B was briefed on the situation, the slow reaction time of the public service when things are lit on fire, the interaction between Mimic and Esther, as well as the marriage and whole Mimic becoming king soon.

“He also smells nice” Primus added

“I do indeed.” He said as he whipped out the double finger gun “You know what we are missing though?” devious smile on his face.

“No, and I’m not that interested.”

“Come on, it’s going to be good.” He nudged him, not revealing his plan

“Fine, last few times you had a idea, you decided to drop cholera in drinking water, sell yourself off as a sex toy to gain acsess to power, get whoever was in power hooked on drugs, and violate the Geniva convention by building mines and scattering them”

“Come on now, for power, for power, for power, and mostly for power.” He said as he counted off his fingers “We need to teach them basic hygiene if we are doing the cholera and don’t want any of our people dropping ill.”

“No!” Primus cried out, then realizing the content

“Wait, that’s surprisingly…” He stuttered, processing what he just heard

“I know, hard to believe, not wanting to commit genocide” He patted him on the back, walking down back to the village “Come on now, dinner should be close.”

“So, just nice smelling soap?” B followed behind “I’m sure we could do much better than this. Also, that doesn't solve the problem that they don’t boil water.”

“We could just copy how they did in the old times, introduce coffee and tea, people would drink those wouldn’t they? I mean one smells nice, the other makes you shit, and stays up all night.” Primus added

“It would be a good idea if we knew where those are, as far as I know, this part of the continent does not contain such plants” B replied

“Fine, um… Cocoa beans?” He shrugged

“Again, don’t know, but they definitely don’t grow here. Also, we would need a lot of sugar to back those up if we want that to penetrate into the demographic, no child would like to drink some bitter leaf water.”

“Oh yeah one more thing” Mimic stopped in front of the fence that surrounded the village “Two days from now we are getting something delivered, for the Sulfonamide antibiotics.”

“To here?” B pointed towards the ground “You told her where we are?”

“Well, the invitation was marked. So I mean, kind of. You should be fine though, just pretend to be normal childrens and all.” He looked around

“No, we are not, she will be visiting us tomorrow. If somehow Primus and I touch any of their equipment, we are very very dead.” She emphasized

“I didn’t tell her about the duplicates though. I got the green light to talk about the ambush, and how I was picked up by scavengers so I stuck with those.”

She smacked her head“That was exactly the problem, it’s too clean! When we talk casually, we leak information, what you did will feel like scripted speech, and she would come just because it feels odd.”

She took a deep breath, pacing around, biting down on her thumb “Primus, go get dinner, pretend you are playing hide and seek with us, we’ll swap from time to time just in case, Mimic, with me, you will have to memorise everything I made between now and bedtime.”

“Can’t be that bad right?” Mimic smugged as he jogged back with B, only to be greeted with almost double the amount of blueprints that he saw in the castle, as well as prototypes of engines buried underground.

“You are a…. Engineer in your latest life right?” She asked, lighting up a few lamps, fueled by the fat of the animal that was eaten a few days back

“Yeah, I google shit and paste it on, maybe tweak some code, not this shit.”Shocked by the sheer amount of papers, he stood still in the same place and watched B somehow find more and more paper that he would need to claim he knows “Where on earth did you even get all these papers?”

“Scrolls are a common thing, most of them have a few drops or splats of blood, and this place is known for scavenging and stealing.” Dragging him from his standing position to the small tent she made “Don’t worry, these are just some basic things, she can’t ask you things that are too in depth or else both of you are going to get burned on a stick in public, and I’m going to give you a brief rundown.” She gave him a stiff inspirational pat on the back and began going through the basics for each paper.

Fast forward some time.

“I have decided to forfeit my breathing privileges.” He exhaled as primus came around with hot soup in his hand, calling for the next person to go down. “If there is a thing such as K’thulu ASMR, this would be it.” He chuckled as B walked out of the tent, seriously considering just either hiding or burning whatever he doesn't yet know about.

“Primus should be able…” She looked back at the tent “Nevermind.”

“Oh roasted.” Mimic laughed, collapsing onto the floor with another paper on hand, still reading it while laid down.

“Should be able to what?” He cried out, spitting some of the contents from his mouth

“Shut up you khowala, I’m looking into Yogg’s ass at the moment, what is even this lang…. Nevermind, just had it sideways.”

“Fucking hell I might as well hang myself instead of getting captured because you can’t read shit.”

“Have some faith in others will you”

“I do, just not in myself” He said as he finishes the soup, letting out a satisfied sound “Want me to bring one to you?”

“Why so caring all of a sudden?” Mimic grinned, putting away another completed paper

“Just so you know, I want you to experience how bad this soup is.”

“Sure, I’ll take one.”

The next day B and Primus grabbed some food and went into hiding somewhere in the forest after they were seen eating breakfast.

Mimic wandered a few miles in front of the village main entrance, ready to intercept the incoming guests, he sat beside the road and waited, heart rate rising as the moment passed. B was rarely wrong, besides that time where she ignored the signal that led to all this mess, but overall most of the things went as she said. While he was toying with a twig he found beside the road, some odd sounds approaching from far, the sound of a human running barefoot on the road, yet packing a lot more force and weight behind each step. Is that a pigeon?

Stepping out into the middle of the road and squinting his eyes. It seems like an enlarged pigeon packing the feet of an ostrich, green and yellow crest feathers spread out like punk hair, beeks that looked like cat’s front nails, storming towards him full speed as if he was the one who murdered it’s family.

He stood there for a while, preparing to confront Esther yet again, stepping aside after catching another menacing look at the angry pigeons.

As predicted by B, riding on it was Esther, trying to pull a surprise visit, a SURPRISE VISIT that Mimic could NOT have expected.

Fuck I am retarded. His thought as his life started flashing before him and as Esther pulled up beside him

“So um, Esther.” He resisted the urge to just just slap the bird and hope his own head gets bitten off and bowed “What brings you out on such a fine day?”

“Making sure you aren’t doing something ridiculous such as raiding random supply lines, shall we talk somewhere… Better? Instead of the middle of the road?” She spoke emotionlessly, looking straight down from what was essentially a dinosaur.

“Well, we would, I, that would….” He stumbeled “Yeah fuck it, just follow me, don’t make too much noise this is still a bandit camp, and as you know I’m still working on the language part” He spoke out again in English, giving up on communication, leading them towards the testing ground B used.

Asher laid out a picnic blanket and set a chair on top for Esther to sit on, a basket of food as well as a sack of water, then went off patrolling the area.

“Quite the place you have here.” She looked around, uneven ground, trees with fist size holes in it, and a few wooden made models laid around

“Got to keep my mind occupied somehow.” He chuckled, praying to whichever higher power would listen, while recapping all the lessons he received just last night.”

“Those work?” She pointed at a half finished car engine, with only the crankshaft exposed outside the dirt, with the engine block harder to make she decided just to shove the whole thing under the ground, digging out a few holes in the dirt as place holders for combustion chambers, runes written all inside the dirt and the wood to ensure it does not break itself when fired up.

“Yeah, assuming enough mana is put into it. The whole thing still needs some lubrication as well as being replaced with metals, but as a prototype it does.” He recited the words of B.

“Asher, please.” She pointed at the engine “Just dumping mana in would do right?”

“That I don’t really know” He shrugged

“Well, good day to test innit?Asher, send it”

With her command, he pulled out his sword and laid it on top of the engine, a gust of wind followed, dust covered the air.The sword now covered in blue light, the engine roaring, and the crankshaft spinning at incredible speed.

Satisfied with the results, she ordered the knight to stand down and power down the engine, she herself walking closer to examine the outcome “Not too bad of a piece, how long did you spend on this?” Her hands ran through the woods, not a single crack was found.

“Basically the whole time till yesterday.”

“You were what? A software engineer in your past life?” She said as she examined the thinner components, yet still no cracks “First time with runes? This is fairly impressive.”

“Well, em.” He let out a few nervous chuckles “I mean it’s not that hard, sink in a few weeks reading from the dataset, blow up your backyard, you could achieve the same.”

“That yours?” Changing her attention to the tent besides them.

Well shit here goes.

“Well, where I store my writings, yes” he answered with confidence, having gone through everything and at the very least memorised a few keywords to talk about for each paper there is no real reason for him to panic, yet the same feeling from yesterday when she asked why he wanted to raid the convoy came back.

She lifted up the door and crawled in, taking a stack of paper out for examination

“Please don’t. I have an organisation system.” He claimed, trying his best to deter any further action

“Do you know any scholars?” She asked, ignoring his words, out of the blue, cycling through the stack that she had in her hand, her eyebrows shifting with each paper she comes across

“I live in the mountains, take a guess.” He watched as she flipped through more and more, in his mind recalling every single piece of content in that stack.

Stopping at a random page, she took a closer look at the bottom“Ever brought a girl here?”

“A girl?”

“Yeah a girl” She looked up, showing no emotion on her face, as well as the unsettling glare from last time they met.

She does not know, she does not know, she does not know

“Well, yes, lost a few papers that day.” He chuckled “How did you?”

“And a boy? Siblings are they? Is there someone that follows them around?” She followed up

Fuck, she knows. His face dropped as well as his heart, yet he maintained a confused face banking on the chance that she doesn't know about their true identity

“I mean they looked alike, how did you….?”

“Did they possess the same power as you and I?”

“What?”

“Can they clear mana off of an object just by touching it?”

Wait, does she know?

“What? No! Why are you asking this?” He said as he added a smile onto his face, matching the absurdity of her accusation “Is there something I should worry about?”

“Asher, with me.” She rushed up towards Mimic, handing over the paper “The things would arrive tomorrow, make it as fast as you can, something is coming.” then rode off in a hurry, leaving Mimic standing alone, more confused than before.