Chương 24: The Alignment of the Void

The atmosphere in the room of the cheap Oakhaven inn was still heavy, impregnated with the metallic smell of the blood that Kurogami Ren had just spilled in front of them. The Blood Pact was sealed. Selene was still breathing deeply, her shoulders tense after taking the step forward to validate the secret of biological immortality, while Liora sheathed her curved katana with a sharp click, holding the martial respect and loyalty of someone who now shared a State secret.

Both had their minds paralyzed in deep shock, trying to process the connection of the bombshell they had just heard about a "modern world" and about the two of them belonging to another place. The elite party's alliance was armored. But the night still held the greatest psychological checkmate. Kuro wiped his left palm with a rustic cloth, observing the skin close perfectly without leaving any scars. He stood up from the ordinary table and looked directly at the demi-human alchemist.

Her black cat ears were twitching, and her dark tail whipped the air with a violent biological agitation. She had been trembling with curiosity and shock since the moment she heard the terms he used at the guild.

"Mireya. Grab the parchments," Kuro ordered, his voice calm and firm.

"We are going to my room. We need to align the technical details alone." Selene furrowed her brow, her shoulders rising with a visibly pouting expression of jealousy over being left in the dark right after discovering they came from another planet, while Liora merely nodded in approval of the leader's pragmatism. Mireya swallowed hard, but hurriedly gathered the rustic papers and walked right behind him.

The moment they crossed the corridor and the door to Ren's room closed with a dull thud, the silence became thick, broken only by the subtle sizzle of the oil lamp. With just him and her inside, the social barrier collapsed. Kuro leaned back against the wooden wall, creating a firm contrast with his crossed arms in black linen. His dark eyes locked onto the tense features of the girl in front of him.

"Do you want to talk about the past?" Kuro asked directly, his calm and surgical voice breaking the ice. Mireya looked at him, her cat ears giving a slight twitch before she answered firmly, "Yes. Since you spoke of your secret, I see no problem in speaking of mine," she said, taking a deep breath and placing the parchments onto the rustic, worn wooden table. Her yellow scientist eyes were wide, and she seemed to be under the weight of a suffocating truth.

She looked at her own hands with feline claws, tightening her fists.

"I can't stand pretending anymore. No one in this medieval world would use the term 'molecular' or understand the calculations I made. The goddess Ariana tore my soul from Earth and threw me by force into this eighteen-year-old corpse... My real name is Kaede. Unlike you, I was the class representative of an ordinary school in the Modern World, totally focused on studying hard to fulfill my dream of becoming a scientist. But I vanished out of nowhere from that reality...

I was killed by a Shadow on Earth that very same day." Kuro remained motionless. The corner of his mouth tugged up in a subtle way. He took a step forward, narrowing the personal space in the isolated room, sustaining her startled gaze without showing any hesitation.

"I know, Kaede," Kuro let out a light laugh, short and devoid of cynicism.

"In the same classroom where you dictated the rules and revised the attendance sheet... I just calculated the boredom away from the very last desk in the corner. We shared the same oxygen from Monday to Friday in that cage back on Earth." Mireya jumped backward, falling seated onto the rustic chair from the sheer shock of being locked in there alone with the boy who had just torn away her greatest mask.

"That's impossible!" she hissed, her sharp canine teeth on display from pure frustration.

"I managed the grades and was in charge of every student in that class! I knew who everyone was... How did I never know about you there? How did I never see you?" This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Because you and the others only saw who made noise," Kuro leaned over the table, keeping his absolute focus on her.

"On Earth, if you prefer to isolate yourself and expend your energy only communicating when it's strictly necessary, nobody notices you. I did talk, but only if someone came to talk directly to me, so as not to waste energy in vain." Kuro paused shortly, and the hollow calmness of his gaze gained a heavier weight as it touched upon the wound of the past.

"My first real friend in that school was Aurelia. I started to truly like her during a single conversation we had in the classroom... but she died a few hours later. It was right after that tragic day that I decided to adopt the Black Mask, turning the accessory into a rustic way of hiding my own face from the world and operating without being seen by anyone else."

Mireya narrowed her yellow eyes, the fur on her black tail still bristling as she tried to process that logic of isolation and the revelation about the girl who had passed away on the same day she herself had been killed by the monster.

"So... you were antisocial?" she questioned, crossing her arms defensively. Kuro took another slow step forward, his dark, hollow gaze sustaining her eyes with absolute dominance and total honesty.

"Yes, I was. I still am," Kuro answered, and the corner of his mouth rose slightly into a seductive, confident smile.

"I'm just not with beautiful women like you." The Neko's cheeks instantly took on a scarlet hue. She turned her face away quickly to try and disguise her racing adolescent heart, but crossed her arms firmly, her tail beating against the chair leg while she sustained her representative posture.

"You don't waste time, do you?" she shot back immediately, her voice emerging sharp to camouflage her monumental shyness.

"A serious moment like this and you're trying to flirt!" Wanting to escape that magnetism and regain her scientist pride, she tapped the tips of her fingers against the sketches on the parchment.

"Whatever! If we're from the same place, the logic doesn't change," she grumbled, clearing her embarrassment.

"The budget from the coins will vanish quickly in the Capital. How are we going to forge this weapon project you mentioned without drawing the eyes of the high guild?" Kuro approached the table, fixing his gaze on the paper's lines.

"The skeleton of the weapon is ready, Mireya," Kuro said, pointing to the drawing.

"A compact Ancient Hunter Rifle, the size of a short sword to guarantee my tactical mobility while I operate from afar. Its shape is based on a classic musket, but the body is entirely made of matte black metal. These green lines I draw along the structure are runes through which mana will flow; they connect the Mana Stone installed in the stock directly to the five bullets inside the magazine.

This mechanism compresses the External Mana that you and I will manipulate, breaking the slow four-second chanting for lethal precision shots at a distance." Mireya adjusted her glasses, her eyes analyzing the engineering of the compact runic musket.

"The molecular theory is perfect... but the eight gold coins left in the pouch won't buy Ithrya's high-purity minerals," she countered, crossing her arms.

"We don't have a laboratory. How are we going to get the runic crystals and the material to make this work?" Kuro let out a light sigh, looking sideways at the dark window, accepting the board's uncertainty realistically.

"I'm going to set up a plan to get a conversation with the Princess, but the exact path is still wide open and I don't have the right answer yet," Kuro admitted, keeping his pensative tone.

"Before reaching the throne of Queen Liria, I need to speak with Commander Kaelia Voss. What I am still evaluating is whether I present this project on paper directly to her, or if I wait until we reach the Capital to take a guild mission in some deep cave or dungeon. If we do that, we extract the crystals on our own and buy the rest with our gold. That way I create the first firearm without anyone's help before approaching the elite guard."

Mireya looked at the runic lines of the short black metal rifle, then at the analytical mind of that young man who preferred calculating risks over making false steps. She huffed, but an involuntary smile surfaced at the corner of her yellow mouth.

"If you fail the calculation with the Commander... I will mix a paralyzing molecular poison into your food while you sleep." Kuro gave a corner smile, gathering the parchments from the table. That very night, he went downstairs and used two of the remaining gold coins to purchase a rustic wooden wagon and suitable horses, securing the group's logistics. Six gold coins out of the original ten now remained in the cloth pouch. At nightfall, the crates of reagents and supplies were packed into the wagon.

Liora rested to recover her muscles, Selene finished the ties with a pouting expression, and Mireya organized her vials. The next morning, the gears of Ithrya would move toward the capital.