“I am terribly sorry! You could have just come out and not be left out of the conversation.” He apologized to the white wolf. The white wolf slightly ignored by his master, so now, it was giving him the cold shoulder. It didn’t even want to come out of Marcel’s storage so that they could talk in person. He was a spiritual lifeform with a physical body made from his master’s magic. He didn’t need any of the things physical beings needed to survive, so he just chilled there, occasionally looking outside through its master’s eyes because he hadn’t been called outside. 

“Hmph! I’m not coming out today or ever! Well... maybe tomorrow if I feel like it. I feel very ignored and that makes me sad!” The wolf voiced its feelings with a bit, no, a lot of attitude. Marcel deserved it. He’d been stuck in there since Marcel left the castle almost two weeks ago. 

“Again, I am terribly sorry! How about from now on, you appear whenever you feel like it? You can even join us in battle... if you want.” He sounded just a bit sorry now. He was no longer focusing on apologizing but pacifying its loneliness and sadness instead. 

“Agreed! I won’t be staying in this dark place when I don’t need to anymore. I’ll come out to play tomorrow! For tonight, I will just not come out because then, you’ll feel like I am still angry at you, which I am.” Um, dear Ains? You are telling him exactly what you’re doing. I’m pretty sure that will not make it—Never mind, it’s working. Marcel does feel like he half-did what he set out to do. 

“Anyway... less about my emotions and more about yours. How do you feel after telling your friends your secret? I’m pretty sure you feel very relieved now that you don’t have to lie anymore. Sure, I knew about Silva but the others, so unexpected!”  

“Wait, what?! I’ll get back to that very soon, but, um, I don’t know~ I feel pretty good now that I don’t have to hide my identity. This world, in general, has accepted everything about me pretty well. That makes me very happy compared to parts of my life in the human world.” Marcel was referring to how Ains knew about Silva when he began speaking again. You deserve to know. It’s probably because they’ve met before in some previous life. How? Silva will tell you herself someday. 

“Will you tell me about your life in the human world one day?! It must have been hard.” Ains went in, thinking that Marcel must have lived a very sad life in the human. He was feeling a bit sad and aggrieved at his homeworld for doing that to his master but Marcel just had to answer. 

“No, not really! I lived a very happy life! I got everything I wanted: a nice family to take care of, friends who cared about me, or at least, I think so. My surroundings were very kind to me for the most part. Things were great!” He answered. Now Ains was feeling like all the sadness and sympathy he’d felt for Marcel's situation should be returned to him. Don’t mislead him like that, Marcel! 

“Haha! I’m sorry! I never said things were bad in the first place. I just said that this world accepted me well. That’s all!” He laughed heartily. Ains desperately wanted to come out of his master’s spatial storage space to beat him but no, he wasn’t going to fall into temptation. He was going to do what he said he would. He’ll only come out tomorrow. 

“Give me back all the sympathy I felt for you!” He yelled. 

“Haha, it’s already been received. Unfortunately, I can’t return it anymore. Thank you for the gift, haha!” He laughed. After that, they both broke into laughter. It was short but very pleasant for both. They quickly got back to talking about more things afterward. 

As they continued talking, Shalia came out of Valeria’s and her tent to stand behind him, stretched her neck to look at him from the side to see the boy so focused on his telepathic conversation with Ains that he’d let down his guard. You can guess how long she stood and quietly stared for before he finally noticed, his heart nearly jumping out of his chest. 

“Aahh! You scared me! Please don’t do that again!” He begged. 

“No! It’s more fun this way. I’ve noticed you really let yourself go quite often. Now I know what to do for such occasions.” She had no intention of stopping. This was fun for her. 

“Ha, if I didn’t already know you, I would have thought you were very evil from your various actions,” Marcel replied. 

“Me, evil? That’s preposterous. I don’t serve some evil god! My mother’s and my nature can be called chaotically good at worst. We’re ambiguously good deities and half-deities, thank you very much!” She answered smugly with a bit of a huff from the beginning. 

“I don’t get what you’re saying but if you say so~ Haha!” He clearly didn’t believe her. Wait, was he doubting her? The nerve! And she’d been so honest too. 

“Enough about alignments and now, more about you. You... are very strange!” She said, carrying a serious look on her face. 

“Huh? What do you mean?” Marcel asked jokingly. His friend continued to maintain her serious expression for a bit longer before sighing, then she explained. 

“For as long as I have existed, I have been able to see the futures of many, even across multiple timelines if I try hard enough. Even the futures of reality warpers like Allan can’t escape my sight with my full power, so why? Why do I get nothing when I search for yours? My powers have never failed me-” She took a long, hard stare at Marcel before asking, “Who-no, what are you?!” 

This time, Marcel was the one to take the sigh before continuing, 

“I honestly don’t know! I thought human, but then witch and my body? I have no clue about that. If you want, I can tell you about my life before coming here.” 

“Yes, please do!” She answered. She took a seat beside him. 

“Yeah, me too! I’d like to hear about it!” Valeria was the first apart from the two of them to speak. Honestly, she should be asleep like all the others. Why is she awake? 

“I’d love to hear about the young Marcel!” Shalia was the next to speak. Of course, she was. 

“*Sigh* Okay, how many of you are still awake? I’m just guessing, but is the answer all of you?” Marcel didn’t wait long before getting his answer as the rest came out to sit beside them. Really?! What happened to going to sleep? 

 “Now, tell us! We’re all eager to know, except Allan, probably.” Valeria spoke. 

“Not really. I don’t know much either! He only told me some stuff, not all of ‘em. I’m as eager as all of you are.” Allan refuted her earlier claim. He wasn’t lying. 

“Fine! Fine! I’ll tell you all. My life back then was kind of boring compared to how I live nowadays. I don’t remember anything from before I was three, so I see myself as an orphan because that’s where I was when I first opened my eyes; an orphanage on the outskirts of a kingdom called the Freiss kingdom...” 

* * * 

He told his story to his friends, Marcel’s true story, this time. How he awakened as a hero at age 10, the adventuring school he went to, his magic teacher, the adventurers he went on, acquiring Sword Frostbite, coming to the demon realms, the Demon Lord’s proposal, his eventual transformation, and double identities, everything. He left nothing unsaid, except his ‘accident’ with the Demon Lord way back when. That was too embarrassing to tell anyone and would eventually lead to some misunderstandings, but for now, meh! He also left out some secret events from his past because, um... everyone has those. 

His friends listened attentively to his story and Shalia almost cried. It wasn’t because Marcel’s life was deserving of some kind of sobfest, well, except for the part where he gave up his human body and appearance, but because she... was not a part of any of that. She almost cried for herself. Little did she know that Marcel already had ‘her’ in his life way back then. Will I explain? Not now! 

“It must have been hard to relinquish your former appearance for this one.” Nigel and Daniel tried to comfort him. 

“Yeah! If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to miss it too. I like that one much better than your current one. It was so gentle and cute in nature!” Valeria also tried to comfort him, but she threw the ball and missed on that one. Marcel doesn’t like it when people call his old appearance cute. 

“No, I think that one’s too plain. There wasn’t anything unique about it. It was just like taking all your inherent qualities and adding it to that form, kind of like accessorizing. If that wasn’t you, I would have probably just walked by it if I saw it somewhere else? It’d very unremarkable without you inside of it.” Shalia voiced her opinion. Whether or not Marcel took it as an insult to his old self is up to him. Wait, he does, but he’ll let it go. 

“Agreed! Like I said before, that form also seems very forged. It doesn’t really fit what I see.” Again, what she means by that will never be known, not just yet, at least.  

“Again, why does everyone seem to think so?!” Marcel voiced his opinion. He sounded a bit angry, frustrated even. 

“Huh?” The others went in unison. 

“I’ll explain! I don’t know why, but from the moment I heard the Demon Lord tell me about the transformation, something in my mind told me to say yes and I did almost instantaneously. Also, my preparedness for such an outcome made that choice I had to make feel inevitable, like it was a choice I’d have to make eventually. Although I didn’t get exactly what I wanted, I’m very satisfied now. That’s why I say it wasn’t a tough decision to make at all.” 

The others were left speechless for a few moments after his answer, shocked even. Was this really how it was? 

“Damn it, Marcel! Give me back the sympathy and other sorry feelings I felt for you back then. I feel very betrayed now.” Allan was very shocked because now, he found out that he was completely mistaken. Marcel wasn’t sad back then, or at least, not much anyway and he’d been made a fool of. 

Slight anger was brewing inside of Allan. He wanted to grab Marcel and have him return his feelings from earlier when Marcel talked about the matter back when it actually happened, and he did, demanding his feelings back. The others laughed at the two with gleeful expressions. This was just what they needed to lighten the mood even further. Seriously, though, they still couldn’t help but feel like Marcel had it hard in his earlier life and when he first arrived. Having a part of your identity taken away from you isn’t something you just accept like it’s nothing, even if he says so. 

“Okay, now we should really go get some sleep if we hope to not be attacked by monsters while feeling very fatigued and tired tomorrow morning. We probably don’t have many hours left before its wakey-time inside here.” Nigel was the first to get up, heading for his tent, suggesting that the others should do the same. 

“Mm! I’ll be getting to it very soon,” Marcel replied before Nigel entered his and the brothers’ tent.  

“Aww! I would have liked it more if our time together tonight lasted a bit more. We should enjoy ourselves while we’re here. You know, today is going to be an anniversary of sorts for us. I feel like today is when we all wiped the mud off our faces to become our true selves; you know... real friends. It feels kinda nice.” Shalia really didn’t want to sleep. Honestly, she’d do just fine without sleeping for days so she would have liked it if they could talk more. 

“Yes, very! *Yawn* But this tiger already feels very tired. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. Good night!” Valeria also got up, heading for her tent. The others quickly got up after her and headed to their respective tents. This had been another long day for them. It all started with a stalker and ended with a lot of secrets being exposed to each other a few days later. All of this had led to them getting closer to each other and they liked not having to hide their true selves as much behind various magics. Ah, they had the stalker to thank for so much.  

Speaking of the stalker, what happened to her? Where is she? Has she already left or is she waiting in hiding? Find out very soon!