An opportunity to dispel my suspicions came surprisingly quickly.
“Hey, Misha?”
“Yeah?”
Nighttime in our dorm room. I was writing at my desk when Rae called out to me.
“Do you have any interest in becoming a nun?”
“…What?” Bewildered, I turned to look at her. She was just lying on her bed, looking over at me. “Where did that come from?”
“Do you?”
“Of course not.”
“I see…”
I hadn’t a clue what she was getting at, and I didn’t know how to interact with her right now with all my suspicion of her. For the time being, I decided I would just pretend I’d heard nothing.
“But would you become one if it meant you could be with Master Yu?” she asked.
“…What do you mean?”
“Ooh, did that catch your attention?”
I had returned to writing, but that didn’t last long. The mere mention of Yu’s name drew my attention completely back to Rae.
“Rae, what are you planning?”
“Just the happiness of my best friend.”
“Don’t kid around with me.”
“I’m not kidding, though.” With a hefty grunt, she got out of bed as if she were an old man. “I might be able to do something about Yu’s body.”
“How?”
“Didn’t I already tell you before?”
Rae had already told me how she and Claire knew Yu’s secret and could heal her body with a relic from the Church. But that wasn’t what I was asking. “No, I mean how are you going to convince the court?”
“Shock and awe.”
“What?” I doubted my ears. “…Are you scheming something again?”
“What do you mean ‘again’? Don’t make it sound like I’m always up to no good.” So she said, but the words ‘shock and awe’ didn’t inspire confidence. “Anyways, I was thinking…”
Rae filled me in on her scheme. She wanted to use the ceremonial dance to reveal the fact that Yu was a woman, making it widespread, indisputable knowledge to the whole kingdom.
“…That idea is insane,” I said.
“But it’s the only one we’ve got.”
“You realize you will be executed if they discover your involvement, right?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
I put my hand to my temple, feeling a headache. Two contradicting feelings fought in my mind: my desire to trust Rae, and my suspicion of her.
“Why are you willing to go so far?”
“I told you already. For my best friend.”
“That’s a half-truth at best, I bet.”
“I really mean it!”
“No, you don’t. I doubt you even see me as a friend at all.”
She frowned at this. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you’re not the Rae Taylor I know.” I dived in headfirst and confronted her. I was ready for the worst. If she killed me here, then so be it.
She became visibly flustered. Was I right after all?
“Wh-what are you talking about, Misha?”
“You haven’t been yourself for a while now. Since the very day we began classes, I imagine.”
“Uhh…” I could see it on her face: I’d hit the nail right on the head.
“You’ve always been strange, I’ll admit, but you were still within the bounds of an ordinary commoner girl. But from that day forward you’ve clearly become a different person entirely.” I stepped closer. “At first, I blamed the stresses of our new environment for your changes in personality. But no, it’s something else, something more, and I see no sign of you changing back. You’ve become another person.”
“Misha, do you hear what you’re saying?”
“I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s the only explanation.” I thought I sounded insane, but I also felt like I was on the verge of uncovering the truth. “So, who are you? What happened to my best friend, Rae Taylor?”
Rae made a pained look and said, “I am Rae Taylor.”
“…Is that your answer? Then I regret to inform you that I won’t be going along with your plan. I won’t help you endanger Yu.”
She let out a big sigh and made a face like she’d given up. “All right. You got me. But I don’t think you’ll believe what I have to say.”
“That’s for me to decide.”
“…I guess it is. All right, I’ll talk. It might sound like a whole lot of nonsense to you, but it’s the truth.”
What she had to say was shocking. She claimed to have memories of herself in a different world, and that this world was the setting of a game in her world. She said she’d been reincarnated into the heroine of that game and was fighting to save Claire. It was all preposterous, but I heard her out for the time being.
“This world is the setting of a…vee-dee-oh game?”
“Do you believe me?”
“…Honestly, it’s a bit hard to. You said the world you come from is more advanced than ours, right?” I began to question her, trying to poke holes in her story as best as I could. Her explanations were sometimes too difficult for me to completely follow, but I found very little contradiction throughout, regardless. Her story was self-consistent. “So…what? You are Rae Taylor, but you’re not?”
“I guess so. I have my memories of being Rae Taylor, but I’ve mixed with my other self. That’s why I seem like a completely different person to you.”
I thought for a while, clamping my mouth shut. Could I believe her? Should I believe her? I didn’t know. But there was one thing she mentioned that I couldn’t overlook. “You said there would be a revolution?”
“I did.”
“And when it occurs, the royal family will be no more?”
“Yes.”
“…All right. In that case, I have my answer.” I sat up straight and faced her directly. “I will help you. I will believe what you’ve said.”
The moment I said that, she collapsed onto the bed.
“Rae?”
“Oh, thank goodness…”
“Were you that nervous?”
“How could I not be? You could have very well thought I’d lost my mind.”
“I suppose that’s true. But what you’ve told me lines up with a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“Your test results. You never were very good at studying.”
“Ugh. I can’t believe my prior dumbness bailed me out.”
“That’s not all though. There’s the fact that you counteracted that Nur Empire poison.”
“Oh, right. Cantarella. Yeah, being able to heal that was quite the lucky break.” The composition of cantarella was supposed to be a mystery, but Rae had somehow managed to heal Thane from it despite that. “I’m glad you believe me though. But wait… Since when did you learn to be so open-minded?”
“Don’t make it sound like I’m always inflexible or something. And your story isn’t as unbelievable as you might think, at least, to the people of this world.”
“What do you mean?”
“You come from a world of science, so something like crossing worlds seems impossible as it’s unscientific. But your logic doesn’t apply here. This world has magic, the most unscientific thing there is.”
“Ah… You’re right.”
“Besides, you’re not exactly unique. Tales of the lost children of the Spirit have been passed down for ages.”
“Now that you mention it…”
According to an old legend, lost children of the Spirit were people who appeared out of nowhere, always bearing special powers.
“You’re one yourself, aren’t you?” I said.
“That I am!” Her special power was likely her abnormal magic aptitude.
“At any rate, this secret of yours explains a lot of things I’ve been wondering about. Thank you for opening up, Rae.”
“No problem. I’m more than glad to finally get this weight off my chest. You really had my heart racing for a moment there, though.”
“Did I? It must’ve been even harder to tell your parents, then.”
“Huh?”
“…What do you mean ‘huh’? You’ve told them, right?”
“Nope,” she said nonchalantly.
I put my hand to my temple in disbelief. “This is precisely the sort of thing you ought to tell your parents right away.”
“R-really?”
“Yes. They didn’t say anything when you were visiting?”
“Um… No, nothing in particular.”
“…Come to think of it, your parents always have been rather hands-off.” I sighed, then warned Rae she’d better tell her folks everything one of these days. “It’s getting late. You have practice for the ceremonial dance tomorrow, right? Do you have enough time to rest?”
“Oh, yeah, no problem. I’ll use magic to get some good sleep.”
“Go ahead; I’ll wake you in the morning. Good night.”
“Good night.”
I extinguished the lamp light and laid down in bed. My suspicion of Rae had, for the most part, been cleared away. She wasn’t a threat to Yu but was really helping her. I’m sorry for doubting you, Rae…
I wondered if she still saw me as her best friend now that she had changed so much. I hoped she did. Before long, drowsiness took hold and drifted me off to sleep.