Chapter 21

In the middle of the night, a messenger knocked on my door.

I wasn't sleeping anyway, but I considered those night hours of peace and quiet sacred. I decided I'd make an exception and answered the door.

"I apologize for intruding so late at night, but His Highness has asked me to brief you on our mission." The one standing before me was a young girl wearing a short jacket, what looked like this world's alternative to skinny jeans, and slippers on her feet. She spoke politely.

I was a bit surprised, since I'd half-expected some old vampire-looking dude to show up, but it was a welcome surprise. "Of course. Come on in."

She took a seat on the sofa that was right beside the door as I went to check if I had any tea to prepare. Finding none, I returned empty-handed.

"Sorry about the lack of hospitality, I don't really have anything to work with." I apologized. "So, you're here to-" and I chuckled here a bit. "-brief me on what I'm to do?"

Under the candlelight, her blond, curly hair seemed to mimic the movement of the flame. In my opinion, the candle made everything seem way too serious, but fluorescent lighting didn't exist in this time period, at least I don't think it did.

"Well, first tell me what parts you do know."

"The parts I know? That the emperor plays seriously dirty and I got roped into this way too easily." I joked. "As for context, I've got nothing."

"Al-alright, then..." She cleared her throat after a moment of hesitation, probably not knowing how to respond. "So you have zero clue what's going on?"

"Yep."

"... I guess I'll start with introductions and context first." She took a deep breath. "My name is Annabelle Tan, former maid of the Vincent Mansion and what is referred to as an 'Otherworlder'"

If I was drinking anything, I would have choked on it. Hard. I jumped up and the chair I had pulled up nearly flew across the room, making a terribly loud crashing sound as it fell.

"You... Did I hear you right?"

She tilted her head at me slightly

"Tan. Annabelle Tan. That's what you said, right?"

She nodded. "Yeah, that's my name."

I didn't know whether to celebrate or crawl into a corner and have an existential crisis. Annabelle Tan was the name of Zeik's girlfriend. If she was here, then Zeik had a chance of being there, too.

"Do... You know someone named Zeik?" I wanted to make sure.

The girl's eyes widened. The serious vibe she'd been maintaining since she came in suddenly evaporated, and I even saw tears form in the corners of her eyes. She nodded.

"Do you know where he is?" She suddenly began asking the questions, not really to my surprise.

"That was my question, but first let's get a straight answer out of you."

"Yes. I've even seen him in this world, but..."

Her expression deflated.

"Sounds like something I don't want to dig into." I said, feeling relief that Zeik, too, had made it. "All I needed to know was that the guy's alive. Plus, you'll probably run into him soon enough."

wait, how did I know that?

"You sure care a lot about him if that was your first question. Were you his friend somewhere?"

I realized a bit too late that not revealing my identity to my past schoolmates might give me an edge over them in some way. I tried as hard as I could to cover it up by saying, "Ah, no. Just a friend of a friend of mine. I don't think I personally know him."

Annabelle looked confused. "Are you not an Otherworlder, then?"

"Pretty sure I'd remember something that significant." I said. "I'm from this world, more or less."

And I wasn't really lying. My body was odd, and when I woke up in this world, it had felt like I'd just been born yesterday, even if I retained all my memories. I could probably lie my way out of this one pretty easily, and without consequence.

To my surprise, Annabelle lunged forward and grabbed my hand. Like, in that cliche way of begging someone for help that shows up in every anime ever. "Where was this friend of yours when they met him?"

"I-I never really got the full details. He didn't really like sharing too much of his past." I regretted thinking that this was going to be easy. "He seemed pretty close with the guy though. Talked about him a lot."

"I- I see." Annabelle sat back down. "I'm sorry, we're getting off track."

I let out the breath I'd been holding. Crisis evaded.

"Since you're not from the same world as the rest of us, you'll need a bit more context." Annabelle got back into serious mode. "We've been called by the emperor to form a force of powerful Magi- sorry, Alter Users, to counter the forces of the Demons before they inevitably attack. Adventurers have been repeatedly reporting seeing Demons come closer and closer to Human territories, after all."

"Seems legit." I wanted to ask about this "Alter" stuff, but I felt like that was something I was supposed to know.

"Currently we have a force of over 60 people, all of us coming from the Otherworld."

I cringed at hearing this. That was around a third or so of the students that would have been killed in the attack, since the school was so small to begin with. So nobody had gotten to rest in peace, huh? The regret of not having done more resurfaced, and a bad taste found its way into my mouth.

"What would the exact number be with me included?"

"64, I believe. We plan on setting out on an expedition to liberate the Fallen Lands once we've reached 70."

I restrained myself from screaming at how stupid of an idea that was. There probably was a reason behind it.

"Only 70 people?" I asked. "And this is a whole continent we're talking about, right?"

Annabelle nodded.

"You guys better know what you're doing." I sighed. "What, are each and every one of you so equally powerful that you can go 70 against hundreds of thousands and come out on top?"

Annabelle sat there for a second, thinking of how to respond to this. After a bit, she grabbed my hand, stood up, and practically dragged me out of the room.

"I'll just take you to see them for yourself!" She declared, flawlessly navigating the massive, yet complex halls.

---

For some reason, Arek felt left out.

It was just one of those things that bugs him occasionally at the back of his mind. Juni had been absent for a while, and honestly, what she was doing was none of his business. As much as he'd wished it, he and Juni were not a couple. All he could do was just sit through class with the hopes of seeing her the next day.

As the last bell signaled the end of the school day, Arek marched out of the classroom with one destination in mind, and it was not to find Juni. He speed-walked out of the front gates of the school, turned down a side street, and arrived at a small inn where business wasn't exactly booming, but was enough to sustain itself. This was where Zeik lived. Arek'd been coming to this place to rant because he had no other friends to talk to, and Zeik was nice enough to listen. Recently, he'd been finding himself get more and more irritated at the things going on around school. From the way things were being taught, down to how the students acted. He'd found himself brimming with irritation at the end of every single day, and usually ended up dumping all of it on Zeik. Sure, he felt bad, but Zeik didn't seem to mind too much so Arek didn't stop.

He walked through the door, said, "Visiting a friend." And rushed upstairs. The girl working the counter was used to this already, it seemed.

Usually, he'd knock on the door, but today Arek was a little bit too frustrated. He burst into Zeik's inn room.

"Zeik, you have NO idea how much today su-" Arek stopped himself in his tracks.

Zeik's room was completely covered with shards of ice. It didn't look like an attack as much as attempts to restrain someone. The coffee table had been smashed in half, a chair was suspended midair with ice attaching it to the ceiling. At the center of it all was Zeik and Juni, both of them rolling around on the wet mess of a floor. Zeik seemed to be trying to keep Juni away from him, while the other had an expression of irritation, trying to grab Zeik.

"How hard is it to let me just CHECK?" Juni yelled, exasperated.

"What part of 'no' do you not understand?" Zeik pushed her hand away each time it reached for his hair.

Arek didn't know what to make of this sight. Frankly, it didn't seem like too much of his business, but there's no way he'd just back out slowly and come back the next day.

"What, may I ask, is going on here?" Arek said, trying to sound both irritated and mature at the same time.

"Arek?" Zeik glanced over. "Great timing. She's your friend, right? Come help me out here."

"Right. Friend..." Arek grimaced, pained by that reminder.

"There would be no need for that if you would just let me take a look at your hair!" Juni was not giving up. "You have a witness now, what's the harm?"

"Like hell I'm going to believe you're not against killing the both of us at the first chance you get! I'm not stupid!"

"You sure act the part!"

Somehow, this back-and-forth arguing that was bound to lead nowhere ticked Arek off. He walked over, grabbed one of Juni's wrists, and dragged her off of Zeik.

"Any chance you guys are going to clue me in, or am I going to sit here while you do your thing?" Arek asked, forcing a smile and probably managing to look very threatening in the process.

Zeik stood up, dusted himself off with no success, and sat down on a corner of his bed. "Right. Uh, she wants to run magic through my hair for some reason, and it scares me."

"I just have to check if it's been tampered with! I just need a single strand of his hair."

"Wait, just a strand works?" Zeik's eyes widened. "You should've told me earlier! I could have handed you a strand on my own!"

"Well, tracing things isn't exactly my Affinity, so I have to take it to someone. Sorry to assume that the likes of you would understand that."

"how far in-between the lines were you going to make me read, woman?" Zeik yanked a single strand of his own hair out of the side of his head. "There. That good enough?"

"That will work fine." Juni snatched it. "see? Was that so hard?"

Arek let out a sigh of both disappointment and relief. "So we're good now?"

Juni nodded, and stood up. "I'll be on my way now. Don't worry, I'll cover whatever I broke. I swear it on the name Aures."

She left the room quickly, her wet and ice-covered clothes reverting to their previous state as she passed through the doorway, as if there was a drying system installed there.

Zeik sighed. "Y'know what, fine. Glad that's over with."

Arek found himself a place to sit in the mess that Zeik's room was left in. "I came to talk about my own problems, but that was interesting. What was all that for?"

"Probably same reason why she dropped an iceberg on me the other day." Zeik shrugged. "I've seriously got no clue, man. I just hope this shit doesn't happen again."

Zeik took a look around his room.

"And she better keep her word about covering all this!"