Chapter 26: The meeting still couldn't reach the guardian of Starfall City...
We still can't get in touch with the guardians of Starfall City.
If Rena hadn't fought alongside Ethan to defeat the octopus monster, she would have thought the guardian of Starfall City was dead.
He doesn't reply to messages or respond to communications; it's like he's completely vanished.
"Didn't he listen to the last meeting?" Reina continued to bombard Ethan's communications in disbelief, while suppressing her anger as she asked Turner, "Wasn't he present at the last meeting?"
“Hmm…” Turner tried to calm his friend’s anger: “Maybe it’s something going on in his private life? I haven’t seen any communications yet.” But even he himself felt that his words were a bit far-fetched.
Now, everyone in the Guardian Alliance except for Ethan, the Guardian of Starfall City, is present. They are all sitting in their seats, waiting for the post-war meeting to begin.
Some of them were getting impatient. They didn't have a particularly good first impression of Ethan, and now they were still waiting for so long without seeing him. They had all arrived almost an hour ago, but they still couldn't get in touch with Ethan to come to the meeting.
Unable to contact him, and doing inexplicable things, he even made so many people wait for him to come to the meeting. His influence was off the charts, and nobody had a good impression of Ethan.
Even the good-natured Turner didn't have a good impression of Ethan. Everyone thought he was a weirdo. Was he really here to be a guardian?
"We're not waiting for him." Reina angrily put down the communicator. "Let's have a meeting first, and we'll talk to him later if he comes."
The Guardians were in a meeting, but Ethan still hadn't checked his contacts or his phone, so he didn't notice the messages Tenus was sending him like crazy.
When Ethan finally read the message, he realized that it had been a long time since he was asked to leave the meeting.
Ethan opened his communications and found 99+ message requests from Reina. He also noticed his phone next to him was overflowing with messages, mostly private messages from Tenas on social media, saying there was a post-war meeting and asking, "Where are you? Everyone's waiting for you."
It's over. Ethan Nix, you're finished.
Ethan wanted to scream. He hadn't checked his messages for just a few hours and had missed so many. How terrifying!
So many people, all waiting for him, let's start the meeting!!!
What a terrifying scene! Ethan wanted to run away just imagining it, and now he didn't want to go anymore.
Ethan ruffled his hair and let out an ambiguous scream. Starfall, who was so bored that Ethan had allowed him to read his diary, just scoffed.
"What's wrong?" After finishing the last page, Xingyun closed the diary and looked at Ethan, who was so panicked that he had squatted down and pretended to be dead.
"I..." Ethan managed to find his voice, his words trembling as he squeezed out the words: "The Guardians have a post-war meeting, I was too tired, so I forgot... Now when I open my communications, all I see are messages from them. They started telling me about the meeting a few hours ago, but... but I didn't see them. So many people are waiting for me—"
As he finished speaking, his voice trembled even more, as if he couldn't accept it.
"What should we do, Lord Starfall?" Ethan rubbed his face in despair, still unable to calm down. "Isn't it too late to go now?"
How could someone make a mistake so soon after joining the company? Will his colleagues think he's dead? Will they think he's just too lazy to attend meetings? Or that he's deliberately ignoring messages? He's ruined! His image is in jeopardy!
The breakdown of people with social anxiety and those who overthink.
“They shouldn’t be waiting for you that long.” Starfall thought for a moment. “They should be in a meeting.”
“It’s over…” Ethan groaned in pain again: “That’s even worse, we might not get there until the meeting is over.”
Ethan imagined the meeting coming to an end, when everyone might not have remembered his absence. He suddenly burst through the door, everyone staring at him, and then suddenly remembered that he hadn't replied to messages and had been absent for so long.
Ethan couldn't even imagine it for another second. Just thinking about that possibility made him not want to see his colleagues anymore. It was too embarrassing. Was he going to put on a show for his colleagues on the spot, making them so embarrassed that they ran away?
"Then you shouldn't go." Xingyun felt confused. The meeting was already over, so wouldn't it be better not to go? At most, she could explain later.
"No way—" Ethan wailed again, so conflicted that he no longer cared about his image: "If I don't go, my image will definitely plummet, everyone else will be there and I'll be the only one absent."
I can't even imagine how much my colleagues dislike him, even if they don't say it outright. I've heard that workplace relationships are very difficult to manage.
“Then go ahead,” Xingyun said bluntly.
“No way…” Ethan slumped down again: “How embarrassing. What will everyone think of me if I’m late? It looks like the group is about to disband.”
Xingyun is truly incapable of empathy because he doesn't treat his interactions with the city's will as a workplace, but rather as an encounter with someone he has to meet periodically. He doesn't care about the complexities of other people's opinions.
In other words, he is the strongest, and others should be paying attention to his thoughts.
Therefore, he could not understand Ethan's dilemma, especially since Ethan also had social anxiety and was even more reluctant to go to the meeting in front of everyone.
Starfall frowned and thought for a moment, then opened a portal at Ethan's feet, directly targeting the Guardian Alliance.
After seeing Ethan off, Starfall went back to his own business. He should be more decisive; if he kept hesitating, the meeting would really have to end soon.
Ethan stood still outside the room where the last meeting had taken place. He silently pulled up his hood and took five minutes to mentally prepare himself before daring to push the door open and go in.
Reina sat in the main seat, presenting her PowerPoint presentation. The blackboard behind her was covered with writing. Hearing the sound, she and everyone else looked towards the door and found the silent, absent figure standing there.
"Oh, so you're only arriving now." Reina forced a smile.
Turnas, standing nearby, immediately sensed something was wrong. Reina was not only the person in charge of the Guardians, but also had a profession similar to a leader issuing orders, which made her quite strict.
"...Was something holding you back?" In the silence, Turner broke the silence with a forced smile, offering Ethan a way out.
Ethan, while frantically pinching his thigh under the cloak, could only manage to squeeze out a "...um".
Everyone waited patiently for several seconds before looking at each other again. That was it? They didn't even bother to come up with an excuse. Turner's smile froze, and Reina looked even angrier.
"Haha." Turnas chuckled dryly, pulling Reina's hand tightly. "Sit down quickly."
Ethan lowered his head and quickly walked to his seat. He sat down without daring to look up at anyone, unsure if it was just his imagination, but he felt like someone was still watching him. He was too afraid to look up for fear of making eye contact with his colleagues, even though they probably couldn't see his eyes.
How embarrassing! I want to run away! Why is he here? Oh right, he was thrown here by Lord Starfall.
Ethan was already certain that his absence had left a bad impression on everyone. The moment he opened the door, almost everyone looked over at the same time. Ethan saw surprise and confusion, which then turned into a unified expression, as if their originally calm emotions had somewhat subsided.
I'll never ignore messages again! Ethan cried inwardly, because he had no idea how to get along with his colleagues, and even if he left a bad impression, he didn't know how to make amends.
“Ethan,” Reina called his name, “you’d like to share your reflections on this battle.”
Ethan stood up mechanically, his movements stiff and hesitant: "I... I was too slow?"
“No, that’s not it.” Rena dismissed his probing question: “It’s that if you could cooperate from the beginning, we could reach the monster faster. You should have told me what magic you would use so I could develop a team plan more quickly, instead of having Gasha try to trap the octopus monster. I really don’t want to do things I’m not sure about; it would be much less effective. We’re colleagues, and I hope you can be more frank for a better fight.”
Ethan stood with his head down, as if being punished. He was thinking that he should just compile all the magic he knew into a table and send it to Reina. Being scolded in person made his ears burn, so he could only think of something else to distract himself.
“Also, I’ve noticed that you seem to have very little practical combat experience. Even with a weapon, you have to stab many times to kill the monster. You didn’t find its weak point, so you should definitely attend our post-battle meeting. We’ll discuss how to do it faster and better.” Reina looked directly at him: “I hope you won’t be late next time.”
Ethan nodded haphazardly, casting a calming spell to prevent everyone from seeing him blush.
He really won't do it again. He'll even take his communication device with him when he showers. He really promises this won't happen again. Can we skip this topic? He really wants to find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
"Where did you go after the battle?" Reina wanted to ask about his whereabouts.
"I... I'm saving people." Ethan swallowed hard. "I went back and got some potions; the ones I brewed myself are more effective."
Really? But no one else saw him rescue people, no one saw it, everyone thought he left after the fight and didn't participate in the subsequent rescue activities.
Because they didn't pay attention to what was behind them, they would try to save anyone who still had a breath left. If they found that the person still had no breath or heartbeat after the first aid, they would choose to abandon them and then go to save others. It's impossible for them to save only one person without giving up. Cutting their losses in time is the better way to save more people.
So they didn't notice Ethan picking up the people they hadn't saved behind them. They were quick to finish their business and get to other places even faster. Ethan also had to use his lightning magic to shock everyone's hearts and perform CPR.
So when they heard this, they didn't believe it. They thought it was just an excuse Ethan made to go back, and that he might have really been held up by something and was only coming now.
A note from the author:
----------------------
The previous version didn't feel quite socially awkward enough, so I tried again, but it still felt a bit strange.
I gave Teacher Jun a kiss, and then today I used the same old joke in the same spot.
The next one should be in forum format, showing everyone's discussion after the war. The timeline is fictional, so it's not considered a side story. [Nods]
There are so many OCs! Do I really have to write so many? The first one is emotionally deficient, the second one is like an infinite flow boss, I originally thought the fourth one was Ethan, but after checking the birth date, the fourth one should be a socially awkward master, the fifth one is Ethan, the sixth one is an ensemble story about a straight woman who loves gay men and straight women who loves lesbians, but they don't actually date anyone, the seventh one seems to be a villainous young lady who was a man in her past life in a light novel type [?] There's also a smiling villainous OC who cultivates immortality and seems to have many affectionate eyes and does whatever he wants. I really want to write all of them [but no one will read them anyway]. I got too engrossed in chatting with the list, so I'm typing a little slowly.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
