Kayden awoke in his tent in a tired and groggy state. Rays of sunlight shone through the opened entrance of his tent, which he assumed that someone had zipped open to wake him up.

“Uurgh… Just give me… ten more… hours…”

He had spent many hours last night learning about Cathy’s abilities. It wasn’t supposed to have lasted that long, but Kayden got a little carried away due to how much ‘fun’ he was having. With an ability like ‘Zone of Truth’, how could he have not?

 

“[Good morning, User.]”

“Yawn* Sigh, not this again…”

He rubbed his tired eyes and sat up. Not much to see, really. He had his personal tent and shoved into the corners were his belongings and equipment. He looked at the System notification that just popped up.

“This again?”

“[What are you talking about?]”

“…Nevermind.”

The changes in tone were getting more frequent lately. The first time it had happened during the day he fought Brandon, and ever since then, a ‘tonal shift’ would happen at least once every day.

“I hope this isn’t going to be a constant thing. It’s like dealing with my master’s mood swings…”

“[…Understood.]”

Outside, he could already hear the sounds of shuffling and packing, so he hurried to leave the tent. He nearly fell when he tried getting up but managed to keep himself steady by pacing himself. Soon enough, he successfully got out of the tent.

‘Alright, something’s wrong here. Why do I feel so sore? I’ve suffered from a lack of sleep before, and this never happened. It hurts as much as the morning after some evasion training from my master…’

Stopping himself to think, he gradually pieced together the events of last night.

“Ah, right. That’s what happened…”

They had played an uncountable number of rounds of ‘Never have I ever’ inside the Zone of Truth. The idea had been proposed by Alice as a way to both let him understand the effects of the spell and for them to get to know more about each other. Kayden had never heard of this game before but figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

Oh how very wrong he was.

***

“Never have I ever crushed hard on somebody?”

“Hmph, me? Impossible! I never—”

Zzpt!

The next minute had Kayden rolling around the floor in agony after getting hit by something that felt like what he could only describe as a lightning bolt. Arcs of electricity crackled around the edges of the translucent blue circle that surrounded the three of them, as if they were laughing after serving their purpose of electrocuting the deceiver.

“Aargh! This hurts! Ow! What is with this game? I really don’t have a— AHHH!”

Alice laughed while clutching her stomach at the agonizing Kayden, who looked back in fury. Cathy had her hand to her mouth, either to hide her laughter or her shock. With a muffled voice, she asked,

“So… you have a crush?”

With how much pain he was in, he couldn’t tell if what he heard was sarcasm or not, but with Alice’s laughter ringing in his ears, it was difficult to not misconstrue it as such. A massive desire to win and obtain revenge filled his mind, enough to temporarily drown out his pain.

“I swear… I’ll not rest until both of you gets the same treatment!”

And that was the start of a very long night. In his defense, the electric shocks hurt like hell, and that certainly wasn’t the only time he got shocked. Throughout the night, the number of lies Kayden told only kept increasing. He tried many methods to skirt around the magic spell, like telling half-truths or being intentionally vague. None of them worked.

‘Ah… They probably think I’m some sort of compulsive liar…”

In any case, the game had gotten completely off the rails. Kayden tried his best to get them electrocuted, which meant he asked the most embarrassing of questions. Alice, who had gotten a jolt after Kayden’s bombardment of embarrassing questions, retaliated twice as fierce, and the cycle kept on going.

Surprisingly, Cathy never got electrocuted once and told the truth to all of the questions. From what Kayden could discern, it seemed that her past was very clean because, for things he thought that every kid had done at least once before, she revealed that she didn’t. Or maybe she simply wasn’t affected by her own spell? Kayden never asked as he was too focused on something else at that time.

The game finally ended when both Kayden and Alice ended up with smoke trailing from their mouths. It was unknown which of them got hit more since nobody kept count after a certain point, but it was certainly enough to cause them enormous amounts of pain. Cathy, who was mortified to have let the game continue for so long, disabled the spell to let them rest.

“I…win…” Alice barely got her words out.

Kayden didn’t have the strength to argue with Alice, so he raised his hand in a very rude gesture. It seemed to trigger something inside Alice, though.

“Hey!” she broke out of her stupor, “Don’t do that! Not in front of Cathy!”

Too tired to see the point, but too tired to argue for himself as well, he let his arm drop. Eventually, as he got his bearings, he dragged himself up, using a nearby stump as a support.

“That was wild… I’m gonna go sleep now…”

“W-wait!” Cathy held her hands out to stop him from standing up, “I have one more ability! Just one!

In a daze, Kayden sat back down for the final ability to be revealed.

“Alright! You already know about my telepathic ability so we’ll skip that part. This is the last ability that I have. Here, I’ll demonstrate it!”

Kayden could immediately feel an invisible force rush past his face, shocking him back to his senses. It didn’t hurt, but there was definitely a rush of wind, and it seemed to have been targeted at the magic circle which activated the ‘Zone of Truth’ spell. Impressed and enlightened, he turned around to ask if this was the ability that could potentially get through the barrier but saw Cathy’s and Alice’s shocked faces instead. They were staring right at him, and so he fondled his face for a second, trying to figure out what was wrong.

“Why are you all looking at me like that? Did you do something to my face?” He used both hands, trying to find anything out of place.

“Ah, Kayden… I-I'm sorry!”

“Hmm? Why? Is something wrong?”

“Y-y-your face! The mark! You were probably hiding it for a reason…”

Kayden unconsciously covered his left cheek, before putting his hand down.

“No… it’s fine. You’re not the first person to know, and frankly? I trust you enough to not say anything about it.”

The slave mark on his cheek had once again been revealed. The first time was Casper, and now it was Cathy and Alice. He hoped that people finding out about his secret doesn’t become a trend, because it would mean that his illusory skills were lacking. Maybe he was fatigued from all the electrocution earlier, but he wasn’t as upset about this as he should have been. Maybe getting found out once already desensitized him to this?

And speaking of Casper, he hadn’t seen that gnome since the day they broke out of prison together. He had a sneaking suspicion that he had forgotten something, like a promise of some sort.

‘Nah, why would I ever owe a gnome anything?’

“O-okay, in that case, I’ll just continue with my um… explanation… I can dispel magical effects. Sorry, I didn’t realize you had cast a spell on yourself, I probably shouldn’t have done that…”

“I told you, it’s fine.” Kayden scratched his head in embarrassment at the incessant apologies. It was at this moment when he realized at System notification, tucked away in the corner right outside his periphery.

 

‘You’re calling my magical effect weak? Sigh.’

Kayden finally was able to ask the question that he had all this time. “This is… the ability that you were talking to Ezekiel about, right? You were planning on dispelling the barrier?”

“Ah, you’ve heard. Um… I doubt I can dispel the barrier completely if it is as powerful as it sounds but, I’m sure I can get us through! Maybe.”

Kayden rubbed his eyes and yawned. “That sure sounds promising… Okay, now that I know all your abilities or at least the bulk of it, can I go sleep now?”

“Okay—”

“Wait wait wait. Hold on!”

The two of them stared at Alice, who for some reason refused to let Kayden sleep. She pointed at Kayden and spoke in an accusatory tone.

“You have some things to explain! You were a slave? With no noble blood? And your abilities… Just how many do you have? Illusions, Transformation, and Appraisal… It’s not like Cathy’s four restrictive abilities. Are you… an unparalleled genius? And a commoner one at that?”

Kayden visibly shuddered. “Please do not call me an unparalleled genius. It brings up bad memories. As for your question, only those three. I’m not hiding any more abilities up my sleeve…” He paused as he saw Alice give him a doubtful look.

“Really! I’m not!”

“U-um! It’s getting really late now…” Cathy interrupted, “Shall we go sleep?”

Kayden stood up without a word and headed for his tent, not waiting for Alice to speak. Upon entering it, he immediately collapsed and slept like a log.

***

“The reason I’m tired now was my fault, isn’t it?” Kayden pinched his nose while shaking his head. “Great.”

Kayden would have to spend the entire day walking in his current state, and there was no way the party would agree to stop their advance just for him. That meant only suffering for him.

“Sigh. This wouldn’t be an issue if we had rented the horses…”

It was far too late to lament and regret, what’s done is done. And so, Kayden started packing up his tent and joined up with the others, who were waiting by the side of the road.

At a glance, he could tell that the party was already pumped up and ready to leave, all except one, that is. Alice was standing off to the side, her back hunched while clutching her staff like a walking stick. She didn’t leave yesterday unscathed and seemed to be suffering from a sore body as well.

‘Hmm? If two people cannot walk, maybe we’ll get to rest a bit more? This could work!’

Louis was the first person to notice Kayden coming out of their camping site. He gave a joyous chuckle and waved to him. How uncharacteristic of him.

Kayden immediately put on an act, feinting worse soreness and pain than he was actually feeling, and walked up to the party with a slight limp. After what seemed to be an agonizing time, he eventually integrated himself into the party formation.

“Good morning, guys.” He gave a weak smile. “Sorry, it took a little long… I’m just a little sore…”

“Hah! I wouldn’t be surprised. Your first time?” Louis asked with a wide grin.

‘First time? First time what? And what’s so funny?’

The response hadn’t been what he had expected, but it’s okay, he could still work with this.

“Yeah. Definitely a shocking experience, you can ask her.” Kayden gestured to the disheveled Alice. “You won’t mind if we might need to take a few breaks on the way?”

Louis looked at the mage, then back at Kayden. “Heh. Of course. We can take as many breaks as you want during the course of the journey. Just don’t get too carried away!”

“Y-yea…sure…”

As an avid fan of hiding implicit meanings behind his words, Kayden could detect that something was wrong. Louis looked strangely smug about something, and he couldn’t figure out why. Was there something he had missed?

“Heh. Cough. Let us head off, shall we?” Ezekiel led the party after dropping those words.

‘Okay, something is up. The Ezekiel just chuckled. What’s got even the usually serious him laughing?’

It seemed that Kayden didn’t have to wait too long for his answer, however. As the party started moving forward, Alice grabbed Kayden by the shoulder and pulled him within whispering distance.

“You… didn’t understand a single thing from what he said, didn’t you? I can tell.”

“Well, yeah. He acts like there’s some sort of hidden meaning behind his words, and like he knows something’s up. Do you know what that’s about?”

Alice sighed dejectedly. “Are you seriously two years older than me? I swear, if Cathy hadn’t been nearby, I would have blown up from how dense you were being.”

Cathy chose that exact moment to approach them. “What are you guys whispering about? Also, congratulations! You were able to convince them for some breaks! Now both you and Alice can rest!”

“Cathy… It’s okay if you don’t understand! But this guy,” She pointed at a very confused Kayden. “ There’s no saving him!”

Cathy cocked her head. “W-what do you mean?”

“Sigh. Nevermind that. Kayden, do you really not know? He thinks that you and I had s—”

“Cough! Guys, hurry up! We’re gonna leave you behind!” Ezekiel suddenly shouted.

“Ah…” Alice placed a hand on her forehead. “I forgot that this guy can literally eavesdrop whenever he wants to. I’m not awake enough for this. Kayden, carry me!”

“W-what?!”

He felt that perhaps he had heard wrong and that his entire morning had been a huge mess.

“You heard me! Louis isn’t going to let us live this down, so there’s no point in doing anything. Since he’s gonna tease us anyway, I’ll use this to my advantage. I’m going to sleep. Wake me up if anything happens.”

She began climbing onto Kayden’s back, before finding a comfortable position to latch on with.

“H-hey! W-what—Sigh. Really?”

“Yeah! It’s your fault this all happened in the first place.”

“I didn’t do anything…”

Kayden felt very wronged, but there was nothing he could do. He didn’t forget how easily Alice had reduced those goblins to cinders and wasn’t interested to be ashes himself, so he complied.

“S-sorry Kayden. She can be like this sometimes, so just… Anyway, work hard!”

Grumbling and moaning all the way, Kayden marched on to the next destination.