小嫂子的味道

"I will do it. I will go find him by myself."

"I see. So that's your answer then," Ryfin mumbled.

"No. We are going too," suddenly someone's voice was heard from behind. It was a male, a boy; and Anya knew who.

When she turned around to look it only confirmed her doubts. There were two students standing behind her right now.

p "Leon, Ellyn," she breathed as she called out the names of those students.

The ones behind her were indeed Ellyn and Leon. After Anya left the stadium in hurry Leon felt that something wasn't right with her.

He then met up with Ellyn and told her about this situation, they discussed things among themselves and then followed Anya afterward. That's how both of them got here.

"Did you hear everything?" Anya asked, the question was specifically directed at Leon.

"Yes, I did. That'd why I'm saying I'll go with you too," he replied.

"But…" she honestly wanted to refuse but it wouldn't have looked good for her saying "Why are you poking your nose in other people's matter, get the fuck out of here!" so she kept her thoughts to herself.

"That's not possible; I can't take you with me. All is my problem to being with," so she responded this way instead.

"Aren't we friends, Anya? If you can't let me help you then what is the meaning of that friendship?" said Leon.

'We are?' Anya repeated internally. It was so fascinating that she didn't even realize they were friends.

Well, it was partially because Leon was naturally attracted to Anya since he was the protagonist of loli_pop's novel, due to that he was the one whose personality was getting affected by the plot the most.

Though leaving that aside, Anya was confused over whether to take Leon with him or not. This was mainly because two different people had told her two different things.

The person who sent the letter had commanded her to get into a relationship with Leon while Zero had said to act against it. Honestly, her mind was a mess right now.

She felt like all the responsibilities in the world had been thrown to her shoulders and if possible, she wanted to scream and take out her frustration that way. But she couldn't do that…not here at least.

She had many things to do, and time was running out but she wasn't able to make a single decision by herself; till now she was only doing what other people told her to or following their advice.

'It is enough, isn't it?' she thought. Yeah, this was enough now. She was tired of moving on to other people's words.

Hence, she made a decision.

From now on she will do things according to her own will. Right now her first priority was to find Zero and she knew that she couldn't do that alone.

"Okay, Leon. You can come with me, and it's not like you won't come even if I refuse, will you?" said Anya.

"Well, you know me."

This was her roundabout way of asking Leon to come with her, because if she directly went to it then it'll feel weird and out of context. So she did it this way.

'Right now I want to find Zero first. I know I won't be able to do it alone hence I need Leon's help for that. I don't care what that letter's sender will think and it doesn't really matter. They can think whatever they want and I'll do what I want. And as for my relationship with Leon, I'll take care of it after I've found Zero.'

"Are you coming too?" Anya appealed as she looked at Ellyn, in response she nodded and confirmed her doubts.

And so the trio of Anya, Leon, and Ellyn was ready to go find Zero. But there was one major problem…they didn't know where he was and where to find him.

This also occurred in Anya's mind and she turned around and stared at Ryfin who was silently listening to their conversation all the time.

"You said you'll make the arrangements, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yeah, give me a bit of time. I'll talk to the director," he said and with that, he left.

Ryfin had some connection to the director of the Zaforths academy, nobody knew why but both of them were on talkative terms. And Ryfin was headed to the director's office to make the "arrangements" he told Anya about.

When he left, Anya fell silent again. She began going back while getting lost in her own world again. It was only when she passed beside Leon, he put a hand on her shoulder and said, "It will be fine."

She nodded slightly and then left the corridor.

"You sure she'll be fine? I mean, shouldn't you go look after her or something?" the one to ask this was Ellyn.

"No, I think it's okay. I've been noticing that she's trying to distance herself from me for a while now so I don't think it will be good to push myself on her. All we can do for now is find her brother, maybe she will get better once that is done," Leon stated.

'Him, huh.' Ellyn wondered internally.

***

After leaving the corridor Anya was now on her way to the dorms. If this was a normal day then she would've gone to the cafeteria first to eat something but right now she wasn't feeling hungry, in fact, her mood was a mess.

She was still thinking about Zero's whereabouts, in what condition he might be, and how Ryfin will get them out of the academy without making this a public issue.

But right then a pigeon landed on her shoulder. She was startled at first but then she noticed that it was a messenger. She took the pigeon in her hands and then passes mana through it.

The pigeon glowed and emitted a bright light before it changed its shape and turned into a piece of paper. When she read what was written on the paper, she didn't really know what to say.

Zero's location was written on it, along with the note which said that if they didn't come to take him before the end of this day then he will be killed. In the bottom left corner of the paper, a name was also written, it was Challes Alderman.