Chapter 61: Rusty Gears in the Machine
"Swear to God?" Jaren's eyes locked onto mine.
"I swear," I replied.
Because I was telling the earnest truth to him, my voice remained clear and unhesitating like a mountain standing firm against the winds of doubt. "Now get in the car. Just stay at my home for the holiday."
"Fine," he agreed.
I had managed to convince Jaren that I would handle the issue on my own, persuading him that personal revenge was unnecessary.
At first, his determination to take matters into his own hands still smoldered like embers of a fire refusing to die down. He wanted an eye for an eye. A death for a death.
"It's not worth it. It wasn't as though the person making the drugs was the one who sold them to your friend's sister," I reasoned, trying to extinguish his thirst for revenge.
He countered, like a fiery comet streaking across the night sky, "But if they never made the drugs, there wouldn't be any to sell in the first place."
I posed a question that pierced through his anger, "Had the girl who passed away already been using drugs prior to this incident?"
Reluctantly, after a few seconds of silence, he confirmed, "Yes, she had."
"Then one way or another, she was already on the wrong path," I asserted, my words a harsh truth that struck him like a lightning bolt. "She most likely would've met the same fate. If it wasn't by the hands of the new drugs then it would've been the drugs she'd already been consuming... or she would've crossed the wrong people and had her life taken."
His fist clenched and he looked like he was tempted to strike me at least one time.
I was prepared to just eat the punch if it meant that he would be forced to give up on his pursuit for revenge; I had plenty of healing potions remaining anyway since the training ended earlier than normal.
But Jaren managed to restrain himself, understanding that I was just speaking the truth, painful as they were.
I could also sense that he feared the consequences of striking me, his cousin, but more importantly — a son of the main family.
After making me promise that I was going to resolve the issue, he finally accepted my demands for him to drop his personal vendetta.
"Can I drive?" he asked, perhaps trying to seek an outlet for his anger.
Glancing at the car that I had been driving since I arrived in this world, I recalled how expensive it was, then I compared it to the digits in my bank account.
Once the two numbers were in my head, I shrugged.
I had expectations for the ride to end with a few scratches and bumps on the car here and there but any repair cost would be insignificant to my bank account like raindrops in an ocean.
Might as well let my cousin drive my vehicle especially since I had just snatched away his purpose of being in this city.
"Sure," I responded, tossing him the keys. Getting in the passenger seat also gave me time to ponder the new revelation and contemplate how I was going to deal with it.
"Let's see how fast this baby can go," he exclaimed, licking his lips as he changed the gear and began pressing down on the acceleration pedal with his foot.
"Please be careful. I don't care if you crash and get hurt but don't endanger the lives of others," I cautioned him, closing my eyes to begin reconsidering my plans and altering the course of my path.
"Careful? Ha! Careful is my middle name," he boasted as the car accelerated. Like a skillful conductor leading an orchestra, he swiftly changed lanes back and forth, weaving through traffic, dodging incoming cars, and when he needed to, he'd even drive onto the opposite lane so that he could overtake the car in front of him.
He was going at least twice the speed limit but as soon as the police car noticed who the car belonged to, they gave up on chasing it.
'Privilege of being an Agnus. As well as the privilege of having a family member in the paladin order,' I thought to myself.
It wasn't that the police officers on the streets were all corrupt but even if they were to arrest me, I'd be freed within an hour and all they would receive for the arrest is a scolding, deduction of pay, or even being fired.
If anyone in the police force was to blame, it'd be the higher-ups who succumbed to the power of the Agnus family.
Pulling up into the driveway of my home with a broken right mirror and the left of the car scratched, I had finally concluded my thoughts.
It was another rusty gear in the machine but that's how life goes. It's not ideal and nothing really goes the way you want it to so you just have to make do with what you're given and adapt as best as you possibly can.
Speaking of adapting, I looked down at my phone and saw a picture sent to me by the Three Stooges.
They were giving me a thumbs-up because they had just successfully triumphed over a dungeon with only minor injuries and were very proud of themselves.
Sending them my congratulations, I told them to keep working hard.
Then I turned to the messages sent by Ichiko, my fiancée. She just wanted me to know that she had sent a present for me as well as the rest of the family and they were awaiting me under the Christmas tree.
Giving her my gratitude, I responded, telling her that I had also sent two gifts of my own her way. One was a necklace that matched her hair while the other was a playlist of my favorite music, carefully curated to align with the taste of original Bell as well as mine.
Most of my favorite artists weren't in this world so it took quite a while to find artists that matched me.
"Hey Auntie," Jaren's voice interrupted my thoughts as he entered the mansion.
"Jaren, what are you doing here?" Mother greeted him warmly, wrapping him in a hug like a loving embrace.
"Oh, nothing. I was just kicked out of my own home because my parents wanted some alone time," he explained with a shrug.
"Really? Why didn't they just take a vacation by themselves if they wanted alone time? Why the need to kick you out?" inquired Father, who was home earlier than normal for the holiday.
"I don't know," Jaren replied with a hint of tiredness in his voice.
"Have you met my new daughter yet?" Mother asked, her heart already embracing Eloise as her own.
Jaren glanced at me, his hesitation evident, before shaking his head.
"Would you like to meet her? She's just the cutest thing in the world. Well... tied with Rubi," Mother gushed, pride gleaming in her eyes like stars illuminating the night sky as if Eloise had popped out of her rather than from the sky above.
"I'm... I'm good. I'm a little tired, and I wouldn't want my first impression to be bad," Jaren politely declined, being on his best behavior around my parents.
"Okay then. Are the two of you heading upstairs?" Mother asked.
"Yeah," I nodded.
"See you two at dinner then," she said, already assuming that the two of us were planning on spending the rest of the day cooped up together in my room doing nothing.
Her assumption wasn't far off from the truth.
In my room, we settled onto my bed. Since there were no guests to hide from, Jaren didn't take shelter in a guest room like he usually would.
We spent the time watching videos on our phones, occasionally showing the other person a funny video we just watched.
In the midst of wasting our time doing nothing productive, he stopped to ask me, "How is it living with a real angel?"
"It's going fine. At this point, I just see her as a little child, a little sister even. Not really... an entity from heaven, I guess," I responded.
"Thank you for keeping your promise and not snitching on me," he said.
"Of course. You know I'm good for it."
He looked to be lost in thought, falling into contemplation, as he resumed scrolling through his feed once more without showing any reaction to what was on his screen.
No longer feeling entertained by my videos, I sat up from my seat and got on the computer.
"Finna play games?" Jaren asked, his eyes lighting up like a child on Christmas morning.
"No. If you want to, then just use my console over there," I pointed at the video game console that had been released only a few months ago.
This gaming device bore similarities to those back on Earth, but its games were focused on the aspect of magic and swords instead of firearms. It reflected the reality of this world, where fantasy was real.
"Say less," he grinned, rolling off the bed with the nimbleness of a cat, donning the headset in one swift motion like a warrior preparing for battle.
With a flick of his finger, the console roared to life. "What games do you have?"
"I don't know. Just look in the store and purchase whatever game you fancy if it's not already downloaded," I informed him, not concerned about any purchase he was going to make.
"Aight."
I held great trust in my cousin, the same trust he had bestowed upon me when he entrusted me with the most important secret he had ever overheard.
Hence, I had no worries about accessing the chatlogs of the secret club with him present which was exactly what I was doing on the computer.
Though I hadn't visited in a while, already aware of most of the academy's secrets because of the novel and being shielded from Maya's nosiness with the blood oath, I felt drawn to finally check it now that I had a surplus of free time.
As I scrolled up, the discussions seemed harmless, minor rumors floating here and there like leaves carried by the wind.
Just as I was about to close the chatlogs, I stumbled upon Maya's account and my interest was pulled back in.
Scrolling all the way up to the beginning of her conversation with one of the members of the club, I began reading it.
The further I scrolled, the more my eyebrows frowned.
The more interest Maya showed in the rumor being shared with her, the more I realized that my existence had fastened the rate at which Maya branched out from just dealing with the news of the academy to the rest of the world.
When I finally reached the end of her one-on-one conversation, I closed my computer with a heavy sigh that seemed to weigh a ton.
I spun in my chair, closing my eyes while tilting my head towards the ceiling.
Walking the path of redemption for the side villain, Bell Agnus, I was aware that changes to the original timeline would appear often since my existence itself was an outlier bound to create change everywhere I went but that doesn't make it any less annoying to deal with.
"One broken gear after another," I muttered under my breath, feeling like a fish trying to swim in a current that constantly changed direction.
Standing up, I grabbed the wooden sword I had been training with.
"Where are you going?" Jaren inquired, lowering his headset down to his neck to listen more intently to my response.
"Just stepping outside for some exercise," I responded. "Feel like bashing a few heads."
"You finna go merk a few monsters? Really? Let me come with you," he offered, eager to also let out his feelings.
"No," I declined. "I need some alone time. Something's come up, and it's left me a bit unsettled."
My agitation wasn't due to Maya; she was merely playing to her character and nature. I was agitated by my late discovery, realizing that had I seen it sooner, I might have been able to prevent her from investigating the baron, an investigation I had already been pursuing for weeks.
Emerging from one of the Agnus family's dungeons, bloodstains were painted all across my body with a variety of colors: red, blue, purple, green, and more. I resembled a rainbow if the colors were desaturated and it smelled coppery.
Jerman, ever-present whenever I had somewhere to go but didn't feel like driving, handed me a towel to wipe my face clean.
"Are you heading home for Christmas?" I asked as I began drying the blood off my hair.
"No," he shook his head.
"Why not?" I asked, undressing and changing into the spare clothes he had prepared for me.
"Can't abandon my duty," he replied like the loyal servant he was.
"After you drop me off, go home," I ordered, my tone assertive yet caring. "At least for a few hours. If I see you return before the sun sets tomorrow, I'll be gravely disappointed in you."
I knew Jerman well by this point; he wouldn't have accepted a day off if I hadn't explicitly commanded him to take one.
"Yes, young master," he bowed respectfully, opening the backseat door for me.
Upon reaching home, my parents' surprise was palpable as they laid eyes on my blood-stained figure. I tried my best to clean myself but some stains were too difficult to clean with nothing but a towel.
Quickly, I made my way to the nearest shower.
Mother seemed to have questions on her lips, but after remembering who was responsible for half of the genetics that made me, she couldn't find it in herself to question my questionable action.
After all, she had done the same thing after the failed assassination attempt on my and Ichiko's lives a while back.
Father, ever laid-back, merely arched an eyebrow in astonishment at the state I was in before returning to his newspaper, seemingly unphased by the unusual sight before him.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
nemolikessoju
nemolikessoju I'm back and this time, with a brand new driver's license. I was nervous as heck but thankfully, my reverse and parallel parking was pristine. Made one mistake and that was not waiting long enough at a stop sign for a left turn but other than that had a perfect test.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone