"Dim Dim?"

"I thought I heard Lala call my name."

Alex turned his head back in the direction where the red portal had appeared earlier. The one that took Lala back to Reverse Arcana. It was only for a brief moment, but he thought he heard the little girl call for his name.

He didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt anxious. But Lala had already left, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"It must have been my imagination," Alex muttered despite the feeling of unease that suddenly hit him earlier. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, then walked back to the inn to regroup with Chuck and Renard.

The two should have already returned after exchanging the cores they picked up from the dungeon.

Alex did some last minute shopping for souvenirs to take back to his friends and lovers back home.

When he returned to the inn, Chuck and Renard were already there, waiting for him.

"So? Did you have some fun nano?" Chuck asked in a teasing tone.

"Yes," Alex replied. "How about the cores? Did you manage to sell them for a good price?"

"Of course." Chuck grinned. "They wouldn’t dare mess with the son of the Duke in his own territory. I made sure to squeeze out a bit more from them using my father’s name. Here is your share."

Chuck placed a small pouch on the table. It was actually a storage bag that contained 300,000 gold coins.

"Not bad." Alex nodded in satisfaction. "Good job, Chuck."

He already expected to sell the cores for a good price. Believing it ought to be more than enough, he decided to keep the honey inside the hive for their own personal use.

Although the beehive was big, Dim Dim casually tossed it inside its Dimensional Storage. Clearly, the storage space of a God was very different from those made by mortals.

"I already bought us tickets for our return trip tomorrow," Chuck stated. "We will leave at six in the morning, so make sure to sleep and wake up early."

"Did you already buy a souvenir for Princess Xenia and Mary?" Alex asked.

"Of course." Chuck flipped his hair. "I even bought a gift for Eleanora."

"You bought a gift for Eleanora?" Renard arched an eyebrow.

"I mean, since I already bought stuff, buying her a gift is not a problem," Chuck replied, doing his best to remain calm and composed.

"Hoh..." Alex smirked because he did notice that Chuck and Eleanora seemed pretty close as of late.

Even Evangeline said that Eleanora and Chuck often talked to each other in private in the Old Library from time to time.

Seeing Alex, Renard, and Dim Dim giving Chuck the "I know what you did last summer" gaze, the young man looked away and decided to pretend he had no idea what their gazes meant.

Chuck also changed the subject entirely.

"I’m sure everyone will be surprised when we return," Chuck said. "Alex and I are now Rank 4, and Renard also grew stronger. Our club will definitely be the envy of everyone."

"Well, the inter-academy tournament is just around the corner," Alex agreed. "So training to get stronger around this time is expected."

"Right." Chuck nodded. "Also, is it true? Are you really going to represent our academy in the Singing Competition alongside Astrea?"

Alex flipped his hair before giving his answer. "Of course. I am the singing king of the academy. If I don’t participate, then who will?"

"Are you confident that you’re going to win?"

"It’s not confidence. It’s already guaranteed at this point."

"... Just where is that confidence of yours coming from?" Chuck scratched his head. "You’re going to fight against the best of the best of the three academies."

Of course, Chuck wasn’t aware that the Elves of Faelarun Academy were already dreading Alex’s arrival.

They had personally witnessed—errr... heard his singing voice in the Battle Choir.

When the Elven Music Professor heard that Alex’s singing voice was enough to make a Mandragora’s screech sound like a lullaby, she decided to come up with a strategy that might work against him.

"Still, I can’t believe you are close with Astrea Nocturne." Chuck smiled faintly. "Since she’s the daughter of a Duke, she has received countless marriage proposals after she had her debut. There were even rumors that Xenia’s brother, Prince Edward, was under consideration to become her fiance."

"Right..." Alex nodded.

Prince Edward was one of the three protagonists of ELO, alongside Renard and Astrea’s brother, Cassian.

Of course, Astrea was one of the many romance targets of the Prince’s route in the game. However, Alex wasn’t too worried about the two of them becoming a couple.

Why? Because Prince Edward had a unique quirk.

He liked older women!

Any lady older than him was fair game. Some of the players even gave him the nickname ’The MILF Slayer’, which was something no one would imagine when looking at the prince’s character.

In fact, when you chose Prince Edward as your starting protagonist, the game would become fairly easy since the majority of the shopkeepers who sold expensive equipment were all older ladies!

His sweet talk was very potent against them, especially since he was a handsome prince with a good reputation.

Of course, Prince Edward also had a "one true love" heroine in the game.

She was a new graduate from Solara Academy. And she had come to Frieden Academy to become an assistant Professor to gain experience.

Her name was Rosaline.

A prodigy with a commoner’s background.

She was similar to Nessia and Renard, who had shown great promise during her time in the academy and was loved by her Professors as a student.

Rosaline was only five years older than Prince Edward, so the age gap wasn’t that wide.

But since the players didn’t want to follow that true route, they decided to experiment and have the prince marry the widows in ELO.

Safe to say, Prince Edward was the most popular protagonist in the game because of his wide range of romance candidates.

"How about you, Renard?" Chuck smirked. "Did you buy a present for Lady Celestria and Melissa? Aren’t they your penpals?"

"Shut up." Renard glared at Chuck, making the latter chuckle in return.

After fighting side by side, the troublemaker was no longer afraid of Renard. He now truly considered the latter a friend he could joke around with.

"It’s quite unfortunate that Charles refused our invitation." Chuck sighed. "If he were here, he would have gotten stronger as well."

"No, we would have died if he was there," Alex replied before he could stop himself.

"Uh... What did you say?" Chuck blinked.

"Nothing." Alex shook his head.

The only time that Alex would accompany Charles into a dungeon was if someone like Diona or Morax was around to protect them.

In fact, he was certain that Diona and Morax were already looking for suitable dungeons where they could take Charles to feed him their Dungeon Cores.

After all, it was the fastest way to strengthen a Dungeon Conqueror, giving him the ability to summon Dungeon Monsters at will.

Alex would be lying if he said that he wasn’t worried about Charles’ future.

He didn’t know if his friend would remain the same after he gained the power that could literally make him the overlord of the continent.

Once Charles reached a level where he could command an army of monsters numbering in the tens of thousands, only the Paragons would be able to stop his advance.

Alex didn’t regret saving Charles, so he wished with every fiber of his being that the young man would become a Champion of Justice, supporting Nessia as one of the Heroines who would save the world of Arcana from the impending doom it would face in the future.