Chapter 35 | The Talk

“Your strange magic, your absurd stamina, and now you are a master alchemist? Theo Robbins, tell me. Who are you?” Satou asked. He seemed ready to use his daggers; Theo could see the subtle shifts in his stance and muscles. If he were to do something suspicious, if a fight broke out, Satou was ready to take him down.

And that hurt. It really did. He wanted to get angry for a moment, shout at the man and throw a tantrum, and he would have certainly done so if it were in his old world. But this world was good at teaching you how to control your emotions, how to think before you act, and how to stay calm in emotional moments.

Theo had always considered Satou a close friend, but apparently, he had failed to consider how he himself had looked from the other side. The Assassin’s suspicions had festered, and he had taken for granted how the man had let him have his secrets.

Hell, lately, he hadn’t even bothered to make up excuses. He would just nod his way, or give him a look and continue. But in the end, there was no reason for the man to play along, was there?

Right here, right now, he had to choose his words very carefully and resolve this if he wanted to stay on amicable terms with Satou. Or even make it out alive.

Not to mention, if he couldn’t… There was a chance that he would experience the same thing he had with Nicole. Sure, Theo was weaker than Satou, but he still wanted to protect him the same.

So, Theo closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them back up. Their gazes locked into each other, as he started explaining.

“I’m… I was a shut-in, back on Earth,” he started by saying. The words ‘shut-in’ were… hard. This was the first time he had to say it out loud, himself. The occasional stroll wasn’t enough to make him not a NEET suddenly. He had no friends, no lover, obviously no family. What the hell was he supposed to do outside?

Satou didn’t react to his obvious distress, either because he wasn’t exactly convinced, or because he had steeled himself to hurt Theo, emotionally or physically.

“Then I save— Well, I think I saved someone. There was a mugger, with a knife, and I stopped him. But got stabbed in return.” Theo held his throat; a faint ache long gone resurfaced. Although he thought it had, the feeling of having his throat cut hadn’t quite gone away yet.

“Then, I was here, in someone else’s body that looked like me. I was restrained by…” Theo said. “Leila.”

Satou raised a brow; he couldn’t quite understand who Theo was talking about.

“The Eternal Night,” Theo added, which made Satou slightly lower the daggers in his hands, for a moment.

Then, Theo went on to explain the rest of his “training” with Leila, omitting the Regressor’s book, the other subjects, and leaving the system for later. As he was done explaining, Satou let the daggers rest by his side.

“But that still doesn’t explain your abilities other than magic. Let’s say that that unhinged woman taught you some unheard-of magical abilities; how do you explain your stamina? Having starved for days, and hurt so badly, aren’t you supposed to be worse than the average adult?” Satou asked. Which was great for Theo. His asking questions meant that he was willing to hear the answers.

“That’s what I was just about to explain,” Theo said. He wasn’t going to lie, he wasn’t going to deceive, but he was sure as hell going to do his damndest to paint himself in the best light possible.

“I have a certain… superpower. Have you ever heard of a system?”

“?”

“An RPG?”

“..?”

“A role-playing game? A video game?”

“Yes. I have heard of those,” Satou answered, obviously very confused.

Theo took a deep breath. The Assassin was so disconnected from such concepts that it would be really hard to explain, but he would manage somehow.

“So you have a ‘system’ that just floats in your vision and gives you tasks when you want to help certain people and makes you stronger?” Satou paraphrased, the sides of his mouth twitching in what seemed to be a mix of anger and disbelief. As a positive sign, however, he had put back his daggers, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Yes, that’s the gist of it,” Theo said. He never thought one of the hardest conversations he had in life would be explaining a LitRPG system to someone who was essentially a grumpy old man when it came to technology. Mumbling stuff about ‘teenagers these days’ and ‘it’s all because of that god damn phone’.

“That’s ridiculous.”

Theo could only nod in answer. He had watered down the concept quite a bit to make it easier for the man to understand, omitting the whole part about ‘The Supreme Main Character’, ‘skills’, and whatnot. Not only was it unnecessary, it was always good to keep some of the stuff to himself.

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“That’s it? You have nothing else to say?” Satou asked. Theo thought for a moment, trying to understand if he was implying something.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Theo said. “I was so busy with myself that I ignored all this and abused your respect toward me.”

The Assassin raised a brow; his mouth opened and closed, clearly baffled by Theo’s sincere apology. Whatever he was trying to imply, it wasn’t this.

“It’s okay. It must have been hard,” he said. “So? What does that system of yours say about me? I assume the reason for your actions so far is some sort of quest.”

“Umm… It’s a bit complicated, but it is mostly about stopping something the system calls ‘The Bandittide’.”

Satou’s eyes widened, then narrowed into a contemplative squint. It seemed that he had remembered something.

“That word, Bandittide, I heard The Lieutenant mutter under his breath. You said this system of yours was probably close to omniscience?”

“Yes. That’s what I think.”

“Then, my worries are true. The bandit clans must have gathered under a warlord and are planning on overthrowing the south,” Satou muttered with a frown.

“Mhm. From the sub-quests I have read through, this really doesn’t seem like a simple matter.”