Silas's eyes slowly opened. At first his vision was blurry and his eyes were watery, but after a while he was able to see clearly again. As he took in the scene around him, he realized he was in a different location than he had remembered last time. He was in a room, closed on all sides with a roof above.
With him was his mother sitting right beside him, the red-haired woman leaning against another wall, and the 12-year-old boy who had been with Silas when his previous group encountered the walking corpses.
The other thing he noticed was that none of them were wearing any masks, and that he too, despite not covering his mouth and nose, was able to breathe better than before.
"You are finally awake." Sophia who was sitting beside him noticed that Silas had woken up.
"How did I survive? Where are we?" Silas had many questions.
"Yerah saved you, and that boy too. We are in some random ruins we managed to find on our way, pretty lucky right?" Sophia said.
The red-haired woman, Yerah, was still leaning against the wall motionlessly. She was asleep. The young boy hadn't woken up yet, so the only two people awake were Sophia and Silas.
In such a setting, Silas felt a tense atmosphere growing. He could sense something bad was going to happen, and he would not be able to do anything about it. He knew exactly what was going to happen now that they were alone.
"Silas, we need to talk," Sophia said, her tone shifting from playful to serious.
Here it comes...
Silas looked at his mother, straight into her eyes. He tried his best not to break eye contact. Holding eye contact with Sophia felt extremely difficult, as if some force was pressuring him and making him want to look away.
"Yes," he replied.
"I know you must have a lot of questions. It is fine, you can ask first. I'll truthfully reply, but after that, when it's my turn to ask, you must return the same gesture," Sophia said calmly.
Silas didn't think much of this. He would have to reply truthfully no matter what, for there was no way he could lie without Sophia being able to tell. The best he could do was not answer her at all, but if he did so, he risked creating complications in a wholesome mother-son relationship.
"I will ask all of my questions at once then.
"What tier wielder are you?
"How did you find me and how did you get back so early?
"Now that you know I am a wielder, should I expect any harm from you?"
Sophia heard all of his questions and then replied one by one.
"I am a tri-wielder."
"I used a spell to find you, it's called Seeker's Light. As for how I got here so fast, well, for that you have to understand the situation of the outside world better."
"A mother will never harm her own child, right?"
Sophia calmly replied. Her tone was now very relaxed and soothing, and it made Silas calm down too. Although he understood that these were interrogation tactics, he didn't care. He had no understanding of humans at all, such tactics were way out of his league.
"Before I explain further, answer me. What do you want to do?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just as I said, what is it that you wish for? The world outside has been destroyed completely. Anything ahead is just pain and suffering. If you want to quit, you can."
She lowered her head, avoiding eye contact.
"As a mother, the thing that would pain me the most is watching you in pain. I have a way... you can get a painless death. It would feel like falling asleep... a sleep that lasts forever."
Silas was listening to her carefully.
That is a great choice... or so I would say if I weren't a septa-wielder. If I die so easily, that would be a disgrace to all other wielders. Also, the decision of dying or not is not in my hands.
Silas shook his head side to side, indicating disagreement.
"I can't quit." Silas did not elaborate.
Sophia did not ask him further. She had given him the warning that was required.
I feel like I can't lie anymore... I might have to break the number one rule.
"Mom, if I told you I wasn't myself, would you believe me?"
After seeing Sophia remain silent and stare blankly at him, Silas confessed.
"I am not Silas. I am someone else in the body of Silas. I've... uh, transmigrated to this world."
Sophia was quiet for a while.
"I know."
What? You know?
"I knew there was something wrong with you, and that was exactly what I was going to ask you about, but I didn't expect something so absurd." Sophia was a little confused.
"As absurd as it sounds, it is true. I am from a world where manacules are a publicly known fact. That world is far behind this one in terms of scientific advancements but ahead in terms of manalogical advancement."
Sophia listened as Silas explained.
"So does that mean Silas is already dead?"
Well... he is not dead, he is just in my body in my world, but that sounds more absurd and also gives false hope.
"I don't know," Silas said.
Sophia was silent for a good while.
"Ah, so he is not alive anymore? What a bad mother I am. I felt a bit of happiness hearing it. He didn't have to suffer the apocalypse. Am I a bad person for thinking this way?"
Although Sophia was very good at controlling her emotions, the thought of her son being dead had made her lose slight control over her feelings. She was a little sad, she was a little happy—it was truly difficult even for her to explain her own pitiful state.
Silas didn't say anything. He had no understanding of comforting others, nor did he think he would be able to do something like that when he himself was completely hollow about emotions.
Sophia didn't take long to regain her composure and was back to her calm state. Although she was feeling various types of emotions at the moment, one could not tell by looking at her face. Even the original Silas, who now was Caleric, would have a hard time discerning it.
"So, what is your purpose?"
"I hope to survive, that's all." Silas was quick with his answer.
"Then let me ask again, now that you know I am not your son, should I expect harm from you?" Silas asked cautiously.
"Heh, who said you are not my son? You are still Silas, on the outside at least."
"But you are truly an odd one. I see you... you are different. You can't feel emotions, can you?"
What? She can tell just by talking to me for a few minutes. This is absurd. She really is his mother... or my mother.
"That's correct."
"I told you about myself. I want to know, what do you know about the world? You talk as if you understand the situation outside better."
"Yes, I had to tell you. Now, knowing that you are not my son, this indeed is a bit easier. We are caught amidst the apocalypse. The prophecy had mentioned it, and as per their calculations, the apocalypse should've been later, but for some reason it happened way too soon.
"In this world, manacules are not a publicly known fact. Secretive organizations hold this information—or I should say used to hold it. Now that most of the population is dead, I believe there will be multiple wielders among those who survived."
"According to what I know, we are in the second phase of the apocalypse. The first phase was the meteorite shower. The second phase is when monsters appear and roam the land, according to them, of course. Those that we encountered earlier, the zombies, only become active at night."
"Though it is difficult to tell night and day apart now in this world, we can still use our clocks. According to them, these zombies become active after 8 or 9 PM."
After listening to her describe the apocalypse, Silas had more questions.
"Who are 'them'?"
"I don't know. Everyone calls them that way. If you think about it, it would make sense—a world where wielders exist yet no one knows of it? There must be some secretive force stopping the tea from spilling."
"I happened to have learned of the prophecy of the apocalypse from Yerah."
There are people who knew of the apocalypse? Divination? Or perhaps revelations from goddesses? Anyway, that means the apocalypse wasn't completely unexpected. There might be more survivors than I had first assumed.
She found me using Seeker's Light, a tier 3 spell. It is present in the index. She was also able to cast fireball and advanced fireball. So that means the spell index exists in this world. Can it be that there are people who can travel between this world and my world, and that's the reason there are so many similarities?
If that is true, I might have a way to return to my world. This is some progress, alright.
"So what do we do now?" Silas asked.
"We are waiting for the night to pass. Once it does, we will travel back to the camp. We found it coincidentally. It is better than being on our own.
"The third phase might start at any time, and we have no knowledge of what the third phase is."