Chapter 20: Putting the "Pre" in Premeditated Pt.2

"and that is how I met Livre" said Carman as he finished explaining most of his past to Ryuzu.

Ryuzu stood there, slightly stunned and remained still for a few moments to process the story she had been told. After hearing it, a lot of peculiarities regarding Carman made more sense, the only thing that didn't make much sense was how quickly he was able to adapt to the technological level of this world. If what he had described was the truth, this world was centuries behind where he and she came from. It also explained how he knew the intricacies of the circumstances surrounding his birth, and the situation he found himself in. The importance he placed on certain details in conversations and the bits of information he had constantly left out all fell into place. She now understood why it would be difficult to talk about with people you didn't fully know yet, it would take a lot of courage to divulge such a secret and risk losing the support of others because your mental age did not match your physical one.

"Did you have some kind of knowledge of this world before coming here? I have done some investigating of my own, and nobody has the slightest clue that Marcel is part of the drug market here in Fontaine." Asked Ryuzu.

She watched as Carman pondered the question, for a moment she thought he was going to lie or give her a half truth again before he spoke.

"This world greatly resembles one from a story I played through in the form of a video game. There are details in this world that do not fit entirely into the game that I played, but the importaint aspects seem to line up." Said Carman.

"Was I part of this game that you played? Was a character that you befriended or fought against? You showed a level of understanding in my behaviors that one would not be able to glean from such a short encounter." Asked Ryuzu.

"No, to my knowledge you were never part of the game that this world resembles.you resemble a character depiced in a book I once read." Said Carman.

"I see." said Ryuzu as she contemplated what Carman has said. Her thoughts starting to spiral as she started to question whether she was real or not.

"I can see from your eyes where your mind is going," said Carman, "and before you get stuck in a rut over wither or not anything is real, please let me explain something."

Ryuzu looked at Carman, not saying a word but nodded her head for him to continue.

"Are you familiar with the muliverse theory, the one that dictates that for every choice and outcome from a significant event, two or more timelines branch off each with a different combination of outcomes?"

Ryuzu nodded her head as Carman continued, "the way I see it, there is no such thing as a fictional world or universe, authors and other people who record stories of people in other worlds have the ability to see through the veil so to speak and peer into the lives of important people in the histories of other worlds. Authors never truly conceive new worlds, but rather see the stories as they unfold in worlds that already exist. Further more, I believe that there is a subgroup of individuals who are able to jump between these universes, leading to figures such as Merlin and Nicolas Flamel appearing in the history of several different universities while sharing similar physical characteristics."

"So what you are saying is that I am not a mere figment if a person's imagination, rather the story I was a part of inspired a person to write about it in my world?" Asked Ryuzu, slowly getting out of the rut she was in.

"Exactly, that's also why I am feeling hesitant to do anything against Marcel, as he plays a pivotal role in the.future of this Nation. Without him, a certain chain of events would likely not have been triggered leading to the destruction of Fontaine."

"Do you mind enabling?" Asked Ryuzu.

"Sure, essentially Marcel, or Vacher if you want his real name, has been behind the disappearances of several young ladies here in Fontaine, while I can't be sure to the fates of all of these women, but I know that many of them became his guinea pigs for experiments he was performing in the effects of primordial seawater and it's ability to dissolve the people of Fontaine.

"Why would he do that?" Asked Ryuzu.

"It's because he was desperately trying to save the woman whom he loved who had been accidentally dissolved, or should I say transformed, after making accidental contact with primordial seawater. People like to say that hate, anger, arrogance, and animosity are the main driving forces behind people who do evil, however they pale in comparison to the acts of unspeakable evil a devoted person is capable of to save someone they loved." Said Carman, "By no means am I trying to say his actions were even remotely right, but it's impossible to say what any of us would do if we were.in a similar situation. Most people would say they could never see themselves stoopping so low, but it's impossible to tell for certain unless we are in that situation. I am also hesitant to do anything against him because if we did, the secret of how Fontainians "dissolve" in certain waters will make ita way to many more hands who should not have that kindnof information, excluding the fact that the trial and the evidence that would be presented on it would be made public due to the court system, government are notoriously bad ar keeping secrets, its betrer to have him quash any notion thay such a weakness exists until the main heros of the story stop by and solve it."

"So what are you planning on doing? Do you want to go into hiding? Run away in fear of changing a story? What are you afraid of? " Asked Ryuzu.

"At first I was considering it, however, running away isn't going to sort our issues. No, we are going to hunt him and his distributors around the city until he doesn't have the time or resources to kidnap anyone." Said Carman " But before we get down to anything, would you mind trimming my hair?"

Ryuzu left to get a small pair of hair clippers, when she returned, she saw Carman sitting on the ground. From the look on his face he seemed deep in thought, after a few moments he seemed to come to a decision. He leaned back slightly as he lifted his head up to face the ceiling, a slight rosey hue cropped up onto his cheeks as he let out a satisfied sigh.

When he opened his eyes, they were clearer, sharper, and more focused than they were before. He stood up, draged a box to in front of Ryuzu and sat down once more as she started to work on his hair. As she did, long locks of Carman's wavy red hair started to fall, until he was left with a medium length haircut.

"Thank you Ryuzu, if I could make another request, the next time you go out and face rouge gardemeks, please bring one of them back here for me, there is a project I have in mind that woul.allow me to help with keeping pressure up on Marcel." Said Carman.

Ryuzu nodded and left to prepare for her night excursion as Carman started drawing out a design he had made just now for a piloted gardemek. When he was done, he looked at his status panel and felt a small amount of heartache seeing how his free stat points had almost been used up to increase his intelligence and wisdom. While he would get one every week from the repeatable workout quest, he was going to have sto restart his stockpile which would take a long time to reach where it had been before.

"Vacher, I am going to make you rue the day you decided to ruin the sanctity of a person's bath." Said Carman as he moved on to observe the two new skills he had learned from resonating with the hydro element.

[Skill: Elemental Manipulation: Hydro (basic)

Lv: 4

Description: this skill allows.one to manipulate the hydro element in their surroundings, the higher the level, the more they can manipulate and control with precision. Upon reaching Lv.10, this skill will advance to the next stage of mastery,{advanced}, and will have it's level reset.]

[Skill: Hydropowered Defence Ring

Lv:1

Description: The signature skill of an engineer who was reincarnated into another world. This skill generates a Hydro construct around the user, the construct is a defensive array capable of blocking damage and firing long range attacks that apply hydro on enemies, if switched to preservation mode, it will heal any creature that enters it's internal area and will not attack.

This skill needs more than Exp to level up, host must gather these materials which will be consumed,{4x meshing gear, 1x teachings of mechanics}]

What? Teachings of Mechanics? That wasn't in the game, where the heck am I supposed to find those? Do domains even work in this version of Teyvat?

-to be continued