Truths or Lies

Velios awoke to find himself with a woman staring directly into his eyes, her head just above his. She jumped back upon seeing that he had opened his eyes. Velios let out a sigh of relief before stretching his body, still laying down on the bed.

"Y-Y-You're awake." The girl was shocked to find him awake but more shocked at something else. She knew she hadn't missed them when she first checked out his body for wounds and similar stuff. The man in front of her had what looked like a bunch of tattoos scattered across his upper body.

"Hey, does anybody know where my clothes are?" She had seen many tattoos from different adventurers, but these ones looked completely different. She didn't think for even a second that those were actual tattoos. From her experiences, it looked like a severe case of poison or even a curse.

"Are t-those... curse marks?" She couldn't help but tremble. She had never seen anything so severe, not even in dying adventurers. Some of them looked like wide and long scars, while others looked like weird symbols from a foreign language. Velios heard clearly what she said but still asked her to repeat it. He didn't know what to do; no human had ever seen the whole of his body in the Grim Reaper's Curse, and he didn't know how much information he could give away.

"T-These? No, no. These are just scars from battle." Velios couldn't fully lie, especially under pressure. She wanted to trust the words of the man in front of her, but it wasn't hard to figure out that he wasn't telling the truth.

"Whatever. Are you feeling okay now? You were just completely unconscious, and now you look like you're fully back to life again." She handed over Velios' clothes to him. While Velios put on his clothes, he answered, "Trust me, this happens pretty often, so I'm used to it. My mana was just depleted and overused, so I—" Velios realized he had yet again said something he wasn't supposed to. The people who possess mana are extraordinarily strong and would have had to either accomplish huge things, beat powerful monsters, or train for an extraordinary amount of time. The reactions from both of them freaked them out. Even if it was one of the weaker, people who possess mana are famous and often already in powerful guilds. The fact that some no-name adventurer had passed out in the middle of the desert from having overused his mana wasn't something that happened commonly.

Discussions continued between Velios and the two other people, which was actually just Velios getting overwhelmed with questions that he had no way of answering. To be quite frank, Velios wanted nothing to do with the two of them, and he did not want to have a discussion. He wanted to get back to training and fighting since there were still a lot of things he still needed to improve. He tried to slowly walk out but was slowly dragged in again.

"Do you possess any magic?" "How much mana do you have?" "Which guild do you work for?" "What is the strongest monster you have defeated?" Questions kept flying in, and Velios knew that the only way to satisfy them was to answer the questions and then leave as soon as possible. Even if he did not think that it was the case, all of the times where he had lost people he cared about and all of the times humanity had disgusted him amounted to the personality and hostility he had towards other humans. Even if most of them were normal, far too much stuff had happened for him to easily talk and even be around other people for an extended period of time. Yotsuya is one of the few exceptions.

"Hey! Hey! Listen to me! Will you guys just let me go if I answer all of the questions you have? Or at least some of them?" Velios did not know just how much he would regret that he had said that. Ultimately, he had left the two of them confused. After everything Velios had told them, they just thought that he was some crazy, delusional guy. The lies that he said were so obvious that it felt like he didn't even try. In the end, the two of them were left disappointed while Velios could, after what felt like hours, finally get out of the building to go do his own thing.

"I thought he was something at first. He didn't even try to hide it. Just get the potions ready, and I won't complain." He let out a sigh, realizing just how much time he had wasted listening to something so obviously a lie that he felt robbed. "Yeah yeah, I'll get them in just under ten minutes. I agree with you; he could have at least told us the truth." She walked into one of the rooms in the back while he just sat down on one of the chairs in the room. "First he started telling us how he unlocked mana and magic, created huge fires and learned to manipulate mana. If he was that strong since that many months ago, he could might as well be the strongest player here."

She walked out with a box with many potions, all having weirdly colored liquids inside of them. "That could have sounded believable if he had recently done that. And then he says that he killed an intelligent monster, fought with one of the most powerful dungeon monsters in this desert and came back alive. Apparently he is soooo powerful that he defeated a black scorpion with ease. What a guy." He just made even more fun of the lies Velios had said when he still was there. But was it truly a lie? "What if he is telling the truth?" She asked that so quietly, almost to herself but he had heard her anyways. "What are you talking about? Not even the strongest adventurer could do something like that, and you know what that mystery fella did just a couple of months ago? He survived against one of the ten sovereigns and was the first person to be granted magic. Nobody knows who he is or if he even exists." She came back with more of the potions. "But wouldn't what that guy said be true then? Basically everything he was talking about matched up with some of the most famous incidents and just from the number one player. I saw how bad that guy was lying at first but it was as if his confidence went through the roof. As if it was actually true."

"Don't be silly. Do you think a guy so powerful would pass out in the desert from having used a little bit too much mana? If he's the number strongest then I could be the king of an empire. Everyone can have dreams, but come on, you know how many people have tried to act like they were the number one? He's just another one of the bunch; don't think about it." She remained quiet after hearing what he had to say. "But wouldn't that be the answer to why you couldn't feed him your mana? Because he may be just that much stronger?" Milia still felt something inside of her, something that she wanted to believe in that was true. "Milia! Don't you..." But he remained quiet, unable to give a single word for an answer. As time passed and as they kept to themselves in silence, they came to a mutual agreement of sorts. Opinions that had previously clashed were now gone with one of them winning. With both of them staring at each other dead in the eye, they both shouted out. "That guy was...!" They were shocked to the point where none of them could finish their sentence, but they both knew it was the most reliable answer they had. Both of them truly thought, who was that guy?

As the realization settled, Milia couldn't shake off the feeling that there was more to Velios than met the eye. The mysteries surrounding him seemed to be entwined with something larger, something that transcended the ordinary adventurers in the desert. Her curiosity sparked, and she couldn't help but ponder the possibilities, questioning the credibility of the fantastical tales Velios had spun. In contrast, her companion still remained skeptical, dismissing Velios as just another tale-spinner in a realm filled with exaggerations.

The enigma persisted, and as they contemplated the peculiar encounter, a shared uncertainty lingered in the air. The desert held more secrets than they could fathom, and the identity of Velios seemed to be a thread in the intricate tapestry of a greater narrative. The day unfolded, leaving the two with lingering doubts and an unspoken agreement to keep a watchful eye on the unfolding events in the unforgiving desert sands and the events that none of them knew would follow just a few hours later in the day.