I stealthily moved the brazier to Elincia’s bedroom without scalding my hands. A wicked wind howled outside, but I rested assured no orphan would come to disturb us. Firana had convinced Zaon and Wolf to do a sleepover in the communal bedroom the youngest kids shared. After looking over the kids for two hours, Ginz seemed so tired that I doubted he could remain awake long enough.

Elincia and I were finally alone, and I had big news to tell her.

A lonely light stone cast a dim light over the bedroom. I sat on the bed and removed my boots while Elincia changed her clothes behind the wooden screen. For the first time in months, despite all the day's emotions, I wasn’t completely exhausted. The Green Moss tasted like coffee, but sadly, it lacked the caffeine. I would have to thank Ginz for helping with the kids.

I got rid of my clothes and put on my white pajama pants before Elincia returned from the other side of the screen. I assumed she had a nightly routine involving herbal oils and moisturizing lotions because she smelled like flower meadows and green pine. I could use some lotion for my hands. I looked for my nightgown, but it was nowhere to be found.

“Looking for this?” Elincia asked with a mischievous, waving the piece of white clothing in her hand.

“Give it back. I'm going to catch a cold!” I said.

Elincia stood just out of my reach and examined my chest. [Making the Difference] and [Researcher of the Hidden] had pushed the Corruption tendrils back to the black core in the middle of my chest. Maybe my mana pool’s health improvement could have contributed to my improved state of mind.

“It looks a lot better,” Elincia sighed in relief as she gave me the nightgown.

I crawled inside the bed as soon as I got into my nightgown. Maybe half-elves were cold-proof, but I wasn’t. With each passing day, I discovered a new peak of coldness in Farcrest’s climate. I couldn’t wait for the winter to end. As soon as I could find a free moment, I’d try to enchant a portable heater.

“Aren’t you coming?” I asked, seeing Elincia standing by the brazier.

“I’m waiting for you to warm the sheets,” she smiled innocently.

After a moment, Elincia entered the bed and snuggled up to my side. As per custom, she nibbled my shoulder to her heart’s content. She said she liked to feel the muscle with her teeth. I patiently waited for her to finish before dropping the bomb.

”Remember how you said you hate liars?”

“Yes. I hate liars and flimsy Scholars, yet my man is both of them,” Elincia replied, poking my side with her fingers. I ignored her. During the last months, I have grown quite a lot of muscle around the back and shoulders.

“Well, I have two pieces of good news for you, cutie-pie,” I said.

“Ah! Nice one. I know you are level fifteen or so. You still need thirty or more levels to start thinking about a Prestige Class. Even then, you’ll need great Class achievements for the System to bless you with a promotion,” Elincia said from her comfortable position beside me. “I’ll take your initiative in telling the truth as a sign you are fully committed to this relationship, though.”

“I am fully committed to this relationship!” I replied, somewhat angry.

“Are you if you are hiding things from me?” Elincia said.

“I swear to God I had a good reason for that,” I sighed. Elincia had been patient with me, but with the Silence Pact lifted, I could finally tell her the truth. “I want to hear it from your mouth. What parts do you think I’m lying about?”

Elincia looked at the ceiling as if she were recalling a distant memory.

“I don’t know anymore. At first, I thought you were the son of a noble house or wealthy merchant family, raised and sheltered from the outside world. You were too flimsy even for a non-combatant and low-level for someone with minimal life experience,” Elincia shrugged. “Honestly, I thought you would bail out after a week at the orphanage.”

“Your food isn’t that bad,” I jabbed back at her.

“Shut it! You looked like the kind of dude needing half a dozen assistants to survive,” Elincia replied.

I pulled an arm out of the blankets and summoned an illusion of me sitting on a beach chair with five swimsuit-clad Elincia clones pampering me. One Elincia held an umbrella, the other massaged my shoulders, the third fanned me out with a palm branch, and the next two fed me grapes and a pink margarita on the rocks, respectively.

Elincia giggled at the illusion and waved her hand, trying to dispel it.

“Flowery shirts suit you, but that will not get you off the hook. There is also the fact you were ignorant about basic concepts about the System. You had a hundred titles regarding teaching while you ignored the basics of Class acquisition and promotion. If that’s not suspicious, I don’t know what it is,” Elincia pointed out, leaning on her shoulders and fixing her eyes on me. “I can only guess why you keep it all to yourself. So, was I close to the truth?”

“Close, yet very far,” I replied, trying to put my ideas in order. I must start at the beginning. “When I first arrived here, the System warned me against telling anyone about my place of origin.”

“But you told me you came from the City of Lights,” Elincia said.

“It was a lie. I’m not from the City of Lights. I come from a place that might not be in this world. The great city of Hartford, Connecticut. On planet Earth.” I replied.

Elincia raised an eyebrow.

“Portals can cover great distances, Rob. I might have lived all my life in this backwater hellhole known as Farcrest, but Mr. Lowel made sure I knew a thing or two,” Elincia said skeptically.

“I mean it. My world isn’t anywhere similar to Farcrest,” I said, making the illusion of the five Elincias serving me disappear.

Elincia chuckled by my side. “The world is huge, Rob. Your beloved City of Lights might be a hundred days of travel from the Farlands. The fact you didn’t know about the Kingdom of Ebros doesn’t mean you come from another world.”

“Oh, trust me. We’ve mapped the whole planet, and this kingdom is not there. We even sent a spaceship to the moon and the nearby planets. We have sent probes out of our solar system and peeked into nearby galaxies with long-range telescopes.” I replied, summoning a projection of the Columbia launch.

Elincia sat on the bed for a better view and glanced at the initial ignition with her mouth open. Then, the rocket slowly rose to the sky, leaving a huge trail of white smoke. The solid rocket boosters detached from the main body. I zoomed out until the shuttle was a speck of white against the vast blue globe. After the shuttle orbited Earth a couple of times, the illusion ended.

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“All that happened before I was even born,” I said.

“How do you know what the launch looked like?” Elincia asked.

“Remember Byrne’s device that makes still images?” I asked.

I moved my hand again and summoned a family watching the launch on TV while eating pre-made dinner from aluminum trays.

“That apparatus shows several still images every second, creating the illusion of movement. It’s not magic. Nothing is,” I explained as I projected a few seconds of several old shows. I zoomed out and summoned roads, cars, skyscrapers, parks, schools, and universities until I had a small city floating centimeters over Elincia’s bed.

I summoned cargo ships, cranes, planes, and hanging bridges. Electric light, running water, and gas stoves. A stadium packed with four times the population of Farcrest. Eternal corn fields harvested by industrial machinery. Intersections plagued with white-collar workers waiting for traffic. Dams, aqueducts, assembly lines, and other great engineering works.

Elincia asked, and I answered. Most of the home appliances seemed like enchanted items to her, so I had to stop and give her a crash course in electronics. Motorized vehicles left a strong impression on her, and I had to summon illusions of Formula One and the rally World Championship for an hour or more until she was satisfied. Then, I made the mistake of showing her modern fighter aircraft.

I lost track of time, but when I finished, there was little chance Elincia kept believing we came from the same world. The whole setting was absurd. We were both dressed in Renaissance-style pajamas, sitting on each side of the bed and watching technological marvels from my world.

“Your people tricked iron and wood to behave like magic,” Elincia finally said with an expression of awe and fear.

“As my distant relative used to say, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’,” I said, wondering if the ‘magic’ of this world wasn’t just a technology even superior to the System itself. As far as the words of the System’s Avatar went, the System was just an interface to connect people and the Fountain. The Fountain was already there even before the System's original creator arrived in this world.

Elincia walked to her dresser and retrieved her terracotta shawl. The embers inside the brazier were completely burnt out. She peeked through the curtains. The first dawn lights emerged from behind the mountain range by the east.

“I’m sorry for not telling you earlier, Eli, but my hands were tied,” I apologized.

Despite her having a good time with the illusions so far, Elincia was on the verge of crying.

“You are very far from home, aren’t you?” She walked to the bed and sat on my lap.

“Well… the System offered me the chance to return, and here I am. This is my home now,” I shrugged, forecasting a scolding from Elincia.

Suddenly, any sign of tears disappeared from Elincia’s face.

“So, you decided to leave all those nice things behind? The motorcycles, the canned soup, the hot water?!”

“I was kinda bored of the modern world, and magic powers sounded like a nice thing to have,” I admitted, even though it sounded really stupid.

Elincia sighed, placing her cheek against mine. “From the millions of earthlings on the other side of the portal, I happen to get the most stupid one.”

“Best luck next time,” I replied, squeezing her against my chest.

“I don’t need a ‘next time’. I would choose you any time,” she said.

Suddenly, Elincia stiffened in my arms, and I thought she had heard someone out of the bedroom. However, as much as I strained my ears, I couldn’t hear anything. There was still an hour left until the orphans who rose the earliest awakened.

“I just lost a title,” she announced, pulling up her character sheet.

Name: Elincia Rosebud, Half-Elf (Light-Footed, Night Vision).

Class: Alchemist Lv.38

Titles: Governess, Wild Child, Bad Reputation, Better Half, Copper Alchemist, Favorite Teacher (5).

Passive: Archery Lv.3, Tracking Lv.5, Farsight Lv.1, Foraging Lv.5.

Skills: Potion Crafting, True Shot, Piercing Shot, Purify Water.

“Better Half? What does that even mean?! I am not… My titles don’t revolve around my marital status!” Elincia grumbled at the ceiling.

I had to hold back my laughter. I knew precisely how getting annoying messages from the System felt. For Elincia, it was different, however. For the inhabitants of this world, the System was similar to a minor divinity.

“He can be like that,” I sighed.

“He?” Elincia pushed me back and looked directly into my eyes. She was terrified.

“Would you take me as a madman if I told you the System is a chubby blonde man with khaki pants and a yellow shirt?” I asked, trying to sound reassuring.

“Yes. I’d ask you to show me your Personal Sheet to ensure you don’t have any stacks of insanity,” Elincia replied, used to my somewhat outlandish bedroom chat.

I summoned my Character Sheet and projected it in front of us.

“I talked with the System inside my mana pool. We reached an accord, and he lifted the Silence Pact I was subject to.” I said.

“You are lying.”

“I wish it was that easy.” I sighed. “When I was at Abei’s study earlier today, I touched the System Shrine Fragment that Byrne and Lowell found and met him. See that title? [Researcher of the Hidden]? I got that one after he told me about the System's origin.”

I touched the title with my mind, and a small explanatory window appeared.

Researcher of the Hidden: A title for those who have learned the world's deepest secrets.

Elincia grabbed her head in disbelief, her eyes wide open. “Swear on Shu’s wings and Nokti’s potatoes.”

“I swear,” I replied.

“What did I get myself into?” Elincia sighed.

Suddenly, a System prompt popped in front of my eyes.

New title acquired!

Out of Your League: Somehow, you convinced your significant other to oversee your apparent flaws and many red flags.

Reward: Gain access to your significant other’s racial bonus.

I swiftly re-opened my character sheet. [Stone in Love] and [Lonely Boy] had disappeared.

Name: Robert Clarke, Human. (Light-Footed, Night Vision)

Class: Runeweaver Scholar Lv.1 (Displayed Class: Scholar Lv.15)

Titles: Out of your League, Hot for Teacher, Confidant, Classroom Fiend, Favorite Teacher (97), Father Figure (2), Master Tutor, Silver Scholar, Delinquent Reformer (5), Stalwart Mentor (7), Making the Difference, Role Model, Expert Mathematician, Expert Physicist, Adept Historian, Adept Linguist, Journeyman Biologist, Novice Chemist, Novice Orator.

Passive: Lv.5 Swordsmanship, Mana Mastery, A̵w̴arɐnes̵s, Master of Languages.

Skills: I̶d̶en̴t̶i̷f̴y, Stun Gaze, Intimi̷dɐte, Minor Illusion.

“Eli, check your new title, quick,” I said, guessing her new title would also have an attached bonus.

Elincia’ complained, and her eyes shot wide open.

“What in the everloving System? I have partial access to your mana pool now,” Elincia muttered. Suddenly, I felt a slight tug on my chest, and Elincia’s hands caught blue fire. She examined her hands with fascination.

“Please treat me kindly. My mana pool is in a catastrophic state,” I nervously laughed. Having access to my mana pool seemed both frightening and exciting for her. Teaching her [Mana Manipulation] suddenly jumped several spots on my to-do list.

Elincia left my lap, grabbed many flasks from the shelves, retrieved her alchemy kit, and without saying a word, she started brewing.

“What are you doing?” I inquired, missing her touch.

“Abusing the System,” Elincia replied with a glint of madness in her eyes. “Alchemists gain mana by experimenting with new recipes, which I had neglected for the past decade. You can force incompatible alchemy components to bond with enough mana, creating new potions.”

That was my girl.

The distant sound of a rooster reached my ears, and the first rays of the sun illuminated the backyard. I smiled, deciding to let her work in peace. Elincia had taken the news better than I expected, and a part of me thought I didn’t deserve such kindness. The only thing I could do to repay her was to improve my skills to ensure the well-being of the orphanage.

“I guess it’s time to experiment with my new class,” I whispered.