This Novel is not my Novel

"Then, since my business here is finished, I will take my leave now."

"Right~. You must have been under a lot of emotional stress, so hurry and get some rest~. Ah! No~, didn't you say you were going to hang out with a friend now~?"

"Reisir is... not a friend. And he didn't come here to play with me either..."

"Seeing how sincerely worried he is about you, he seems like a good friend, so don't fight and get along well~."

"......"

For some reason, Skati seemed to have misunderstood and thought I was just saying things I didn't mean because I had fought with Reisir earlier.

I suspect that when Skati went out into the hallway alone during the test, Reisir introduced himself as 'Karvaldr's friend.'

No, I'm certain he did.

"Then see you next week~!"

"Ah... yes... Next week..."

Rather than stopping Skati to explain things, I decided to end the conversation quickly.

It's obvious she wouldn't believe me anyway. Better not waste time.

Thinking that, I opened the lecture room door and stepped outside to find Reisir standing there.

"I was waiting for you."

"Why?"

"I told you earlier. I'm going to hang out with you until dinner."

"Are my wishes not being taken into consideration?"

"Okay, then let's do whatever you want."

"That is not what I meant...!"

I was truly dumbfounded.

When I looked at Reisir with an incredulous expression, he burst into laughter, amused by my reaction.

Did he already forget that we had practically argued?

Or maybe he was deliberately laughing to make me grow fond of him, even though there was nothing funny about the situation. He had a surprisingly sly side to him.

"Umm... were you perhaps offended because I meddled too much in your business?"

Look at him, immediately probing me with an awkwardly apologetic expression the moment I furrowed my brow.

He's even subtly pushing the idea that I'm sulking and refusing to hang out with him because of what happened earlier, isn't he?

And what's with that tone, like he's gently coaxing me?

"Karvaldr. What you said about Professor Skati is not something a person could notice without trying to understand her and thinking deeply about her. So naturally, I had no choice but to realize how much you care about her."

The original protagonist put on a serious expression and began entering an influence event.

I really wonder what he's thinking.

Skati, who will become his future comrade and mentor, is right beyond the door, so I don't understand why he's clinging to me and doing this.

"But you never take care of your own heart, calling others good people while treating yourself like a bad person. That is just so regrettable."

Every time he acts like this, my chest tightens and my heart feels uncomfortable.

Calling him sly, calling this an influence event.

Even though I use those expressions, I know Reisir is being completely sincere right now.

If there were no sincerity in the first place, he wouldn't keep bringing up these kinds of words over and over again.

Reisir probably knows this isn't a topic I particularly like discussing.

He could have just made meaningless small talk and pretended to be friends, or simply looked for someone else besides me.

"I want you to be respected. By others, and by yourself."

Reisir is so genuinely worried about me that he can't leave me alone.

If he keeps clashing with me like this, wasting his time and emotional energy, the backlash will eventually pile up in his own heart.

It's not easy to ignore someone who cares about me this much.

Especially because he was the first person to sincerely approach me and ask to be friends.

If only he would give up quickly.

If that's impossible, then I'd rather he get angry. Ask me why I won't return his feelings when he's trying this hard.

Then I could at least retort by asking when I ever asked him to put effort into me.

"Haa..."

A sigh escaped me involuntarily.

I'm so grateful and sorry, but I'm in a position where I can't express it through words or actions.

Guilt piled on top of my sense of indebtedness, making my heart feel infinitely heavy.

"So... what do you plan to do now?"

"What do you mean, what do I plan to do?"

"......"

"...Huh?"

"...You said let's hang out."

"......!!"

At the two words I casually threw out, his eyes widened and even sparkled.

I felt uneasy immediately after saying them, wondering if this was really okay.

But seeing him so happy made my heart feel just a tiny bit more at ease.

Right, even if I can't erase his misfortune, doing at least this much is the bare minimum I can do.

It's only a few hours of hanging out. What's the big deal?

If I were going to grow attached to him that easily, it would have already happened by now, so it should be fine.

Maybe he kept pestering me because he thought it would be fun to hang out, but once we actually do, he might realize it's boring and completely lose the desire to be friends.

"Karvaldr, what do you want to do? I'll go along with anything, so feel free to say it."

"I want to go to the personal training grounds and devote myself to self-improvement."

"That's not hanging out?!"

He was already reacting negatively.

For me, that was a positive sign.

"What did you do when you hung out with your friends?"

"What a foolish question. Since I have no friends, wasn't your intention to become my friend because you thought we could form a new group?"

"Didn't we already clear up that misunderstanding?!"

"You don't clear up the misunderstandings about me, so why should I clear up the misunderstandings about you?"

"Sigh...! Fine, fine. Let's just say we're misunderstanding each other. Anyway, I fully understand now that you've never had a friend."

If not for Helga, we would have been in the same position of never having had a friend.

That thought crossed my mind, but there was no way I could say it out loud.

Reisir's inability to make friends was the fault of the original owner of the body I possessed.

"Even if they weren't friends, you still hung out with your classmates occasionally last semester, didn't you? Tryggdrik and Ríolíkin were always following you around too. What did you do with them then?"

"Nothing. I just stayed in my seat. We never really did anything."

"......"

A pitying gaze landed on my face.

I wanted to argue that I'm just an uninteresting and boring person, but apparently all I managed to evoke was pity and sympathy.

"The timing is a little awkward to go out and play now, so what should we do...?"

"I'm asking just in case, but were you planning to leave the decision to me because you hadn't actually thought about what to do?"

"That's... as you noticed, I didn't originally come looking for you so we could hang out, right?"

"If you don't have any plans either, then forget it. Let's just call it off."

"No, no! Don't do that! Do you know how many ways there are to have fun without going outside?!"

As I tried to take back my words about hanging out and walk away, Reisir hurriedly grabbed my sleeve and clung to me.

When he enters an influence event, he acts mature and protagonist-like, but right now he was acting just like a child.

Considering his age, maybe this behavior was normal. But since the original work never properly highlighted this side of him, it felt a little awkward.

"Do you want to play chess or Othello?"

"Do you like those kinds of games?"

"Honestly, not really. I only suggested them because I thought you would like those kinds of brain games. Ah! But I play with Helga pretty often, so I'm not terrible at them."

Since Reisir spoke honestly, I'll narrate honestly too.

I know the rules of both chess and Othello, but that's all. I've never actually played against another person.

However, the original owner of this body would have learned them as part of his basic education. And I suspect he would have been quite skilled.

There was never a scene in the original work where Karvaldr played chess, but somehow he gives off that impression.

Isn't that why Reisir also said he thought I would like those kinds of games?

'Should I properly learn them when I return to my family's main residence during vacation...?'

Anyway, the conclusion is that if I played chess or Othello against Reisir right now, defeat would be inevitable.

And since that would lead to the collapse of Karvaldr's character, it was a suggestion I could never accept.

"Then I refuse. In the first place, I am not the type who enjoys those kinds of games either."

"Huh? Really?! It seems our tastes are similar in games as well as books."

"For tastes to be similar, the things we like should overlap. If you base it on things we dislike instead, then who in the world wouldn't have similar tastes?"

"Then since we're already talking about it, shall we discuss Star Author's novels instead? That satisfies both our tastes."

"I decline."

If this protagonist from another novel says good things about them, I feel like I won't be able to stop myself from blushing. And if he says bad things, it will be difficult to hide my disappointment.

So when I firmly refused, Reisir's shoulders visibly slumped.

"...Other than Star Author, are there no other authors you like?"

"Actually, there are plenty of novels I enjoyed besides Star Author's works. But as you know, authors who write those kinds of novels tend to use strange symbols as pen names, right? So I don't really pay attention to their names, and when I think about a favorite author, nobody besides Star Author comes to mind."

It's a misunderstanding. Even web novel authors don't use pen names made entirely of special characters.

Well, there might be one or two unusual authors like that, but obviously not all of them.

If they did, readers would have trouble distinguishing between authors, making it impossible to build name recognition.

Naturally, there was no way for me to explain that to Reisir.

"Karvaldr, what about you?"

"I also don't pay much attention to authors' names for the same reason. More importantly, if we're going to keep talking, wouldn't it be better to move somewhere else?"

"As expected, you wanted to talk about novels too, didn't you?!"

"......"

Just in case there are readers misunderstanding things like Reisir, let me clarify.

I do not want to sit around chatting with this protagonist from another novel, recommending books and discussing our favorites.

Reisir might know information about the paperback editions of web novels that I haven't managed to find.

So I only agreed to continue the conversation because that topic might come up.

"Then do you want to come to my room? Or should we go to yours?"

"I refuse both. We aren't close enough to visit each other's personal spaces, are we?"

"But there isn't really anywhere suitable, right? Since it's exam period, the cafeteria, the dormitory lobby, everywhere is packed with students studying."

He's not wrong.

Since I make coffee in my room and drink it there, I haven't visited the cafeteria.

But I pass by the dormitory lobby every day, and it's always crowded with students gathered in study groups.

"...Hearing that makes me wonder if you should have avoided suggesting we hang out during exam period in the first place."

"More than ninety percent of the students there are probably cramming, you know? People like us, who usually put in steady effort, can afford to relax a little."

"...Us? Have you been preparing for the exams consistently too?"

"Okay. You, who steadily trained for the practical exam as usual. And me, who plans to cram for the written exam after dinner... I'll correct it to that."

In the original work, there was never any narration suggesting that Reisir studied consistently.

So I asked because I was curious, and that was the answer I got.

Maybe because he's a protagonist with a strong sense of justice, he's very conscientious.

Anyway, judging by the current word count, it seems it's time to wrap up this chapter.

However, since there is still content left to cram into this chapter, I'll deliver the rest quickly through narration instead of dialogue.

First, Reisir and I stopped by the cafeteria to buy drinks to go, then settled onto one of the benches scattered around the academy grounds.

There, Reisir enthusiastically shared his impressions of the novels he had enjoyed reading...

Including a long conversation about novels unrelated to this work would not only lower the readers' interest,

but if things went badly, I might even get dragged into a copyright dispute.

So I'll skip the details and go straight to the conclusion.

Unfortunately, listening to the otaku talk Reisir disguised as a book discussion did not give me the information I wanted.

I probed subtly, but he didn't even know those books existed only in the Academy Library.

He seemed to think they were merely rare books that were difficult to obtain.

'True. If I didn't know those books were web novels published in the world I used to live in, I probably would have thought the same thing. Especially since I haven't searched every bookstore in this world.'

In the end, all I learned today was the completely useless fact that Reisir mainly reads hunter genre novels.