Standing on the balcony, Eriri held her forehead, looking speechlessly at the retreating figure.
Yazuki had borrowed her bicycle and was speeding away like a madman, closely followed by Gabriel, whose entire body was radiating killing intent.
The moment she stepped out of the door, she was immediately struck by the iron bucket trap that Yazuki had set up, leaving her seeing stars.
Seeing that it was still early and that she had stayed up late last night, Eriri decided to go back to sleep. However, as she passed by her vanity, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and her face darkened—she had completely forgotten that she still had doodles on her face.
Just like Gabriel, she was also a victim.
"That bastard—!"
She went to wash her face, and after finishing her morning routine, she was on her way back to her room when she happened to notice that the door to the room where Yazuki had once stayed was slightly open. Without thinking, she walked over.
Standing at the doorway, she looked inside. The setting was both familiar and unfamiliar, bringing back memories of a time when the two of them had been as close as siblings.
In the end, she let out a sigh, though she wasn't sure what emotion it carried. Then, she casually closed the door and returned to her own room.
Seeing the mess inside, she felt a headache coming on. She decided to tidy up.
While cleaning, she accidentally bumped into her wardrobe with her hip, causing something to shake up top. She looked up just in time to see a large suitcase slowly sliding off the edge.
"Wahhh—!"
Letting out a scream, she jumped backward just as the suitcase crashed onto the floor with a loud thud.
That was close—if that had landed on her, she'd probably be in the hospital right now.
The reason it fell was probably due to the aftermath of Gabriel's flying kick from last night, which had sent Yazuki flying and accidentally knocked against the wardrobe.
Wait a minute, wasn't this suitcase Yazuki's?
Staring at the dust-covered, dark-colored suitcase, Eriri's mind drifted back to the events surrounding it.
That day had been the worst fight between Yazuki and his father.
Afterward, he had come to her, dragging this large suitcase behind him, asking her to keep it safe for a while.
He had told her that it contained something he had spent months compiling from fragmented memories; something that, in his words, could cause a storm in the industry.
As for what it was?
Eriri had assumed it was either a novel or a manuscript for a manga.
She remembered that a few months before he gave her the suitcase, Yazuki had been hit on the head by something falling from a high-rise building.
When he woke up, he started acting strangely—his chuunibyou syndrome had gotten even worse. He kept saying that he had been reincarnated into a world where he was just a background character and that his lost memories had finally returned.
After that, he suddenly became obsessed with writing, acting as if he was destined to become a famous author. For months, he had been working on something but wouldn't let her see it, saying he was going to shock her when the time was right.
But before she could be shocked, she was scared out of her wits instead.
He probably had a falling-out with his family—after all, Yazuki's household was very strict.
Writing novels or manga was likely considered a waste of time, so he wouldn't have been able to continue under his father's watchful eye. Fearing that his work might be destroyed, he had asked her to keep it safe.
But why use a physical suitcase instead of a USB drive?
Well, he had done that, but he accidentally broke his computer, and the drive was corrupted. Fortunately, he had a backup—hence, the suitcase full of paper manuscripts.
She remembered that when he brought the suitcase to her, it was ridiculously heavy, so heavy that he had asked her to help carry it.
But on the way, something bizarre happened, an inexplicable streak of light shot down from the sky and struck Yazuki right in the stomach, nearly making him collapse on the spot.
When they finally saw what had hit him, it turned out to be a strange crystal orb. That was probably why it had looked so dazzling under the sunlight.
Then, for some reason, the orb rolled away on its own, as if it had a mind of its own. Logically, something like that should have lost momentum and stopped, but instead, it kept rolling until it stopped directly in the path of an oncoming truck.
The truck ran over it.
However, instead of being crushed, the orb was launched into the air—directly at Yazuki again. It was like he was cursed with bad luck.
Sensing danger, he instinctively pulled the suitcase in front of him as a shield. With a deafening boom, the force sent him flying along with the suitcase, knocking him unconscious when it landed on top of him. That was the day he lost his memories for several months.
Strangely, even though the suitcase had taken the impact, it had no visible damage.
And they couldn't find the crystal orb anywhere, it had seemingly disintegrated into nothingness, leaving behind only dazzling specks of light, like evaporating ice.
Of course, if Eriri were to draw that crystal orb now and show it to Yazuki, he would definitely widen his eyes in shock—because it was something he had sealed away long ago.
At some point in his past reincarnations, he had thrown it into the most dangerous part of the Void Storm, thinking it was lost forever.
Click—
A faint mechanical sound snapped Eriri out of her thoughts. Looking down, she saw that the suitcase—whose key had been lost after Yazuki's amnesia—had somehow unlocked itself.
Then, as if it had been packed far too full, the suitcase began to swell, like it was about to burst open.
Now that she thought about it, the reason she still had this suitcase was because Yazuki had completely forgotten about it after losing his memories.
Since he was also planning to cut ties with his family, he hadn't bothered taking it back. Over time, he had simply lost interest and told her she could do whatever she wanted with it.
And so, it had remained untouched until today, when it was finally about to see the light of day once more.
"Bang—!"
"Wahhh—!"
The suitcase lid was blasted open, startling Eriri into another scream.
Then, she froze in shock as a massive number of handwritten manuscript pages erupted from the suitcase, scattering all over the room.
For a moment, Eriri had the strange illusion that the words on the pages were pulsing as if they were alive.
The sheer number of flying pages filled the room, drastically limiting her field of vision.
If she could see from a bird's-eye view, she would have noticed something bizarre—the pages weren't just floating randomly; they were spiraling in an organized dance, some even automatically grouping together.
However, this strange phenomenon only lasted for a brief moment before the pages lost momentum and gently fluttered to the ground.
She grabbed one.
"Saber? Ki-King Arthur—Alto—what the heck, it's all in different language!"
Reading it gave her a headache.
Was this really the so-called masterpiece that Yazuki had once claimed would take the industry by storm?
Back then, he had only just started middle school, was he seriously capable of writing something groundbreaking?
No way. It had to be a chuunibyou-infested mess with zero logic.
"Hehehe~" Eriri smirked deviously.
In a way, this might just be Yazuki's ultimate black history. Once she translated it, she could use it to mock him.