She is definitely not just some weirdo. Now that I think about it, she teleported the massive kingor, appeared behind me hiding her presence until she spoke and used a healing spell, all within a few seconds. Only a high class Mage like Lelyah should be able to do that, could it be possible she knows that I come from another world. She is implying that with her question.

“Are you there?”

It seems I have been standing here absentmindedly for far too long.

“I was born in the village, I have been there my whole life.”

For now, I will keep pretending. If anyone finds out I am a former human, they will probably kill me on the spot.

“That might be true, but you know that is not what I’m asking. Why don’t you come to my house, I have been waiting to talk to you for a while.”

“Sorry, but I should really be in the village right now.”

“Walking back will take you about fifty minutes. Spend thirty with me and I teleport you there after that. Do we have a deal?”

“I don’t make deals with strangers.”

Before I could turn back and run, she caressed my hair and touched my cheek gently.

“I’m no stranger, my elven name is Mother Kira. Now be a good girl and listen to me.”

Without waiting for a response, she teleported me to the middle of a large green field surrounded by all kinds of flowers. To my right side, there was a cabin identical to ones we have in the village and to my left I could see the whole forest from above; we were somewhere at the top of Mount Krel.

“Let’s go inside, I will make you some tea.”

I does not even matter if I can trust this person or not. She is a monster capable of teleporting us more than ten kilometers away, from what I have learnt the limit for a experienced Mage should be around four or five kilometers and even that will leave you exhausted from the amount of mana it takes.

“Yes Mother.”

“Call me Jane please.”

Incapable of saying otherwise, I followed her inside the cabin.

“This is nothing like the one the elves make. This mix is the closest to black tea you will find in this world.”

Jane explained enthusiastically as she poured two cups of a red liquid. We were sitting on a spacious lounge area at the back of her home, several sitting cushions were scattered all over the place and a large table filled with books was at the center.

“Are you ready to answer my questions now?”

She sat really close to me and handed me one of the cups. It seems she really just wants to talk, maybe something more. I have been surrounded by elves for so long that I do not know if she is friendly or if she is just being a creep. She is making me too nervous to analyze the situation properly.

“First, I want to know more about you. To be honest I don’t trust you yet.”

“You are as interesting as I expected. Fine, I will tell you.”

She laughed before taking a sip of her tea.

“My name is Kira, a long time ago I was the head of the village. I trained Lelyah, Eva and Anna, as well as several other apprentices who never made it back. I also helped in erecting the barrier that now protects the village, you could even say I am a living legend.”

If what she is saying is true, she must be a thousand years old at least.

“Are Lelyah, Eva and Anna training you? How are they doing?”

“I heard Mother Anna left the village right after I was born. I haven’t spoken to Mother Eva in more than seven years. Lelyah is the one training me, she is… okay I guess.”

“So Anna ran away, I wanted her to take after me. Lelyah goes crazy with just a little bit of power and Eva even forgets to eat whenever she is practicing a new spell.”

“Why did you leave the village?”

Maybe she planned all of this, but the tea and her stories where slowly erasing my suspicions.

“Out of boredom probably. It’s been so long I can’t remember. You know how that feels right, being in a fantasy world such as this and not exploring it is almost a crime.”

“Where are you from?”

Is she lying to tick me into admitting I was a human? I do not doubt she could have used some kind of magic to look into my memories and is just repeating anything she saw.

“Well if you want to know “Jane’s” story, first you have to tell me your real name, Agafya. I already know your real identity though, you were living peacefully in another world and one day you had a horrible near-death experience and ended up reincarnating here.”

My suspicions were correct, she already knows all about it. The only thing left for me at this point is to pray for her to be an ally.

“Nana, my name was Nana Shinozaki. I was from Japan, I died together with all the 3rd year class from Saint Mary Academy in a bus accident coming back from a trip to the mountains.”

Her expression remained unchanged as I told my story. It surprised me how easily those words came out, how I did not feel anything remembering the day of the accident. It is almost like all my past life was nothing but a dream.

“Japan. My husband went there once. But I am kind of disappointed, a part of me wished you came from Europe.”

“What are you planning? I already told you the truth, why do you keep speaking like that?”

“You hurt my feelings, why would I lie to you? I am an elf, I won’t lie just for fun.”

She grabbed my hand and continued speaking in that laid-back attitude.

“I am just like you. My real name is Jane Marigold, I was a housewife in England many years ago. I had a husband and a family there until one day a bomb went off near our house putting me in a coma. That is why I immediately knew you and I were the same when I saw you collecting flowers and praying for your lost friend, no elf would do that. I was looking for an excuse to talk to you since that day, there are several things you must know.”

Her face was brimming with emotion and I could feel her warmth from the way she was tightly holding my hand. I wanted to believe her, but a part of me was still in doubt. If she really reincarnated here, that meant she has been living in this fantasy world for thousands of years.

“Don’t look so surprised, I haven’t even gotten to the best part. The things is, we are not the only ones like that. I have been investigating this phenomenon for hundreds of years and I think I found the truth. Somewhere, some time ago, a Mage tried to create a spell to connect this and our world, but it failed, it wasn’t powerful enough and it could only create a spiritual portal and not a physical one. Thinking it didn’t work, the Mage forgot about the spell and left the portal open.”

“But how did I access the portal? It doesn’t make sense, there is no magic in our world.”

“It was a coincidence. You were on the brink of death for a moment back during your accident, your soul abandoned your body but didn’t make it to the afterlife so it was left wandering and it picked the signal connecting this and our world. If you were with a whole bus full of people when it happened, there is a high chance some of them are here with us. Probably the ones that barely survived.”

I stood up purely out of reflex; my body almost wanted me to go running outside this very moment. It was too much to digest, the things she told me can be interpreted in many ways. Maybe there is someone else here, maybe I survived the accident and maybe…

“I know what you’re thinking. There is way back.”

This cannot be real. I already spent twenty years living like this giving up completely on my previous life and I could have gone back this whole time. Please tell me you are lying, please tell me you are just making fun of me because you found out that I am nothing but a beast.

“Can I really go back?”

“You can if that’s what you want, but it is not that simple, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Let me tell you my whole story, this is my second time coming to this world. The first one, I was just a farmer. I lived my life here like you, thinking I have died and this was a sort of afterlife, until I died once again. Like most farmers, demons attacked my village and killed me when I was just thirty. But to my surprise I didn’t really die, I woke up in a hospital bed back into my world and not even a year had passed there.”

“You created a new portal!”

“Not so fast. I was just a farmer, I didn’t even know magic existed during my first round here. When that happened I continued living my life like this world was just a dream induced by me being in a coma. Until one day I was unlucky enough to be involved in another accident; call it coincidence or maybe I kept a spiritual connection to this world but I once again reincarnated here. Just this time I was Kira, a powerful elf. Then I spent my whole life studying the connection between the two worlds and lived happily ever after. End of the story.”

“This is just silly garbage, I’m leaving. What kind of stupid story is that, if you wanted to trick me you should have invented something better.”

Now I am mad. How did she expect me to believe those incredible coincidences. I should not have trusted this shady person.

“I will prove it, just let me cover everything first. I said earlier that your friends might be here, do you want to find them?”

“You mean the ones with me during the accident.”

“Hand me the map behind you, on the second shelf from the left.”

The more I listen to her, the more my sanity depletes.

“I created a simple spell to identify other people from our world. Using my blood as a catalyst and the map as a compass, I can trace the approximate location of other beings who share my spiritual composition.”

She took the map from my hand and put it on the table as she explained. The map showed the three known continents, Lycori, Krel and Sargass as well as the names of all their major cities.

“Can I borrow you knife?”

I reached for the small knife I always carry around my belt, but hesitated for a while before handing it to her. It was clear from my expression I was not comfortable at all with everything she was saying.

“I’m sorry, I assumed you wanted to know where they are. Forget I ever mentioned this.”

“No… I want to know.”

I just do not know what to do if they happen to be here.

“Now, this spell is not perfect.”

She cut her finger and let the blood drip into the map until it formed a small puddle.

“First of all, it will only show their approximate location at this instant, if they move you will have to perform the spell again. Second, it will show people whose soul is very similar to ours as foreigners, if someone else from our world happens to be here it will appear on the map.”

She healed the cut and started gathering mana around the table.

“Are you ready?”

Asking rhetorically, she started performing the spell and the blood sparkled with a green light, moving around the map in circles gradually staining small parts of it. After a few seconds, the blood disappeared into bright specks of mana only leaving the red spots scattered around the continents.

“Only eight…”

“Six, if you considered two of that spots are in this room.”

Of the twenty members of the Academy traveling with me that day, only six could also be here. My feelings collide, I do not know if I wanted to be alone or for everyone to be with me. Do I even want to meet them?

“One in Yörd, one in Saint Rowe, two in Brisa, one in Listeria and… no way, one in the village? You never told me about it.”

I was looking at the map trying to connect the red dots with the city names Jane was saying, until she reached to that last one. She was not lying, there was a dot placed right at the center of the elven village.

“It’s impossible. Other than Cedric’s candidates, Lada was the only child there with me. They would have noticed my behavior just like you did. There is no way another human was living that close the whole time.”

“Well, I doubt I made a mistake performing the spell since it perfectly located us. It’s a shame I didn’t notice there was another one among the elves either, it must truly be destiny that I met you.”

She stood up and took the map, rolling it up slowly. I feel like I am in fever dream, she has been dumping revelation after revelation without letting me process it. My heart and mind are a mess right now, I cannot even begin to think what should I do from now on. There is a way back I can take this very moment, but there are six other people living here, suffering, clueless to the fact that they could go home.

“The time is almost up, I don’t want Lelyah to find me while looking for you. I must hurry, there is one last thing I promised I would do.”

She threw the map at me and offered her hand.

“What is it?”

“To prove I am telling the truth. Hold my hand.”

She waited for a bit and noticed my unwillingness to take her offer.

“I need it to perform the spell. I will use mana to connect our minds and show you my memories. Mind you, I will also see yours.”

At this point, I do not care if she wants to hurt me with some other spell. Whatever she does to me would not affect me anymore than she already did. I decide to take her hand, if this proves she is telling the truth, it might even ease my worries a little.

“Here I go. If it’s too much for you just let go of my hand.”

A strong magical power overwhelmed my body and it felt like I lost consciousness for a moment. Suddenly I started seeing things, as if I was in a dream. A loving family in the countryside, going to school, a birthday party, meeting a man at the town fair, getting married, being pregnant, a baby, war, then being born again, hunger, long days at the field, the demos, blood, waking up in a hospital, therapy, pain, loneliness, the sea, losing my breath…

“Relax, easy there.”

I came back to me and I saw myself lying in the floor, Jane was still holding my hand.

“I am sorry, it was too much. You passed out for a few seconds.”

“I am sorry I doubted you.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t expect you to believe me, that is why I prepared this spell. I am still not sure about many things that I keep investigating, like how time flows here compared to our world, but there is one I know to be a fact, if you die here your soul returns to your world.”

The things I saw were clearly her past memories, both here and in our world. She was telling the truth, I can go back and the others are probably here. I sit into floor and grab my hair in desperation.

“Come on. I would love for you to spend the night here and help you come to terms with it. But you must return to the village at least until tomorrow.”

How could I be there knowing there was someone from the Academy with me the whole time. How could I live normally here after knowing the truth.

“Let’s go outside so I can teleport you.”

I stood up still in shock and slowly followed her outside the house.

“Can I ask you one last question?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Why are you telling me all this? What do you want me to do?”

My whole world crashed once again in front of me and I asked her pitifully to share the pain a little. Hoping she would relieve me of this burned.

“That is up for you to decide. If you want to take your life tonight and return home, if you want to take this map and look for the others or if you want to come here with me and forget about it all; I am leaving you that decision.”

She paused and looked back at me with sadness and pain in her eyes.

“I never went out of my way looking for others, I just selfishly stayed here, year after year, finding the truth and the connection between the two worlds for own satisfaction. When you appeared right in front of me, I just took it as the destiny telling me to share my knowledge. Nothing more and nothing less.”

As she has been doing so far, she did not care for my response and just started activating the teleportation spell.

“One last thing, but this one I can’t prove. This world is ending, if you ever visit Listeria you will understand. And whatever you choose, I will always be waiting here.

Just like that, I was back at the entrance of the village.”