“Remember how quick I was to fight when I was summoned?” Aiden asked.
Valdan nodded, staring at the mountain in front of them with a worried expression. “I remember. We were told not to expect it but to be prepared for it.”
Aiden paused. He hadn’t known that. In his previous life everyone had taken some time to wake up.
“We were told that you would all take some time to wake up. You,” Valdan continued, “woke up the moment you appeared. The knights had a laugh about it after.”
Aiden shook his head. “Why?”
“It was just as impressive as it was funny,” Valdan said. “It was like watching a toddler trying to fight an adult.” He laughed a little. “You should’ve seen yourself, Aiden. You were bumbling all over the place. Don’t get me wrong, your skills were smooth and precise. You just looked like a child wading through water.” He looked at Aiden. “You were so slow it hurt. I worried at how I would allow you to disarm me without knowing that I had allowed it. I was so happy when I realized that you knew what you were doing.”
Aiden smiled a little. Then a curious thought that had always been unimportant came to mind. “Was it just any random knight or were you picked out specifically.”
“Oh, the advisor picked me out.”
“How?”
Valdan shrugged. “He just pointed at me then my sword and called me.”
“That was it?” Aiden asked, skeptical. “Then how did you two decide how I would get the sword.”
Valdan smiled. “He said it.”
“He said it?”
“As simple as that. ‘Attack him and see if he disarms you.’ The end.”
Aiden frowned. “That…” his voice trailed off as he realized that it actually made perfect sense. “He spoke in a whisper, didn’t he?”
This time Valdan laughed. “You’ve come a long way, Lord Lacheart. You still have the fire in you, but you are smarter now, wiser.”
“Only God knows how strong the advisor is,” Aiden mused. “And you were a level forty plus knight with heightened perception.” He sighed. “He would’ve pointed slowly enough for you to know what was happening and still be too fast for me to see.”
He shook his head in realization. Even though he had been aware of his absence of level, he had still had the mind of who he had been before the regression. He had been, at that moment, nothing but an ant among elephants.
Laughing a little, he ran his hand through his hair. “You know,” he said, “I knew I was weaker than all of you. Like, I knew just how much weaker than all of you I was, but I’d be lying if I said I was perfectly aware of just how weak I was at the time.” He stared up at the dying evening sky. “God I was weak.”
Valdan smiled a little. “So, you were already aware of levels, weren’t you?”
“I was,” Aiden nodded.
“I guess I should’ve made the bet.”
Aiden looked at him. “What bet?”
“The knights had a running bet that whatever world you guys came from had things like levels because of how well you handled yourself.”
“Oh. Then be happy you didn’t.” He stopped, rethought his words. “Just to be precise, was it us or me?”
“All of you,” Valdan answered.
“Yeap,” Aiden nodded. “Be happy you didn’t make the bet.”
Valdan looked at him through a narrowed vision. “And if I had bet on only you?” he asked curiously.
Aiden made a skeptical gesture with his hand. “It would become a matter of semantics.”
“I should’ve guessed.” Valdan sighed and dropped his head. “You are not from the same world as the others.” He paused, looked as if he saw a flaw in his logic. “No, you and Ted aren’t.” He shook his head. “No, that still somehow doesn’t make sense.”
“Semantics,” Aiden said. “The truth is, I am and I’m not.”
Valdan raised a brow. “Let’s try not to talk around the whole thing. I’m still worried that I somehow woke up as a demon.”
Aiden placed a reassuring hand on Valdan’s shoulder. “Not a demon, Valdan. Trust me on that one. As for me…” Aiden worried his bottom lip between his teeth. He wasn’t sure how he was going to break the news. There was also the possibility that Valdan would not believe him, then he would have to go through the tasking ordeal of explaining himself and trying to convince the knight. “Do you remember how the library taught me a lot of things?”
“You rarely spent enough time in the library to justify learning the things the library thought you,” Valdan pointed out.
“I know,” Aiden agreed. “In hindsight it was just a piss poor lie.”
“Yeah,” Valdan chuckled. “We had a librarian. I don’t know if you had one in your world but he knows all the books checked out and the contents of those books. Your lie was the easiest thing to disprove.”
“Fair point.”
“So,” Valdan returned his attention to the skies, “how exactly did you know the things that you knew. I’m guessing you’re trying to guide me to the truth.”
“Guide you?”
“Yes. You may not have noticed but you do that sometimes. You treat people as if you are smarter than them, as if you know better than them. When you care about a person, you guide them. You don’t assume that they are smart enough, you assume that they are trying to be smart enough and you’ll guide them to intelligence. A lot of adults do that with children.”
Aiden smiled a little. It was difficult to reach the level he had reached in the Order and have normal people be as knowledgeable or as powerful as he was. He would argue that everyone in the Order was like that.
“I knew the things I knew,” he said carefully, “because I knew them even before I was summoned here.”
“From a world with no levels and no magic,” Valdan clarified. “How?”
“Because I’ve been here before.”
Valdan turned to look at him. “You’ve been to Nastild before?”
Aiden nodded. “I did eleven years here. They weren’t the most fun eleven years, but they were eleven years.” He paused, thought about it. “In truth, they were the worst eleven years of my life.”
Valdan blinked. “You know all you do is confuse people more than they already are then make them understand you from your place of confusion, right?”
“It’s a process, just trust me on this one.”
Valdan sighed. “Sometimes you can be infuriating. Okay, I’ll bite. How long ago was this? And when did you leave Nastild only to come back again?”
“Eleven years from now,” Aiden answered.
Valdan opened his mouth to respond then closed it. His brows furrowed, and Aiden could see him doing the math in his head. In the end, Valdan shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Not possible.”
“It shouldn’t be,” he agreed. “But when a [Sage] is involved, I’ve learnt that a lot of the impossible is actually possible.”
Valdan locked on one word. “A [Sage]. What’s that?”
“Unfathomably powerful beings that walk the world doing whatever they want.”
“Knight errant?” Valdan asked. “That’s fairy tales. Those knights don’t really exist.”
“Not knight errants. Those are people from the order of knights who walk the world gathering knowledge and power.” He shook his head. “Those guys are what? Level four hundreds, maybe three hundreds, maybe? No, [Sage]s are far beyond that… I think.”
“Aiden,” Valdan said very carefully. “Now you’re confusing me further.”
Aiden nodded. “Alright, let’s do it like this. Clear your mind of doubt and, for the duration of my explanation, pretend to believe everything that I tell you. Once the explanation is over, you can ask questions. Until then, believe things like Brandis’ advisor is a powerful [Sage] with enough magic to turn a mountain into a plateau with nothing but a wave of his hand.”
Valdan paled a little. “Can he?”
“That’s what the rumors say.” Aiden shrugged. “And considering the [Demon King] could do it and was still beaten by him, I think it should be fair to agree that they can.”
“Hold up.” Valdan gestured chaotically to stop him. “You’re saying that you are from the future and the [Demon King] actually came to be, and he wasn’t stopped by the [Hero] as prophesied but by the king’s advisor?”
Aiden nodded very slowly. “It’s part of what I’m saying.”
“And you want me to just believe you?”
“For now? Yes.”
Valdan gave it some thought then shrugged. “Okay.”
“The first thing you should know is that the [Demon King] isn’t inherently evil.”
Valdan sucked his teeth on that one. “Scripture says he is.”
“Valdan,” Aiden chided. “Is it possible to believe that the scripture says that he’s evil because of what he is going to do and not because of what he is?”
Valdan bobbed his head in thought. “Perhaps. But out of curiosity, are you trying to convince me that the [Demon King] isn’t bad so that I’ll believe that being a demon isn’t bad?”
Aiden laughed a little. “Valdan, you’re not a demon. Now, back to what I was saying. I met the [Demon King] before he became the [Demon King], and he was totally normal, even if a little too talented. I met him after he got the title as well. And yes, the scriptures were right about one thing, he was not a friend of Nastild.”
Valdan gave him a look. “So we agree.”
“He’s not evil inherently, that does not mean that he is a friend of Nastild, Val.” Aiden sighed. He hadn’t really taken Valdan for a dogmatic person. He loved the church but wasn’t obsessed with it. “The reason the [Demon King] was not a friend of Nastild is because all he wanted to do was find a way home. He had been promised a way home and not given one. Then when he gained the title, the world turned against him without caring to know if he had done something wrong or not. Then, as if all of that was not enough, it seemed as if going home was something he was not allowed to do.”
Valdan’s brows furrowed. He frowned. “Why do you think it was something he was not allowed to do?”
“Because when he found a way, the [Sage] came for him, not before, but after.” Aiden kept his face placid, concealing his anger at the memory. “For whatever reason, good or bad, he was not allowed to go back home. He had to be stopped. The [Demon King] became an enemy of Nastild but not because he was inherently evil.”
“Aiden,” Valdan said, his voice suddenly very careful. “If you truly are from the future, and everything you’re telling me is true, then is it something that you can prove?”
“I found the crystal of existence that spawned when it was not supposed to spawn,” Aiden pointed out. “And I found Nosrath who also spawned when it was not supposed to spawn. I was very well prepared for all of this, making these plans very, very early on.”
Valdan paused. “I guess that makes some type of sense.”
“I also acclimatized to Nastild very quickly, I remember the [Sage] saying that it was as if I was born here.”
“Also makes sense,” Valdan conceded. “Which brings me to my next question.”
Aiden cocked a brow. “What’s that?”
“Are you the [Demon King]?”
Aiden blinked, then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Are you the [Demon King]?” Valdan repeated without missing a beat.
“I’m flattered but I’m not,” Aiden answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Well,” Valdan gestured at his blackened arm. “There’s the arm that I now know for a fact has something to do with demon energy. There’s also how you were completely unbothered by the arm when you got it, as if it’s no big deal which it was and is. Then your defense of the [Demon King] not being inherently bad is kind of very personal.”
Aiden was already shaking his head. “I assure you that I was not the [Demon King].” He paused, a thought coming to mind. “Would it be a massive problem if I was?”
Valdan shrugged. “I can’t say. Are you inherently evil?”
“No, but I wouldn’t say that I’m inherently good either.”
“No one is,” Valdan agreed. “Alright, so how does all this, if it’s true, affect me and my demonic mana situation.”
“First is so that when I tell you that I know the true name of what you all call demonic mana, you’ll believe me.”
“And what’s that?”
“Dimensional mana,” Aiden said. “And if you don’t believe me, when next we come near a teleportation center, pay close enough attention and you might sense the demonic mana powering it.”
Valdan looked skeptical for a while, but Aiden saw the way his shoulders slowly relaxed, as if a worry had been lifted off them.
“So demonic mana has nothing to do with demons?” he asked.
Aiden pursed his lips. “Uhm…”
“Aiden,” Valdan said. “It has nothing to do with demons… right?”
“Well…” Aiden scratched the back of his neck nervously. “In the future, the only people known to have the mana were the [Demon King] and demons.”
Valdan tossed his hands up in exasperation. “Are you joking?”
“Hold up, it’s not all bad. I have it now, and so do you,” Aiden pointed out. “And the [Demon King] is still out there somewhere hopefully not ending up as the [Demon King] again. But it’s something.”
“What if it’s because I’m going to be the [Demon King]?” Valdan asked. “What if it’s because it’s going to be you?”
For some reason, hearing Valdan say that Aiden could be the [Demon King] weighed heavier than he had expected. Personal knowledge, it seemed, carried more weight when a friend uttered it with their own mouth.
“I won’t be the [Demon King].” Aiden disagreed. “I work with dimensional mana. We work with dimensional mana. Trust me on this one. Besides, your dimensional mana is probably the result of the poison you were given.”
“Of course,” Valdan sat back, resting against the boulder they were currently sitting in front of. “You know the origin of the poison I was stabbed with.”
“Yes,” Aiden confirmed. “It’s a secret poison grafted from dimensional mana used by the Order. Only a select number of people are given access to it. It had no right ending up in a random’s hand for any reason.”
Valdan opened his mouth, closed it. “You said a secret poison used by the most secretive organization on Nastild.”
“I did,” Aiden answered, knowing that this part of the conversation had been a long time coming.
“You also had a lot of information that you attributed to the Order.”
Aiden blinked. “I never attributed anything to the Order. I just said I had where I got my information from.” He paused. “Hold up, did you think I was getting information from the Order.”
It was Valdan’s turn to look a little nervous. “I thought the Order was feeding you information in a bid to tempt or use you.”
“Oh.” Aiden would’ve laughed if they weren’t having this conversation, and if he didn’t have to tell Valdan what he was about to tell him. “Well, you guys were wrong about that one. Still, I did eventually become a member of the Order before I died and came back.”
Valdan sat up abruptly, panicked. “You died?”
“Uh… yes.” Aiden was confused. “I was also a member of the Order.” He figured the latter was what was more deserving of the surprise. “I also came back.”
“Sure,” Valdan said dismissively. “You already told me that you came back, you’re here. You didn’t tell me that you died, though.”
“I was also a member of the Order.”
“Aiden,” Valdan said emphatically. “You died.”
“But I’m alive.”
“How?”
Aiden shrugged. “Time travel?”
“Not that.” Valdan shook his head. “How did you die?”
“Oh, that.” Aiden chuckled. He’d hoped for the sound to come out lighthearted to lessen the tension but it came out nervous and tense. “I was caught between dimensional magic by the [Demon King] and time magic from the [Sage].”
Valdan winced. “I can only imagine how bad it was,” he sounded sympathetic.
“It was a pain,” Aiden said with a shrug, downplaying how bad it was. “But I think the combined weight of their spells and their power was probably what sent me through time and space to bring me back.”
“You didn’t come back on your own?”
“Nope. I died at around level two hundred and fifty. Didn’t have the kind of juice required to pull this whole regression thing off.”
“Wow.”
Aiden cocked a brow at that. “Wow?”
“I can’t imagine returning to level zero after all my hard work and having to do it all over again.”
“I try not to think about it,” Aiden said. “Besides, its working better than you would think. It took me eleven years to get to two hundred plus. I’m already in the hundreds in less than a month. I’m making good time.”
“You are,” Valdan agreed, then sighed. “So, dimensional mana, huh?”
Aiden nodded. “I think the reason Nastild calls it demonic mana is because in its history, your world has only seen demons and the [Demon King] use it.”
“Shouldn’t that be justifiable enough?”
“Not really, because even your holy books say that the [Demon King] would not necessarily be a demon. I’m just guessing that demons have a more natural affinity for it.”
“Why?”
Aiden shook his head. “No idea. All I know is that having an affinity for it does not make you a demon, it just gives you an affinity for another type of mana.” He placed his hand on Valdan’s shoulder again. “So, you, my friend, have nothing to worry about when it comes to your new found ability. You only have to worry about how people will see you and those around you.”
Aiden felt Ted within the range of his perception. It was in the simple things. His footsteps, his gait. The way he breathed.
“The people around you?” Valdan repeated.
“The people around you,” Aiden confirmed. “I might not have been the [Demon King], but I knew him. And when he became the [Demon King], the world turned its back on me, too.”
Valdan’s eyes moved from Aiden to the path ahead of them, to the curve around the mountain.
“And you’re doing your best to make sure he doesn’t become the [Demon King] again, aren’t you?” he asked.
Aiden nodded slowly just as Ted turned the corner. “I’m doing the best I can with everything I know.”
Ted came to a stop in front of them. “I took down eight,” he said simply, unaccompanied by any familiars. “Who beat that number?”
Valdan and Aiden said nothing.
“Uhm…” Ted looked at Aiden. “Why’s he looking at me like that?”
Aiden got up and dusted his pants. “Because I just told him that I came from the future.”
“Oh.” Ted pressed his lips into a thin line. “I’m guessing you also told him who I was.”
“No. But he figured it out all by himself.”
Ted snorted. “Like you didn’t drop enough hints.” To Valdan, he said. “I swear I’m not some monster that’s going to eat your children.”
Valdan gave him a confused look at that. “Why would you eat our children?”
“No idea.” Ted shrugged. “I just won’t.”
“I see.” Valdan nodded. “And what about you?”
“What about me?” Ted asked.
“Are you from the future, too?”
“Nah.” Ted shook his head. “I’m just good ol’ fashioned normal Ted. Aiden’s the future nut job. Anyway, we should probably get back. Night’s coming and we’re behind on the time frame Aida promised.”
With that, he turned and started walking away.
Aiden paused a step into following him and looked back at Valdan who was already on his feet. “Is this a secret you can keep from Melvet?” he asked.
“Won’t be difficult,” Valdan said. “I keep none of my secrets from her, but this is not my secret so it’s not mine to share. She won’t find out until you want her to.”
Aiden nodded. “Thank you.”
He turned to resume his departure only for Valdan to slow him down.
“Aiden,” Valdan said, his tone heavy.
Aiden looked back at him. “Yes?”
“Where exactly are we going next?” Valdan asked. “You always have a plan, and now that I understand more, I understand the plan. I’m guessing your ultimate goal is still to get back home.”
“It is.”
“Then where are we going next?”
“Somewhere on Nastild is a man so powerful that he has the system-sanctioned title of [Enemy of the Order],” he answered. “And we are going to meet that man.”
Valdan stopped a few steps into following Aiden. “Why are we going to meet a man who is quite literally the enemy of the Order?”
Aiden had the answer to that. “Because many years ago, a woman took a baby and the heart of Nosrath to this man. With the heart, a baby, and who knows what else, something was made.”
Valdan frowned. “What was made?”
“The Immortal.”
Aiden resumed their return, but Valdan had one last question. It died in the air, muttered in a voice so low it was almost as if he was talking to himself.
“What,” he said, “are you trying to do, Aiden?”