Ch14. That which flares brighter

"Aren't you curious of why I always seem to know what you're thinking, and why I can talk in your mind since I'm not even in your inventory?" Cheshire felt like it was stretching in Miles' mind as it spoke, its voice languid like a seductive threat. The runes etched in the sword pulsed faintly.

"Yes," Miles said, quietly. "I get it that you're not an item because you're part of this… Demented Wonderland but… It doesn't explain how you can peer into my inventory and other information."

As Miles tapped his foot on the ground, the sword jumped from his hand and returned to its former feline form, its grin making Miles' skin crawl.

"How about we make a deal?" It rubbed against Miles' legs. "I'll tell you my secret, and you do me one favor. How about it?"

Miles frowned. In the distance, however, the Rabbit shouted at them before he could answer.

"I'm late, I'm late, I'm late! Are you coming or not?"

"Sure!" Miles said, not caring if the Rabbit was going to hear it or not. "What do you want me to do, Cheshire?" He shifted his weight before he took the first step. "You don't want my soul or anything like that, right?"

"Oh, my boy, no, for the love of the elder gods…" Cheshire laughed. "All I want you to do is to take me with you to your world, and give me to the one I've been waiting for." And after a brief pause, the cat added. "I'll even let you keep me as one of your items until then."

After a few seconds of pondering, Miles broke the eerie silence.

"No catch? I take you with me to Earth, and give you to the one you tell me to?" He raised his eyebrow.

"No catch." Cheshire jumped on Miles' shoulder, making him grunt under the cat's weight. "You agree, and I'll tell you the secret."

"Deal." Miles said, without even thinking about it.

The thing is that he had thought about it, all the while he asked Cheshire, and the cat answered him. He felt like his thought processing had become somewhat faster ever since he leveled up the last time, which allowed him to make the right choices quicker than a regular human would.

He thought that, since the cat had not harmed him until now, and was the only one to give him straight answers where the Rabbit faulted, he had nothing to lose in this deal.

There was only the knowledge of how things worked in there that, maybe, would lead him to what the hidden quest was, in truth, and consequently, more answers. And so, the only acceptable answer to give to the eerie cat, was "yes".

"Thank you, my boy." Cheshire smiled. It did not grin this time, it was an actual, happy smile. Even though it made Miles' skin crawl even more than if Cheshire had just grinned like it used to. "So, you poked me back in the cave, in order to know my characteristics, right?" Miles nodded. "Well, since I'm natural from this beautiful place where we are now, you already noticed that I can change my physical properties, right?"

"Yeah, I noticed that you're… Odd." Miles smirked at Cheshire, who grinned back.

"That's because I'm a Presence. I'm from here, but I wasn't born here." Cheshire purred, sounding less languid and more serious. "And being like this allows me to synergize with other souls, even though yours is quite… Unique."

"And by synergizing with my soul, you were able to see my stats, inventory, and attribute?"

Cheshire nodded.

"Although I couldn't understand why you have such things stored in that strange space within your soul. But I think I'll get to know it better as soon as I find her in your world."

Miles fell silent as they approached where the White Rabbit was waiting for them. Even though Cheshire's words carried no straightness in them, it was enough for him to raise a few more questions in his mind, along with the answers the cat had actually given him.

One of the answers was that Cheshire was not a being fully natural from Wonderland, even though he had been created to belong to this place. The other was that, since the cat was even more unnatural than Wonderland itself, he had properties that allowed it to somewhat cheat the Glitch's system to a certain extent.

But that itself led to a question that made Miles frown, as it recalled the way Cheshire sounded when he talked about his soul.

'Does it mean that Cheshire doesn't know about the game?' He scratched his chin. 'And if this is true, then why does both he and the Rabbit act so naturally when-'

Miles' eyes went wide as he almost stumbled on the Rabbit.

Stepping backwards, trying not to fall on his rear, Miles focused to not lose the answer that lit up in his mind.

'That's it! Idiot!' He grinned inwardly. 'Of course, they'd act naturally! Because the term quest was not originated from video games, instead incorporated by it, to describe the missions we take up on, in order to clear the game! But if this is true…'

Did it mean, then, that Cheshire, the White Rabbit, the Card Soldiers, and maybe the whole Wonderland around him… Existed outside of the game?

The thought sent shivers down Miles' spine, but somewhere in his mind, in his soul, he knew there was some truth in it. But if it was true, then what was the game that he and everyone else had been playing all along on Earth?

What did it really mean?

For the first time after becoming a player, a question popped up in Miles' mind. A question that flared brighter than the instinct of survival that he carried for so long, in order to fight the monsters that the game threw at him, and level up to become stronger.

'What happens if I clear this nightmarish game…?'