Fate stared at John. “Never mind, I’m just-”

John burst out laughing. “No, I’m messing with you. Earth, huh…? It’s been a while since I heard that word...”

Fate stared at John and closed his eyes. “So you’re the first person to find out…”

“How interesting.”

John closed his eyes and leaned back. “You know, if you’re trying to hide the fact that you’re from another world, you’re not doing a very good job.”

Fate stopped laughing and turned to John. “Does anyone else-?”

“Not unless they’re also from Earth,” John shrugged.

“...the katana?”

John nodded. “I meant to ask. Why show me your swordsmanship? You could’ve easily just stuck to your magic. Do you really trust me that much?”

“You still have something up your sleeve, too, don’t you?” Fate said, his golden eyes piercing through John’s. “You showed… whatever magic that was, but that’s not all, is it?”

John nodded. There was no point in forcing something he didn’t need to know.

“Hey, by the way, sorry about earlier. I can get a little hot-”

“That was intentional.”

John cocked his head to the side. Prota’s eyes widened a little too. “Huh?”

“You seem like the type to get easily riled up, so I tried to bait you into a fight so I could lure you out here.” Fate hesitated as if debating over something, then sighed and stared John in the eyes.

“Look. I’m not here just as an adventurer. I’ve been… looking into something.”

“...the kidnappings?”

“Something like that, yeah.” Fate stood up and slung his katana on his back. “John. Can… can you help me out?”

“...” John hesitated. Inside, he was bubbling with excitement. This was what he’d been waiting for.

“You’re just gonna trust me like that?” John said.

“...No, I don’t trust you fully,” Fate shrugged. “But…” he glanced at Prota. “You have someone who cares for you. You can’t be all that bad.”

He turned around and started to walk away but then stopped.

“By the way.”

“You weren’t going nearly close to full out, were you?”

John raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What makes you say that?”

Fate shrugged and resumed walking. “You know, you’re not the only one that can keep back secrets.”

His golden eyes flashed back one more time as he disappeared into the woods.

~~~

“You two make up like good boys?” Albert grunted as John walked back in.

“Yeah, something like that,” John sighed, thinking back to Fate’s last words.

“You’re not the only one that can keep secrets.”

He’d thought he was always a step ahead of everyone else, but now someone was playing the game on an even field.

John had never read this story and therefore didn’t know everything that was going to happen. Fate was just as easily holding back secrets as John was. Granted, it would be a lot easier for John to figure out what Fate was hiding before Fate figured out what John was hiding, but it was still annoying. John was pretty sure that Fate wasn’t even the boy’s real name.

“Well, good,” Alber sighed, “because he’s going to be helping with the case.”

“The kidnapping thing?”

“Yes, the… kidnapping thing, sure. He knows quite a lot.”

John leaned forwards. “Oh? Like what?”

“Well, first off, he’s from the Elf Kingdom, sent on a mission by… the king,” Albert said, stumbling over the last few words as if he didn’t believe what he’d just said.

“There’d been a kidnapping attempt on the princess a few years back, something about “harnessing her core” or something like that, according to him. He’s been trying to track down the kidnappers, and he’s been led here. The organization, according to his theory, is harnessing souls and humans for various purposes, likely linked to the arrival of a new demon lord.”

“...souls?” John said hesitantly. He was pretty sure he knew what Albert was talking about but needed to ensure that his theory was correct.

“You remember the first time we met? I told you about last stands.”

“Spells that use up a mage’s lifeforce, right?” John said, hoping this was going the way he thought it was going.

“Yeah,” Albert nodded. “There’s been research going on about that. Some people have discovered what they think is the existence of a “soul,” something that holds more power than a mana core. It would explain why last stands are so powerful. They’re using a soul as a detonation source for the spell, using up a lifeforce in exchange for a powerful spell. If this group is looking into souls… that can’t be good.”

John nodded, but inside, his brain was spinning. This confirmed what he thought about souls, and what he’d talked to Prota a long time ago.

Prota… Souls… Research? It was a long stretch, but…

He looked at the small girl beside him. She’d told him she’d grown up in a small village, then had been attacked by the demon lord or something similar, resulting in her sister being kidnapped, but… was it possible she was an experiment? That would explain her strange power in extracting and using souls as a power source…

No. That was ridiculous. How could a group like that have gone unnoticed for so long? Wouldn’t someone have noticed something? Six, seven years undercover, with no one saying anything? John shook his head.

Plots could take strange twists, but this definitely wasn’t one of them.

…right?

“Anything we can do about it?” John asked.

“...nothing other than keeping an eye out,” Albert said dejectedly, shaking his head. “I was hoping to ask Fate a few more details, but… you came in.”

“Oh, right!” John exclaimed, jumping up and rummaging around inside his hoodie.

“Pay up.”

Albert glanced at the quest sheet. “You… you finished that?” he said. “Really? You subdued that group of goblins? We had a group of two B ranks and two C ranks come back pretty beaten up…”

“You want the heads?” John grumbled. “Ugh…”

He reached into his hoodie and started pulling out head after head, throwing them onto the clean wooden floor, staining it with green blood.

“What… the hell?” Albert said, staring. “Is that… you know what, I’m not even going to ask. Take the money and get out, kid,” he grumbled, tossing a bag of coins over to John, who caught it and immediately shoved it into his hoodie. He started to head out, only for Albert to call out one more time.

“Oh, and by the way.”

John turned back.

“Good job, kiddo,” he said with a small smile.

“...heh. You’re kind of growing on me, old man.”

“Old man, my ass,” Albert grunted.

John started to leave again, only to turn around one more time.

“...By the way. It sounded like you didn’t trust Fate that much when he first came in. Why trust me?”

“...” Albert scratched his chin. “Trust you, huh…? I don’t know. Maybe it was just the fact that Fate was wearing a mask?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it was the way you barged in, maybe… ah, I don’t know. Now get out of here. I have work to do.”

Prota got up and followed John out the door, hearing him mutter.

“Are you kidding me, it’s a story, but there’s no plot, plenty of plotholes… so many I could trip and fall into one, but no, it’s…”

~~~

“How’s the new one doing?”

The man with the tentacles sat behind a desk, a man trembling in front of him.

“The progress reports show that everything’s going fine… the new one’s… not doing so well.”

“And the children?” The man said it with a hint of impatience, causing the man behind the desk to gulp.

“Doing well. The soul extraction process is flowing smoothly.”

The man grunted. “Good. Results. That’s what I like to see.”

He got up, walking through the door and into a lab to reveal rows and rows of corpses floating in tanks of unknown liquid, some unconscious, others awake and terrified. Further down, groans and the rattling of iron bars could be heard. The man proceeded to the cages and peered into a dimly lit cell containing the elf woman from earlier, who was unconscious on the floor.

“Good… very good. How has she been in terms of, ah, co-operation?”

“Not very compliant, sir. She keeps mentioning a brother… she’s very defiant.”

“...” the man looked disappointed. “You can’t just extract the soul? How about the new machine?”

The man behind him shook his head. “...no, sir. It’s not ready yet, it’s still-”

He was cut off as a tentacle shot out and grabbed the man by the throat. The man was lifted off the ground, struggling as he struggled to escape.

“A shame. However, I need to test that theory. You seem a fine test subject.”

The man’s eyes shook in fear as he was carried down a hall towards a thumping noise that grew louder and louder. A door was opened, revealing a large machine, completely out of place in this fantasy world.

“W-wait! Please! Wait!” the man begged, but the tentacle man just smiled as he tossed his subordinate into the room. A large metal tendril shot out, grabbing the man. There was a loud whirring sound as the subordinate begged for his life, but it was already too late. His body spasmed, then went limp. It was released and fell to the floor with a thump.

The other man walked over and flicked a switch, then entered the room, now safe. He examined a sort of container next to the machine and frowned.

“...pity,” the tentacle man shrugged, his extra limbs slithering back into his cloak. “It really isn’t ready yet. What a hassle. Now we’ll have to clean this up.”

~~~

“...this is where you’ve been staying?” John frowned, taking his scarf off.

Fate had been staying in a rather luxurious inn, his room large and furnished with all sorts of conveniences. He even had the shower system John had installed back in his old bar home, something he’d saved up a lot for.

“Is there an issue?” Fate shrugged, his mask still on even inside his own home.

“I…” John just sighed and shook his head. “Why don’t I ever get anything nice like this? C’mon, author. Just give me something nice, just once in a while. Please?” he muttered, but there was no response.

“Want anything? Water? Juice?” Fate asked.

“I’m good.”

They both sat at a table, Prota playing on the sofa near the fireplace, and with that, the game started. Two individuals prying for information that the other refused to give, seeing what secrets they could reveal before the other revealed their own.

Unfortunately for Fate, John was already one step ahead.

“By the way, you have a lie detection ability, don’t you?” John said, starting the conversation rather abruptly.

“...what makes you say that?”

John grinned. “You know, you probably could’ve bluffed your way out of that one. Well, it’s important because what we’re about to do requires your full co-operation. Want an explanation?”

Fate nodded as his fox leapt onto his lap.

“First point. When I told you I was from Earth, you immediately trusted me. There was no hesitation when you believed me.”

“Second point. You don’t seem like the type to trust others easily. Your whole mask thing, your whole identity hiding, fake name, false goal, everything about you screams secrecy, and yet you revealed so much to me way too easily. That means you somehow deduced I’m someone you can trust without me saying anything.”

“...what if I’m just really smart?”

John snorted. “Sure. As if it were that easy. Honestly, that could be an answer. We could really just blame all this on lazy writing and say that you trusted me for “some reason or another,” but I don’t really think that’s how things are gonna play out.”

“...lazy writing?”

“Third point,” John continued, ignoring Fate’s question. “You’re an agent of the goddess, aren’t you? Something like that. Hero, Hero of the Goddess, Agent, whatever, but something like that, right?”

“...!”

Fate didn’t seem to have seen that one coming.

“It lines up. From what I’ve seen in this world, you’re either a mage or a physical fighter. Not both. You do both. Moreover, you have ridiculously good sword skills and a body that you couldn’t have possibly trained within, I don’t know how old you are, say twelve or thirteen years, even if you’ve been working out since you were born. You have some kind of goddess’ blessing, right? If so, I’d imagine you have abilities unlike that of anybody else. Lie detection included.”

Fate glared at John. “That’s… a bit too insightful. Did you really just deduce all this? How- I can’t even begin to comprehend how you knew it was a goddess and not a god, let alone everything else.”

“So I’m right?” John said with a nasty grin.

“...yes,” Fate hesitantly admitted. “But- I- How do you know all of this?”

“What?” John shrugged, avoiding the question. “You think I’m a spy? Go ahead. Ask me if I’m on your side or not. Use your fancy lie detector, if that’s what it is.”

Fate frowned. That wasn’t how he’d expected John to respond.

In fact, Fate had a lie detection mechanism, but he hadn’t used it yet. He’d been planning on using it now and was going to deal with John accordingly.

Unfortunately, a lie detector wasn’t as effecient if your target knew they were being processed. The whole point was to catch them in a lie.

“Kh… fine. Are you on my side? Or not?”

“...I could be,” John said with a smirk.

“...don’t give me that half assed answer,” Fate growled back.

John laughed. “You’re not that experienced in the information game, huh? You just gave something else away.”

“Th- what?” Fate said.

“Your lie detection ability. It’s a truth or false detector, isn’t it?”

“...what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Fate said hesitantly.

John shrugged. “I don’t know. What does it mean?”

“Can you just give me an answer?!”

John laughed. “I mean that you can only determine whether someone is telling the truth or a lie. You can’t read minds or determine thoughts or anything. Am I right?”

Fate hesitated, then nodded.

“Alright, I’ll keep going then. Yeah, I’m on your side. Check. Am I telling the truth?”

Fate hesitated, then nodded again.

“Next, I’ll say it before you tell me to. I won’t tell anyone anything about you. I’m sure your whole “I’m from another world” thing is a highly kept secret, so my lips are sealed.”

“It’s always a highly kept secret,” John muttered to himself. “It’s so stupid.”

Once again, Fate nodded, then slammed his hands on the table and stood up in frustration.

“Who are you? You’re not a normal human, are you? Are you a Mystic? Some kind of ancient being? Is that why you said you haven’t the word Earth in a while?”

“...a Mystic? What’s a- Ok, forget that. I doubt even your goddess, whoever she is, knows where I’m from, I’ll give you that. Besides, you already know, in a way. Earth, remember?”

Fate stopped and sat back down. “...what do you mean, ‘the goddess doesn’t know where I’m from?’”

John frowned. “Huh? Why would I tell you?”