Hidden Motivations (3)

…

Echidna remains stunned for a few seconds, but quickly recovers and angrily screams:

[Okay, that's enough!!!]

Hearing the clear irritation in her voice, Icarus, who was about to continue his jokes, realizes that maybe this is not a good time to do this, and falls silent

For a while, Echidna doesn't say anything and tries to calm down.

After heaving a deep sigh, already being a little calmer, she continues in a serious voice

[Listen, I'm tired of this! I don't want to hear your jokes, your tricks, your deceptions, or anything like that anymore, okay?

I'm done with that!

I just want have a normal conversation, so can't you be more normal and stop making fun of everything?

After all, what's the point of doing this anyway?

All I want is the truth! Why the hell did you want me to talk to you so bad?

And what the hell are you hiding of me?]

Icarus tries to say something, to try to lighten the heavy mood.

"I think-"

However, before he does Echidna stops him saying

[Can you stop? Gees, I don't understand, is it really that hard to you stay five minutes without making jokes and give me a serious answer?]

Echidna takes a deep breath and makes one last ultimatum

[Okay, I'll give you two options....

You can talk to me appropriately as an adult, where you answer my questions honestly, and in return, I'll answer your questions

Or you can go on with your childish act and make up some excuses, stories or any shit that you usually do, to try to deceive me]

At this point, Echidna pauses for a moment, and with an icy voice she warns

[Of course, if you choose the last option, I'll just walk away and never come back, leaving you here with none of the answers you crave so much

These are my options. It's up to you to decide which one you prefer]

After saying this, Echidna is silent and despite not being able to see her

Icarus is still able to feel that Echidna is looking at him

Feeling the weight of this gaze, he doesn't respond right away and is silent for a while, trying to adjust his thoughts.

Seeing this, Echidna does not force him to speak and decides to wait patiently.

For a while, the area is silent and the only sounds around are the sound of the water from the falls hitting the rocks and the occasional grunt of the monsters surrounding.

Finally, having thought carefully, Icarus breaks the silence: "Okay, let's do it your way..."

Echidna then realizes, that something seems to be wrong

Because unlike his usual self, someone in a good mood and optimistic, always with a childish smile on his face and a mocking tone, which makes people want to punch him

The Icarus who speaks to her now, is calmer and somber, he speaks with an expressionless tone, being even a little cold.

Ignoring Echidna's discomfort, Icarus continues

"I admit, you were right to distrust me, I actually lied earlier when I said curiosity was the only thing that motivated me

Of course, I need to make it clear that despite this, my curiosity about your identity played a big role in my desire to know if you really existed or if it was just a hallucination of mine.

As for another motivation, well... "

Icarus pauses for a moment, licks his lips lightly, and says "... the true is that I wanted to talk"

Upon receiving a simple but normal response something quite unusual given the personality of Icarus, Echidna is baffled by and questions

[What... Did you wanted to talk? Is this serious? Why? Why you wanted talk?]

Seeing her bewilderment, Icarus laughs lightly, and responds: "Hah Why? Are you seriously asking this? So I ask back... Why not? Do you really need to have some complex reason for wanting to talk?"

Without even giving Echidna a chance to respond, he continues

"I think you've already noticed that I'm the talkative type. Can you imagine how agonizing it is for me not to have anyone to talk to?

Not having anyone to listen to me, none to discuss or even someone to ignore the bullshit that I say?

Add that to the fact that I'm in a completely new and strange world, where every being I've seen has either tried to kill me, eat me or both

Earlier, you said that seeing me you found yourself wondering how the hell I managed to act so carefree, to the point of building a house, in the situation that I was

Hah... So I ask you, what am I supposed to do then?

Explore and go after a civilization?"

"Okay, assuming I actually do that, there are just a few little problems I'm going to face that I should mention first

For example, this place seems gigantic to me, so where do I start?"

In the situation of Icarus, where he finds himself in an unknown place or rather... an unknown world

The real chances of finding a civilization just walking around randomly

Without any kind of experience in the subject or even the minimum information needed

It's like finding a specific needle in the middle of a bunch of needles – an almost impossible task

"Another problem that also exists is... What are the chances of this civilization killing me without even giving me a chance to ask something?"

Given the circumstances, this possibility cannot be excluded

After all, even in the past life of Icarus, where civilization had already evolved a lot

There were still many racist and xenophobic people, who couldn't stand people other than themselves

Who knows, in this world, where Icarus doesn't know their culture and doesn't know how outsiders are treated

Even more an outsider like him, who comes from a very distant place so to speak

"Ohh and of course there are still possible communication problems

Would they be able to understand me and I could understand them?"

Even on earth, there are thousands of different languages, but knowing their existence is not the same thing as speaking them.

So, even if the beings of this world speak languages that existed on earth

Not necessarily, it would be a language that Icarus knows

"Okay, let's suppose that by some miracle all these factors are fulfilled and I actually manage to find a non-hostile civilization that I can communicate with without any problems

One question remains... Are these beings really capable of answering my doubts?"

Having said that, Icarus smiles mockingly and says, "You see? Every problem I've talked about seems to depend on one little thing called... luck

If I take into account what is written in my status, my luck is -10

Therefore, it is even funny, that the success of this plan depends on that, on my shit luck!

Now… you understand me?

Do you understand how stressful it is for me to know how small my chance of finding the answers I want is?

So, in this situation, all I have left is my sordid humor and my bad jokes"

Icarus then stops for a moment, licks his lips that have gone dry from talking and says, "Well, at least that's what I was going to do, but I came to know of your existence

When this happened, the first thing I thought was, I think between a mysterious voice in my head and a bunch of random people I don't even know where they are

The chances of the first one knowing what's going on are higher

Well, I didn't expect to have such a hard reception"

The corners of Icarus' lips twitch in a strange way, as he mocks and mimics the tone Echidna used earlier: "Gees, Icarus, can't you be more normal? Pfft... Come on, what the hell do you want from me? Don't ask me to change, just because I don't suit your taste That's who I am and I have no intention of doing anything about it!"

Even though he is clearly mocking her

Echidna chooses not to say anything and just continues to listen in silence

Icarus grits his teeth in anger and screams, scaring the monsters around him

"Fuck! Try being kidnapped and tortured for over ten fucking years by an extremist fucking cult that prays to an entity that I don't give a damn, to see if in the end you will still be normal

I guarantee you one thing.... You won't!"

Remembering all the things he went through and lived in that place, Icarus feels his stomach turn over

He tries to calm down and as soon as he gets it, he lowers his head, and in a low voice, as if he's talking to himself instead of her, he continues

"You saw what my life was like in that place, no one should be forced to live the way I was

Fuck, I was only five years old when they took me away from my parents, and they put me on that hellish place"

Icarus then stops for a moment and smiles as if he was mocking himself, and continues

"Hah... Maybe you haven't figured it out yet, but I don't call this period of my life 'First Trip to Hell' just because is a cool name

In fact, I call it that, with this "cool name" because... Well, because for a long time that's what I really thought

I mean, when I was tortured or when I participated in those strange experiments or even the first times that I was forced to participate in their stupid 'Blood Baptism'. On all these occasions, for a really long time, I truly believed that I had died and was in hell being punished for my sins!"

…

Hallo, the Best author in the world (self-proclaimed) is back!

*Triumphal Return Pose*

Yeah, different from what you guys thought, I didn't die!

Ahem, it's been a while since I've posted something, in case you want to know why I didn't post anything for so long, it's simple: I disappeared, because I went into isolated cultivation (didn't want to leave my room) to understand the truths of the world (I was procrastinating on the internet) and finally after almost two months I finally reached a breakthrough and entered nirvana (I gathered up courage to write)

That means the next time that I disappears, It won't last one or two months, but three!

Amazing, isn't it? Huehuehue! Okay, jokes aside, I'll go back to posting one chapter a week, just like before

And this time, when I have plans to go into isolated cultivation again, I'll try to let you guys know in advance!

That's what I had to say! Bye-bye!