The Retired Hero is an Extra

Exiting the car under numerous stares at him and his car, Jash directly entered the building he had purchased.

"It's too cheap for the total area," he mumbled and the door creaked open.

—Thwack!

It also lost its hold on the hinge and fell to the ground, raising a small dust cloud at the entrance.

Jash backtracked and exited, ordering, "Get this all fixed by the end of the day."

"Take me to the clothing stores," he ordered the driver as he sat in the car, leaving the remodeling to someone from the guards.

It didn't matter who did it as long as it was done.

"Wait," he said as the driver started the car and stopped immediately after hearing his voice.

"Place the computers, get the wiring and everything done. I want it working with enough protection to not be a problem."

Leaving behind orders, he left to do some shopping as well for the Academy.

Not that he wanted to or needed to; it was because his mother forced him to go with Caera and Ziva as the two were going.

'Why even shop when you can only wear the uniform?' Jash thought about countering, but he knew better than to argue with girls about shopping.

'They're crazy about shopping and no one can deny that,' he thought, remembering the scenes of a girl shopping enthusiastically.

As the car sped toward the clothing stores, memories of his forgotten love surfaced, as cloudy as ever.

He couldn't see her face as it was cloudy in his memories, but he knew that she was someone important and close to his heart in his previous life.

Jash guessed that it was his girlfriend but then, why couldn't he remember her face?

That was just strange. What kind of man would ever forget the face of the only girl he fell in love with?

Not to mention it was his first love, she was the one to bring him out of his depression and his status as a fugitive.

'Well, committing a murder—justified or not—was surely enough to make me a fugitive,' he recalled with a small smile.

"Am I turning into a psychopath?" he mumbled to himself the next instant, realizing he was smiling as he recalled murder.

But then again, he had literally fought and killed hundreds of thousands of demons so what did it even matter?

'Let's stop this foolish behavior and try to recall information about important characters or those who were overshadowed,' he told himself during the car ride.

While thinking so, he tapped away at his phone, as it showed pictures of multiple people and their names alongside the traits.

It contained both information from his past life and what he gathered in this life.

That was another reason for his money requirement as good and useful information was never free, while the free information could be anything.

'Truly, I never expected these two families to be in touch, makes sense to that event that happened later on,' Jash mused with an evil smile.

He was planning to use this information as leverage and get something out of it without revealing himself.

Alas, that wasn't something he could do just because he wanted to do it.

'Not like there exists a convenient cloak for me to use as a disguise or something,' he joked.

He knew that if he was the protagonist with plot armor, such a thing would appear within arms reach and would surely get it.

'What a drag,' he scoffed and closed his eyes, resting on the backseat when the car stopped the next second.

'What the hell?! We arrived already?' he cursed inwardly, feeling angry at himself for wasting his time about this and that.

He was angry because he was helpless, he couldn't make the mistake of underestimating all these old foxes, just because of his greed.

Jash wanted results, and fast, but that was impossible due to his lack of strength.

As the saying goes, 'Strength moves all.'

His eyes turned into crescents as he looked at his phone and dismissed Caera's message after reading it.

"Perfect timing," he muttered inaudibly as a smile emerged on his face.

He was already looking forward to what would happen today, the only day he actually had to prepare for the Solarnelle Academy.

Even though the opening ceremony was three days later, it was three days from results and in the morning,

Today was already the first day, and noon had long passed, making it all the more unrealistic to come out and buy stuff he needed.

'I don't even need the new stuff,' he sighed, accepting his fate about this rather than listening to his mother's lessons on why gambling was bad.

He knew already, but it wasn't like he had other options to make quick money.

Plus, he had already spent like a fifth of what he won from the bet, making him feel like he needed more.

'At least I won't be wasting money to buy YP,' he shrugged as he stopped walking.

"Now, where are they?" he asked nobody in particular, having seen Caera's message to meet at this place.

Feeling clueless, Jash could only look around, trying to find the two of them as he waited there for nearly ten minutes.

That was when the two of them showed up, dressed plainly despite the weather as if to show their status as a hunter.

Jash rolled his eyes at their primly dressed condition, while he had only put on a hoodie and a pair of jeans to match.

He didn't bother dressing up or choosing according to some fashion or anything, feeling that it didn't really matter how he dressed up.

"Finally made it, huh?" he said to mock them, but Caera only giggled while giving him a strange look.

"Hehe~ Ziva, let's go somewhere else or his dressing sense rubs off on us," she said purposely in a voice that Jash would hear.

And his lips twitched as he chose to just ignore her, not having anything to say to her about this.

If it were any other topic, he would've loved to argue that it wasn't like that, but when it came to clothes, Jash just preferred the comfortable ones.

'Comparing to my past life... it's better than finding anything without holes to wear,' Jash sighed at the thought and followed the two of them in.

Although he wasn't a frequent shopper, he was sure that girls loved to shop, and a lot at that.

'I just hope the whole day isn't wasted like this,' he prayed inwardly as he saw Caera pick up dresses from everywhere.

From casual tops, jeans, hoodies, sweatshirts, coats, to long dresses, one pieces, overcoats, fur coats...

It was as if she wanted to try everything and even buy it as she went to the trial room, leaving behind Ziva, who carefully chose her set of clothes.

"Luckily, there's some clothes for me too," Jash sighed after turning to the men's section, deciding to not get involved with the two of them.

He really didn't want to sit in one place and watch Caera wear hundreds of clothes and then tell her how she looked.

'If only she accepted the words instead of forcing it until it aligned with her perception,' Jash shook his head, quickly disappearing amidst the crowd.

Unlike them, he was done with choosing his clothes, shoes and everything within two hours while the two had just begun.

He had returned to see how much they progressed as he had nothing to do after being done with his shopping.

"How the hell is she still wearing dresses and why is Ziva even trying on different shoes with each dress??"