> “The EL Project has been hugely successful. That is, if you define ‘successful’ as ‘successfully wasting hundreds of millions of credits.’ Why does Kraej need super-soldiers who cost millions each when an automatic anti-personnel weapon is just as effective but can be bought for a few thousand credits?”

>

> — Excerpt from the minutes of a weekly meeting of the Budget and Management Committee

Asteria

The goddess went away, saying she had to prepare for my transfer to the other world. She promised to return when it was time.

In the meantime, I continued to dream of the EL lab and Seraphiel.

After the anima chamber treatment came a series of hair-raising tests. They made him do a series of physical activities as they measured his physical and spell-casting speed and power. They cut, burned, and bruised Seraphiel to see how long it would take him to heal.

I chatted with him to distract him from the pain.

“You know, I have a secret nickname for you. Do you want to know what it is?”

“I’m not from Verden at all, have I told you that? I’m from a place far, far away, beyond the stars.”

“These people are doctors, right? Or maybe I should call them quacks. They can’t even tell that you’re holding back your strength in the physical tests.”

That got some reaction. Seraphiel turned his head in my direction and glared at me. The doctor who was standing beside me paled.

“Yes, I know about that. You’re actually much stronger than they know. Hiding your true abilities is smart.”

The poor kid’s limits were always being tested in the lab. I remembered the whole calculus debacle. When Seraphiel was able to solve basic calculus problems, his math teacher gave him more and more homework until he was buried in it. Likewise, if he showed he was stronger or more skilled, they’d schedule more intense training. That was too tiring no matter how good a person was. He’d learned to hide his true abilities.

Seraphiel turned his head away and I stopped talking since the researchers had finally finished their tests.

I waited until he had gone back to his room before speaking again. Now that I had committed myself to reincarnating into this world, I no longer treated this as an amusing dream. I had an idea of how to communicate with Seraphiel.

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“Are you not talking to me because of the doctors here? If you want to communicate I’ll just ask yes or no questions. If you want to say yes, twitch the index finger of your right hand. If it’s no, the left one. Do you want to talk to me?”

Seraphiel, who was lying down on his bed, twitched his right index finger. That was a yes. I was overjoyed.

“Hmmm, I guess this room isn’t safe for you to talk. Okay, I’ll list the places I know. Make a fist with your left hand when I say the right one.” I omitted the places that were obviously not safe like the lab and testing rooms. “Gym, library, study room, dining room, pantry, music room, sports equipment storage, weapons room… um…”

I had run out of the places that I knew but Seraphiel still hadn’t reacted. I racked my brains for more places but…

“Wait, oh my goodness, you can’t mean… the toilet and the shower room?!”

Seraphiel’s left hand formed a fist.

I couldn’t stop myself from giggling. “Hahaha! Just so you know, I’ve never gone inside there. I have standards!”

It did make sense that the one place where the doctors didn’t have monitoring equipment were the toilets and showers. I mean, Seraphiel didn’t have his own separate facilities and the doctors surely wouldn’t want to put cameras in the places where they wanted privacy.

“Okay, let’s go to the showers then. I’ll keep my eyes closed because I’m not a pervert!” Though I said that, Seraphiel was actually young enough that there wasn’t any real incentive for me to look. He’s cute but I’m not interested in little boys.

Seraphiel grabbed a towel, change of clothes, and his toiletries before making his way to the showers. I followed behind him.

“I like your hair,” I said. His hair wasn’t that long right now but I knew he had very long hair in his adult form. “It must be hard to take care of really long hair though.”

Seraphiel looked around to check that the coast was clear. Then, entering the stall farthest from the door, he took his clothes off and turned on the shower. I kept a hand over my eyes.

“Who the hell are you?” Seraphiel whispered in a voice that could barely be heard above the water.

“I’m…” What was I to him? A ghost? A hero who was coming to save him? “I’m your friend.”

Seraphiel snorted. “What are you?”

“I’m a person from another world.” I shrugged even though I knew he couldn’t see me.

“Why are you here?” I could just imagine the expression on Seraphiel’s cute little face based on the dissatisfied tone of his voice.

“...” I couldn’t answer honestly. If I told him I was here to save Verden then he might wait for me to come and fix things which might be fatal for him since I knew what the future had in store for him.

“Are you…” Seraphiel seemed to be struggling with something. “You… you’re an angel, aren’t you?”

An angel? I knew that angels were god’s messengers which, as someone with a mission from the goddess, described me to a T. “Yes, I am… but I’m an unusual type of angel.”

“You’re weird,” said Seraphiel. For once he sounded his age. He sounded like he was smiling, but I couldn’t remove the hand from my eyes to check.

“...”

“But that’s okay,” Seraphiel quickly added.

“Thanks, kid,” I said.

“Why do you always call me ‘kid’? How old...?”

But I could no longer hear the rest of his question because a familiar blackness had taken hold of me.