"What exactly did you all experience in the human world that allowed you to advance so quickly? I've never seen anyone advance this fast before..." Elara asked with great interest.
"Uh, nothing too special..." I was too embarrassed to admit that I just fell asleep, was knocked out for a bit, and advanced when I woke up. And Casey was one thing, but Elara was a sly old fox who had probably lived for thousands of years. If she heard that she'd think I was messing with her, and that would be a huge misunderstanding.
So I decided to go with Nicola's experience of advancing, combined with some of our own to summarize: "Just fighting monsters, doing quests, stuff like that..."
"Fighting monsters? Doing quests?" Elara repeated, seemingly puzzled. "I can kind of understand fighting monsters, but what exactly do you mean by 'doing quests'?"
"You know, the Adventurers' Guild right?" I explained to her. "We spent most of this past month there taking on jobs to earn money. Lots of the quests involved combat like slaying magical beasts. It was pretty intense training."
"Just doing those kinds of quests allowed you to advance so quickly?" Elara looked shocked. Of course, logically, no amount of training should allow someone's advancement time of decades to suddenly shrink to this degree.
"Um..." At this point I didn't know what else I could say, because that basically summed up my and Nicola's lives this past month.
"The only other possibility is that it has something to do with where we came from..." I said, looking towards Elara. "So what exactly was that Angelic Descent Formation? How did it bring us here?"
Unable to hold back anymore, Nicola jumped in ahead of me to ask the critical questions about our crossing over.
"You've already asked Cyra and the others that before, including Reed if I recall," Elara responded, seemingly frustrated. "And I've clearly explained it to them already."
"But you two weren't there at the time, so since you're asking now I might as well explain again..."
"The Angelic Descent Formation is a ritual we angels use to summon newborn angels. Almost all angels since ancient times have been born through this ritual, including myself. It is also our primary method of increasing our population," Elara explained.
"Then what's the deal with us four... No, I should say what's with all the newborn angels this time? I've heard from Serena that we're somewhat special," I quickly followed up with another question.
The information she had provided so far was stuff we had already roughly guessed from snippets said by the other angels. But it was still far from fully answering the doubts in my mind.
"You're right, you are indeed different compared to previous newborn angels..." Elara readily nodded in agreement.
"Halfway through this latest summoning, some unexpected situations occurred. Monster attacks disrupted the workings of the ritual, causing the connection to the cycle of reincarnation to be cut. The ritual then accidentally connected to another space - specifically, the place you were before being summoned..."
"What is this 'cycle of reincarnation'?" Nicola excitedly cut in. After waiting so long we were finally getting some solid info about our transmigration here, it wasn't easy!
"The cycle of reincarnation, as the name implies, is naturally where the souls of the deceased are reborn..." Elara explained, her tone and expression turning solemn.
"This should be considered an extremely confidential topic. Aside from the High Tower sages who love to research the truths of the world, I'd guess very few humans know of the existence of the reincarnation cycle, including many rulers of nations..."
"Could it be that our souls were drawn in as part of the reincarnating souls into the Angelic Descent Formation?" I incredulously voiced out my speculation. To think that the concept of reincarnation existed in this world!
"You guessed correctly..." Elara sighed and gave an affirmative reply. She then took the initiative to confess:
"Ultimately, this accident was my responsibility. Your souls were inadvertently pulled into the ritual and reborn as angels, which I did not anticipate originally. Therefore, as an act of good faith and compensation, I decided to tell you the full truth."
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I was surprised Elara would so sincerely take the blame onto herself like this. It raised my opinion of her quite a bit.
"Now that you all are members of the angel tribe, I still hope you abide by our rules and keep confidential everything relating to the Angelic Descent Formation!"
However, she immediately sternly warned us:
"Because this concerns the continuation of our tribe - remember, do not casually divulge any of this to others! Otherwise, I can only punish you according to our laws."
"...We understand."
Nicola and I thought it over and could only nod in agreement. After all, she was treating us like one of her own. If we couldn't even agree to such a basic request it would be going overboard.
Besides that, we couldn't overpower her either.
"From your manner of speaking, it seems you already knew we were originally humans?" Since Elara was being so blunt, Nicola directly asked without beating around the bush.
"That's not too surprising."
As if having anticipated we would ask this, she explained in great detail:
"Souls that have gone through reincarnation have no memories. Normal newborn angels without memory infusion would be like human babies, knowing nothing. But since this ritual was hit by forbidden spells at the end, even the memory infusion was interrupted. Yet you still displayed a massive amount of unexpected knowledge. So it was very easy to draw that conclusion."
"Then why are you still so readily accepting us? Do our origins not matter at all to you?" I also gave voice to my doubts. Since she already knew all this yet didn't treat us as outsiders at all, it just didn't feel that realistic.
"You're overthinking things. No matter whether or not you were originally humans, as long as you are angels now I have no reason not to accept you all."
Clearly, Elara did not care about who we used to be, and said matter-of-factly:
"Besides, with how few angels we have now I'm in no place to pick and choose. In fact, even with angels who reincarnated through normal descents, it's not impossible some used to be human before undergoing a rebirth. So you can effectively be considered new lives now, with the only difference from other angels being whether or not you retain memories of your previous self. Though that can be troublesome, as retaining memories means differences in previous stances could lead to conflicts. But since you all came from another world entirely, you don't need to worry about that at all."
Got it, here is the full translation:
"You even know we're not from this world?"
I was greatly shocked, having not expected her to understand us to such an extent.
"Um...actually, I was the one who spilled the beans. Because when I heard this world also had something similar to the True Church, I got too excited at that moment..."
Cyra scratched her head apologetically. Right now she was standing behind me, looking very well-behaved and docile - it was clear she held some reverence for Elara.
"You're incapable of keeping secrets, huh..." I said, somewhat speechless as I looked at her. To think she would let our origins slip out just like that.
"Even if Cyra hadn't said anything, I could have roughly guessed a little..." Elara laughed as she helped explain things for Cyra.
"Generally no one is named like that around here. Especially followers of the True Church faith."
"What exactly makes that angel who shares my name so special? She's even called a holy angel - so what's her connection with angels?" Cyra asked, extremely curious.
"And I heard she's God's wife, is that true?" I was also quite mystified by this figure, so I went ahead and asked as well.
"As for whether the holy angel Cyra truly exists... I'm not quite certain, since I've never seen her before..." with unease, Elara told us everything she knew about Cyra.
"But our records document her existence, though she was merely a six-winged angel..."
"A six-winged angel?"
I wondered if I had misheard. Wasn't the title of holy angel supposed to be so prestigious? Yet she only had six wings like I currently did.
"That's right, this was also something I found puzzling," she went on.
"The holy angel Cyra did indeed only have six wings. But many first-generation angels have personally admitted she single-handedly founded the True Church. And some ancient legends go even further, claiming she is the genuine ancestor of we angels. That's why the True Church keeps harping on those rumors, publicly declaring Cyra as Yawee's wife, while we angels are her servants..."
After hearing all this, I finally understood why the angels and the True Church had such a delicate relationship. That kind of hijacking other's history - things were already pretty cordial if they hadn't come to blows.
"Don't angels have very long lifespans? Wouldn't finding those angels who personally saw Cyra and questioning them clear up the misunderstanding?"
I didn't get why such a simple matter had to keep getting dragged out like this.
"It's true angels have long lives, but most never make it to the end..." She could only bitterly smile as she answered:
"To begin with, not many of the first generation of angels were born. Over these thousands of years, more and more perished in battle. Even I as one of the eldest, wasn't born until much later. And then there's how the holy angel herself disappeared so long ago that there's no way left to verify anything now."
If that was the case, then this had become an unsolvable mystery. Recalling the bleak scenes within the city from before, I deeply understood just how heavy the angel tribe's battle losses were.
"Why not change your name then?" I suggested to Cyra after looking at her. The holy angel Cyra of this world was quite creepy. If Cyra went out into the wider world, she might easily be mistaken for her.
"Can't you reverse the Angelic Descent ritual to send us back instead?" Cyra gloomily asked.
"Send you back?"
I was surprised to hear her suddenly make this kind of request. I could understand wanting to say such things after just crossing over. But we were already over a month in. Wasn't she bringing this up a little late?