Chapter 54 – Inquiry

"You didn't need to wait so late for me to return. What do you want to talk about?"

Instead of answering, she just turned around with a single sentence.

"Come in."

I followed her inside the house, closing the door behind me. When she sat at the living room table, I also took a seat in front of her. There was a moment of silence with Suuru only looking at me before she spoke again.

"Tila… Who are you exactly?"

So, it had come to that. It wasn't completely unexpected since I did many abnormal things in front of her.

"Can you give me a bit of context?"

"You're not someone coming from another faraway dome, right?"

"What makes you think so?"

She sighed.

"Too many things. Your lack of common sense despite not having issues with your memories. The water. The meat. Your comings and goings. Your… mutation. Your strange knowledge. I'm so confused."

I nodded.

"Yes… You're right. First of all, I need to say something. I'm sorry, Suuru. I lied to you. I have no excuse."

Her eyes widened a little but she didn't look too surprised. Yet, profound sadness appeared in her eyes, telling me how betrayed she was feeling.

"Why? Why did you lie to me?"

"I have no excuse."

She stood up, anger on her face.

"I don't want to hear that! Tell me why!"

It wasn't in my personality to find flimsy reasons to excuse my behavior. I most often acted rationally and as such, I was ready to assume the consequences of my actions. However, if she wanted to know, I had no other choice but to tell her.

"Fine. I'll tell you everything. Sit down, it's going to be a long story. I don't know if you'll believe me, though."

She sat down once more, her stare piercing through my guilt. It was the first time I saw the meek Suuru being so mad.

"Where you do think I come from, Suuru?"

She glared at me for an instant more before answering.

"I don't know. I'm confused. Nothing I can think of makes sense. I thought that maybe… you come from outside the dome. But that's impossible."

"Yes, that's a logical conclusion. Unfortunately, the truth is a lot worse than that. I come from a different planet."

This time, she was truly bewildered. But then, anger filled her expression once again.

"Don't lie, Tila! I want to hear the truth! I hate lies the most!"

"I wish it were a lie. But it's not. Look."

For the first time since I came to this world, I stopped concealing my sel and affinity. Anyone seeing me now could estimate my rank if they wanted to. Suuru, who was starting to sit down, jumped on her feet again while pointing at me, her face full of stupor.

"R-R-rank 4…! No way!"

I waited a while for her to calm down and queried.

"Can you see my affinity?"

She was still looking at me with her mouth wide open. After closing it, she shook her head.

"No, I've never seen someone like you before."

"That's not surprising. My affinity is space. I'm a rank 4 spatial mage."

"T-that can't be… A spatial mage… They don't exist anymore."

"They don't exist inside the domes. But I'm here."

"But… Wait. How old are you, Tila?"

"I'm twenty."

"Don't lie! It's impossible to be rank 4 at twenty!"

In a way, she had a point. There was a reason why she asked for my age. It was hard to judge people's ages by their appearance. This was because one of the boons of ranking up was to get increased longevity. Not just a bit either. Each rank gave around ten more years of life expectancy. That was why everyone tried to rank up, on top of the ability to defend oneself better. And this was the reason why higher-ranked people had an absolute advantage over lower-ranked ones. A transcendent, for example, would be able to live two times longer than a rank 0, or even more. If one was certain of ascending to high ranks, like I was, life took on a whole other direction. All plans became long-term ones and short-term goals lost their importance.

The downside, or perhaps the consequence, was that people had a very long period of looking young. Age and appearance were often judged based on how a rank 0 would look at a certain age. Taking me as an example, I externally looked like I was 20. In reality, I could be anything between 20 and 60 years old.

"It's true that it's probably impossible to get to rank 4 at twenty inside the domes. You wouldn't know but the concentration of sel here is less than half what it was in my world."

"How can I believe you, Tila? I can't tell the truth from the lies anymore."

"I understand. Let me show you something else. I'm a spatial mage, right? And so, one of the first things I did after coming to this world was to check what was happening outside the domes by teleporting there."

"What!? You did what? Are you crazy, Tila?"

"Hey, calm down. Look, I'm perfectly fine, right?"

"… Is that another one of your lies? No one can survive outside the domes. There's only death there."

"Want to check? You can see for yourself."

I extended my hand in her direction. There was a moment of silence. She looked at my hand like it was poison for a long time, slowly taking some steps away from me.

"No way. I won't do it. Nope."

She was such a baby. Not that I could blame her too much since this was how people here thought about the outer world.

"Don't you trust me, Suuru?"

"I… I don't trust liars."

I could tell this was more like an excuse to refuse me than the true reason.

"Hahaha… No questions asked anymore!"

I teleported next to her, firmly gripped her hand, and teleported us to the outer world.

"Nooo!"

Suuru only had the time to let out one last shout of terror before our figures disappeared from the house.

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