"Excuse me?"
"I asked who the hell are you?"
"Do you have amnesia or something? We met yesterday."
"Sure, I know your name, Kurt. What I'm asking is who and what are you? Never in all my lives have I ever seen you before."
"Lives? Are you a cat or something? You got nine lives?" Kurt tried easing the tension in the air.
The joke, however, landed flat as Emelie's face turned more serious.
"I'm not playing with you Kurt. Tell me or," She quickly shoved her forearm against Kurt's throat. "I'll kill you."
"Arghk… You'll kill me? Ha... Hahaha. Ahahaha!" He laughed maniacally.
Emelie's tough persona broke slightly as she was taken aback by his sudden change in behaviour.
'What's wrong with him?' She thought.
"Do it. I dare you to try." Kurt goaded her on. "Fair warning though, once you go through with it, I won't hold back."
"You think I'm afraid of you?"
"You should be, Emelie." With a blush now covering his face, he smiled like a crazy person.
'This guy…'
"Hey Emelie, tell me something before you make the worst decision of your life."
"... What is it?"
"Are you… evil?"
"What did you say-"
SLASH
"Ah!" Emelie let go of him and fell to the ground as she felt something get slashed across her thigh.
"Oh Emelie," Kurt twirled the knife he took from Arlo. "I've been nothing but cordial to you, and here you are threatening to kill me out of nowhere. Imagine that you were in my shoes. How would you feel?"
"You bastard," She held her bleeding thigh. "I knew something about you was fishy. First the robbing incident with Amy and now with the death of Peter. The common denominator is that you were always involved and yet I've never met you before until this cycle."
"Common denominator? Cycle? You're speaking mumbo jumbo again. You make it sound like I'm sort of a divine interventor. I'm just a guy who got caught up in whatever storm is brewing."
Kurt kneeled beside her and pointed the tip of the knife to her throat. "Now start making sense before I do something I'll regret. Question one: Why do you keep asking me who I am?"
"....."
"Answer me." He pressed the knife on her throat.
"I've dealt with much more deadly situations than this. Even if I die here, I'll just go back." She smirked.
'Go back?' He looked at her resolute eyes. 'There's something off about her. I'm not sensing any malice from her even though she threatened to kill me. Whatever she meant, she clearly isn't afraid of dying. Need to change my approach then.'
"Emelie."
"What?"
Kurt dropped the knife and stood back with his hands in the air.
"I don't know why but I feel like there's been a huge misunderstanding between us so why don't we just take a step back and be civil about this."
Emelie stared at Kurt as if judging to see if he was lying or not. When she found no trace of that crazy personality he displayed, she nodded and stood up as well.
"Wait? Where'd your wound go?" He noticed there was no cut mark.
"I healed it."
"How? When?"
"How? With magic. When? The moment you cut me."
"That's crazy. The only magic I've seen so far was fire from Dominik, ice from this blue headed girl who's a supposed princess and teleporting from this woman who stole my heart the moment I laid eyes on her."
"Teleport? You talking about Diana Valentine?"
"You know her?!" Kurt excitedly ran up to Emelie and held her hands. "How do you know her?!"
"Argh, what's with you all of a sudden?" She pulled her hand back.
"Sorry. It's just-"
"Yeah yeah you love her. So does every man she walks so much as walks past."
"I mean have you seen her? She's an actual Goddess."
"So, you only love her for her looks?"
"Love has to start somewhere. Her looks just so happen to be the starting point for me. I'm sure I'll find many more reasons after I get to know her better."
"..... At least you're honest about it. As for how I know her, she's the principal at our academy and the only teleport user here in Eldoria."
"Principal? Academy?" Kurt held his chin while deep in thought. Suddenly an idea popped in his head as he slowly turned and smiled at Emelie.
"Why're you looking at me like that?"
"Emelie, it would seem that we're going to be seeing a lot of each other these upcoming days, hehehe."
"I'd rather you not." She gave him a disgusting look. "Anyway, I've answered your question, now tell me exactly, who are you?"
"I guess that's only fair but whatever you're expecting I can promise you it's not that deep."
"Just tell me."
"Haaaa…" He sighed, "My name is Kurt Rossana."
".... And?" Emelie tapped her foot on the ground.
"And I'm not part of any cult. Nor did I kill Peter. I'm also not a divine interventor. Just a guy who was at the wrong place at the right time."
"What about the alleyway? How'd you get those tags?"
"Remember that white cat I was with. He led me to them. As for how I got those tags, well I killed them for it. Or rather that cultist, Arlo, killed the robbers and I killed Arlo. Badaboom badabing I got the magical thing."
".... The cat led you?"
"Yes." He said with a straight face.
".... I see. What about Peter? He was not supposed to die today. What happened to him?"
"There you go again, speaking like things have a predetermined outcome."
"Tell me, Kurt."
"... This morning as I was on my way to the bank, I saw Peter warning a crowd of people about the church. A bishop named Tobias and his two lackeys threatened him to stop so he stopped. Curious about the situation I followed Peter and spoke to him about the... Zealots."
"You can say cult around me, I don't care."
"Right, the cult. Just as he was about to reveal to me why they wanted him quiet, his head exploded. I saw the figure who did it run away so I gave chase. He got away in the end, but I deduced by his build, that he was one of Tobias' goons."
"...Are you seriously not lying to me?"
"Yes. You can ask Dominik. I even willingly let myself get arrested because I know I'm innocent."
After hearing Kurt's story, Emelie was lost in thought about what to do.
'That's it?' She wondered and bit her nail. 'Because of all these little 'inconveniences' all of my plans are getting ruined. Should I kill him to stop him from ruining anything else or…'
"Emelie."
"What now?"
"You can forget about trying to kill me. You'll only fail and, as you put it, 'go back'. Which reminds me, you never told me what that means."
"What? I-"
"KURT! There you are! What's taking you so long man!" Dominik spotted him and called out.
"Looks like our conversation got cut short." Kurt picked up the knife and put it under his shirt. "Let's finish this another time. And I expect you to answer truthfully just as I have."
Emelie watched Kurt's back as he left.
'Maybe I should lean into the fact that he is an anomaly. An unknown. Someone or something I've never seen before. Maybe he can help me escape this 100th cycle.'
Emelie turned around and walked the opposite way.
....
"Hey man, I didn't interrupt you two, did I?" Dominik asked with a worried look on his face. "She seemed kind of distraught when she came up to me. Kept asking about Peter."
"No, you're good. In fact, I think she knows a lot about what we will be investigating."
"Really? You sure you can trust her?"
"Something tells me I can, yeah. Besides from what I can tell, she's pretty strong. Her friend even told me that she's part of some sort of ten representatives thing. Apparently, that's impressive."
"Wha- Impressive?! Dude, what?!" Dominik stopped in his tracks. "Kurt, don't you know what that means?! Wait what was her name again???"
"Emelie. Emelie Herst."
"What the hell! That was THE Emelie Herst!? Oh shit I could've asked for her autograph…. Noooooo!" He held his head in despair.
"You okay, Dom? If it's that important to you, you could always ask her next time."
"You idiot! There is no next time! I bet she's going to be super busy from now on and today was her only day off…."
"You're talking about the tournament, right?"
"Yeah…. You know, Kurt, back when I was at Future Academy, I nearly qualified to make it as a representative. But I was too weak. I could've been a royal guard. Instead, the only thing hard work and talent brought me was to become a prefect."
"There's nothing wrong with that."
"But Kurt, the money~" Dominik leaned on him.
"What the- And here I nearly started feeling bad for you!"