My OP Minion System in the Apocalypse

Chapter 120 The Past - Part 3

People want to be the best—right?

I sat alone in a cold, secluded classroom. Around me were rows of empty chairs, around me were rows of empty tables, and around me were rows with no one in sight. 'You've finished all the work already, haven't you? I don't have anything else for you to do. You can go into the classroom next door and do what you like. I trust you.'

Those were the last words I heard before I was banished to this lonely, empty classroom. The colourful posters around the room did nothing but add to the isolation. I could just barely hear the distant chatter from the other class. The pure white table in front of me was all that filled my eyes for the time being.

This was a reward, right?

With me, I brought nothing. What was I meant to bring? A textbook? A laptop? There was nothing for me to do with them anyways. I looked up at the friendless clock which aimlessly ticked, one second after another, counting down the finite number of seconds I had left to live.

Well, there were only 2456 seconds left until the end of this period.

I'll just sit here—and wait it out.

I guess.

***

All the students began leaving the school. I made my way to the lockers a little bit later to avoid the main stream of people leaving the school.

I was putting books into my bag at my locker when I realised that I had left my pen on my table. There was a very high chance that it was probably either stolen or destroyed considering my reputation. I decided to go back into the room and check anyways just in case.

Slowly, I made my way inside.

To my astonishment, there was a brown-haired girl standing at my table. At first, I thought she was just vandalising my table, however, once I got a closer look, I noticed that she was holding a cloth in her hand.

"What are you doing."

"I'm not doing this for you, as a member of the student council, I can't have students vandalising school property."

"You really don't have to, it's fine."

"Didn't you hear me the first time? I said this wasn't for you. I don't care what you think."

"Oh, well did you see a pen on the table?"

"A pen? Um, I'm not sure, I saw a lot of garbage on the table so I just decided to throw it all away."

"Well, that's fine then, uh, do you want me to help you?"

She looked up at me and thought for a little while.

"I mean, this is your table so I guess so."

She opened up a little bag she was carrying with her and pulled out another cloth. She also grabbed a spray bottle off the floor and handed it to me.

"This ink is really hard to remove, keep spraying and wiping until it comes off."

"Okay."

I kneeled down and sprayed some of the cleaning liquid onto the table. A little bit of foam gathered and I wiped it off with the cloth. Once I looked again, I noticed that barely any ink had come off. I looked at the area that she was cleaning and noticed that the ink was almost completely gone.

She must have been doing this for a while.

We continued cleaning the table for almost half an hour before it was substantially clean.

"That should be enough, thanks for the help." She said.

"I should be thanking you."

"I'm just doing my job."

Huh.

"By the way, I don't even know your name." She continued.

'I'm William—William Hunter."

"Well, I'm Maia, a member of the student council."

I guess that's how people introduced themselves these days.

With that, she walked off without another word. I also decided to make my way home, I wanted to go to Haven and see what was up with the shop and missions.

The walk home was relatively unextraordinary.

I decided to grab some food on the way back so I made my way into a small fish and chip shop. It was on the corner of a relatively quiet street and it seemed like it didn't get very many customers, however, I was craving some chips so I decided to go in.

It was pretty small store which had a welcoming atmosphere. It was filled with the sound of oil frying and background talking. There wasn't anything that out-of-the-ordinary. However, I'd find out that this wasn't just any fish and chip shop.

To my surprise, I managed to see Maia again.

"Oh, you're here as well?" I said.

"Yeah, I actually work here."

She was still in her school uniform so I didn't expect her to be one of the workers at this run-down fish and chip shop, but I guess I was wrong.

She walked around to the other side of the counter.

"So what do you want?"

"Just a half-serving of chips please."

"Alright, coming straight up."

It appeared that she was just the cashier and there was someone at the back who was working the kitchen.

"Just out of curiosity, why was your table so vandalised?"

"I guess people don't like me very much."

"I assumed that's the cause of the wounds all over your hands."

"For the most part."

Before long, she handed me my chips, wrapped up in a big piece of newspaper. After that, I made my way back home.

***

What was this memory?

Had I met Maia before?

Why didn't I recognise her the first time I saw her?

For some reason, her personality was nothing like I remember it. She was much more cold, much more aloof. She seemed much more outgoing and emotional here. Something must have happened between now and that memory.

Mayuri must have taken the memory in between. Although, I felt like Mayuri was only taking my bad memories at the moment, so there was a chance that something bad happened between her and I.

When I first met her here in the apocalypse, she didn't seem to recognise me.

I had too many questions.

I didn't understand.

There was something I was missing.

But did I want to find out?

That, I don't know.