Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 160: At First Sight

"Oh, wait. They said you’re the top nerd. I see now. Apparently such a refined young lady like you can also be a top nerd..."

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"Why would you say that?!" Cecilia finally snapped, the words escaping like steam from a kettle. Her face, already flushed, now felt like it was hosting its own miniature sun.

Oathran blinked, then a low, bewildered laugh escaped him. "Pff—what did I say?" Again with that amused face. "I’m just saying what I’m seeing and hearing on my first day in my brand new school."

Normal!

This again!

He wasn’t being profound or quoting the ghost of their tragic romance in a ditch. He was just... talking. Gossiping. Making small talk. And it was killing her.

Cecilia didn’t dignify him with a response. Instead, she turned her wrath upon her meat pie, attacking it with a violence that would have made a seasoned warrior proud.

She cut, she stabbed, she devoured, each bite a ferocious feat. She finished the entire slice in record time, only to be betrayed by her own haste.

"Hic—!"

She hiccupped. It destroyed her furious momentum.

"Slow down, my lady..." Oathran murmured, his tone softening from amusement into something gentler, more concerned. He reached for the glass water jug that sat at the center of every table and poured her a glass, offering it to her.

But Cecilia, used to a different life, a life where this same man would patiently coax creamy soup past her lips when grief stole her appetite, acted on flustered instinct.

She took a drink directly from the glass he was holding without a second thought. She, of course, didn’t sip daintily. She tipped his hand and the glass back and drank it down in several large, unladylike gulps, draining it completely.

The action made Oathran flinch. There was an imperceptible tightening around his eyes. This... was a breach of the formal distance that carefully existed between new acquaintances.

But being the gentleman he was, he stayed silent. He didn’t pull away, didn’t comment. He just held the glass steady for her with a faint, bemused smile touching his lips.

One couldn’t blame Cecilia, though. Woman had been yanked from a world where Oathran’s care was absolute, where his hands had tended her deepest wounds and his presence was her sanctuary. In her current state, social discretion was the last thing on her mind.

Heck, let it make him put some distance from her!

Even after that, her glare remained fixed on him. Without another word, she snatched up her tray, stood so abruptly her chair scraped loudly against the stone floor, and marched toward the return counter. Then, she immediately turned and stomped out of the dining hall.

Oathran didn’t move. He watched her go, the storm in a school skirt disappearing into the shadowy corridor. The smile faded from his face, leaving behind a silence. The vast, empty hall seemed to swallow the sound of her departure, leaving him in a bubble of stillness.

He sat there for a long while, the remains of his own meal cooling before him.

"A good, talented lady. Refined... intelligent..."

Simple assessment. But they held a weight his earlier teasing had not. He turned fully to the window, seeing the ghostly outline of his own face. The sharp white hair, the grey eyes confused.

"Falling in love at first sight is kinda cringe, though..." he muttered. He rubbed his forehead and temples, as if he could physically push the bewildering surge of feeling back behind a dam of propriety.

He couldn’t believe it. Baswara, the old coot, his guardian, had teased-warned him about ’teenage hormones’ finally hitting, but Oathran had brushed it off. He’d thought himself different. More controlled. Above such... instantaneous, inconvenient fascinations.

Well... yes, thanks to being homeschooled by that old man, he never got to be close with any girl his age...

But it didn’t explain the intensity. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

The way his focus had narrowed to her in the classroom, the way her defense of her... situationship... had intrigued him, the way her bizarre, all-consuming study habits in the library seemed not weird, but admirably dedicated.

Her effect on him...

And this was just the fucking first day.

A sigh escaped him.

But thankfully, she already had someone she loves. Someone who would seemingly love her and take care of her.

Because he couldn’t.

"This is so uncool..." he sighed to his reflection, the teenage lament somehow encompassing the vast weariness settling in his bones.

And yet... the temptation remained. This nagging urge to find out about this guy named Eastiel and just make sure he was a good man...

He scowled at himself in the glass. Unbelievable.

How pathetic was that? Latching onto a girl on his first day and immediately getting obsessed with her well-being, with the quality of the man in her life? What a creep. What a hopeless, presumptuous...

...beast.

Well. Even if he knew what kind of person this Eastiel was... what could he do?

He only had nine days left.

***

Cecilia thought today would be decently uneventful.

But the hint that today would be anything but that arrived the moment she stepped out of her dorm room into the morning-quiet of the residence hall.

People were stealing glances at her.

Not the usual, fleeting looks of curiosity that followed the ’top nerd’ or the girl in the infamous ’situationship.’ These were different. Sharper. Lingering. Eyes would flick to her, then dart away, only to return with a friend in tow.

A low hum of whispers rippled through the corridors just ahead of her and in her wake.

Aaaahhh... what was this? What? What the fuck?

Her internal alarm, finely tuned to detect narrative bullshit, was flaring up. She could smell it in the air. The cloying, unmistakable scent of cliché. Fresh, school-day gossip, grade-A, piping hot.

"Good morning, Miss Araceli."

The voice came from her side, smooth and polite, as if materializing from the very gossip itself. Oathran fell into step beside her with a natural ease that suggested they’d been walking together for years. Definitely not just sharing one embarrassing late-night meal or library false ghost encounter.

Cecilia turned a perfectly pleasant smile up at him. "Good morning, Mr. Alicei."

It was a simple exchange. Banal. Devoid of subtext.

And yet, the effect on the hallway was like a sneeze that refused to come. The whispers, previously scattered, coalesced into a giant wave. The stolen glances became outright stares.

All in all, burning with shock, glee, and scandalized delight that wouldn’t outwardly surface.

"TOP NERD ARACELI SEEN WITH MYSTERIOUS NEW TRANSFER STUDENT. EASTIEL WHO?"

The return of the cliché headline.

What the fuck?

One hallway meltdown with Eastiel + one late-night cafeteria tête-à-tête with Oathran = a full-blown school-wide romantic conspiracy theory.

But Oathran... he was still obliviously calm. He walked on, his gaze fixed ahead, either magnificently unaware of the commotion or possessed of a regal indifference so complete it rendered the whispers meaningless.

He seemed genuinely focused on a more immediate problem.

"The class is... this way... right?" he asked, pausing at a junction, his brow furrowed slightly as he looked down the wrong corridor.

Normal!Oathran strikes again.

Here they were, at the center of a burgeoning social firestorm, and he was worried about getting lost.

"This way," she corrected gently, gesturing to the opposite passage.

Oathran sighed, a soft sound of genuine relief. "Oh, do you know how glad I was when I saw a familiar face in these maze-like buildings?"

"With pleasure," Cecilia chuckled.

"Thanks," he said, and offered her a small, grateful smile. It was a nice smile. Sincere.

The whispers around them hit a new, feverish pitch.

Alright, her internal eye-roll now reached epic proportions. She could guess which cliché it was. The ’Love Triangle’ cliché. The ’New Guy Shakes Up Established Dynamic’ cliché.

Fuck that. Fuck all of that. Fu—

Oh, fuck.

Her mental tirade was cut off as they rounded the final corner to her, no, their classroom.

Standing in front of the classroom door, arms crossed, gaze like twin shards of ice, was Arzhen.

He wasn’t looking at the gossiping students. He wasn’t looking at Oathran. His entire being was focused on Cecilia. That gaze... that gaze was several degrees past possessive and veering straight into unhinged.

Why?

Why?????????

Keep this up and he’d become a comedic relief character.

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It’s been long since this lowly one had read something. Can the mighty readers recommend this lowly one book recommendations? (Inside or outside Webnovel, smut or clean, comics or 500K+ wall of text, all is cool)

Also, as always, thank you for the support!!! <333