Ginzari’s tent was just slightly larger than the others, at least from the outside. I hadn’t really seen a closed one from the outside, so maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me. But that’s what it looked like. Prince told me to wait where I was, and called out to Ginzari, who opened up the flaps just a little bit and allowed the cook to poke his head in.

From where I was, I caught one or two words that didn’t make much sense. That is to say, nothing at all. They talked for around a minute or two before Prince pulled his head back out and turned to me with an awkward smile, “He remembered he had just a little bit of work left over from tomorrow, so you’re going to have to wait a few more minutes.”

“Oh, that’s no problem!” I assured him and took a comfortable standing stance.

Prince nodded and started to roam around the tent, looking here and there for something. I didn’t feel like asking what exactly he wanted, so I kept silent and waited for the leader to call me inside.

“What work does he do?” I asked Prince, who suddenly hurried over with happiness.

“Well, you see, mercenaries here have quite good connections. Almost all of the bands know each other and their leaders. So, every time they carry out a job, they let the other leaders know how it went. Between corresponding with them, handling our own men who have gone away on missions and making sure that resources are being managed properly, he has quite a lot of stuff on his plate. I can’t imagine he will have too much time to spare for you. Consider it lucky if you get even ten minutes.”

Scary.

How was I supposed to tell this man all of my problems if he only gave me ten minutes of his time? On top of that, wouldn’t most of that time be spent by him welcoming me to the band and general greetings like that? I needed to play these few minutes right, because they could lead to consequences I did not want to see. If I somehow ended up in the worst situation, I could just tell him what I wanted to tell him as Prince pulled me out of the tent due to running out of time.

Then, the flaps slightly opened, of which Prince took immediate attention and ran over to the opening. He put his head in once more and talked to Ginzari. This time, it was for a much shorter time. The cook removed his head and stepped back a little bit, pointing towards the entrance.

“Get in.” He said before moving further backwards.

I hesitated a bit as the flaps slowly opened more and more. I stepped forward and got ready to enter. The flaps completely opened, and I could see the large figure of that man once more. I took a long breath, and stepped inside.

The tent was definitely a bit larger than the others.

Or Ginzari was really good at interior designing and perspective manipulation.

Because with a bed, an entire bookshelf, a larger table than mine, and two chairs instead of one, this tent was a luxury compared to the ones everyone else was using. I also noticed that the floor had a carpet on it, and wasn’t just pure dirt like mine.

“Why are you looking at the carpet?” were the very first words that I heard him directly say to me.

“I, uh-” There was obviously no answer.

“I mean, you have one in your room too, don’t you?”

“No…?” I spoke in as confused a manner as possible.

“Hmm, maybe it’s because yours was set up in a hurry. Don’t worry, it will probably be there when you get back.” He looked towards the outside of the tent, where me and Prince had been standing a minute ago. There was a shadow there, whose owner was very obvious. As soon as Ginzari said the words, the man rushed away towards the camp.

“Anyways, please sit down.” He gestured towards the chair.

I immediately followed his order. He pulled the other one towards himself and sat down too.

The chair seemed a bit small in front of him. I am not sure if the idea came across properly, but he was quite big. His look itself screamed muscle and strength. It was the exact opposite of the way Hess carried and presented herself. But those were the only differences they had, because Ginzari’s strength definitely did not contrast with his appearance, unlike her. And then to think that there were most definitely stronger people in this world. Did we really even need that kind of strength?

I considered the question, but then remembered who the number one real enemy of everyone in this world was. Then, I asked myself if the ones who were stronger than Ginzari were even strong enough.

Ginzari scratched one of his ears as he asked me, “You intend to join the mercenaries?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tomorrow, we’ll have a test to see if you’re qualified to use any of the weapons that we consider to be necessary, Swords, Bows, Magic. If you can show control over any one of these, you get in.” He neatly explained.

Also, my chances of getting in dropped quite considerably just there. I had zero skills with all three of the types he had mentioned. Maybe I could ask him if there were more options –

“Um, sir? I just wa-”

“But more importantly than any of this, are the answers to the questions that I wish to ask you right now.” Ginzari suddenly spoke in between.

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I shut myself up and nodded my head, bracing for impact.

“First of all, what were you doing before the hospital? How did you get there?”

He had probably heard of my theory regarding the writer already. That was probably also the reason Hess had asked me about my story. So, I told him exactly what I had told Olbert the first time we met. The actual story, with all the edits to remove the parts they probably didn’t need to know. At the same time, I edited a bit more, on the spot, myself, and tried to make it as obvious as possible that I wasn’t telling him the whole truth. Hopefully he could read between the lines a little.

“You are from another world, then?” Ginzari nodded, and a slight smile formed on his face, “That makes me happy. There’s finally two of us.”

Huh?

“Huh?”

“Yeah.” His smile became more concrete, “I’m guessing it comes to you as a bit of surprise?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed with joy, “I mean, wow! This is crazy. I-I have a lot of questions right now. But, most importantly, you are actually from Ea-”

“No.”

“What?”

Ginzari nodded once more, “I am also from another world, but I am not from your world. I am from another another world. That makes a bit more sense, I hope?”

“But how can you be sure about that?” I asked, “I mean, maybe we are actually both from the same world. I haven’t even told you where I am from!”

Ginzari shook his head, “There is no chance for you to be from my world, considering the circumstances of what had happened when I came here. That, however, is beyond the point of this meeting.”

“You remember your world? As in, every single part of it?”

“Of course. Do you not?”

“Well, not completely.” This was definitely the right time to mention it. Otherwise, I didn’t know what his other original plans for this meeting were, and how long that would go on for, “I remember aspects, concepts, ideas. But I can’t seem to remember anyone I personally knew. My original family, my friends, acquaintances. They’re all a blur that I can’t make out.”

“That’s interesting.” Ginzari put his hand on his chin, “I haven’t heard of that happening before this. To be honest, I don’t know many other people who are like us. The few I do know never really talked about their pasts. You must be quite desperate about the situation, to tell me something so important, so quickly.”

“Yeah.” I whispered.

“I’ll try to think about. There’s nothing else I can do, after all. For now, though, we will get back to the original point of this meeting. Why do you wish to join our mercenary band?”

“I, uh,” I could just tell him in the roundabout way I had used for the others, but I couldn’t bring a way to do it in my mind. Sylvia had understood my tone because she had been with me for the last few days, and could notice the shift. Ginzari did not have the same luxury of knowledge. The two options I had were to desperately try and hope he understood, or just make up a lie. The first one could fail very spectacularly, and end up giving a bad impression. The second one could get me stuck in a position that I did not want in this band. There was nothing else…no. Today morning, a new story had started. Maybe once more, I could harness the simple fact that God would want more suffering out of me. So, I ended up finishing, “was given stage directions to join you.”

I vomited blood and fell forward.

Ginzari stood up from his chair and held me up. The blood did not stop coming for some time. I had taken no external damage. It was internal this time. That meant that I had no idea what had gone wrong. But there was one thing I could infer right now. I was successful. His sadism would always get the better of him. He was a slave to his want of despair. As long as I could take injuries for breaking small rules like this, I wouldn’t die.

“Prince, get Kai-!” Ginzari shouted towards the entrance of the tent. His voice was exactly as loud as it had been on the ground that day. Prince wasn’t near the tent anymore, but I was pretty sure he heard it.

And yet, “No, please.” It wasn’t difficult to talk. The damage was definitely not in those parts then.

“Are you mad?” Ginzari put me back on the chair, “Internal injuries aren’t what healing magic is made for. You wait for too long, and it will become untreatable.”

“That’s fine.” I took deep breaths and wiped the blood from my mind, looking down at the puddle that had formed on the ground, “There’s something I need to tell you, that I can’t let anyone else know.”

Ginzari sighed and sat back on his chair, “You certainly cut short the interview procedure. I guess you’re in, given your answer. Go ahead and tell me what you want to. Then, you can leave and prepare for your test tomorrow.”

There was a weird swirl in my throat. As if something was still stuck there. I coughed to get it out, but only got more blood. I groaned and coughed even more, but the sensation did not disappear.

That was fine. It did not stop me from talking.

I proceeded to tell him. About the fact that I couldn’t feel any emotions towards the people of this world either. How nothing in the hospital that I logically knew to be devastating had any mental effect on me.

“I can’t get it out of my head.” I said, “There’s just this part of my brain that keeps telling me to not worry about any of it. That none of these people are from my world, so they don’t have any connection to me. I think some part of me is still treating this as a fantasy story that I am reading in a book, or watching in a show.”

“I…didn’t really understand the last part, but I do get what you mean.” His eyes were closed. He seemed quite troubled, “All I can tell you is that that’s a dangerous line of thought, kid. I…have never come across a person like that. As I said, your situation seems to be wildly different than that of others I know. Even then, I shall try my best to find some answers.”

He stood up and put his hand on my head, before pulling me up by the shoulders.

“Go and get yourself ready for the test without worrying about things like that. We shall figure it out together. And maybe one day, when I am not this busy, we can share the stories of our own worlds.” He smiled, “And dwell on our common misfortune.”

“Thank you.”

“But first, go to Kaisel. See if he can do anything about it.”

I nodded, thanked him once more and left the tent.

Kaisel had nothing to say. He was sitting all alone in his tent in the afternoon. When I told him what had happened, he asked me to sit down and used his magic. But he couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong. His magic allowed him to note internal movements of blood and organs, while understanding the severity of external wounds. But there was nothing like that in my body. Whatever internal wound it was, he could not detect it.

I thanked him anyways and went back to my tent, where a carpet was now present. Prince worked fast.

I went and lay down in the bed. I did not feel like going out and exploring the camp right now. Nothing had come out of telling Ginzari my problems. There was no doubt that it was going to build up to something, since it had been a part of my stage directions. But it could not be anything good. I was the first person to whom something like this had happened. Obviously, my entrance into the theatre itself probably had something to do with it.

Prince came by later in the day to give me food once more, which was more frolabeast cooked in a different manner. These creatures must be massive to be able to feed around fifty people two times. Or they had hunted five or six of them. Whatever it was, I did not dwell on it too much. The cook asked me to come out and meet some more people, but I told him that I was trying to think about the test tomorrow, and stayed inside.

That’s probably what he told to the other people too, since nobody else came to look for me. I was happy for that.

Later, I went to sleep. Two o’clock came and went, and I did not go out even when I heard the voices outside. Nobody came to me either. I went to sleep once more.

I got out of my tent the next day in the morning, for the test.