A flourishing land filled with plants and animals of all varieties and highly favoured by the warmth of the sun.
Suddenly, a raging storm comes from nowhere, threatening to destroy the homes of the animals and swallow the plants.
The storm comes in the form of the ocean waves, leaving the animals with no choice but to run for their lives.
The storm swallows the once flourishing land slowly turning it into a land of desolation.
However, just as the storm is about to completely swallow the land, a golden sword descends from the heavens splitting the body of water into two.
It was at this moment that Adrian regained a moment of clarity.
He quickly reached for his pocket and pulled out a pocket knife which he wasted no time stabbing into his palm.
His palm was soon covered with blood, and just as his blood dripped down, his mind slowly regained full clarity.
Noelle, who had failed to gain full control, was now looking at his bleeding palm with her brows furrowed.
It seemed like she was more concerned by the fact that his palm was bleeding. But she suddenly thought of something and the faint heartache in her eyes was soon covered with coldness.
Adrian, on the other hand, was looking at her with gritted teeth. He actually felt like exploding right now.
"You actually tried to hypnotise me." He said through gritted teeth.
The Noelle he knew wouldn't abuse her powers like this.
It was at this moment that Adrian saw another expression on Noelle's face since he arrived here.
She looked at him in schadenfreude and clicked her tongue.
"Tch. I almost succeeded. If you don't want to stab yourself a few more times then you better keep your mouth shut."
With that said, she turned away from him and continued walking.
"When did you…."
Adrian tried to say something but a sharp glare from Noelle was all it took to get him to keep quiet.
He might be one of the few people who had some sort of resistance against Noelle's hypnosis, but he really couldn't do much in a situation where she was trying to force the hypnosis, as had just happened earlier.
Thanks to Noelle's threat, the walk to the clinic was a rather peaceful one.
Peaceful for Noelle, at least. Adrian just found the whole thing stifling.
The school's clinic was quite huge. There was a huge glass cabinet on the left with drugs and other items required for treatment just as bandages and such. The beds for patients were on the left side, and at the moment the area was fully covered by the curtains.
There were seats placed near the clinic's entrance and further ahead was a door which Adrian could guess led to the doctor's office.
The glass cabinet would usually be closed to prevent students from taking things they shouldn't.
However, since Noelle and the other students were training here during this time, she had the spare key.
The first thing she did was to unlock the cabinet from which she grabbed a bottle of alcohol that was almost finished, bandages, cotton wool, and a pair of scissors before turning to Adrian, who was now staring at the things in her hands with an unreadable expression.
Noelle didn't care what he was thinking and just gestured toward the seats by the side with his head.
"Take a seat." She said before proceeding to walk past him.
"Okay," Adrian said, quickly following after her. There was a subtle smile on his face.
Noelle stopped in front of one of the seats and waited for him to sit down before squatting down in front of him.
"Your hand."
Adrian didn't show his hand like she wanted and instead reached for the things in her hand.
"I can do it myself."
Noelle didn't budge and tightly held onto the items.
"I asked you to show me your hand not if you can do it." Her voice was chilling.
Adrian was stunned for a second before obediently stretching out his hand.
It might have looked like it was seriously bleeding earlier, but the wound on his palm wasn't exactly that deep.
Noelle subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief inwardly before proceeding to disinfect the wound.
Adrian was enjoying the way Noelle's soft hand felt on his hand when the alcohol suddenly touched his wound. His body stiffened instantly and he had to bite his lips to prevent himself from making the slightest sound.
Noelle looked at Adrian, who looked like he was calm while biting his lip, and snorted inwardly.
It didn't take long before she was done disinfecting and started bandaging the wound.
Adrian was no longer in so much pain and now had time to look at her. He looked at her fluttering eyelashes as she seriously worked on tying the bandage.
In Adrian's opinion, a band-aid would work fine for a wound of this level but since she was working so seriously, there was no way he was going to express that opinion.
"Can you tie it into a bow tie just like you use…."
He wasn't able to finish what he wanted to say as Noelle's fierce glare ended up cutting him off.
Still, she did end up tying the bandage into a bow tie shape and that had Adrian grinning from ear to ear.
Noelle looked at his elated expression, a strange feeling welling up in her heart.
'Then why?' This was a question she asked in her heart.
Soon afterwards, she shook her head before quickly getting up on her feet.
"Don't think about it." She muttered under her breath before turning toward the door leading to the doctor's office. "Let's go."
"Oh."
Adrian was called back to his senses and quickly got up on his feet.
"You know, you still haven't told me what we're supposed to be doing here." He said to Noelle, who had already reached for the doorknob.
"Checking your physical indicators." She said before pushing the door open.
______ ______
It didn't take long before both of them were done with checking Adrian's physical indicators, and since everything was normal and there was no risk of him suddenly dying on the pitch, they returned to the pitch.
Noelle blew her whistle to summon the other boys.
She waited until everyone was close enough to hear what she had to say before she began speaking.
"Before we start what we have today, you should meet your new teammate." She said before turning to Adrian with a gaze, telling him to introduce himself.
Adrian didn't try to make things difficult for her and obediently introduced himself.
"Hello everyone, I'm Adrian Nero. I just transferred to Sino High School as a third-year student starting from next term. I'll also be your new teammate starting today, I hope we can all cooperate harmoniously."
"You're the Adrian Nero from Ravenwood, right?" Henry's voice was heard before everyone could properly process Adrian's introduction.
It sounded like a question but if one listened carefully, they would hear the certainty in his voice.
"You mean that guy who scored four goals and assisted two in that six-goal humiliation you guys suffered in England?" Oscar's voice was even louder than Henry's.
After hearing what he said, everyone turned to him with scrutinising gazes.
Most people would feel embarrassed in a situation like this but Adrian maintained a straight face and nodded in response.
"Yes, that's me."
Seeing his straightforward response, the other boys couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed.
This was someone who humiliated a team filled with the seniors they thought were quite skilled on the pitch.
"Why did you suddenly transfer to our school?" Someone couldn't help but ask.
"Do you think he's some kind of spy?" Oscar moved closer to Henry to whisper.
Henry couldn't resist lightly knocking him on the head, the moment he heard that question.
"Why would Ravenwood bother sending a spy to our team? After that match, it's obvious that we're no match for them, and besides, we might not even meet them until we get knocked out, so why bother?" Henry explained. "It would be more reasonable to suspect him as a spy if he were from any of the other schools in Sendan."
"Oh." Oscar nodded in understanding.
"Nobody's suspecting him as a spy, we're just curious, Ravenwood is one of the favourites to win the tournament, so why leave a promising team like that to come to ours at a time like this?" Henry said as he shifted his gaze to Adrian.