The Lost Tale

The night finally grew old, telling Merleen and me to end the day. I handled the laborious stuff, including picking the logs and watching out for the bonfire.

Merleen had something planned in mind. She was the one brewing the medicines and making a decent meal for our dinner. Since we could not function with an empty stomach, the two of us dug in and filled our bellies with the grubs found elsewhere.

After finishing our meals, the two of us went back to sleep. Well, that was our original plan, if it were not for Merleen staring at my figure for half an hour.

"I thought we're going to sleep?" I asked.

But the adorable Merleen couldn't take the hint. She maintained her position for as long as she could before falling to her strained chest on the make-shift bed.

With a grunt, she raised her head back and opened her mouth. "Nope. Merleen is not sleepy… and Merleen couldn't sleep."

I faced in her direction, tilted my head, and asked. "What do you mean you couldn't sleep? How can your body move tomorrow?"

Merleen was an outstanding wizard who even knew how to make an astral space using a ring! However, I did not want to push herself to the fullest, especially after knowing what she had experienced.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, leaning closer to her face.

Merleen abruptly retreated while covering herself with gigantic leaves meant for a blanket. However, after a few seconds, she returned in front of me and shuffled her pinkish cheeks.

"Are you going to leave Merleen?" Her soft voice escaped her mouth as Merleen asked me a question.

Those words alone pressed on top of me, with her eyes locked on my figure. Sweat flowed down onto my skin, basking me with salty rivers that came from me. However, I maintained my posture and cleared my throat.

"What do you want to do after this?" I returned the question to the odd girl.

Merleen did not have anywhere to go, while I had an impossible mission to fulfil. We were two peas in a pond, floating where the current would take us.

The wizard girl shook her head and replied, "Merleen doesn't know…"

It was what I had expected. Merleen had a hopeless look in her eyes, screaming about getting out of her cage. However, those chains kept latching her to the ground, pinning her with every movement.

Her magic became a double-edged sword she could not use, not until earlier.

After the brief silence that we experienced, Merleen finally had the guts to say something out of her mind. "Merleen wants to join you, Arthur!"

I stood from my temporary bed with widened and disbelieving eyes. I thought at first that the wizard girl was pulling my leg. It turned out my leg was not the only one that got hauled into the abyss.

Instead of chuckling up a storm, I returned Merleen's stern look. "Do you even know what I want to do?"

Merleen shuffled her head from left to right and answered me with a smile. "Not a single clue!"

"Then why would yo-,"

"Because Merleen wants to be with you… Merleen doesn't know what to do or where to go…" A sniffing sound reverberated throughout the campsite, with her tears forming a puddle on the ground.

But before I could even give her my answer, Merleen cut me off with her sentence. "But Merleen will slow you down… Merleen could not use magic yet… Merleen feels scared every time Merleen uses magic… Merleen is a worthle-."

"You can come."

I did not know what had gone into my body, but it felt perfect. My arms found themselves wrapped around Merleen's back, squeezing her as tight as my muscles could go. Three words were enough to silence the wailing Merleen.

I did not want to hear her complete that sentence… I forbade Merleen from describing herself as a useless girl. She was more than a capable mage, even the strongest if I had to be blunt.

Within a few seconds, Merleen lifted her head and met my eye. She caught me staring into her crying soul. My experience with women came from virtual novels and fantasy games, so I did not know what comforting words I had to say.

But I only knew one thing. I did not want Merleen to leave my side. It would be a waste if this dazzling girl slipped out of my hands. And regardless of her outside appearance, Merleen was the one who saved me.

"Do you mean it?" Merleen asked for the nth time.

I did not get mad at her. My face continued smiling, praying that Merleen would believe my words. If there was one thing that I was sure about in my life, it was Merleen.

There was no way in hell I would leave her side.

"I mean it, Merleen. You can come if you want to."

"Yes!!!"

Merleen's vibrant reply stole my heart for good. Her smile mended the scars left inside my body. I knew I was still an immature boy, learning about the ways of life. I was still a boy that wanted to play the hero in this world. Now that fate gave me a chance, I wanted to fulfil that promise.

"We're going to a lot of places you've never seen before, okay? I need your legs to walk as you've never walked in your life!"

"Yes!" Merleen answered.

"We're going to fight a lot of monsters along the way. Some of them would be weak as mobs, while others could be boss-like creatures! We might die, but we still need to level up, Merleen."

"Merleen doesn't know what bosses and level up means, but yes!" Merleen replied.

"And Merleen…."

"Yeah?"

I paused for a second, wondering if she planned on fighting the demon lord with me. Even the NPCs knew about the demon lord's existence. It was a myth that could terrorise the world, after all.

However, upon seeing Merleen's face, I gathered my courage and told her everything I knew, including my past life.

"Merleen, my job is to kill the demon lord. You might not believe me, but I came from another world…"

....

I told Merleen about my past and where I came from. She did not know that planets resided in outer space. Although she had a hunch, she had a surprised look on her face upon learning it from me.

Merleen even thought of me as someone smart. But it was the other way around. She, who had no scientific books to rely on, had a hunch of the entire universe.

"Tell Merleen more about your world!" Merleen said, with glittering stars in her eyes.

It was a lengthy tale, and I knew it would take the two of us until morning. But I shrugged it off and continued narrating my story.

Every time I talked about automobiles and communication devices, Merleen's face giggled like a ball falling from the sky. When I mentioned gravity, she immediately pestered me about it.

It was as if my Science teacher asked me a pop-quiz, with Merleen being the dumb professor.

But that was not the end. Merleen's surprised expression doubled when Merleen heard about the absence of magic on Earth.

"Aren't you supposed to be a knight in shining armour?" Merleen asked, with her face drooling with saliva. A feminine scent fluttered in the air, but I paid it no mind.

However, what the wizard girl said had a point. If I were an NPC living in this world and knew about other world's existence, I would have asked the same thing.

"I don't know," I plainly answered, since it was the truth, after all.

Merleen believed every word I mentioned. She was just like a little child, confiding her faith in a fairy tale.

But the fun part had only begun when I mentioned the presence of systems in this world. Merleen tilted her head and asked what a system does to someone. Merleen even guessed that a system was something like a portion of food.

"A magical system is a set of laws that govern how supernatural powers are utilised and created within a setting," I explained.

Merleen had her shock tripled when she heard that the world came out from a game.

"Magique…?" she murmured.

I gave her a nod. "Yes, Magique. That's the name of the game."

After telling her about the surface of my past life, I stood up and opened up a window. No, it was not the window inside the house, but my system's window. Merleen sat still and continued watching me from point-blank range, wondering what was happening at my fore.

"Watch."

Within a few seconds, the transparent window appeared before us, with the statistical power I had. I was slightly conscious about my power at first. But Merleen was not like those players I met. She did not care if I had low numbers in that area.