"So let me get this straight," Adelheid spoke in a tied voice while massaging her forehead.
"You—" She was now sitting on a chair, lined along the shorter edge of the table, perpendicular to the arms of both the couches. "—are a human who comes from beyond the edges of the world, the Great Waterfall?"
"If that's what you mean by another world, then yeah."
Reinhard was stunned silent. Not only could the boy held access to magic that was unknown even to the Court Mage, and now he proclaims to hail from beyond the Great Cascade.
It's not that he does not believe in Merlin, but it was rather unsettling to have two visitors from other worlds arrive one after another.
He could still remember the words that the self proclaimed 'God' spoke on the day of his arrival perfectly due to his divine protection of Perfect Memory. (Ik its bs)
"Oh come on, just wrap it up and let me find a vessel damn it!!!"
The appearance of the cosmic creature and this otherworldly person, all of which happened in the span of the same week. Merlin's words were now just to believable to not believe.
"Seriously! Brother asked you to reply correctly so why can't you just follow that and be done with it?"
"But I am saying the truth. It's you both who are not listening to me at all!"
"Ugh. This guy, he won't listen br—please don't tell me you're seriously considering this."
"HEY LET HIM BELIEVE ME!!!"
Adelheid who got tired of trying to convince Merlin to speak truthfully, not realizing that he was already doing that, turned to her brother to say something but just stopped and looked at him. Disappointed.
"This is exactly the scenario I wished to avoid." Reinhard said with the tone of a tired man who could just barely see the future of his back, breaking in additional work.
"Hah?" Adelheid who could see his emotions with the help of her divine protection of Empathy, raised an eyebrow at his sudden shift for cautiousness to exasperation.
Everyone in the room remained quiet, not sure of what to say anymore.
Merlin leaned his back into the couch as he stared blankly at the ceiling, his fingers fiddling with his hairs as he was lost in thought.
"Is it really true, Merlin?"
The silence was finally broken by Adelheid who addressed Merlin's which caused him to look towards her without changing his head's position even slightly. Just his eyes moved, he was too lazy to move his head needlessly at every small talk.
Letting out a sigh he closed his eyes and spoke.
"I've been saying that God knows how many times now."
Adelheid was still a bit suspicious but decided that believing it would be better than arguing that it is false. "A different world, hmm." She hummed to herself, her dull eyes shone with a hint of curiosity as she asked "What's, it like there? Beyond the Great Waterfalls?"
"What's it like there huh..." Merlin murmured.
"..." Although Reinhard could not find much interest in anything but one thing that he's always interested in is discussing about the lands outside Lugunica. Ever since he was a kid, the powers held by him and his sister was so terrifying for both his own country and the neighbouring ones, that they created a law solely for the both of them.
Reinhard van Astrea and Adelheid Astrea are NOT allowed to cross the borders of any country, unless Lugunica wanted to start a war with them.
Because of this, he and his sister had remained in this country for as long as he could recall.
Well at least he was able to go to Vollachia once as part of a diplomatic mission, but aside from that, he's never even seen the land outside Lugunica.
So hearing about a land that is supposed not even on this continent, he couldn't help but show a hint of excitement to hear about this unknown land.
"I'd like to hear too Merlin. Coincidentally, I have quite a bit of free time today." And so lied Reinhard with a smiling face.
"Well, where should I begin..." Merlin tapped his chin while still looking up.
But then he straightened his back and lifted his head to look at Reinhard.
"Well before that, will you tell me the aftermath of what happened after I fell unconscious?"
The disappointed was visible on the faces of both the siblings, but nevertheless Reinhard smiled as he begun.
"Well, nothing eventful happened since that night 3 days ago—"
"3 DAYS AGO?!?! You're telling me that i was knocked out for 3! WHOLE! DAYSS?!" Merlin jumped up from his seat as he slammed the tea table with both his hands
"Arghhhh. Can you stop screaming so loud." Adelheid stated feeling annoyed.
"Well I'm sorry for being concerned about myself being out for 3 days!"
"No worries Merlin, it is a reasonable reaction. Although a bit overexagerrated..." Reinhard assured Merlin with kind words, although the last sentence was so faint that it could be said to be a whisper.
"Hey don't act like I didn't hear you."
He begrudgingly sat back down on his seat with a huff.
"We had been getting reports of strange appearances of hooded figures in the slums and the mysterious disappearances of its inhabitants. But because the knights were too occupied with matters of extreme importance, we weren't able to investigate the slums."
"With all due respect brother. It's that the knights couldn't, it's about that they wouldn't."
Now that remark caught Merlin's full attention. Reinhard's weren't too surprising because for so many of those disgusting creatures to appear in such an important city of a country by themself is ridiculous.
"Adelheid, that is not true! The kingdom is already in a precarious state, so staking the lives of any soldiers is a task involving high risks."
"Please, don't act like you are not aware of it too. They were refraining from doing so not because the sages cared for the lives of their pawns, but because it was about the slums. If that little girl had not come running to me on that night who knows how many lives would've perished all because of their negligence."
Merlin engraved every detail of her words into his mind. So these sages seem like important people who control the army or something? And from her description, he already has a bad image of the country which reminded him of several countries from his homeworld.
Then it's decided! As the protagonist he shall not let this world become like his and that will become true without failure.
"..." Adelheid's words had rendered Reinhard silent. He looked down at the sword on his lap with a sense of guilt and shame.
Adelheid, seeing that she might've struck a bad nerve, did not speak any further.
And again, the room fell into an awkward silence.
"So..." This time, the one who broke the silence was Merlin. "Can you continue about what happened afterwards? You wanted to know 'bout my world didn't ya'? So finish fast so that I can begin....wait a minute Adelheid, you mentioned Felt didn't you? Is she safe?! Alive?!"
"Yes yes, she's as safe as she can get."
Merlin relaxed upon hearing that. He had totally forgotten about her. Even if he did forget about her, it wasn't that he wasn't worried about her, regardless of how short their meeting had been. She was only a little girl after all.
"Then Merlin, should I be brief about it?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah. Give me all the necessary info."
"Very well then. That night, while my sister was taking a stroll through the capital, she came across a young lady with blond hair on the side of the street, crying alone."
"Felt..." His heart pained as he heard about the condition that Adelheid discovered Felt in.
"Yes, so she asked her and was informed of an assassin in the slums, trying to kill her grandfather, a weird boy with some 'wacky' magic—"
"Why that brat!" Merlin gnashed his teeth together in anger at the insulting description of himself.
"—and as described by her...well...'A haughty bitch with massive...' I'd rather not say it." He smiled with a troubled expression.
"...that kid really needs some manners."
"For the first time I can agree with you." Even Adelheid felt the need to spank the ill mannered girl and correct her tongue.
"After that, she went straight to the Garrison but the knights had already retired for the day, so she had a guard who was on night duty to send a message to me and told him to take care of Gelt for the time being and—"
"—then I did the whole work by myself even though my shift was over. And I still haven't gotten a single word of appreciation for neither my consideration nor kindness."
"Oh, yea I forgot to thank you. Anyways,"
She stared at his smug face with an face that had "Really?" written all over it.
Even Reinhard chuckled slightly but soon shut up under the burning glare of his sister.
"A-anyways," He continued reciting the info that he had learned from the reports to Merlin in order to save himself from getting castigated yet again.
"When she had arrived at the location, the assassin had already fled, but the substitution of the assassin was arguably quite a lot worse, but you already know about that."
Merlin grimaced slightly when both Elsa and the Mabeasts were mentioned. The phantom pains in his abdomen started to make him uncomfortable once again.
"When the quagmire was taken care of, you and the old giant were unconscious."
"Yeah, thanks to..." Merlin complained, giving Adelheid a side eye who met it with a expression of pride.
"Lady Emilia wanted to take you to her mansion to repay your help but I had arrived by that time and took you to our manor for much important reasons."
"Oh yeah, I can understand now."
"After that, both lady Priscilla and lady Emila were taken to the Garrison for interrogation. After that lady Emilia was escorted back by a red haired maid while lady Priscilla was, escorted would be a bad choice of word. She just walked out of the Garrison while her one armed knight trailed behind her. That's all that was required to know."
"Hmm..."
"And also," Adelheid spoke up, "What in the world did you even do to make miss Priscilla so angry at you. I mean I have seen her been angrier than that but she kept calling you 'a pig with washable colours'."
"Damn that's a heavy insult!"
Up until now, Merlin had been refraining to ask about Priscilla but his efforts were in naught but vain now that the topic's finally been mentioned.
"Adelheid..." Reinhard called out to her.
"...Looks like I asked something I shouldn't have. Just for clarity, you didn't do anything perverted right?"
"My body would've been headless by then."
"Yeah, figures"
"Now that we've concluded the talk here, I must return to my duties. Although we didn't get to talk about your world this time, I'm sure they will be good dinner time stories, Merlin." He placed his sword to the side as stood up to extend his hand towards Merlin as a gesture of a handshake.
Adelheid casted one last hateful look at her brother before ignoring him entirely
"Wait, you mean I'm staying here?" Merlin too got up and accepted the handshake.
"Yes. You will be a permanent guest of my residence if everything goes well with the sages."
Both Reinhard and Merlin ended their handshake.
"Until next time Merlin."
"Yea bro, next time."
****
Me uploading another chapter so soon?! IS THE WORLD ENDING OR WHAT?!?!.....At least chuckle will ya.
Anyways, I'm just dying to reach arc 3 and 4 so much, the main peaks of my fanfic will be there so I'm just trying to rush it as much as possible.
Now that I look back on my earlier chapters, I made a clown out of Elsa didn't I? 😭
Well I was super new at writing in those days and I've also been watching many action movies so I'll try to better the fight scenes more.
I just really hope that you all would stay her please, it means alot to me🙏🏻