Reincarnated Hero System - Chapter 1168 - 1168: A Hair's Breadth Away

“…remember the person we saw when we went to the Tower of Trials?”

Eliza went silent for a moment at Evan’s question. It wasn’t that she didn’t remember—she did—but she didn’t want to think about her fiancé’s previous romantic connections right now.

“…yeah, I do,” she finally said, and Evan went on.

“She’s from this world. I thought she was normal like everyone else, but the fact that she appeared as the ‘Strongest Mortal’ in my memory means she’s not.

And she’s not the only one. That’s why I said ‘most’.”

Eliza quietly nodded at Evan’s explanation, and just then, a staff member arrived with their food.

When she took a bite of the burger, her expression contorted lightly.

“It’s salty. The flavouring is crude.”

“That’s because it’s junk food,” Evan said with a small chuckle.

Eliza didn’t seem very interested in the cheeseburger, but her face brightened the moment she tasted the soft serve ice cream he had ordered with it.

Evan had only come here because he missed the taste of junk food, but Eliza ended up ordering more than he did, most of which went to the five extra servings of ice cream she wanted.

After they finished eating, he took her down to the subway to ride a bullet train, and although she was physically capable of moving faster than it, the scenery passing by the window seemed to captivate her.

“This is pretty fast,” she muttered, and Evan nodded while opening the bag of comics he had bought from the bookshop at the station.

“So many series I need to catch up on…”

Eliza turned toward him when she heard his words, picked up one of the books, and quietly flipped through its pages.

When they stepped off the bullet train, Evan relied on his memories to retrace his steps to a certain estate, and soon, the number of people around them began to thin.

Eliza glanced at the surrounding buildings with curiosity, guessing it was some kind of estate since all of them looked identical.

But just as she turned her gaze to the side, she almost ran into Evan, who had suddenly stopped.

“What’s wrong?”

Eliza stepped closer and looked at his face, but Evan was silently staring at a particular building without a word.

She followed his gaze and saw a car parked outside, and a platinum-blonde woman in a pant suit rummaging through her handbag as she walked toward the house.

As if sensing their gazes, she stopped and glanced in their direction, but the moment she paused, Evan had already grabbed Eliza and pulled her into a corner, so the woman didn’t see anyone.

Eliza, understandably stunned by the sudden movement, looked up at Evan, who sighed and muttered.

“Well, I wanted to introduce you to them, but…”

“…”

Eliza waited silently for him to continue, but he just shook his head.

“Maybe next time. When the other one’s there too. Things are a lot more awkward now that I have all my memories.”

“All your memories, you say?” Eliza asked, raising her eyebrows, and Evan simply nodded without explaining further.

Sliding his hands down from her upper arms to her wrists, he smiled.

“Sorry I dragged you along here. Let’s get on with the day’s real agenda and go have fun.”

He didn’t give her a chance to ask more questions as he pulled her by the arm and led her out of the estate.

Still, just before turning the corner to leave the street, he felt a gaze on his back and froze for a moment, but in the end, he didn’t look back and kept moving.

◇　◇　◇

The rest of the day unfolded calmly as Evan led Eliza through the city, weaving between streets and alleys with familiarity.

The sun climbed higher as they arrived at a nearby cinema hall, a building that stood out with its glass façade and bright neon lettering.

Evan guided her inside, and together they picked a foreign movie and bought some popcorn and small snacks, with Eliza choosing almost every set they had for herself, earning a few surprised looks from the counter staff while Evan just laughed.

Language wasn’t a barrier now, thanks to the spell Evan had cast, allowing Eliza to understand every word spoken on screen, so they both casually ignored the subtitles as they spent the next two hours absorbed by the story playing out in front of them.

Even after the credits rolled, they stayed in their seats for a few moments at Evan’s suggestion, his experience telling him this studio liked to include important details in after-credit scenes.

After the scene that practically screamed ‘sequel incoming,’ they left the cinema and found a small café in the building for a light lunch.

Over sandwiches and iced drinks, they discussed the film, with Eliza getting a bit too excited and earning some teasing from Evan.

Once they finished, Evan opened a map on his phone and pointed to a park on the edge.

“There’s a park nearby that I used to go to a lot,” he said, a hint of nostalgia in his voice.

Eliza’s eyes scanned the screen, then lifted to Evan before she finally said, “Let’s go, then.”

They took a cab there, and after getting out and walking a bit, the cobblestone pedestrian walkways gave way to open greenery.

The park was dotted with trees, manicured lawns, and small lakes, and they wandered along the paths, passing others enjoying the day.

Evan led her to the park’s entertainment area, where games and activities were set up.

First, they played snooker, and then laser tag, teaming up with a group of strangers. Their superior physical capabilities made the dim corridors and obstacles almost irrelevant, and they ended up dominating the game.

In fact, they ended up being each other’s greatest challenge when they were on opposing teams, leading to a one-on-one match that had passers-by stopping to watch.

Mini golf came next, and eventually they reached the lake, renting a small boat for a ride.

As the sun began to descend, casting long shadows across the park, some night-time stalls started opening, and they browsed those before ending the day with dinner at a restaurant nestled within the park.

Once the meal was finished, Evan booked a hotel for them to spend the night, reserving a suite with a private artificial hot spring they could soak in.

Evan was scrolling through the hotel’s online brochure while they waited and was just about to point something out to Eliza when his body froze.

“…huh?”

“Evan? What’s wrong?” Eliza asked, turning to him worriedly, but Evan was too dumbfounded to answer.

‘What the hell is this…? Why can I sense my own presence…elsewhere…’

Evan felt his senses were messing with him at this point, because what he was perceiving didn’t make sense.

Immediately, he released a pulse of magic that swept across the entire city and instantly pinpointed the strange presence.

“There…”

He turned, looking down the stairs of the monorail stop building and across at the town square, eyes scanning the crowd of people moving busily for one of the few existences who possessed more than Level 1 magic power on this planet.

The signatures were different, but something fundamental about their energies was similar, which is why his senses had recognised it as ‘his own presence’.

“I see… so that’s where you really ended up.”

“Evan?”

“It’s nothing, Liz,” Evan said, though his tone and behaviour showed it was definitely not nothing.

“It’s just… after many years, I finally realise why it was so easy for me to control and adapt to Evan’s body and only took a little over a year for the body-soul synchronisation to complete…”

“!”

Eliza’s eyes widened at Evan’s mutter, and she immediately traced his gaze, locking onto the same figure moving through the crowd that he did.

“What the hell?!”

Her voice rose unconsciously, drawing a few glances, but she ignored them as she turned to Evan.

“Why does he look like—”

“Me?” Evan interrupted, turning to her with a dry chuckle. “I wonder. Why does he look like me?”

Just then, the sound of the arriving train reached their ears, and Evan shifted his gaze, grabbing Eliza’s hand and pulling her back behind the yellow line by the tracks.

At the same time, the figure they had been watching turned their own gaze, but the train arrived just in time to completely block Evan and Eliza from view.

“Today is not the day,” Evan said, then paused, turning to Eliza, who was still staring silently in the direction of the identical figure.

“I said this before, Liz. I’m the same Evan you’ve always known. Whatever change you might be thinking of… happened before you met me.”

That line finally drew Eliza’s gaze to Evan, her expression unreadable as she looked at him in silence.

◇　◇　◇

“Evan! What’s up? Why’d you stop?”

A teenager called out to his friend as he walked over, slinging his tennis racket over his shoulder.

The one he called out to scanned the elevated monorail station with his eyes, his superior vision letting him peer through the train windows as he searched for the source of the gazes he’d just felt on him.

“No, it’s… nothing,” he muttered, eyes still moving along the train windows.

He noticed some blonde hair that stood out because of how shiny it was as he scanned the windows, but even after the train passed, he couldn’t locate the source of the gaze anywhere.

Slowly, his hand rose to his chest, and he gripped it, taking a deep breath to calm himself.

‘What the hell was that feeling of fear…’

“Dude, you good?”

“Yeah,” he replied, finally moving his gaze from the train to his friends.

‘I need to speak to Mr Vincent about this…’

Evansen thought as he walked off to meet his friends, just as the train carrying Evankhell moved off in the opposite direction from where he headed.