Meeting The Main Character

As we gotten near to the shelter, the people above the gate begin to notice us. They informed their friends while pointing to us. I signaled for my group to stop a few meters from the gate. 

The gate that is as tall as ten meters is made out entirely of metal with an ancient carving on it. This is a characteristic of a shelter. It's not man made but actually came out of nowhere. It becomes a safe haven for people to protect themselves from monsters.

The gate open not long after we stopped. Two people are coming out of the gate to greet us. One of them is a woman with short black hair and dark brown eyes. I recognize her from the novel.

"Which one of you is the leader?" She simply cut to the chase due to her 'no nonsense' attitude.

I step forward to greet her. "I'm their leader. My name is Arluna."

"You can call me Adeline. This is my colleague, Phil. Where are you guys come from?"

"We are from the other shelter down the west. Got rejected there, so we came here," I shortly explain.

"From the west? To here?" She looks at us with shock and a little bit of sceptical. Then she shows a look of realization and give us sympathetic gaze.

By that gaze, I feel like she has hugely misunderstood something.

"It must be a difficult journey to come here. I won't ask how many people you have lost along the way. You don't have to worry anymore. You guys can rest easy now that you're here."

Hearing her speech make me frown. What is she talking about? I turn around to face my group and after a while, I finally understand why she thinks that way.

The group look very tired and full of sweats. I asked them to run all the way here while carrying a backpack full of rocks. Most of them has stumbled and fell many times during they ran. That's why their face are full of dusts and look dirty. They even seem like they have been starving for days!

I give them an apologetic smile, feeling guilty as the one responsible for putting them in such sorry state. I need to resolve the misunderstanding before things got complicated but seeing their state, I think it's best to let them in and get a rest first.

"Please lead the way," I tell her in respectful tone. She nods and tell us to follow her.

The inside of the gate is like a small city. It has many modern design buildings in it. They all look newly build and made out of strong material. The path we currently use to walk is made out of stone like in a medieval era. The contrast of the building and the pavement made it very unique.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Adeline peek over her shoulder to observe our reaction.

I curtly nod. "It really is. The people on the outside will have a hard time to believe that such a place exist."

"I-I can't believe we have been trying to survive so hard when there's a safe haven like this," Theo says in awe.

"Those bastards. They have been taking such a place for themselves," I can hear Wayne curse for the first time. I'm sure he is referring to the guys that rejected them from entering the shelter.

"I feel sorry for you. We have a rescue team that was tasked to search for survivors and led them to the shelter. However, they have never gone very far. Maybe that's why you guys never stumbled upon them," Adeline explain.

We walk further until we reach the center of the shelter. At the center is a castle-like building with all paths connected to it. It looks very simple with nothing fancy, but majestic at the same time.

"I will inform about you guys to our leader. Please follow me." She indicates to me to follow her.

I turn to my group and signaled for them to wait. The guy name Phil also wait with them. Maybe to watch over them while I'm gone.

I follow her into the building. There are two people that guards the entrance but they just nod at her and let us pass without any issues. As expected of Adeline, one of the most fearsome character in the novel.

The interior of the castle is nothing like a typical royal castle at all. Instead, it looks like a fancy office with many rooms in it. Although the path is just as complicated as the royal castle.

She stops in front of a door and knock on it. "It's me, Adeline. I have something to report to you."

"Come in."

She opens the door and enter. I silently follow behind her. The moment I raise my head to greet the leader of this shelter, I am stunned. The person I expected to see is a completely different person.

He's not the main character's best friend, but the main character himself. But that's not the issue. There's something that I don't understand.

Why does he looks like that?

I'm sure the narrator describes that the main character has a black hair and dark eyes. But the man in front of me has a white hair and pale yellow eyes, which is completely the opposite. His face, however, is really similar to the main character.

"Let me introduce to you. This is our leader. His name is Eden. And Eden, this is Arluna. She's the leader of the new group of people that want to join us."

Adeline's introduction makes me certain.

He's really the main character. There won't be other people with a same face and a same name as him. But his appearance never change even after he got an ability throughout the novel, so what happened?

My mind becomes complicated while Adeline calmly explain everything that happens to him.

"You guys can live here for as long as you want. I won't reject anybody that comes to our shelter. Adeline will prepare a place for you all to stay. But before that, can you list down the awakeners in your group?"

"Oh? Ah, yes." I quickly wake up to the reality and tell myself to get it together.

Let's question them later. I have a lot to do right now.

I take the paper and pen he gave me. I am pleasantly surprised that I can write in this world's language as I scribble down the name. It's probably thanks to the mask I'm wearing. It also allows me to communicate freely with people in this world despite being an alien.

"Only five people? Didn't you say that there are twenty people in their group?" Eden turns to Adeline. She nods her head.

"Yes. I confirm it with my own eyes."

I guess he must be confused since there's usually a balance of awakeners and ordinary people in the group. With such a large group of people, the amount of awakeners should be at least ten in order to ensure a high chance of survival when traveling in a long distance.

"How many people you have when you start the journey?" He asks me this time.

"Leader, asking such thing..." Adeline look concern when he casually ask a sensitive topic—according to her point of view.

"It's sixteen people including me. Later, four more people were joining us. The four of them are on the list I just gave you," I answer honestly.

"So, before they join, you're the only awakener in the group?"

"Isn't it obvious?" I answer him with a question of my own. It's quite annoying to be asked the same thing again and again.

"What is your ability?"

"I have a very strong physical body. I have defeated a Grade 4 monster before. You can ask my group if you don't believe me," I decided to tell him the half truth.

Before confirming anything, I don't want to tell him everything about me. At first, I thought this will be a simple transmigration but now I realized there are a lot of things are missing. And there are only two entity that could answer me right now.

"You can go for now. We will investigate the authenticity of your story later." He dismiss us after telling Adeline to escort my group to their new home.

By his statement, I'm sure he doubt me too. After all, the only one who can defeat a Grade 4 monster and lower was his best friend. He should be one of the strongest awakeners at this time.