Pointing at the platform where the Replica was formed, Evan continued.

“IF she really is the same person I know, then it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say more than half my life has been a lie.”

Evan said that as nonchalantly as possible, with a complete devil-may-care attitude, however, the weight of his statement wasn’t anything to be taken lightly.

As I looked at him dumbfounded, he laughed at my reaction before speaking.

“Her name is Gabrielle.”

“?!”

“As for how long I’ve known her…let’s just say ‘years’. As you’d suspect, we were close…VERY close.

However, I have not seen or spoken to her in the past 4 years.”

I was expecting him to be a bit more evasive but he was suddenly spilling a bit more details than I expected.

What’s more, he said he hadn’t seen her in 4 years. Subtracting that from his current age, that’d mean since he was 11.

Regardless of my calculations, Evan continued speaking.

“Age-wise, she’s got nearly a year on me.”

‘Nearly a year? Approximating that, it’d mean she was sixteen…but that clearly didn’t look like a sixteen-year-old to me.

The timeline isn’t adding up.

Unless…’

There was a part of my mind that tried to stop me from putting any more thought into it, but it could not win against my overwhelming curiosity.

‘Unless Evan’s actual age is higher than what I know…

Makes sense if he is a reincarnation.’

“Anything else you wanna know?”

Evan’s gaze held a warmth that seemed out of place, considering the tense conversation we were having. His very casual tone and his openness about the situation felt odd, given the circumstances.

But then I remembered that he had just revealed he was a Reincarnation not long ago which by my standards was even greater of a secret than anything about this Gabrielle person.