Chapter 7 - That’s my name.

As Mark followed the Guard presumably named Huang, they departed from the entrance and followed the huge walls circling the city. After a few hundred meters of walking, he notices that he was being led to a military campsite.

General Huang didn’t say a word to Mark while they walked, but Mark was not the only one who was given a cold shoulder. General Huang may have a cold feeling about him, but this isn’t limited to only him, everywhere they walked through the camp, people bowed and greeted General Huang. General Huang did not respond once, he did not even give them an understanding look.

That was not what was intimidating, it was the feeling that everyone looked at Mark with deep sighs as if something untold was going to take place. He could not help but break a sweat as they neared a huge tent, or more like a mobile pavilion. General Huang lifted his arm to signal to Mark that they were stopping here. Mark had originally thought that General Huang was one of the most respected or highest ranked person here, but his next move surprised Mark, leaving him speechless.

General Huang bowed deeply towards the tent and shouted for permission to send in Mark, obviously holding great respect for whoever was inside the tent, especially considering how the exact phrase he shouted was:

“High Commander. This lowly subordinate seeks permission to grant audience to this stranger in the hope you will interview him!”

Apparently, the general did not interview people, the commander did. It was a bit suspicious, except if he was in real trouble, like no one believes a sliver of his lies. But how he could have been exposed so far, he had no idea. After all, he had only spoken a few sentences, nothing like lying about one’s dad being the Emperor or something of the like.

Not much time went by before a man in a clean set of shining field armour waved the curtain away with his hand, quickly surveying the two outside before finally nodding at Mark. It was not a greeting, but Mark nodded back as if they were mutuals. The man’s facials showed no sign of changing at this, and although General Huang was infuriated, he didn’t show it.

The reason why he chose not to act, was because this line of thought ran past his head. ‘If the commander can forgive, so can I! How magnanimous!’ He actually thought that by holding in his rage, he was being magnanimous. Mark did not notice, neither would he care in particular. This whole scene reminded him of Japanese MMORPG.

He suddenly felt a lot of memory input, as if all of his gaming experience flashbacked in his mind. With this also came some memories of his past life. The enlightenment was so great, that he could not help but space out after walking into the tent.

A set of eyes were carefully observing Mark, clearly noting his absence of mind. As for the reason for this absence, the Commander did not really care. Nor did he need to. He just needed to get this over with. The king had personally placed the responsibility of interviewing possible reasons for the abnormality onto his shoulders, so that they could find out whether it was actually a person who caused it. The Commander himself did not know whether to laugh or cry. With his status, interviewing people who are not even criminals seemed like a long shot.

Unable to say no to the king, he accepted on the promise that he would only do it for two months, after which he would attend other and more important matters. Since the king highly regarded him, he had regretfully accepted this deal.

Up till’ now, no interesting people had come to be interviewed, most people travelling in and out of the city are people who do it regularly. Only people without identity or with no proof of identity were brought to interview.

*Cough Cough*

The Commander coughed slightly to get Mark's attention after waiting for a minute. What just went through Mark’s head in that minute, was most of his memories. Not only was he fascinated by having his life in his pocket, it felt as if he could clearly view every memory from birth, so clearly that he felt he was reliving these memories, instead of remembering them.

He felt clever and intelligent. To have photographically enforced memory, he could feel what it was like. There were still a few black holes he had to remember, but most of his earlier life was right there, in his head once again.

After hearing the intentional coughing, Mark gave an awkward smile and sat down at one end of a table, while the commander sat down on the other end. At first, Mark had thought that it was a group that was being interviewed, since the guard had clearly asked General Huang to bring Mark with him in the next ‘batch’. He had clearly referred to the plural.

“I’m sorry High Commander, I am just a lowly one that suffers from memory loss.” He started by apologizing, this was because he already had a good plan. If he made up an identity right now and acted as if had he just remembered some random parts, he would be able to explain his standstill. Nearly a perfect idea.

Before the Commander could speak, Mark continued. “The reason for my inability to react back then was because I just had a flashback. I remembered something hazy about my identity!” Mark could not stop smiling as if he was truly happy about this, bringing up an illusion of truth to his words.

With a raised eyebrow, most likely because he was almost interrupted, the Commander nodded and asked “Then, you will most likely be able to at least start by giving me your name?” His voice was very serious and quite deep for his looks.

It must be said that this blonde commander, with hair down to the shoulders, and in a slim and tight field armour, looked more like a princess in a knight’s armour than a Commander. He had very striking eyebrows, also blonde. So when his tone left his mouth, it was deeper than what Mark had anticipated.

Although it startled him, it was nothing that he would show by gaping or widening his eyes. What was good was that the question he predicted was coming, was the question about his name. Mark had a very good feeling that this was in an asian era, although he had yet to figure out if this was a cosplay place or if this was really him travelling between worlds. Although he did feel like this place had a lot of connections with the Chinese civilization, he just told himself that maybe this might place might be japanese-oriented with some mixture of chinese traditions. After all, it was clear that this place didn't look like the era he lived in at all, so maybe the civilizations present would be different.

Furthermore, his innate hate for Chinese MMORPG's and Chinese novels and generally anything illustrated Chinese made it impossible for him to believe that Chinese culture would rule, in this place. For him, Japanese ruled.

Inside his mind, he grinned as he came up with his name. “Akito Sora, that’s my name.” After saying this, he deliberately waited for The Commander’s next question. Right now, either his name would fit right in and the Commander would let him pass, or his name would simply be too weird. If the latter was to be the case, then the Commander would most probably ask about his origins next.

The Commander smiled. Finally someone interesting had tagged along. His finger was touching his chin softly as he ruminated. He had never heard names similar to this one. Yes, there were names that could probably look the same in Chinese characters, but he had no way to know the characters because this was definitely not Chinese!