Chapter 44: Answers

  Finding Joe isn’t too difficult – I just have to wait for one of the classes we’re both in - advanced water creation magic, to be specific. It was between that or alteration, and chances were I’d need both – water is everywhere, but I can’t be sure which is more mana-efficient between gathering water from the atmosphere around me or just making it.

  Anyway, I go up to him at the end of class. As per usual, he’s sitting there looking at my hovering form, as if he’d already known I was going to talk to him.

  “I have questions.” I state simply.

  Joe shrugs, getting up. “You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t. Best we talk in private, though. Follow me.”

  I follow him as he leaves the classroom. Thing is, as paranoid as I am and as strange as Joe is, he’s had plenty of opportunities before to harm, capture, or do whatever else to me.

  He hasn’t.

  I’m not entirely sure that he’s a friend, but I’m fairly sure he doesn’t have any bad intentions. That, or he’s just mad, and completely unpredictable. But as far as I can tell, he’s not. He’s odd, but it’s weird odd, not crazy odd.

  To my surprise, he leads me to the dorms, to a single person room. A bit more expensive than my shared room, but still quite simple living.

  “What, did you think I slept in an alley in the city or something?” Joe shakes his head.

  After an awkward pause I reluctantly admit, “Well, kind of, yes.”

  “Well… The thought did tempt me.” His eyes shift to the side momentarily before he diverts the topic. “But you’re here to ask questions, not admire the décor. Ask away.”

  “First of all, I need to know how I can trust your information. You’re almost always vague or indirect when you say things, and it’s usually things that are impossible to confirm.” I start, bluntly.

  “If you like, I can also say things like, ‘the grass is green’ and ‘the sky is blue’.” He offers unhelpfully in a tone as if he is being helpful.

  I groan, “How do you get your information, then?”

  Joe looks at me for a long moment, then shakes his head, sighing. “Fine. I’ll throw you a bit of a bone. In the most basic of senses, I know some people who know a lot of things. We talk sometimes, and some of that knowledge is occasionally exchanged. Thus, I know a bit about many different things, both that are happening and have already happened.”

  “Alright, that’s better than nothing.” I concede. “But you also seem to know about the future.”

  He frowns. “I don’t know about THE future.” He says, stressing the word. “THE future, technically speaking, doesn’t exist.”

  “Imagine time is like a tree: a single root, branching out more and more as it ascends. Each point at which it branches is an instant in time, all things that are.” Joe continues. “Now imagine that there’s an ant or something on the tree, climbing up it – the ant is you, by the way, or me, depending on your perspective. It’s simplicity itself to know where the ant is: just look at where the ant is.”

  “Sure.” I reply. “Assuming you can see the ant.”

  “Indeed, and speaking realistically that is actually a big assumption.” Joe nods. “But we’re speaking hypothetically here. So we know where the ant is, and it’s not much more difficult to figure out where the ant was, we just track back down the branches from the ant towards the root of the tree. That is to say, for the ant, there is only one possible present, and one possible past. But to know where the ant will be?”

  “It could go up any of the branches.” I say, understanding where he is going with this. “Maybe you could get lucky at the first branch and guess right, but at the next, or the one after… The chances are against you.”

  “Exactly.” Joe exclaims. “The future is infinite. That is to say, even if somebody found a method to look up that tree from where they currently were and look at one of the branches above, that future may never come to pass for them. So no, I don’t know all of what will be. I know some of what may be.”

  Pondering that for a moment, I accept it as fairly believable. “Alright, I can understand that. For now, I think I can accept that you’re at least somewhat believable.”

  “I’m hurt,” Joe says in mock sadness, holding his hand to his chest, “I’ve never spoken anything but the truth to you.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t take the… Eccentric… old man at face value.” Is my dry reply.

  He shrugs.

  “So… What’s going on?” I ask, finally.

  He sighs. “Assuming you mean with the academy and the kidnapping, that’d be level eighty.”

  Exasperated, I ask, “Why is it always eighty and ninety? Why can’t it be something a little lower?”

  “Because you technically surpass most of the lower milestones.” Joe states, much to my surprise.

  “But I’m only level…” I trail off in confusion. “Wait, so there’s some other criteria you didn’t mention?”

  “Sure.” He shrugs. “But levels are easier, much easier. You have enough money, you can practically buy your way to level fifty or so. Past that point it gets a lot harder, sure, but it’s still easier than the alternative.”

  “Which is...?” I prompt.

  “Skill proficiency. Although they’re not exactly the hardest to advance in, the rarest or very powerful, you do still have a few skills at master. Combined with your actual level, I figure that puts you around level fifty-five, level sixty for what you’re qualified to know.” He muses, scratching his chin.

  “Wait, how do you know about my skills and level?” I ask with alarm. Like 90% of my current combat strategy relies on my opponents not understanding what I can do, if there’s a way for them to see my status I’ll be at a severe disadvantage.

  “Ah, well…” His eyes shift awkwardly, “It’s not really something you’re supposed to be able to know about yet… It’s a pretty well-kept secret, you know. Suffice to say, there’s a title. And don’t worry – the kind of people that can get the title aren’t the kind of people you’ll ever be fighting. Not unless everything really goes to hell, figuratively speaking.”

  I mentally breath a sigh of relief. “Have I ever met someone with this title? Apart from you, I mean.”

  “Met?” He considers. “Just once, I think. Kleio has it. Apart from that, you’ve probably seen a few here and there.”

  “Kleio? Huh.” I muse. “Wait, then when I was called up to her office when I enrolled…”

  “Yeah, she was confirming everything that she had heard about you and checking your titles and skills for anything suspicious.” Joe shrugs.

  “Huh. I thought she just had some sort of skill to determine intentions, but – wait, I’m getting side-tracked.” I break off my current train of thought as it occurs to me, returning to my original objective. “Isn’t there anything you can tell me about what’s happening? Is the whole thing with those kidnappers really over, what were they after?”

  “Wait, that’s all you wanted to know?” Joe responds with a chuckle, shaking his head at himself. “And here I was trying to be all secretive. Nah, it’s not over. Course not, they’re not giving up so easily. As for what they’re after, knowledge is and always has been the academy’s most precious resource.”

  “The library. That’s what they’re going for.” I think for a moment. “It’s probably the most defended place in the academy, and I doubt I can see anything more than the surface layer. It’s divided into sections – I’ve heard students have access to the first three, no matter how long they’ve been here. Rumour has it that only teachers can access the fourth. They would’ve tried to infiltrate via a student first, it would be stupid not to. So either the infiltration was unsuccessful, or what they want is deeper than section 3. Or they got impatient, I guess.” I add as an afterthought, less talking to Joe at this point than speaking my thoughts aloud.

  “It would be much more difficult to plant a teacher in the academy. An institution this important, they must vet their staff thoroughly.” My train of thought continues to run, new information falling into place with previous thoughts and other information formerly considered unrelated. “Theoretically, it’s possible given enough time, skilled agents and resources. From the facilities and means I saw when we got kidnapped, they have the latter two at least. They were clearly well prepared. Well-funded, too, if that wasn’t even their main facility… Wait.”

  Well-funded. Skilled. Probable insider information. Probable many years invested into this. And yet they were taken by surprise by the academy response? Sure, Simon’s grandfather was the one to destroy them, but our teacher seemed certain that the academy could deal with them, even after seeing what they were capable of, and Simon’s grandfather seemed to similarly think that he wasn’t particularly required to be there.

  Doesn’t add up. Either they’re a bunch of idiots or something else was at play. Something… Bigger?

  “How old is the Academy?” I ask, running on a wild theory.

  Joe tilts his head. “About two and a half millennia, give or take a few decades.”

  “And it’s been here the whole time? Not destroyed, taken over, anything like that?” I ask another question running in a similar vein.

  “Nothing like that, stood strong the whole time. Not for lack of trying on some people’s part.” One of Joe’s eyebrows raises. “You know, there should be some history book you could read for this.”

  “No, can’t break my chain of thought.” I rebut. “And it’s always been at the forefront in terms of magic?”

  “Pretty much.” Joe confirms, his second eyebrow joining the first.

  “Impossible.” His eyebrows hike further up his forehead with my blatant rejection. “With magic, knowledge is power. With power comes the envy of others. With enough power, enough envy, comes conflict. This is an educational institution. It might be a fortress magically, but in terms of getting inside, any sufficiently determined and skilled enemy could do so and compromise the defences. The very fact that it’s never happened strongly suggests the existence of a higher power protecting the academy. One that can’t be contested. A god.”

  “Well–” Joe starts, but my train of thought hasn’t yet reached the last station.

  “They were overly confident despite knowingly having lesser forces. Assuming my former assumption is correct, it follows that there was a god on their side as well. But for there to have been a god assisting them, that god must have thought themselves capable of opposing the god protecting the academy, and yet there was no interference from them when their forces were being decimated?” I continue.

  “Uh…” Joe raises a finger.

  “Unless they weren’t expecting opposition in the first place?” My voice powers forward, ignoring Joe’s objection. “Perhaps they were more powerful than the god protecting the academy, but the god protecting the academy had an unexpected ally? Or they expected the academy’s god to not notice? The academy’s god was elsewhere, distracted, preoccupied in some way or another? But unbeknownst to the opposing god, the academy’s god had asked an ally to protect the academy in their absence?”

  Joe just stares at me.

  “Or something like that. Impossible to say which.” I finish.

  “What… The fuck.” Joe swears.

  Thunder rumbles down from the sky through the window despite the clouds there being perfectly white and puffy.

  Jabbing a finger in the general direction of the sky, Joe exclaims, “Oh, piss off. I barely gave him anything! Cat’s out of the bag now, he’s well within his rights to figure stuff out if he wants to be such a smart aleck.”

  A spark of electricity jolts down from the stone of the window to zap the offending fingertip.

  Joe waves his finger in shock. “Cheeky bugger.” He shakes his head and turns back to me. “It’s official: I suck at keeping secrets. Now get out of here before I let something else slip. Never should have suggested this game.”

  Joe shoos me out the door and slams it behind me.

  …I was mostly bluffing to make him get angry at the sheer inaccuracy of my words and correct me out of pure annoyance, but okay. Okaaay.

  Gods.

  This means… I don’t know what this means. Back on Earth, if you were to talk about a god, you’d picture some almighty, mysterious being. Indescribable. Unfathomable. And as far as most people are concerned, far-off. Not having much, or any, impact in one’s life that couldn’t be attributed to something else: luck, happenstance.

  I’ve known for a while now that the beings that the people in these worlds call ‘gods’ aren’t like that. They’re powerful, sure, though exactly how powerful I haven’t the slightest idea. Mysterious, sure. Far-off, maybe – who knows exactly where the gods reside. But there is never any argument over whether they exist or not.

  On Earth, someone might say, ‘I believe the god of this religion exists,’ and another will likely refute their claim.

  Here, it is accepted as common sense that the gods exist. All of them. Full stop. No question. No argument. It just is.

  I’ve also known for a while that the gods are paying some sort of attention to these worlds. Their priests and paladins act as their arms and legs, carrying out their will on the worlds. And, sometimes, I don’t know how often, the gods speak to at least their priests, probably their paladins too.

  What I didn’t realise is that the gods themselves are also acting in the worlds. How much, how often, I don’t know. Hard to know anything about beings known as gods besides what they want to be known. But it makes me wonder: has this second life of mine been moulded by the gods, beyond just my creation? How many of the times when I got ‘lucky’ were really due to luck?

  Me dropping directly on a robot and gaining just the trait I needed to break free of insanity? Ferdinand’s party just happening to notice the hole I’d made, in a cave in the middle of nowhere? Me killing the spider matriarch? Getting summoned by Dreyer? All of the skills and traits that I’ve accumulated to this point…

  The gods went so far as to bring me back from death. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think that they might be interested in my new life for some reason. Maybe that’s what Joe is: an agent of the gods, tasked to watch me for when they’re busy with something else. It’s clear at this point that he has at least some link to a god or gods. Whether he’s a priest, paladin, or something else… Well, it would explain some of he strange abilities he’s shown, and how he got into the academy – if he is an agent of a god or gods that are friendly with the god of this academy, it would be simple for them to arrange his enrolment.

  Then again, I’ve met and seen priests and paladins. They had mana. He doesn’t. Unless it’s a quirk of the specific god he follows… He’s something different again. Or maybe he’s some weird species that just doesn’t have mana, or their bodies block out things like mana sight. I mean, he looks human, but who knows? There’s plenty of ways to change your appearance, and there are some races that don’t look too different from humans.

  Well, whatever and whoever he is, it looks like I’ll have to look into the gods soon. Doubt I’ll find anything relevant to myself, but it won’t hurt to learn some common knowledge about them.

  But moving back to current events - If gods are involved, doesn’t that mean that… There’s nothing I can do? I mean, regardless of what our side or the other does, whichever of the gods comes out on top can just sweep away any resistance.

  …Things like these are the reason I generally prefer to stay unnoticed. Just another person in the background. The less people think about me, the better. My heart goes out to the visionaries, the heroes, those who spend their lives bettering other’s.

  Because I know the world needs people like them.

  And because I know that I could never do what they do.

  Not because I wasn’t strong enough, or smart enough. It may sound a bit boastful, but I think I was born with a pretty good body – I’m talking about my old life, of course – and I was always pretty quick to learn. If I put my mind to it, I probably could’ve been successful in many different careers, careers where I could’ve made a positive difference on the world.

  There was only one reason why that never happened – well, maybe not just one reason. But it was certainly one of the largest ones: fear.

  I feared what would happen if it turned out that actually, I wasn’t good enough. What if I stepped up to the plate, but I failed, and I had taken the place of someone better who could’ve succeeded? What if people ended up hating me for my failures? What if I ended up hating myself?

  I feared what would happen if I tried to do something good, but I got steamrolled by some company trying to make some quick bucks on someone’s misfortune. I never had been optimistic; I knew that people were capable of doing some very dark things. I don’t expect it, but I’m aware of the possibility. Even if people didn’t directly try to stop what I was doing, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye if the alternative is to their deficit… To my shame, myself included.

  And what I think I feared most of all, was that no matter how hard I tried, no matter what I did, it wouldn’t make a difference. I had seen people, intelligent, brilliant people, who warned of things to come, displaying facts, lengthy analysis, studies, simply… Ignored. Nobody cared that people were starving to death, ravaged by drought or disease. Nobody cared that slavery still thrived in the world. Nobody cared about businesses selling absurd amounts of information about people to who knows where. Nobody cared that politicians and other big names commit serious crimes and simply get away with it. Nobody cared that the number of species going extinct was only increasing year by year, because of us. Nobody cared that the world was burning. Nobody cared.

  Or at least, not enough people or not the right people cared to make a difference.

  I knew, from a young age, that I wasn’t in control of my life, and probably never would be. It was the leaders of the country I was in, the big businesses. They made the laws. They could influence the public’s opinion on what was right and what was wrong, if they wanted to. Twist morals, beliefs. And heck, even the ordinary people around me. If I were walking down the street, and someone passing me suddenly pulled out a knife and stabbed me, there would simply have been nothing I could do.

  It’s like they say, ignorance is bliss. I saw the world; I’m not arrogant enough to say I saw and knew everything that was going wrong, but I saw enough to know that there was a lot more going wrong than was being done to rectify it. And it scared me. A whole lot.

  So, I avoided attention from anyone, big or small. The methods I used… I don’t know if I could put a name to all of them, whether I even knew about all the things I did. A human in fear can do extraordinary things. Sometimes stupid things, too, to be fair. But also, extraordinary. I never made any conscious decision, never really thought about it, to be honest.

  But by the time I realised it, my footsteps grew soft. Later in life, I found it difficult when trying to approach someone, because I had to consciously try and make noise, so as not to startle them when they finally noticed me standing right beside them.

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  I never spoke louder than I needed to. If you were to ask even my mother to give an example of a time I shouted, I doubt she would remember one. I could count those occasions on one hand – could count them on my tines, actually.

  My clothes – no pictures, no logos. Plain, unpatterned. Soft fabrics that wouldn’t rustle or make noise. You would think it would make it easy to buy clothes, but it’s surprisingly difficult to find good shirts that are just… Grey. Or blue. But nothing too bright.

  I never made gestures while speaking, and always thought at least twice about what I was saying before opening my mouth – especially about whether doing so was necessary in the first place. I always waited for others to give their opinions before voicing mine – and if mine conflicted, then, generally speaking, I kept my mouth shut.

  If I was in a public space, my face was almost always neutral, with no particular expression. People who didn’t know me very well probably thought I was practically emotionless. Some days, I wished they were right.

  Leadership roles I avoided like the plague, although somehow they still found their way to me. I learned that it was best to pre-empt the role from defaulting to me by recommending someone else, particularly if I could give reasons why they were a good idea. Nobody likes it if you give reasons why you aren’t a good idea. They take them as excuses, as you trying to shirk the responsibility. And well, yes, I was, but there was no reason to lower their impression of me. Better for them to think that I acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of others.

  Anything public I also stayed away from. Social media, even discussion boards – I was a ghost, sometimes observing, but, for the most part, unobserved.

  In a word, I was plain, from my looks to my actions. Not handsome, not ugly. Nothing to stand out. Nothing to notice.

  Perhaps it was fitting, then, that in my new life I was a fork. The most common of household utensils. Nobody would notice if they had one extra, or one less than usual.

  I would’ve continued to live my life as I had before death. I had, pretty much, up until now. But now I know, for better or for worse. There are beings out there, with power beyond my understanding, that have shaped this new life. That may continue to shape it. And I don’t trust that their intentions are good.

  Or even if they were – it’s my life. It’s my path. I want to be able to dictate the direction of that path myself. There’s no way to hide anymore. Hell, Joe was practically here waiting for me, when even I didn’t know beforehand that I was coming to this world.

  I need knowledge. Of the gods, of their intentions for me. I need power, enough that they can’t ignore me, if need be.

  …Then again, that was pretty much my plan originally. The stakes are just higher.

  Sometimes, I wish that I could forget things. I detest not knowing things, but sometimes that knowledge turns out to be more of a curse than a blessing.

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