CHAPTER 138: CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG

"So tell me, Saintess... why are you so clung to a dead piece of trash?"

"He was not trash!"

Her voice cracked like a whip, sharp and sudden.

Oliver flinched, instinctively taking a half-step back. The sheer volume coming from the small, trembling girl in front of him was startling.

"Okay, okay," he muttered, raising his hands in surrender. "I get it. Poor choice of words."

But Amy wasn’t listening. The dam had broken.

"He was better than everyone," she said, her voice shaking with raw emotion. "He was a better human than anyone I have ever met."

She stepped closer, her eyes burning into his mask.

"He never bothered anyone. He never bullied anyone. He never became a nuisance to a single soul. Whenever he got the chance, he helped others without even expecting anything in return."

Tears streamed down her face now, but she didn’t wipe them away.

"He was just... quiet. He wasn’t outgoing like the others. He kept everything to himself. But that doesn’t mean he was trash!"

She jabbed a finger at Oliver’s chest.

"Even here... in this terrifying, unknown world... he never gave up. Not once. Even after getting that F-rank class that everyone laughed at."

Her voice dropped to a whisper, thick with grief.

"He worked harder than anyone. He trained harder than the Heroes, just to keep up. Just to survive."

She sank down onto the stone bench, pulling her knees to her chest, curling into herself like a child.

"So just because he was weak... doesn’t mean he was trash."

Oliver stood there, stunned into silence.

He stared at the girl sobbing quietly in front of him. A strange, heavy feeling settled in his chest—a mix of guilt and confusion.

Her emotions seemed genuine. Painfully genuine.

But... why?

He frowned behind his mask. From what he remembered of his high school life, he and Amy didn’t have this kind of relationship.

Sure, she was the class representative. She greeted him in the mornings when no one else did. She helped him out when teachers gave him a hard time, or when the bullies pushed him too far. But he had always assumed that was just... her job. She was the nice girl. The one who looked out for the strays and the outcasts because it was the "right thing to do."

He had never imagined she actually cared.

Cautiously, Oliver sat down on the bench beside her, keeping a polite distance. He didn’t say anything, just let the silence settle between them.

After a long minute, Amy sniffled and wiped her eyes.

"You know..." she whispered, staring at the moonlit garden. "We were childhood friends."

Oliver blinked. What?

He searched his memories. Childhood friends? Him and the popular class rep?

No way. I’d remember that.

"We used to be neighbors," she continued, a faint, sad smile touching her lips. "As kids, we played with each other every day. We were practically inseparable. Running around the muddy streets, causing a ruckus, scraping our knees..."

Oliver sat stone-faced, but internally he was screaming.

I have absolutely no memory of this.

He tried to dig deeper into his past. Neighbors... playing... causing trouble...

Wait.

A memory flickered. A vague image of a kid he used to play with in the dirt. Running around with sticks, pretending to be knights.

Yeah, I had a friend like that. But...

"But he was a boy," Oliver thought, eyebrows knitting together. His name was Kouki. Short hair, always wearing shorts, rough voice. I never had a girl as a best friend.

He looked at Amy sideways. Was she delusional? Or was she confusing him with someone else entirely?

Unaware of his inner turmoil, Amy continued, her voice soft with nostalgia.

"But those days didn’t last long. My father got transferred to another city when I was five. We left in a hurry. I didn’t even get to say goodbye properly."

Oliver froze.

Five years old. Transfer.

Kouki left when I was five, too.

A cold drop of sweat slid down his back.

What the fuck is this coincidence?

"I met him again in high school," Amy said, her gaze distant. "I recognized him immediately. I was so excited. I thought... I thought we could pick up right where we left off."

She laughed bitterly.

"But he didn’t even recognize me. And he had changed so much."

She turned her head to look at Oliver, her eyes searching his masked face.

"The courageous boy who used to protect me from stray dogs in the neighborhood... was gone. In high school, he was quiet. He let others bully him. He never fought back."

She hugged her knees tighter.

"It pained me to see him like that. I wanted the old him back. So I helped him whenever I got the chance. I tried to be close to him. I kept hoping... hoping that someday, he would look at me and remember."

Oliver’s mind was reeling.

The timelines matched. The events matched. Even the detail about the stray dogs—he did remember chasing off a mangy mutt with a stick once to protect Kouki.

But Kouki was a boy.

This has to be a lie, Oliver thought, panic rising in his chest. She investigated me. That’s it. She dug up my past to trap me.

"Lies," he blurted out, his voice sharp. "That’s all lies."

Amy flinched, looking at him with wide eyes.

"I never had a friend in childhood called Amy," Oliver said, his voice rising as the confusion gnawed at him. "You’ve got the wrong guy."

He stood up, pointing an accusing finger at her.

"The friend I had back then—he was a boy! His name was Kouki!"

The words hung in the air.

Silence descended on the balcony. Heavy. Absolute.

Oliver stood there, finger pointing, chest heaving.

And then, slowly, the realization of what he had just said crashed down on him.

He froze.

Wait.

He had just admitted he had a childhood friend who left at age five. He had just corrected her on the name.

He had just confirmed his past.

Slowly, painfully, Oliver lowered his hand. He looked at Amy.

She wasn’t crying anymore.

She was staring at him with a look of absolute, shattering realization. Her lips parted, trembling.

"Kouki..." she whispered.

A single tear slipped down her cheek, cutting through the grime of the day, but a small, watery smile broke through the grief.

"That... was my nickname. Because I always acted boyish and liked to wear my brother’s old clothes."

Oliver felt the blood drain from his face. The world seemed to tilt on its axis.

Kouki. The rough-voiced kid he played knights with in the mud. The one who scraped knees and climbed trees better than him. The one he thought was his best guy friend.

Was her.

Checkmate.

He opened his mouth to deny it, to spin another lie, but the words died in his throat. There was no coming back from that. He had just admitted to a memory only the two of them shared.

Before he could say anything else, she moved.

"I knew it."

She threw herself at him, her arms wrapping around his neck in a desperate, crushing hug. The force of it nearly knocked him off the bench.

"I knew you were alive!"

"W-Wait, Amy—!"

"Thank God," she sobbed into his shoulder, her body shaking with the force of her relief. "Thank God. You’re alive. You’re really here."

Oliver sat there, stiff as a board, his hands hovering uncertainly over her back. The warmth of her tears soaked through his coat. The scent of vanilla and tears filled his senses.

Finally, he let out a long, defeated sigh. His arms lowered, wrapping around her, returning the embrace awkwardly.

"Yeah," he whispered, his voice rough. "I’m alive."

It took a long time to calm her down.

She cried until she had no tears left, clutching his coat like it was a lifeline, refusing to let go even for a second. Oliver just sat there, patting her back rhythmically, waiting for the storm to pass.

When the sobbing finally subsided into hiccups, she didn’t pull away. She stayed locked onto his arm, resting her head on his shoulder, her eyes red and puffy but clear for the first time in weeks.

"Oliver..." she murmured, her voice raw.

"Yeah?"

"How...?" She squeezed his arm tighter. "How did you get left behind? The teleportation circle... the Commander said everyone was accounted for. He said you must have wandered off and gotten killed by the monsters before the activation."

Oliver’s expression darkened behind his mask. He looked away, staring into the dark garden.

"I didn’t wander off," he said coldly. "And I wasn’t left out by accident."

Amy stiffened. She pulled back just enough to look at his face. "What do you mean?"

"I was pushed."

"What?" The word came out as a breathless gasp.

"We were in the formation," Oliver said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. "The circle was activating. I was right there at the edge. And just as the light flared... I felt a kick."

He looked her in the eye.

"William. And his lackeys, Nick and Andrew. They were right behind me. They laughed as they shoved me out of the barrier."

Silence.

Heavy, suffocating silence.

Then—

The air around them cracked.

Amy’s mana flared—wild, golden, and furious. Her eyes, usually so gentle, burned with a rage Oliver had never seen before.

"Those... bastards."