The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 147: A friend from another time in another world

Chapter 147: A friend from another time in another world

Izzi’s reaction, as well as the realization that I had just blown my own cover, ironically made me calmer.

"Ah..."

"’Ah’--my ass!" he suddenly stopped grasping his head and glared at me. "You--you..."

He pointed his finger at my face, the tip of it trembling. He opened his mouth and I waited to hear what he wanted to say, which didn’t happen for a while.

"...yes?" I asked after waiting for ten seconds.

"How could you pretend you don’t know anything about guns and lasers?!" he yelled. "You...you tricked me! You know about me, don’t you?!"

Ah...

"Well, I mean...you made guns in a fantasy setting, so..." I shrugged. "It’s easy to infer that you’re not from here since I’m the same."

"And you decided to just pretend you don’t know about it?!"

He put his hands on his hips again, and glared at me like someone doing an intervention. "To be honest, there’s still like a ten percent possibility that you heard about laser and whatnot from someone else who came from another world, so I was being reluctant. Also..." I paused, pressing my lips for a bit before continuing. "I haven’t thought about revealing it to anyone for the time being. This might sound offensive, but I couldn’t say I trust you yet, Izzi."

His brows arched, and I thought he would lash out at me again. Unexpectedly, he took a seat in front of me and made a contemplative face. "You’re right," he said. "It’s not something that you can just say to anyone, I understand."

I was surprised that he could accept my explanation easily. Perhaps because he could place himself in my shoes. As someone who also hid a secret, he must have understood that sharing such a thing with strangers could be detrimental.

"But, wow, I can’t believe it," he shook his head. "To think I’ll find another otherworlder..."

"Yeah..." I agreed. I did think about the possibility of the author getting reborn in another world too, but I dared not contemplate too much about it because I had no proof of another transmigrator.

Not until I found the piles of ’modern’ inventions.

"But, if you never experienced the war, is that mean you only come here after that?" Izzi tilted his head, and I nodded in response.

"I woke up in the hospital after the war,"

"In the priest’s body?"

"Yeah," I bit my lower lip and fiddled with the end of my tunic. "I think...I think the real Valmeier is supposed to be dead, and my soul took over."

The elf paused for a while before responding. "I’m not judging you or anything, so you don’t have to make that expression," he said, sighing. "I’m sure you didn’t ask for it."

That--surprisingly, that single sentence gave me so much relief and validation. I realized then why I was so scared and reluctant; because I felt like others would think I stole this body, stole Valmeier’s right. Stole his fate. And it was nice to know that at least one person would not blame me.

"Mm...since we’re on the topic anyway...what about you?"

Izzi seemed taken aback. I guessed he had never thought of divulging his secret like that to anyone, and so he reacted rather awkwardly. "Ah, so...I didn’t wake up in someone else’s body like you, but--hmm...how should I say this? When I was eleven, I had an explosive accident in the smithy, and I suddenly remembered my previous life as a human from Earth."

Oh, so his case was different. "Like...reincarnation?"

"That! Yes!" he clapped his hand in revelation. "That’s what it’s called, right? Reincarnation! And it seemed like I got hit by a truck or something and died on my way to school."

Oh my...he was one of those guys. "Ah, I was hospitalized since I was ten and then I died, and woke up in Valmeier’s body," I told him in return.

"...oh, wow."

"Yeah,"

We got silent again, just staring at each other to digest the fact that we both died before we came to this world. And then he suddenly snapped his fingers. "Okay...wait! So we now establish that we both come from Earth,"

"Uh-huh."

"But..." he leaned forward, and even though it was just us in this soundproofed room, he still spoke in a whisper. "Did you say ’novel’? You mean..." he gulped before continuing. "... this world is a novel?"

"Huh...so you’re not the type that comes here after reading the novel," was my comment. I kind of thought knowing something about the other world was some kind of prerequisite for transmigration.

He raised his brow. "Are you?"

"Well... technically, I didn’t read it," I stroked my tunic to straighten up the creased fabric, since I could feel Jade getting frantic and trying to come here. "But I knew the author and we talked about it."

"What?!" the elf exclaimed. "What what what? So you’re telling me there’s a novel talking about this world?!" he asked loudly, and clasped his mouth after.

His words made me pause though, and I blinked as my mind tried to process what he said. "Oh, wait...I’ve never thought of it that way,"

"What do you mean?" he tilted in confusion.

"I always think that this world was created from the novel, but..."

Izzi gasped and finished my thought. "But it makes more sense if this world exists first, and somehow someone retells it in the form of a novel?"

"Yeah..." I nodded. "I always thought the novel is the base because that’s what I know about first, and because it’s just...so detailed?"

And that was how people phrased it right? The world from this novel, the world from that game...but would it be possible, in the first place, that a novel could turn into a real world? It would make more sense if this world was the one existing first, and through some means, the girl wrote a story about this place, centered in the saga of the summoned hero.

Perhaps someone from the future who got reincarnated or transmigrated to Earth instead?

"What’s the novel about?" he asked.

"Ah, about the hero being summoned to this world--you know, the one from the kingdom where Valmeier came from."

"Aah," he nodded then, leaning back on the chair and crossing his arms. He seemed confused though, and after a few seconds, he said with a pursing lips. "Huh...what a weird story. Is something like that can be popular?"

"It’s surprisingly used a lot," I tried to remember the trend of popular culture during my stay in the hospital. I couldn’t say I read much, or played games a lot--because even though I had nothing to do, it was pretty hard consuming entertainment with pain coursing through your body--but I knew a few. "I think it’s gaining traction after 2010-ish?"

"2010! Holy shi--" Izzi clasped his mouth shut again. He seemed to be more shocked about the year than the whole different world itself. He frowned and tapped on his lips in contemplation, muttering not long after. "No, wait...that made sense? I woke up here decades ago."

I had an inkling when he seemed to be confused about how popular the ’other-world’ genre was, but I asked for clarification. "Umm...are you saying you came from Earth during..."

"My accident is in the eighties," he told me.

"Oh!" I hit my palm with a fist. As I thought, we weren’t from the same era. But it made me wonder if the time here and the time on Earth were parallel to each other, or if it was just a coincidence. One thing was certain though; "So it’s not just a modern trend."

This got me wondering if this kind of phenomenon had been happening since a long time ago. Since there were us, and there was the summoned hero too, it seemed like something that happened periodically. And through these three cases, I could infer that the method of otherworld travel did not limit to one type; summoning, reincarnation, transmigration...

"And since I’m forty-two this year, it adds up, I think?" Izzi said while nodding to himself, which got me to narrow my eyes in response.

"You didn’t act like you’re forty-two,"

"Hey, I’m still a youngling compared to other elves, okay? My brain and mental development did not follow the human one!" he smacked the armrest and explained passionately.

"Ah, so that’s how it works..."

Again, we fell into contemplative silence. I could hear voices from outside so I guessed the guards and everyone were here at last. So I leaned forward and grabbed the elf’s coat, since we still hadn’t agreed to the most important thing.

"Listen, Izzi, we can’t make weapons anymore."

I stared at the golden eyes as firmly as I could. It was quite hard with the shock and the surprise happening in such a short time, but I needed this to be solved quickly. I was going to follow Natha for a month during the annual inspection, and there wouldn’t be much time before that.

As expected, Izzi still didn’t like the idea. "But I want to be a gunsmith!" he said, which kind of explained his obsession with producing guns in this world.

"Let’s just make something that’s not destructive," I insisted. I didn’t look at him with fierceness anymore. I asked him; made a request. "Won’t it be better to make something useful that can help more people instead of killing? Have you ever killed someone?"

"...no," he said weakly, but pouting all the same.

"Do you want to feel regretful one day when you see your invention being used for killing innocent people?" he was quiet then, and I continued. "I don’t want that. It might be a superficial reason, but I know I don’t want that."

Izzi bit his lips and then asked. "If I refuse to stop, you’ll still cut off the funding, won’t you?"

I release him, and sighed. "Yeah," I said. "But I like you, Izzi, so I don’t want to have to fight and fall out with you because of it."

His eyes shook for a bit, and then he lowered his head. Still pouting, but now with a low mumble. "Tsk--fine! I’ll...I need to think about it first, though..."

I could finally smile then, which was good because we heard a sharp knock on the door in the next second.

"Sweetheart."

Uh-oh.

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