“How would you imagine a world without magic to be?” I asked mere minutes before we arrived at Tom´s mansion once again. There were still many people outside chatting with their neighbours, but the commoners slowly left the area to head home. They were only allowed in because the parade happened to start at the royal palace.
“A world without magic? I haven’t read enough fantasy books to imagine such a thing.” Hannah explained even though I hoped she and books were best friends at that point. Knowledge was everything after all.
“I … I still want you to think about it. Think about human ingenuity and what they could be capable off even without magic.” I had seen it already. The huge ships on the archipelago world, the strange metallic animals eating grass and even that humans could fly. But so far, I didn’t tell anyone about this, mostly because they would doubt it.
“Society stagnated before the system came, so that is the most they can achieve, I guess?” Hannah obviously didn’t see these things and was thus rather doubtful of what humans could achieve.
“Society stagnated because a spark was missing. An idea, a simple thought maybe. For hundreds of years, nothing may change, nothing is invented, but then – suddenly – a single human comes up with something that changes the world forever. Take the invention off the wheel for example … to be fair, the gods gave it to you because this world had it since the very beginning … anyways, imagine we lost the ability to build wheels. How would the world look like?” I asked in an attempt to show her that progress was indeed something humans were capable off.
“Not very different? Sure, the nobles would have troubles getting around and merchants wouldn’t be able to trade that well, but otherwise?” She asked after thinking about it for several seconds. And honestly? I had to admit that she had a point.
“Hmm. Honestly, it is quite hard to explain another world to someone who only lived in a stagnating one.” And thus, I gave up on attempting to. Either she would understand on her own someday, or someone else than me told her about other worlds because I was honestly incapable of doing so.
“I didn’t have the luxury to see such things with my own eyes.” She said to which I could only nod.
“Fair enough … the person we are visiting later is probably from another world. Don’t tell Tom anything about them though. It could end quite badly if we tell him too much now.” I explained before stopping as the mansion slowly came into sight.
“I cannot follow. I thought he knew more than me?” Hannah asked surprised.
“He thinks he knows more than you. Unlike with you though, I have no qualms about lying to him. Trust me, it is better when everyone knows what they need to know and not any more. For him, we are searching for gifted people who have some sort of connection to the gods.” And I didn’t even lie in that regard. He would find out anyway if I lied to him there.
“I see.” She said slowly.
“I have another task for you. Follow Tom and me and if you hear something falling onto the ground, do some stabby stabby, alright?” I asked after turning my head towards her.
“… you only tell me what I need to know as well?” She asked and pursed her lips sulkily.
“This time. See you later.” I answered coldly and strode onwards. I knew she stood there a bit perplexed for some time while I walked towards the gates, but I seriously didn’t feel like caring about that at this point. I was angry for being thrown out of my home and I saw no way of reclaiming that anytime soon. And even if I didn’t show it that much, I was incredibly furious at everything and everyone.
“Bring me to the lord.” I said dryly to the butler approaching me immediately. I was already balling my hands to fists as he turned around and guided me towards the mansion hastily. My bloodlust wasn’t really hidden as I entered the house. Everyone from the guards to butlers apparently noticed they shouldn’t go on my nerves at all, which was why I was led to the upper floor instantly.
The butler knocked onto a door shortly afterwards, but even then it took too long for me. A lot gentler than I thought possible, I pushed him to the side and kicked the door. The lock immediately gave way and the door swung open quickly.
Tom was sitting at a table along with his wife who was apparently eating meat while Tom drank blood out of a wine glass. Both of them looked at me quite surprised as I strode into the room towards Tom, snatched the glass out of his hands and gulped everything down.
“Whore, it was nice to meet you. Tom, get going.” I said, glared at his wife and turned around on my heels. The whore didn’t ask anything at all, but rather stayed silent as I stomped out of the room, followed by Tom who didn’t know why I changed my opinion.
“So you want to observe that guy personally now?” It was already way too late to watch him dine and Tom certainly knew that much.
“No, we are going to have a nice little chat with him.” I said after exiting the room. With Tom organising everything, it didn’t take long for us to prepare. Several men were accompanying us by foot through the city while Tom and I sat inside his pitch black carriage. We didn’t talk much during that time, mostly because I refused to answer many of his questions.
“When are we there?” I asked after waiting half an hour with him inside the carriage. My patience was running rather thin at this point.
“A few more minutes.” Tom explained truthfully. Four minutes later, the carriage came to a sudden halt but neither Tom nor I exited right away.
“Listen …” I started, but then continued to mumble rather quietly. “I´m sorry for the hammer, okay?”
“Excuse me?” He said which made me flinch angrily. I definitely wouldn’t repeat that I felt slightly bad for hurting him. Definitely not. Especially because he understood me very well.
“I said that you will suffer if you turn against me. So try to resist his influence a little.” I said with a crocked smile on my lips. Only after that did I pick up the mask on my lap and wore it appropriately. Tom followed suit immediately afterwards and stood up. He was the first one to exit the carriage with me hot on his heels. The men we brought with us were already surrounding the building quietly and climbed the façade. They apparently spotted an open window on the second floor of the inn which apparently served as the base of Mr. Brainwash.
“Are we even entirely sure one can resist his brainwash? I´m sure there could be other reasons as to why he left the church of chaos.” Tom asked quietly even though that was our assumption the whole time. There was no perfect technique, at least in my opinion. Everything including the gift of the gods had its drawbacks and it was near certain that Mr. Slavemaster couldn’t control everyone. Even worse for him, their gifts were expressed through the system, meaning I knew exactly how to counter them.
And thus, I was also not really bothered by his abilities. I was near certain he wouldn’t be able to control me at all. I wasn’t like the other girls after all.
Before I followed Tom into the inn, I looked around and spotted Hannah on the roof of another building. After nodding to her once, I quickly entered into a rather spacey room, filled with empty tables and a bar that still reeked of spilt beer. Both of us didn’t really care about the ones who were already quietly escorted out of the inn by Tom´s assassins who were apparently a lot better than his last ones.
Unlike them though, we climbed the stairs clad in equally black clothing that hid everything from my blonde hair to my pale skin. Tom pointed at all the doors to the right once until he stopped in front of the third one. No sounds came from within, not even the snoring of anyone.
We waited a few more seconds until Tom´s assassins brought an unconscious man through the hallway and then, I closed my eyes. I heard the movement of the assassins down below, heard how a backdoor was opened quietly and the breath of three humans inside the room in front of us. I noticed Tom´s faked breath that was too abrupt each time he breathed in, I heard how a little mouse squealed downstairs and the trotting of the horses outside.
I opened my eyes once again and banged against the door with my right fist. Instantly, the whole house – or whatever was left - was awake, even though they didn’t answer right away. Once more, Tom hammered against the door three times and only then did a male voice resound from the inside. “Who is there?” That alone proved that Mr. IfuckYourBrain couldn’t subdue others that easily.
“Your mum.” Tom said dryly. Without further ado, he hammered against the door once more. His assumption that someone would open the door anyway proved true as a woman in her twenties unlocked it for us. Tom swiftly opened it and strode into the room which turned out to be rather simple. A wooden wardrobe, a normal bed, two chairs and a little window were the only things in there aside from our target, and the two other lightly dressed woman.
“You are … from that underground organisation, aren’t you?” I honestly didn’t expect him to posses that level of intel of us. There must have been a healthy dose of luck in guessing our affiliation as well, but that he knew about us was something else entirely.
“Then you know that your two women are entirely in the wrong place here, don’t you?” Tom asked and pointed over his shoulder towards the door while I leaned against the wall near it, arms crossed in front of my chest while staring at that guy. I had already met every reincarnator once, and yet I could not remember seeing him before that day.
“It is true that they are of very little help right now, but I want something in return.” Richard Dunkelwald said while grinning wryly. He wore nothing except pants and sat on the edge of the bed while tensing his muscles on his upper arm as if he needed to proof something.
“Oh?” Tom asked completely unimpressed.
“Reveal your faces. I want to see who I am talking to.” He said and then nodded towards the woman. Without uttering a single word or changing their facial expression, they trotted out of the room while Tom and I slowly got rid of our masks once they were behind us.
“Do you need to see us to turn us around?” Tom asked and scratched his cheek as Richard stared at me while I smiled back lightly.
“… so you do know about my abilities, and yet you came here?” Richard answered while trying to hide his surprise.
“We are the best of the best. You have no chance of using your powers on either of us.” Tom answered, probably expecting a gulp or a nervous expression, but certainly not the laughter that followed afterwards. Richard even held his muscular belly, hardly able to contain his laughter.
“You? You are level 49 while she is level 12. I do have appraisal, you idiots.” Now it was Tom´s turn to frown slightly. Unsure what to do, he looked behind him towards me. I could only shrug slightly because I had no answer for his question whatsoever.
“Hmm, it is good that we wear a limiter. What you see, is what we want you to see.” Tom bluffed calmly. Richard certainly could discern the real status of others, except me of course. I only showed him what I presented everyone out of habit.
Once again, Richard laughed loudly but not with the same vigour as before. “Is that so? Let us just assume that this is true, what do you want from me?” He asked while grinning devilishly.
“Truth to be told, we are here to liquidate you. The church of chaos told us a little bit about you and is quite adamant on seeing you dead. We on the other hand could use your special abilities.” Tom explained which seemed to shock Richard somewhat. It was obvious at this point that the church of chaos found out his weakness and Richard left because he felt threatened … or rather, they let him leave to watch the chaos unfolding.
“So you don’t want to see me dead?” Richard asked somewhat confused.
“Oh no, certainly not. On the contrary, we would make you vanish … I suppose you know what that means?” Tom asked carefully. So far, the conversation went insanely well.
“Something like a witness protection program, I´m not dumb.” Once again, Tom turned around confused, but this time I smiled gently. Tilting my head slightly I opened my mouth for the first time since entering the room.
“I suppose you understand that we cannot do so without trusting you at least somewhat. You have to understand that your ability is quite a danger for any organization.” I said calmly.
“I´m only a danger to those who stand in my way … you have a beautiful voice by the way.” He said after I pushed myself away from the wall. Strolling over to one of the chairs, I thought about what I wanted to reply.
“My voice is a curse and you are a liar. We know enough to claim that you used your abilities against others as well. These two women for example certainly didn’t stand in your way at all.” I slid the chair into the middle of the room and sat down on it the wrong way. I placed my hands onto the backrest and my chin onto my interlocked fingers.
“They … they were slaves and I freed them. Now they follow me around.” Richard said which was obviously a lie. I made it very clearly that I didn’t believe him one second before Tom answered in my stead.
“Oh for fucks sake. We are criminals. I deprecated someone yesterday because he failed to do the job. We aren’t interested in your sex life or whatever. We know that you enslaved them with your ability. And we also know you disposed of those that managed to resist after some time, so cut the crap and come to the point.” Tom revealed which shocked Richard somewhat. Still, his believe that he could brainwash us with his ability was largely unshaken.
“… you know of them?” He muttered quietly.
“Your work is sloppy.” Tom spat out laughingly.
“Then you should also know that being in my sight is dangerous.” So he needed to target his victims with his eyes. Well then, in this case he was already as good as dead.
“So it does work with sight. What other restrictions are there?” Tom asked curiously.
“Why should I tell you that?” Richard said and spat onto the ground. The atmosphere was turning more and more hostile, but none of us made the first move yet.
“Because we will kill you if you don’t tell us everything.” Tom mentioned casually with a rather cold voice.
“And what would stop me from enslaving you first?” Richard asked with a huge grin on his face. Truly, he was a scumbag and I wanted to see him dead for various reasons, but I still wanted to hear everything from him.
“You know … you aren’t the only one being gifted by the gods, my old friend?” I muttered while staring at him. Surprise was written all over his face as he stared at me for several seconds.
“You are also one of … one of the heroes?” Heroes? Certainly not. I completely struggled to see what he was getting at but decided to play along.
“Indeed. The goddess of love gifted me with crazy strong healing magic amongst other things, so I suppose you could call me a hero?” I mostly picked Irminsul as my fake patron goddess because I could guess what she would gift Sofie. But also because I was sure she wouldn’t mind that I dragged her name through the mud once or twice.
“The goddess of love? Isn´t that some big shot? I only got the god of control to grant me one wish!” Richard revealed one crucial information after another. I certainly didn’t know different gods could fulfil a different number of wishes before.
“That only means that your strong wish is enough to be equal to mine. Hey … let´s start anew, shall we? My name is Lucy.” I said and smiled happily. I knew he liked how I looked, but he was still way too easy to fool.
“Richard … Julius in my previous life.” Richard explained enthusiastic.
“Julius? Julius … no, we didn’t interact much, did we?” I asked while pursing my lips. He would ask for my name for sure and like this, I could prepare for the eventuality he never heard the name I would pick.
“I was fist shift, what about you?” He asked with glee in his eyes. Truly, he was insanely happy to have found someone like him.
“The second one … too bad we weren’t that much in contact before our reincarnation. But hey, now we found each other again, didn’t we?” I asked while smiling gently.
“We absolutely did! I´m so happy I found someone else from the spaceship!” He said. Tom once again looked towards me because of the foreign word, but I couldn’t help him at all. I didn’t know the word spaceship either.
“So am I! Hey, Julius … you don’t look like you did back then by any chance?” I changed the conversation rather abruptly as I didn´t want to mess up because I couldn’t understand a single word.
“No, not at all? What about you?” He said which proved what I had already guessed. My rage increased just a bit more as I finally understood that Irminsul played me all these years ago. She showed me exactly how all these reincarnators looked at one point in their previous life which was vastly different from how they looked now. My whole payment for saving Sofie was all for nothing.
“Well … I look vastly different now.” I told him while keeping up the façade of being happy to see him.
“So everyone of us has another look now … that makes things difficult. By the way, what was your name again?” He asked with great interest. He surely wanted to connect to my non existent previous life, something that could only result in failure.
“My name was … Rebecca.” I told him. For a little while, I even wanted to say Sofie but it was not certain she was called like that in her previous life, nor if they knew each other well enough for him to ask questions I couldn’t answer.
“Rebecca … Rebecca. No can`t remember that name. You must have been quite secluded back then.” He asked while scratching his head, probably deep in thought.
“I surely was …” I explained absentmindedly.
“But that doesn’t matter now, does it? Back on the ship, I played eroges because no girl wanted to go out with me and here? I can have nearly every girl there is … oh, sorry. I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” He said and forced himself to smile rather awkwardly.
“I see … how does that work anyway? You do some magic and then they follow you forever?” I asked and tilted my head in interest.
“Not quite. I can select my targets and they submit instantly if their intelligence stat is lower than mine. The problem is though that depending on their intelligence stat, they eventually break free after some time.” So that was why he needed to leave the church of chaos. A few of his subordinates probably broke free and he had to fear for his life afterwards.
“Oh, so its like that. Its too bad these gifts have so many drawbacks.” I explained unhappily.
“Don’t you say … but hey, I live my dream life thanks to my gift.” He surely could at least until I decided to visit him.
“That’s … true? Well, it still sucks that the gods get in contact with us so often.” I said which confused him quite a bit. He even frowned rather obviously which probably meant he couldn’t follow me at all.
“What do you mean? I haven’t met mine since that day.” He explained which underlined my suspicion.
“Oh … he leaves you alone?” I asked in wonder. I always assumed that the gods would fiddle with their playthings rather often, mostly because Aska did that.
“Yes? Does your god ask you for favours or what?” He asked to which I could only nod. Lying to him at this point about my apparent gods involvement in my life was impossible after all.
“Sometimes … but let´s not talk about that. I want to know who exactly I found first. What did you do on the ship?” I asked in an attempt to switch the topic once more. I already knew much about his life after he came to Solaris, but I didn’t know anything about the time before that.
“I did what everyone else was doing … I guess? Oh, and I played a whole lot of visual novels and pc games.” Once again, he used words I didn’t know which meant a lot. But it also meant I had absolutely no idea about how I should reply once more.
“What are those things? And an eroge?” Tom asked, coming to my rescue with that. He had no reason to pretend he knew about these words after all.
“Oh … is he trustworthy?” Richard asked still looking at me intensely.
“He is my guardian … somewhat.” I explained and nodded towards Richard.
“Okay, so visual novels are basically books, just that they are presented as pictures. Pc games are … board games just more interactive. Kind of hard to explain. An eroge is … ehh … I´d rather not explain that. What did you do, Rebecca?” He explained which was honestly great, even though it didn’t make much sense.
“Oh … I liked the smell of old books, I guess. I was a huge bookworm.” I explained and immediately knew I made a mistake once I did so. First, he frowned rather heavily and then squinted his eyes nearly shut.
“… we didn’t have any books on the spaceship though.” I exhaled loudly and smiled in resignation.
“Eh … I mean it felt as if I could smell old books whenever I read.” I tried to save it, even though I knew it was futile. Once the seeds of doubt were sown within him, I had no way to clear them.
“Name three sensors.” He stated dryly. Raising my eyebrows lightly, I looked him straight in the eyes.
“Please don’t ask me about sensors now. I always hated these.” I explained and chuckled loudly.
“Who was the captain?” He asked while his gaze slowly turned into a hostile one.
“Captain Wirsinken?” No, my one in a thousand shot didn’t hit at all. “Well … thanks for the conversation, I guess?” I said and shrugged my shoulders. Smiling gently, I stood up and tilted my head. I really wanted to know what he would do.
“How would you imagine a world without magic to be?” I asked mere minutes before we arrived at Tom´s mansion once again. There were still many people outside chatting with their neighbours, but the commoners slowly left the area to head home. They were only allowed in because the parade happened to start at the royal palace.
“A world without magic? I haven’t read enough fantasy books to imagine such a thing.” Hannah explained even though I hoped she and books were best friends at that point. Knowledge was everything after all.
“I … I still want you to think about it. Think about human ingenuity and what they could be capable off even without magic.” I had seen it already. The huge ships on the archipelago world, the strange metallic animals eating grass and even that humans could fly. But so far, I didn’t tell anyone about this, mostly because they would doubt it.
“Society stagnated before the system came, so that is the most they can achieve, I guess?” Hannah obviously didn’t see these things and was thus rather doubtful of what humans could achieve.
“Society stagnated because a spark was missing. An idea, a simple thought maybe. For hundreds of years, nothing may change, nothing is invented, but then – suddenly – a single human comes up with something that changes the world forever. Take the invention off the wheel for example … to be fair, the gods gave it to you because this world had it since the very beginning … anyways, imagine we lost the ability to build wheels. How would the world look like?” I asked in an attempt to show her that progress was indeed something humans were capable off.
“Not very different? Sure, the nobles would have troubles getting around and merchants wouldn’t be able to trade that well, but otherwise?” She asked after thinking about it for several seconds. And honestly? I had to admit that she had a point.
“Hmm. Honestly, it is quite hard to explain another world to someone who only lived in a stagnating one.” And thus, I gave up on attempting to. Either she would understand on her own someday, or someone else than me told her about other worlds because I was honestly incapable of doing so.
“I didn’t have the luxury to see such things with my own eyes.” She said to which I could only nod.
“Fair enough … the person we are visiting later is probably from another world. Don’t tell Tom anything about them though. It could end quite badly if we tell him too much now.” I explained before stopping as the mansion slowly came into sight.
“I cannot follow. I thought he knew more than me?” Hannah asked surprised.
“He thinks he knows more than you. Unlike with you though, I have no qualms about lying to him. Trust me, it is better when everyone knows what they need to know and not any more. For him, we are searching for gifted people who have some sort of connection to the gods.” And I didn’t even lie in that regard. He would find out anyway if I lied to him there.
“I see.” She said slowly.
“I have another task for you. Follow Tom and me and if you hear something falling onto the ground, do some stabby stabby, alright?” I asked after turning my head towards her.
“… you only tell me what I need to know as well?” She asked and pursed her lips sulkily.
“This time. See you later.” I answered coldly and strode onwards. I knew she stood there a bit perplexed for some time while I walked towards the gates, but I seriously didn’t feel like caring about that at this point. I was angry for being thrown out of my home and I saw no way of reclaiming that anytime soon. And even if I didn’t show it that much, I was incredibly furious at everything and everyone.
“Bring me to the lord.” I said dryly to the butler approaching me immediately. I was already balling my hands to fists as he turned around and guided me towards the mansion hastily. My bloodlust wasn’t really hidden as I entered the house. Everyone from the guards to butlers apparently noticed they shouldn’t go on my nerves at all, which was why I was led to the upper floor instantly.
The butler knocked onto a door shortly afterwards, but even then it took too long for me. A lot gentler than I thought possible, I pushed him to the side and kicked the door. The lock immediately gave way and the door swung open quickly.
Tom was sitting at a table along with his wife who was apparently eating meat while Tom drank blood out of a wine glass. Both of them looked at me quite surprised as I strode into the room towards Tom, snatched the glass out of his hands and gulped everything down.
“Whore, it was nice to meet you. Tom, get going.” I said, glared at his wife and turned around on my heels. The whore didn’t ask anything at all, but rather stayed silent as I stomped out of the room, followed by Tom who didn’t know why I changed my opinion.
“So you want to observe that guy personally now?” It was already way too late to watch him dine and Tom certainly knew that much.
“No, we are going to have a nice little chat with him.” I said after exiting the room. With Tom organising everything, it didn’t take long for us to prepare. Several men were accompanying us by foot through the city while Tom and I sat inside his pitch black carriage. We didn’t talk much during that time, mostly because I refused to answer many of his questions.
“When are we there?” I asked after waiting half an hour with him inside the carriage. My patience was running rather thin at this point.
“A few more minutes.” Tom explained truthfully. Four minutes later, the carriage came to a sudden halt but neither Tom nor I exited right away.
“Listen …” I started, but then continued to mumble rather quietly. “I´m sorry for the hammer, okay?”
“Excuse me?” He said which made me flinch angrily. I definitely wouldn’t repeat that I felt slightly bad for hurting him. Definitely not. Especially because he understood me very well.
“I said that you will suffer if you turn against me. So try to resist his influence a little.” I said with a crocked smile on my lips. Only after that did I pick up the mask on my lap and wore it appropriately. Tom followed suit immediately afterwards and stood up. He was the first one to exit the carriage with me hot on his heels. The men we brought with us were already surrounding the building quietly and climbed the façade. They apparently spotted an open window on the second floor of the inn which apparently served as the base of Mr. Brainwash.
“Are we even entirely sure one can resist his brainwash? I´m sure there could be other reasons as to why he left the church of chaos.” Tom asked quietly even though that was our assumption the whole time. There was no perfect technique, at least in my opinion. Everything including the gift of the gods had its drawbacks and it was near certain that Mr. Slavemaster couldn’t control everyone. Even worse for him, their gifts were expressed through the system, meaning I knew exactly how to counter them.
And thus, I was also not really bothered by his abilities. I was near certain he wouldn’t be able to control me at all. I wasn’t like the other girls after all.
Before I followed Tom into the inn, I looked around and spotted Hannah on the roof of another building. After nodding to her once, I quickly entered into a rather spacey room, filled with empty tables and a bar that still reeked of spilt beer. Both of us didn’t really care about the ones who were already quietly escorted out of the inn by Tom´s assassins who were apparently a lot better than his last ones.
Unlike them though, we climbed the stairs clad in equally black clothing that hid everything from my blonde hair to my pale skin. Tom pointed at all the doors to the right once until he stopped in front of the third one. No sounds came from within, not even the snoring of anyone.
We waited a few more seconds until Tom´s assassins brought an unconscious man through the hallway and then, I closed my eyes. I heard the movement of the assassins down below, heard how a backdoor was opened quietly and the breath of three humans inside the room in front of us. I noticed Tom´s faked breath that was too abrupt each time he breathed in, I heard how a little mouse squealed downstairs and the trotting of the horses outside.
I opened my eyes once again and banged against the door with my right fist. Instantly, the whole house – or whatever was left - was awake, even though they didn’t answer right away. Once more, Tom hammered against the door three times and only then did a male voice resound from the inside. “Who is there?” That alone proved that Mr. IfuckYourBrain couldn’t subdue others that easily.
“Your mum.” Tom said dryly. Without further ado, he hammered against the door once more. His assumption that someone would open the door anyway proved true as a woman in her twenties unlocked it for us. Tom swiftly opened it and strode into the room which turned out to be rather simple. A wooden wardrobe, a normal bed, two chairs and a little window were the only things in there aside from our target, and the two other lightly dressed woman.
“You are … from that underground organisation, aren’t you?” I honestly didn’t expect him to posses that level of intel of us. There must have been a healthy dose of luck in guessing our affiliation as well, but that he knew about us was something else entirely.
“Then you know that your two women are entirely in the wrong place here, don’t you?” Tom asked and pointed over his shoulder towards the door while I leaned against the wall near it, arms crossed in front of my chest while staring at that guy. I had already met every reincarnator once, and yet I could not remember seeing him before that day.
“It is true that they are of very little help right now, but I want something in return.” Richard Dunkelwald said while grinning wryly. He wore nothing except pants and sat on the edge of the bed while tensing his muscles on his upper arm as if he needed to proof something.
“Oh?” Tom asked completely unimpressed.
“Reveal your faces. I want to see who I am talking to.” He said and then nodded towards the woman. Without uttering a single word or changing their facial expression, they trotted out of the room while Tom and I slowly got rid of our masks once they were behind us.
“Do you need to see us to turn us around?” Tom asked and scratched his cheek as Richard stared at me while I smiled back lightly.
“… so you do know about my abilities, and yet you came here?” Richard answered while trying to hide his surprise.
“We are the best of the best. You have no chance of using your powers on either of us.” Tom answered, probably expecting a gulp or a nervous expression, but certainly not the laughter that followed afterwards. Richard even held his muscular belly, hardly able to contain his laughter.
“You? You are level 49 while she is level 12. I do have appraisal, you idiots.” Now it was Tom´s turn to frown slightly. Unsure what to do, he looked behind him towards me. I could only shrug slightly because I had no answer for his question whatsoever.
“Hmm, it is good that we wear a limiter. What you see, is what we want you to see.” Tom bluffed calmly. Richard certainly could discern the real status of others, except me of course. I only showed him what I presented everyone out of habit.
Once again, Richard laughed loudly but not with the same vigour as before. “Is that so? Let us just assume that this is true, what do you want from me?” He asked while grinning devilishly.
“Truth to be told, we are here to liquidate you. The church of chaos told us a little bit about you and is quite adamant on seeing you dead. We on the other hand could use your special abilities.” Tom explained which seemed to shock Richard somewhat. It was obvious at this point that the church of chaos found out his weakness and Richard left because he felt threatened … or rather, they let him leave to watch the chaos unfolding.
“So you don’t want to see me dead?” Richard asked somewhat confused.
“Oh no, certainly not. On the contrary, we would make you vanish … I suppose you know what that means?” Tom asked carefully. So far, the conversation went insanely well.
“Something like a witness protection program, I´m not dumb.” Once again, Tom turned around confused, but this time I smiled gently. Tilting my head slightly I opened my mouth for the first time since entering the room.
“I suppose you understand that we cannot do so without trusting you at least somewhat. You have to understand that your ability is quite a danger for any organization.” I said calmly.
“I´m only a danger to those who stand in my way … you have a beautiful voice by the way.” He said after I pushed myself away from the wall. Strolling over to one of the chairs, I thought about what I wanted to reply.
“My voice is a curse and you are a liar. We know enough to claim that you used your abilities against others as well. These two women for example certainly didn’t stand in your way at all.” I slid the chair into the middle of the room and sat down on it the wrong way. I placed my hands onto the backrest and my chin onto my interlocked fingers.
“They … they were slaves and I freed them. Now they follow me around.” Richard said which was obviously a lie. I made it very clearly that I didn’t believe him one second before Tom answered in my stead.
“Oh for fucks sake. We are criminals. I deprecated someone yesterday because he failed to do the job. We aren’t interested in your sex life or whatever. We know that you enslaved them with your ability. And we also know you disposed of those that managed to resist after some time, so cut the crap and come to the point.” Tom revealed which shocked Richard somewhat. Still, his believe that he could brainwash us with his ability was largely unshaken.
“… you know of them?” He muttered quietly.
“Your work is sloppy.” Tom spat out laughingly.
“Then you should also know that being in my sight is dangerous.” So he needed to target his victims with his eyes. Well then, in this case he was already as good as dead.
“So it does work with sight. What other restrictions are there?” Tom asked curiously.
“Why should I tell you that?” Richard said and spat onto the ground. The atmosphere was turning more and more hostile, but none of us made the first move yet.
“Because we will kill you if you don’t tell us everything.” Tom mentioned casually with a rather cold voice.
“And what would stop me from enslaving you first?” Richard asked with a huge grin on his face. Truly, he was a scumbag and I wanted to see him dead for various reasons, but I still wanted to hear everything from him.
“You know … you aren’t the only one being gifted by the gods, my old friend?” I muttered while staring at him. Surprise was written all over his face as he stared at me for several seconds.
“You are also one of … one of the heroes?” Heroes? Certainly not. I completely struggled to see what he was getting at but decided to play along.
“Indeed. The goddess of love gifted me with crazy strong healing magic amongst other things, so I suppose you could call me a hero?” I mostly picked Irminsul as my fake patron goddess because I could guess what she would gift Sofie. But also because I was sure she wouldn’t mind that I dragged her name through the mud once or twice.
“The goddess of love? Isn´t that some big shot? I only got the god of control to grant me one wish!” Richard revealed one crucial information after another. I certainly didn’t know different gods could fulfil a different number of wishes before.
“That only means that your strong wish is enough to be equal to mine. Hey … let´s start anew, shall we? My name is Lucy.” I said and smiled happily. I knew he liked how I looked, but he was still way too easy to fool.
“Richard … Julius in my previous life.” Richard explained enthusiastic.
“Julius? Julius … no, we didn’t interact much, did we?” I asked while pursing my lips. He would ask for my name for sure and like this, I could prepare for the eventuality he never heard the name I would pick.
“I was fist shift, what about you?” He asked with glee in his eyes. Truly, he was insanely happy to have found someone like him.
“The second one … too bad we weren’t that much in contact before our reincarnation. But hey, now we found each other again, didn’t we?” I asked while smiling gently.
“We absolutely did! I´m so happy I found someone else from the spaceship!” He said. Tom once again looked towards me because of the foreign word, but I couldn’t help him at all. I didn’t know the word spaceship either.
“So am I! Hey, Julius … you don’t look like you did back then by any chance?” I changed the conversation rather abruptly as I didn´t want to mess up because I couldn’t understand a single word.
“No, not at all? What about you?” He said which proved what I had already guessed. My rage increased just a bit more as I finally understood that Irminsul played me all these years ago. She showed me exactly how all these reincarnators looked at one point in their previous life which was vastly different from how they looked now. My whole payment for saving Sofie was all for nothing.
“Well … I look vastly different now.” I told him while keeping up the façade of being happy to see him.
“So everyone of us has another look now … that makes things difficult. By the way, what was your name again?” He asked with great interest. He surely wanted to connect to my non existent previous life, something that could only result in failure.
“My name was … Rebecca.” I told him. For a little while, I even wanted to say Sofie but it was not certain she was called like that in her previous life, nor if they knew each other well enough for him to ask questions I couldn’t answer.
“Rebecca … Rebecca. No can`t remember that name. You must have been quite secluded back then.” He asked while scratching his head, probably deep in thought.
“I surely was …” I explained absentmindedly.
“But that doesn’t matter now, does it? Back on the ship, I played eroges because no girl wanted to go out with me and here? I can have nearly every girl there is … oh, sorry. I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” He said and forced himself to smile rather awkwardly.
“I see … how does that work anyway? You do some magic and then they follow you forever?” I asked and tilted my head in interest.
“Not quite. I can select my targets and they submit instantly if their intelligence stat is lower than mine. The problem is though that depending on their intelligence stat, they eventually break free after some time.” So that was why he needed to leave the church of chaos. A few of his subordinates probably broke free and he had to fear for his life afterwards.
“Oh, so its like that. Its too bad these gifts have so many drawbacks.” I explained unhappily.
“Don’t you say … but hey, I live my dream life thanks to my gift.” He surely could at least until I decided to visit him.
“That’s … true? Well, it still sucks that the gods get in contact with us so often.” I said which confused him quite a bit. He even frowned rather obviously which probably meant he couldn’t follow me at all.
“What do you mean? I haven’t met mine since that day.” He explained which underlined my suspicion.
“Oh … he leaves you alone?” I asked in wonder. I always assumed that the gods would fiddle with their playthings rather often, mostly because Aska did that.
“Yes? Does your god ask you for favours or what?” He asked to which I could only nod. Lying to him at this point about my apparent gods involvement in my life was impossible after all.
“Sometimes … but let´s not talk about that. I want to know who exactly I found first. What did you do on the ship?” I asked in an attempt to switch the topic once more. I already knew much about his life after he came to Solaris, but I didn’t know anything about the time before that.
“I did what everyone else was doing … I guess? Oh, and I played a whole lot of visual novels and pc games.” Once again, he used words I didn’t know which meant a lot. But it also meant I had absolutely no idea about how I should reply once more.
“What are those things? And an eroge?” Tom asked, coming to my rescue with that. He had no reason to pretend he knew about these words after all.
“Oh … is he trustworthy?” Richard asked still looking at me intensely.
“He is my guardian … somewhat.” I explained and nodded towards Richard.
“Okay, so visual novels are basically books, just that they are presented as pictures. Pc games are … board games just more interactive. Kind of hard to explain. An eroge is … ehh … I´d rather not explain that. What did you do, Rebecca?” He explained which was honestly great, even though it didn’t make much sense.
“Oh … I liked the smell of old books, I guess. I was a huge bookworm.” I explained and immediately knew I made a mistake once I did so. First, he frowned rather heavily and then squinted his eyes nearly shut.
“… we didn’t have any books on the spaceship though.” I exhaled loudly and smiled in resignation.
“Eh … I mean it felt as if I could smell old books whenever I read.” I tried to save it, even though I knew it was futile. Once the seeds of doubt were sown within him, I had no way to clear them.
“Name three sensors.” He stated dryly. Raising my eyebrows lightly, I looked him straight in the eyes.
“Please don’t ask me about sensors now. I always hated these.” I explained and chuckled loudly.
“Who was the captain?” He asked while his gaze slowly turned into a hostile one.
“Captain Wirsinken?” No, my one in a thousand shot didn’t hit at all. “Well … thanks for the conversation, I guess?” I said and shrugged my shoulders. Smiling gently, I stood up and tilted my head. I really wanted to know what he would do.
