Caleric was blinded by the thick smog that covered the entire area. The only things visible were the barren land on which he now found himself standing and the sky that held in place the sun and the seven massive celestial objects.
What is this place? Caleric wondered as he started moving forward, exploring the area.
Soon, amidst the thick smog that obstructed his vision, an outline became clear. A human figure slowly emerged from within. The figure, very familiar to Caleric, slowly came into view.
Silas, who was wandering around the smog, saw a familiar figure approaching him. His steps became hurried as he walked toward the figure. As he came closer, he saw the appearance that would make people question his gender. It was none other than Caleric, his own body from back in his homeland!
Caleric saw the figure and could not believe his eyes for a moment. He observed the person standing in front of him. There was no doubt, he had looked at this face countless times in the mirror. It was Silas, his body from his world!
"Who are you?" both figures stranded in this unknown place blurted out in unison.
Neither of them replied. They were thinking. Both were smart enough to connect the dots and had realized what was going on. The transmigration that did not make any sense at first now explained itself. It wasn't a normal transmigration; it was a type of soul swap across two distinct worlds!
They were in some kind of mysterious space where both of them were able to talk to their counterpart. Silas, who was Caleric inside, and Caleric, who was Silas inside, stood there in silence for a few seconds.
"So, what is your goal?" Caleric, who had mysteriously transmigrated to a world full of manalogy in the body of a manalogy freak, asked Silas standing across from him, covered in the thick smog.
He could clearly feel the awkwardness of talking to himself, except he wasn't exactly talking to himself. The person he was talking to was now him and possessed all of his memories. In essence, both of them were not two different people but had now become one, yet their consciousness and awareness were different. All of this confused Caleric so much that he dropped the idea of thinking further.
"Same as yours, to return home," Silas said, who inhabited the body of the person who now inhabited his original body and was standing in front of him.
Both of them looked at each other. Caleric felt a strange sense of reunion. It had only been three days, yet it felt as if he had been away from his body for a very long time. At the same time, he felt something similar when meeting the person whose memories he had acquired. Those memories gave him the sense that he had known this person for a long time, deepening the feeling of reunion.
Silas felt something similar, though he couldn't quite understand it at first. Using his newly acquired memories, he managed to recognize it as a feeling of reunion. Yet, even with the original Silas's memories—standing right in front of him at that moment—he still struggled to understand or differentiate between other emotions.
As the two distant yet familiar figures stood in complete silence in an unknown land covered in thick, dusty smog, the ground began to shake.
The smog slowly dissipated until the dusty brown atmosphere cleared and two thrones came into view. They were shrouded in a thick white fog, which seeped outward from the thrones. In no time, the entire place was covered again, obstructing their vision, but this time it was a clear white fog; a mysterious, misty veil that now cloaked the entire area.
The two of them walked to the thrones that had become visible. As they sat across from each other, the ground shook again. The land between them began to crack, and as the gap widened slightly, a large round stone emerged between them.
On its flat surface were checkered patterns in black and white—black square followed by white square and so on—forming a complete pattern of sixty-four squares in total, eight wide and eight across. It was a chessboard!
Slowly, pieces started to emerge. These weren't regular pieces. There were no pawns, bishops, knights, or rooks. Nor was there a queen.
These pieces, twice as big as regular ones and sitting on a board also twice the normal size, were completely different and unique. No two pieces resembled each other.
They were arranged on their home squares on either side of the board. As the thirty-two pieces positioned themselves, Caleric and Silas watched closely.
Each piece was like a stone statue or a miniature stone figurine. One depicted a man holding an axe, another a man reading a book, and there was one of a woman with several objects floating around her.
Silas and Caleric sat across from each other, with the chessboard of unique pieces emerging between them. However, it wasn't as if they were playing each other. Instead, the board had arranged itself perpendicular to them, as if Caleric and Silas were part of the audience—they were mere spectators.
Both of them remained silent for a few minutes. After confirming that there weren't any other movements, they finally spoke again.
"What is this place?" Caleric asked.
"If I had to guess, it is most likely a shared consciousness, a realm where we can converse freely. But I don't know how I got in here, nor do I have any guesses about this chessboard," Silas, being the manalogy freak he was, quickly stated his theory.
"Maybe this is a dream? I went to sleep before I found myself here," Caleric said.
"That might be true."
After thinking for a while, Caleric decided to leave this for later and not worry too much about understanding what this place was. His intuition told him that he would eventually learn about it.
"How are things over there?" Caleric asked.
"Nothing much. Except that I summoned a big spell in the air and then found myself involved in a supernatural case of death. Ah, right—there are manacules in your world. Also, your body is a septa-wielder," Silas casually replied.
"Wait, wait, wait... What!?" Caleric was stunned.
"You mean there are manacules on Earth? My body is a septa-wielder!? Okay, wait—if there really are manacules, then that means the government is hiding this fact from the public. You summoned a big spell!? That means they're probably hunting you right now. And death? How did you get involved in so much mess in three days?"
Caleric was confused and frightened. His reaction was natural, given that in the past three days, the only things he had done were attend his birthday banquet, learn about manalogy, and explore Virelia.
"I have no idea," Silas replied truthfully, keeping a straight face.
After that, Silas explained the situation on Earth in detail to Caleric, who grew more curious as well as frightened while listening.
"So, that is all of it. And about the secret your mother mentioned; do you want me to hear about it?" Silas asked.
"It is up to you to decide," Caleric answered.
After Silas finished sharing his experience, it was Caleric's turn to explain the current situation of the world he had unfortunately transmigrated to.
...
"And so, we are going to be leaving Virelia in the coming week. Probably a little early. And right, Cally is fine. I promise I will take care of her as an elder brother."
Silas kept a straight face throughout and then spoke.
"Your memories speak otherwise."
"Memories? Oh… right. If you mean those memories, then you don't have to worry about them. In fact, you might not believe it, but ever since transmigration, I've constantly found myself burdened with emotions.
"I realized that it was your memories, your emotions, and your feelings that are so strong they make me lose composure at times. It's just that you were never able to understand them. Because of this, I treat everyone around you as my own. And your feelings for Cally are the strongest, to the point where I can't not see her as my own sister."
Silas was aback upon hearing this. Not only was this the first time he felt as if someone actually understood him and told him exactly how he felt, but it was also that the person sitting in front of him, whose memories told Silas he was a master at controlling his emotions, wasn't able to keep up the act.
"That is really interesting," Silas replied after thinking for a while.
"By the way, you are like a psychopath."
"What? How am I a psychopath? If anyone is a psychopath, it should be you," Silas said, a little annoyed by the comment, reflexively fighting back.
"Why are you getting defensive? Psychopathy is not that bad; people just believe it to be something negative. What I mean is, you don't feel emotions like a normal person, so you are like a psychopath. But not a true psychopath, because your brain does not have any defects. Instead, you are unable to understand emotions, so I think a fitting term for you would be… a pseudo-psychopath.
"But I guess your reaction was rather normal. Psychopathy is often associated with cold-blooded killers. Some people don't realize that there are healthy psychopaths too."
Caleric explained in great detail. It was the first time this psychology nerd had someone to talk to about the ideas in his mind. While Silas was not the best person to share his thoughts with because he would not be able to understand most of it, this very inability to understand also made him the perfect person for Caleric to share his psychology-related ideas.
"But I sure am jealous that you are now a septa-wielder. Here I am, stuck in your mono-wielding body." Caleric said.
"Well, I have a theory. It's just a theory, but perhaps you can use your twisted brain to come up with a method to test it. I think there is a way to overclock tier-one spells to enhance their effects.
"It's because the spell I summoned on Earth wasn't as big as it would have been if summoned in my world. I realized that the manacule density on this planet is very low. The idea is, if someone can manage to use excess manacules, the spell would have a stronger effect. Well, you can try," Silas explained.
After thinking about it, Caleric made a mental note to try it out if he ever got a chance. However, he wasn't too confident—if something like this were easy, it would have already been done a long time ago.
"By the way, about your theory regarding me; I want to discover myself more. If I had to test whether I really am a psychopath, how could I do that?" Silas asked.
"A pseudo-psychopath. Er, whatever."
Caleric thought for a while. His eyes darkened as he looked at Silas, and his lips curled upwards into a smile as he spoke,
"If you truly want to test that, then there is a way—kill a person."