Reincarnated Hero System - Chapter 1170 - 1170: The Pieces Fall into Place

Evan woke up alone on the couch, blinking a few times as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

‘I really conked out there, didn’t I?’

It had been months since he’d slept so peacefully without the constant threat of danger or the weight of worrying about his companions’ fates.

“What’s the time?”

He’d taken off all his accessories the night before, wristwatch included, and since he couldn’t see a clock anywhere in the room, he reached for his phone on the desk.

Just before his fingers touched it, he froze, his eyes instantly noticing a small detail.

‘It moved…’

He remembered trying to align his phone’s vertical length perfectly with one of the flyers on the centre table, even celebrating when he managed it in just two tries.

But now, the phone was slightly slanted, a change so minor he would have missed it if he hadn’t made the effort last night.

Just as he noticed this, footsteps echoed in his ears.

“Evan, you’re awake. Good. I wanted to ask ab—what’s wrong?”

Evan silently turned to Eliza, who was watching him with a puzzled look, then glanced back at his phone before replying.

“Nothing.”

He picked up the device and checked the time.

“Oh, we still have some time,” he said, locking the screen before turning to Eliza. “What’s up?”

“Right, I wanted to ask about that water heater thing. Which one controls the temperature again?”

“Ah, that. It’s the black one. The colour changes to red when it heats up,” Evan said as he stood, sliding his phone into his pocket while stepping closer, and Eliza’s eyes momentarily flicked to the phone before returning to him.

After a quick morning shower and breakfast, Evan looked out the suite window at the rising sun, then back at the time on his phone as he spoke.

“We still have an hour before Aphine’s gate opens, so let’s stroll around outside for a bit.”

“Okay,” Eliza agreed, and the two packed their things into Evan’s inventory before checking out of the hotel.

The morning streets were far less crowded than they had been when they arrived the previous day.

Only a few cars moved along the roads, a handful of pedestrians walked the sidewalks, and the trains that had already begun running were nearly empty.

As they crossed the street, Eliza brushed her hand over a dewy fire hydrant, glancing up at the train overhead as she spoke.

“This world…it’s really different.”

“How do you like it? It’s more technologically advanced than Aidos, and that’s just with pure science. I wonder how far it could go if they managed to harness ambient magic power.”

At Evan’s words, Eliza nodded silently.

“I plan to bring this level of technological advancement to Aidos,” Evan added, and Eliza turned her gaze to one of the billboards displaying an advertisement for a phone before responding.

“That’s why you started introducing TVs and smartphones…”

“Yeah. I know nothing about cars, though, so I’m not sure how to get them to Aidos,” Evan said as he pulled out his phone, muttering softly.

“Should I buy one and take it back to Aidos?”

He unlocked the device with a tap on the back and opened his bank app, and Eliza froze, her eyes widening in shock.

Her shock wasn’t because of what Evan had said, but because of what he had done, or more precisely, the way he did it.

“…you…you just unlocked that thing without typing a password.”

And indeed, Evan had just done exactly that.

Hearing Eliza’s remark, Evan raised an eyebrow, then turned the phone over and pointed to a small rectangular box below the camera.

“That’s a fingerprint scanner. I recalibrated it this morning.”

“…”

His response left Eliza frozen as she realised that Evan could have unlocked his phone without a password the entire time.

But he still used one. He had made it something Eliza could never forget, and he had never tried to hide it from her.

‘He really was goading me into going through his phone.’

That was the only conclusion Eliza could reach, and after Evan checked his bank balance and locked the screen again, he slipped the phone back into his pocket.

“Evankhell,” he suddenly said.

“Huh?”

“Evankhell, is my name,” he repeated, raising his index and thumb fingers and pinching them as he added, “Shortened to just ‘Evan’.”

At this, Eliza understood what he was saying, and Evan stopped, turning to her and meeting her eyes as he added, “Also shortened to just ‘Evan’, is ‘Evansen’.”

Hearing this, Eliza took a deep breath before asking, “Evansen…is the real ‘Evan Eris’, isn’t he?”

Evan silently nodded, and Eliza slowly turned her gaze toward the overhead train tracks they’d just crossed under, asking, “…it’s that boy we saw yesterday, isn’t it?”

“I’m about 99% sure it is,” Evan replied. “As far as I know, he was supposed to be dead. His soul, lost for good. That’s why Artemisia put me in his body.

I certainly didn’t expect to see him in this world.”

Eliza nodded quietly, her eyes lifting to the brightly shining billboard that was now advertising a trade fair, and when she noticed the date, she murmured, “How many years…did you live here?”

“16,” Evan replied.

“! That means you’re actually—”

“21? Yeah.”

Eliza sighed softly, rubbing her temples as she muttered under her breath, “I see, the rapid growth of your body makes a lot more sense now. I already assumed you were older, but I thought you were my age at most.”

“Well, I’m chronologically older. But I hardly act like it, do I?”

“No, you don’t,” Eliza replied instantly, earning a light laugh from Evan.

She went quiet after that, and seeing this, Evan smiled wryly and spoke. “You don’t wanna talk about this now, do you?”

“!”

Eliza’s body twitched at his question, and when she lifted her gaze to meet his, she saw his wry smile and silently nodded.

“I figured as much,” Evan said, turning his gaze toward a nearby building and pointing at it. “That breakfast café just opened, so why don’t we get a coffee while we wait for Aphine?”

Eliza followed his pointing finger, spotting the café ahead, and nodded silently before walking toward it.

The rest of the time passed in quiet, though it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence.

They simply enjoyed the calm of the café, the soft hum of background chatter and the faint aroma of coffee filling the air.

Before long, Evan’s phone rang, an alarm he had set for ten minutes before the gate was to open.

Taking that as their cue, they left the café and made their way to the station, boarding a train back to the area where they had first emerged.

They arrived at the empty alleyway just moments before the gate began to open, and crossing through it, they returned to Aidos.

The moment they returned and Evan switched on all his communication devices, several of them started buzzing at once.

He picked one at random, answered it, and spoke cheerfully.

“Well, hello there, Lauren—”

[Where the hell were you?!]

Evan pulled the device away from his ear when Laurene shouted through it, chuckling as he responded honestly.

“Another world. What’s up?”

[Another world…?] She sounded confused but quickly brushed it off as she remembered why she had been trying to reach him.

[Wait, that’s not important right now! The Legends you called have shown up in Tarse!]

“Which ones? The ‘Living’ ones or the ‘Veiled’ ones?”

[Both!]

Hearing that, Evan nodded, then turned to Eliza as he spoke.

“I’ll head over in a bit.”

He ended the call and was about to speak again, but Eliza beat him to it and waved her hand.

“Just go.”

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, kissing her lightly before tracing Kuro’s location to use his shadow for teleportation.

Kuro was with Laurene since Evan had told him to stay away from Eliza’s shadow for the whole of the previous day, and Evan appeared from Laurene’s shadow just as the princess stepped into the room filled with dissatisfied and disgruntled Level 700s.

The moment Evan appeared, he activated his intimidation skill, the immense force blasting from his body and instantly silencing the Legends who had been preparing to complain.

‘Wha?!’

‘The hell!?’

‘This pressure…!’

Their expressions were all coloured with shock at the pressure Evan gave off, and after confirming that the room was silent, Evan turned to Laurene with a calm expression.

“Please record this for me, Laurene. I’ve no desire to repeat myself when the others get here.”

He then turned back to the Legends, gradually lowering his intimidation as he spoke.

“Now then. Thank you all for graciously accepting my offer to take part in this great endeavour to protect your world from the hands of invaders.

As you’ve been informed earlier, I’ll be briefing you on the details of the roles you’re to play in the upcoming battle.”

He spoke with a bright smile, but to the Legends present who had just felt the destructive pressure of his intimidation, that smile looked nothing short of menacing.

Evan, of course, didn’t care as he continued with his briefing.

◇　◇　◇

Laurene returned to the GWE after the briefing and came back the next day with Yetu, the reincarnated Troll who had been the final boss of the Graveyard of the Arrogant, the Dungeon in Merdin where Roselia had been sealed for over 1000 years.

When she arrived in Wikmery City in the Zhosa region of Tarse, she found Evan already waiting with Bianca, David, and Eliza, along with Kuro and Kayla.

“Over here,” Evan called, waving to her from his seat in the restaurant he’d brought them to.

He’d used magic to apply a recognition inhibition effect, essentially giving everyone around them face blindness, so no one recognised any of them as the Royals and High Nobility they actually were.

Meanwhile, Roselia and Nadarus were in Meekdune with Emerl, though Leviah had left to go somewhere with Cheisnih.

The Demon of Envy and the Spider Nemesis were far closer friends than Evan had anticipated, but it wasn’t really an issue, so he didn’t mind. If anything, he welcomed it, since it gave him more leverage over Leviah.

Pushing the thought aside, he called for a waiter and ordered drinks, and once the waiter left, Laurene finally spoke.

“So? Why did you call us all here?”

This was the first time all of Alpha Continent’s Heroes were gathered together, and among them were two non-heroes. Eliza made sense, since she was Evan’s fiancée, but Yetu’s presence left them puzzled.

The man himself was a little confused too, unsure how Evan planned to fulfil the promise made to him years ago.

“May I ask why I’m here?” he said, and Evan turned his gaze from Eliza to him.