My mind churned for a moment: should I deny it? No, I was going to tell her at some point anyway, may as well be now.
“How did you know I was an otherworlder?”
Tear sighed, held up a hand, and began counting off. “First, your abilities are absurd, to the degree that even I can tell. Second, for your abilities, you know too little and lack too much common sense. Third, you came from ‘somewhere far away’ that highly knowledgeable adventurers ‘wouldn’t know’. That’s obviously suspicious. Fourth, you have so many Titles but had no idea about the Administrator, which I gather almost everyone with a Title knows about. Fifth, you have in-depth knowledge on topics I’ve never even heard of, but almost no books on magic in your library, and nothing on anything complex.” She met my eyes for a long moment, then raised her other hand. “Sixth, you have a translation ability- which I recall from one of the occasional Church sermons I attended as a child is one of the main signs of a potential otherworlder. Seventh, the beginning of The Dragon Rider has a lot of references to things I had to look up the meanings of like ‘bulldozers’, ‘electricity’, ‘dams, and a whole bunch of locations that I’ve never heard of, and it’s written such that it assumes they are common knowledge.” She lowered both hands. “And finally, those books you recommended I take a look at to explain that space station you built? They have maps in them. Of the wrong world.”
I cringed. That was stupid of me. “You, er, got me, I guess. Now what? Are you going to turn me in to the Church?” In the knowledge the God of Reincarnation gave me, there was very little about the multi-deity organisation called the Church, but what I did know was that they strongly disliked otherworlders, to the point that they would give sermons on how to identify one. They also offered a reward for information on otherworlders, and a much bigger reward for bringing one in.
“No, why would I do that?” She stared at me incredulously. “You’re feeding and housing me, and I haven’t felt so safe in years. Why in the world would I betray you to a group that wouldn’t do any of that?”
“Er, fair point.”
There was a somewhat awkward silence.
“So… now what?” I asked
“How about you tell me everything.”
“Everything?”
“From the start,” she confirmed.
I cleared my throat. “Well, I died, met the God of Reincarnation, who asked if I wanted anything, I said yes; as this world is somewhat similar to a game I played in my previous life-”
“This world is a game?!” Tear asked, alarmed.
“No, no, the game was inspired by this world, or maybe another one,” I hurriedly reassured her. She visibly relaxed so I continued. “So anyway, I asked if I could become my character, keeping all the materials and equipment I collected in the game. He agreed. I woke up in the forest, not too far from here, immediately found the mana spring and built my Tower. That’s pretty much it before we met.”
The catgirl nodded, silent for a long second, digesting what I’d told her, then the corner of her mouth curled up. “So what, in your previous life you were a push-over?”
“Not exactly. I’ve yet to meet anything or anyone in this world I couldn’t kill without leaving my bed if it were to appear in my previous world.” I smirked at her reaction. It was technically true, with the contacts Dad had left behind, it was entirely possible that I could get a tungsten RFG fired from orbit, provided I had a good reason and the strike-point was a civilian-free area and under UNCICP control. There wasn’t much I knew of that could survive a city-flattening strike. “I knew some people,” I clarified. “Physically however, I wouldn’t have been able to do much except run away, which wouldn’t be very easy with my legs.”
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“What’s wrong with them?”
“My legs were crippled.”
“Wait, what?!” Her ears stuck straight up. “Then how-”
“-was I able to ‘run away’? That was because I was fitted with a nerve interface exoskeleton.”
“Nerve interface exoskeleton?” she echoed.
I reminded myself that I was talking with someone from a world of magic. “I guess I’ll start at the beginning then. In the world I came from we didn’t have magic or healing potions. If you became ill, you took medicines. If you got badly injured, you had to have surgery.” Seeing her stop nodding, I explained. “Surgery is when specialised doctors cut you open in order to fix damage inside your body.” She blanched, I chuckled slightly. “They put you to sleep before they do so: you can’t feel a thing. Usually. So anyway, we also had these transportation devices called ‘cars’. They move 6 times as fast as a horse can gallop when going slowly. There are rarely any accidents with them, they’re a lot safer than they used to be, but ‘rare’ means ‘still a few’. I was in one of those few accidents.” I pulled my shirt into my inventory and lifted my wings, revealing a spread-palm sized silvery scar over the vertebrae of my lower back. “It broke 3 vertebrae, ruptured my lower intestine, and completely paralysed my legs.”
Tear swore softly, bringing up the all too vivid memory of when the first-responder found me. She’d said the exact same, though significantly louder. I pulled myself back and continued.
“But luckily it was still possible for me to walk again. If it had been 50 years earlier, my survival wouldn’t have been likely, let alone walking again. More likely than not, that would have been it for me. I was quite fortunate if you think about it. After my insides had been patched up, the doctors ran various tests on my spine, took some measurements, and sent me back to the surgeons. I may have been lucky in that I would be able to walk again, but I was certainly not lucky in that they hadn’t yet found a pain blocker that wouldn’t interfere with the surgery. No; the surgeons had to connect each nerve individually to an electrical interface which they imbedded in my spine... while I was fully conscious and entirely anaesthetic-free. It was... not fun. Nerves are what carry instructions from your brain to the rest if your body, but they also carry other sensations such as pain. Lots and lots of pain. Well, when that was done, they strapped an exoskeletal frame -a machine that would carry out the instructions normally sent through my nerves- to my legs and connected it into the interface in my spine.”
That bit was painful too. It hurt every time the engineer-surgeons had to disconnect or reconnect the nerves, which they had to whenever I grew more than a centimetre. Middle of puberty plus that? Not very fun at all.
“Just like that I had my legs back. I had to relearn how to walk though, and the exoskeleton was never quite as responsive or smooth as actual legs would be. In fact, that’s why I practised a variety of martial arts - the coordinated movements were known to be some of the best for the therapy.” It was a shame my exoskeleton limited how good I could get because I found I quite enjoyed them.
Tear was looking somewhat lost, so I decided to sum it up. “The point is that I survived and was able to walk again. My family wasn’t so lucky. My father, mother, and little brother all died in the crash. My elder sister had been estranged since before I was born, so I was pretty much just on my own from that point.”
Suddenly I found myself tackled by Tear in a tight hug. I flailed for a moment, startled, before returning it with a squeeze. “Thank you, but it was 7 years ago. I’ve had the time and therapy to come to terms with it.” I patted her back reassuringly.
When she still didn’t let go, I made a blatant attempt to change the topic.
“But still, I’m surprised you managed to figure out I’m an otherworlder,” I said. “You’re actually quite smart huh?”
At that, she let me go and pulled back, meeting my gaze with shining but fierce eyes. “Why’s it so surprising?”
“Well... stabbing...”
“You try thinking coherently when you’ve spent a week dodging kidnappers with no time to eat!” she snapped.
“Fair, fair; I’m still going to tease you about it though~” I chuckled.
“Is turning you in to the Church still an option?”