I was in awe while looking at this screen. I couldn’t understand how any of this was made, or how they achieved these kinds of moving drawings. At first, I felt strange watching the events that unfolded on this ‘movie’ due to how life-like they looked as they made me feel as if I was watching through a window into someone else’s life.
But apparently, these people were just ‘acting’, and the events taking place weren’t even happening at the same time as we were watching it. It was as if someone managed to show the world their memories by using a ‘movie’. I realized after a while that they were similar to going to a theater, although the way the people on the screen portrayed their emotions, the look on their faces and the tone of their voice… I would’ve said that it was all real.
Nicole appeared to be very interested in what was going on at first, but after an hour or so, the girl had dozed off and had been sleeping on my shoulder. I didn’t feel the same way, as I focused on the things that these actors were showing me.
The story itself seemed nonsensical to me for the most part. Nicole claimed it was a romance story, but both people in the story were completely irrational. The woman would sometimes lash out at the man, and the man would do things that would’ve prompted me to leave him where he stood and never see him again.
And yet, I couldn’t help but keep watching as this couple kept interacting with each other, until eventually, after another hour, they finally got together. Once that happened, the moving drawings stopped and were replaced by a lot of names written white words in a black background that were moving upwards as a song played.
I wondered how that couple was going to fare in the future if they were acting like this just on these couple of hours of watching them, but I had to remind myself that they were just acting and that there was a possibility that this is nothing more than a tale that a bard came up with.
As I was about to call out to Nicole to ask her what to do with the computer, I felt a vibration coming from the side of my leg, startling me.
“Nhhhg…” Nicole groggily grunted as she reached her hand under the blanket we were sharing.
The vibration was coming from her phone. She looked at it with one eye half closed while the other remained shut. After a couple of seconds of staring at her phone, she swiped her finger across the screen, and put the phone down on her lap before laying her head back on my shoulder.
I wanted to know what had happened, but the phone started vibrating again, prompting Nicole to quickly swipe her fingers across it before completely turning it off in a similar way as the one I had would be turned off.
She looked up to me with eyes half-closed. “Say Althea…” she spoke, her cheeks blushed and her breath carrying a scent of beer. “Can I stay with you tonight?”
I turned to look at the already dark skies. It hadn’t been that long since the sun set, and the last few times I spent with her, she would leave when it was already dark. However, with how much she had been drinking, it wasn’t a good idea to send her off.
“Very well. But, wouldn’t they be worried at your home if you didn’t come back?”
“Don’t worry about that…” she said with the same groggy voice. “I told them before that I was hanging out with you, so they’ll understand.”
“If you say so, then so be it,” I replied, and after a moment, the girl’s head was laying on my shoulder again, her breath steady.
We had been leaning against the wall with a couple of pillows to watch the movie, so it wasn’t a particularly comfortable position to sleep in. I slid myself down, and gently accommodated Nicole to make sure she would properly sleep on the mattress.
I turned to the computer that was still displaying the same names in a black background, but I wasn’t sure about what to do with the computer, so I waited for a moment to see what would happen. After a few more minutes, the screen changed once again into what Nicole had used to start playing the movie, but I still didn’t know exactly what I should do.
I decided to repeat the things that she was doing before; tapping on the small panel at the front of the computer. The screen changed and another movie started playing. There was some temptation in me to watch it, but what I really wanted was to deactivate the artifact.
However, as I was scrambling on the lower part of the computer, an explosion suddenly flashed on the screen and I quickly turned my eyes to see what had happened. I was stunned, since I didn’t expect such a thing to happen in the middle of a theatrical show, so I focused on the events that were unfolding.
A man dressed in intricate clothes suddenly appeared on the screen. He was covered in mud and blood, while in his expression I could see both the tiredness of combat and the determination to fight.
I leaned forward into the computer, a strong desire to jump in there and see what was going on; to see if there was someone that needed help, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t as my fingers tapped on the screen, reminding me that this was just a recording and that the people there were just acting.
Another person showed up, at least I thought it was a person, but they were far too large to be a normal human. The drawing moved, and it finally showed their face. It was a being with an ash-gray skin face, and completely dark eyes. I wasn’t sure about what it was, since it was clearly not human, but it also didn’t look like a demon. It could be an ogre but…
“The legions of our empire will dominate the galaxy. Your world is doomed. Don’t resist,” it said with a bassy voice, not unlike the one that Bo’guth has.
“What is this…?” I whispered.
No ogre could ever speak this fluently, and it spoke of a completely nonsensical thing like an empire and conquering the galaxy, but Salrak’s allied nations weren’t empires, and I didn’t even know what a galaxy was.
On the screen, something that nearly made me gasp appeared. It was showing a dark sky full of stars, but those stars suddenly moved in, as if the sky was crashing down on the world. I felt again compelled to create a barrier, to fly, to fight back, but once more, the hard screen reminded me that this was just a movie and none of it was real. Or, at least that’s what it was according to Nicole.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I looked to the window in the room, just to make sure that the stars were still there, and in the middle of the few clouds, I saw that the sky was just as calm as always, which meant that it really was just a show.
Still, the realistic representation on the screen amazed me, and I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of magic was used to create such… an illusion.
The movie continued, and I was taken aback even more when those stars got close and the sky in the movie was completely covered by flying boats. I held my breath seeing such an incredible navy of powerful artifacts. The large being pointed his hand down, and the man that was standing in front of him widened his eyes. A lot of barrels at the bottom and sides of the flying boats appeared and I braced to see what was going to happen.
But as soon as I expected a volley of magic to rain down, the screen on the computer went black.
“Huh? What happened?!” I exclaimed and looked around the computer.
I was worried that perhaps the artifact was damaged and I wouldn’t be able to see what was of the battlefield, but soon after, the screen changed once more to show the man in the detailed clothes standing as if nothing had happened, in a peaceful world around him as he walked and talked with people.
“What the—”
My misunderstanding was cleared as a few words on the bottom of the screen said: ‘A few days earlier’.
But even with that, I wanted to know what happened on the battlefield, even if it meant seeing the poor man being torn to pieces by that flying navy.
And so, I sat by the edge of the mattress, my eyes wide open and almost glued to the screen, trying to keep up with every single detail I could pick up about the events that lead to such a one sided conflict.
There were many people in this movie that had interesting magic powers, doing things in ways that I never considered doing, and wearing clothes that were particularly flashy, which in most cases covered their faces.
“Superheroes…” I whispered when one character said that that was what they were.
An image of a certain young man flashed in my mind, and I finally understood what it was that he wanted to do. However, a lot of the things that these so-called superheroes did weren’t particularly good from my point of view, since most of the time, their conflicts would end violently, but without any bloodshed as they simply apprehended their ‘mortal’ enemies, which I found strange, as their kinds of powers would have proven to be fatal in most cases.
I figured that perhaps it was due to there not being enough actual magic power into their spells, but I wouldn’t know unless I saw them for myself, since this artifact—this computer—didn’t emit any kind of magic whatsoever.
After what felt like the blink of an eye, the movie had gotten back to the same place where it started, with the flying navy of boats, and the large unknown being they called an ‘alien’ that came from the sky, pointing his weapons at the man. I braced for the man’s—and his people’s—inevitable downfall, but right as his weapons were about to completely destroy his world, the people that the movie had followed suddenly powered up, their magic getting stronger as they struggled and fought back.
The flying ships were easily getting shot down, and the large being fell defeated to the hands of the group of people, who for some reason, decided that it was a good moment to joke. Soon after that, the world was somehow back to the same normality that it showed at the start, and the people went their separate ways before the screen turned black again, and similar words from the last movie started scrolling.
I sat quietly by the edge of the mattress, in the same position I had taken when this particular movie started. It had given me time to think about the reasoning behind everyone’s actions in this movie, and I realized that nobody really stopped to think about what they were doing. I wondered what they did with their enemy, or what everyone went on to do, even how the world was so easily fixed.
But it didn’t matter what I thought about it, at the end of it all, I realized once more that it was just a movie, and that the people shown there were just acting. The only thing that I should really go out of my way to find out, was how they managed to use that kind of magic for the movie.
The screen changed once more to the same thing that appeared before when Nicole put the first movie. I still didn’t know what to do here, and after moving my finger on the panel, tapping it, and sliding my finger on it again, I couldn’t get the movie out of the screen, only managing to stop it into a still drawing or let it continue. So without having any other option, I left it on a still drawing.
“I guess I’ll have to properly ask Nicole how to use this thing later…” I whispered to myself and looked at the sleeping girl.
The night wasn’t quite as young now, but I wasn’t feeling particularly tired, so I didn’t see a reason to sleep just yet, and with Nicole already resting, there was little that I could do. Luckily, using a phone didn’t make too much noise, so I could practice using it for a while before also going to sleep.
I realized that there really wasn’t much room for me to sleep in, but that wasn’t going to be an issue, since for a long time I had slept on the cold and hard ground of forests and battlefields while being ready to fight at any moment, so I could just sleep on the floor.
I changed out of the academy uniform, sat on the floor by the mattress, and trained with the phone. It was still difficult for me to properly tap the right place on the screen, and most of the time I would confuse where each symbol was on the screen, but I had confidence that it wouldn’t take much time for me to be on par with the people of this world.
Some time later, I felt the tiredness of the day creep in. So I took the phone to one of those chargers before going back to sleep on the floor next to Nicole. One pillow would be enough for me to sleep, so I reached for one and accommodated myself to sleep.
“What are you doing…?” Nicole said with a groggy voice.
“Sorry for waking you up. I’m going to sleep now,” I replied and laid my head on the pillow.
Without saying anything, Nicole shifted on the mattress, moving all the way to the other edge until her back touched the wall. “Don’t sleep on the floor. There’s plenty of room here.”
There really wasn’t as much room as she claimed. I was going to refuse her offer, but when I looked at her face, she was already fast asleep. So with a sigh, I also moved, taking only enough room for myself and making sure that we both were covered by the blanket.
I turned to look at her sleeping face. She still carried that blush from all the drinks she had, but her calm breathing and her soft features reminded me once again of the peaceful moments that I had enjoyed lately, even if some of the things in this world were annoying, none of those things posed a threat to the world.
However… I turned myself over to look away from her and to the ceiling as I tried to imagine the sky with frown. I hadn’t forgotten about the reason why I'm in this world in the first place. Things hadn’t been like they were in that second movie, where I defeated Salrak and the world went on as if nothing happened. I had caused the destruction of my world by the huge role I played for the Holy Gods. The threat was still out there, and I still hadn’t atoned for what I had done.
I had to be ready to face them, as Salrak said, and I wasn’t going to just stand aside to let them have their way. I closed my eyes and reflected on all the things I had yet to do; the world I had yet to understand; and the power I had yet to get, all so I can make sure that at least the people of this world—and the few ones from mine that are here—can live the same kind of peaceful lives that I had just tasted, if only for a moment.
While thinking of those things, my mind started drifting away, unaware of the things that were happening behind closed doors.