.
The HR manager and the IT lady sat at the little table near the window. The HR manager once again had a book in her hand, but I couldn’t tell anything about it due to the very plain cover.
The IT lady, despite being the very picture of a yamato nadeshiko, dressed in her flower pattern long-sleeved kimono, was playing a handheld game console.
I was at a loss for how I should act. I mean, I was in nothing but panties, in bed with a trio of nude women. We weren’t even under the covers. I lay there, wedged between two prostitutes, wondering if the angels had noticed that I was awake.
The HR manager answered, “Naturally, we know you’re awake, My Lady. Or now that others are saying it, should we also be addressing you as ‘Your Highness’?”
While removing Mila’s hand and nudging her away so I could cover myself with my arm, I answered, “Please don’t. You can just call me Tiana.”
The IT lady put down her game console on the table and noted, “The inn has provided complimentary robes. Shall I fetch one for you?”
“Please?”
I waited for her to retrieve one– the wardrobe was supposed to be magically locked with my valuables inside, but it opened for her, anyway– then I covered my front with it while crawling down to the foot of the bed rather than climb over anyone.
As I tied the belt, the HR manager noted, “You needn’t be feeling ashamed, My Lady. We are quite aware of your body’s physiological needs”
That wasn’t the point. Even if I didn’t participate in actual sex, the situation that they found me in…
“In bed with a naked fairy and a pair of prostitutes?” she asked while tucking her book into her portfolio. She picked up the game console the IT lady had set down and stowed it as well. “As I have said before, matters of gender and sex are not as important as human society tries to make them. And any judgments made upon you will be on the entirety of your life, not the details. Besides, this solution to your dietary needs is not necessarily a problem anyway.”
“It’s still embarrassing!”
“Furthermore, those young ladies enjoyed their job more than usual, tonight,” she added. “With their usual customers, they rarely experience a full measure of fulfillment. That could be judged a point in your favor.”
I grew red as I recognized what she meant. The memory of first Mila and then Caris trembling with pleasure was still very fresh, as was my excitement at the possibility that, by taking time to concentrate on blood condensation as I fed, I might be able to do the same to every donor. Remembering how I had looked forward to trying it on Ceria just increased the embarrassment over those thoughts now.
Taking a seat at the foot of the bed, facing the table where they were seated, I waited for them to get to the subject. I didn’t want to say something as rude as, So what do you want? so I remained silent.
The IT lady had not returned to her seat. She extracted the fan from her kimono sleeve once again.
“I would like to do another observation of you, My Lady. Is it alright?”
Puzzled, I nodded. “Go ahead.”
She waved a gentle breeze at me once again, and this time, I realized it felt like the mana that I had felt from Miröen and back at the student commanderie.
“What kind of mana is that?”
“You were able to perceive it?” the IT lady asked, intrigued. She wasn’t meeting my eyes as she asked me, though. She was tipping her head and staring at my chest until I felt like covering it with my arms. This looked exactly like a pervert-grade ogle.
“I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it,” I explained.
“That was entropic-category spirit-neutral non-elemental mana, My Lady,” the IT lady answered. Which meant absolutely nothing to me.
She waved her fan again, still staring at my chest, and her frown deepened.
“She’s formed a spiritual core?” she asked, looking positively perplexed.
The HR manager nodded. “It is only minimal at this point, but she has, indeed. She built it early yesterday morning.”
“But this isn’t a transient spell foundation! It’s a true spiritual core!” the IT stressed.
I understood she was looking inside me somehow, but she was still staring at my chest. It was getting pretty uncomfortable.
The HR manager pressed her glasses into place, and stated, “Although it’s rare, it is possible for an embryonic nucleus to stabilize as a true core. The fact that she managed it would be consistent with the other data you have found.”
The IT lady finally turned toward her colleague. “But how did she manage it so young? As this world’s species of vampire, she is not old enough to build a spiritual core on a blood magic foundation. Before their second century, Huade’s vampires can only form transient formations.”
I was getting confused. Wasn’t she talking about the ball of condensed blood I had created? Didn’t Grandmother think it was normal for me to create one?
While slipping her folded fan back into her sleeve, the IT lady looked at me and stated, “An ordinary blood formation is normal for your kind. It can even act as an makeshift core for non-elemental magic. But when you built one, you germinated a permanent spiritual core, and that is absolutely not normal for your world’s juvenile vampires.”
The HR manager noted, “It’s consistent with your theory that she is an atavist.”
The IT lady, after a moment, grudged, “Well, yes, it could be taken that way.”
As she returned to her chair and sat, the HR manager added, “More to the point, it is conclusive confirmation on the matter of her soul origin.”
While I was taking a seat at the edge of the bed, the IT lady pressed her lips together and stated. “You’re right.”
“Confirmation of what?” I demanded. They weren’t actually telling me what they were talking about, and it was getting annoying.
“We should explain,” the HR manager told her. “She’s going to need to know.”
The IT lady nodded to her, then looked at me. “My Lady, I became involved with your case because my colleague noticed that you have a characteristic which does not fit your supposed mortal origin. Despite the non-mortal nature of your current body, a mortal soul originating on Earth should not be capable of your strength of non-elemental magic. My jurisdiction enabled me to analyse this anomaly in more depth than she could do.”
‘Non-elemental magic’ was the term the angels had used for healing magic and the mystery magics that had been messing with my life in Copen. So she was referring to my turbocharged [Healing] and [Purification]. But…
I tilted my head. “I’m not a mortal in this world, so what difference does my origin make?”
She gave a terse nod. “Your body is non-mortal, but your soul should still have mortal limits. Although one can exceed those limits, you have never taken the necessary steps to do so, in either this life or on Earth. A mortal-class soul should have required at least three centuries of uninterrupted refinement to reach your current capability. This proves that you possess a soul with a non-mortal history. And that, in turn, means you cannot originate from Earth”
“What? I am definitely from Earth!” I answered.
Shaking her head, she answered. “No. Earth’s non-mortals went renegade and the higher-ups purged them, many millennia ago. It no longer hosts any non-mortal sapient species. Your soul could not begin there.”
I frowned, now completely doubting her.
She continued, “Furthermore, a reincarnation to Earth would not be permissible for your soul class. Therefore, on Earth, you were a foreign substance.”
“A what?”
“You were reincarnated there illicitly,” the HR manager clarified while adjusting her glasses. “Earth is a breeder world which supplies new mortal-class souls throughout the multiverse. Most souls on Earth often originate with their current lifetime, and for the rest, only mortal-class souls are reincarnated there. But someone above our level bypassed the ground rules for Earth and reincarnated a non-mortal soul class into the infant Robert Stewart. The file on you in my office does not mention a prior lifetime, which means somebody sealed the data in order to conceal the fact.”
I felt like I was getting accused of something. “I have no knowledge of being anything else before I was Robert.”
“Your knowledge of it is not required. A reincarnator normally has no memory of their prior life. As a relocated hero, you are a special exception to that rule.”
“What’s the point of reincarnating, if you don’t keep the memories?”
“As you yourself demonstrate, even if you don’t keep the memories, you keep the soul. Your soul either originated in a non-mortal life, or became non-mortal, in a lifetime prior to your birth as Robert Stewart. Such a soul, which has already spent one or more lifetimes growing, is far stronger than a new soul started from seed.”
She must have read what was bothering me in my thoughts, because she added with a gentler voice, “The memories of your earlier lifetimes are not lost forever. You will recover them once you achieve an existence high enough to access multiple lifetimes of memory. You might even already be an advanced enough soul to do so, but lost connection to your earlier memories when you reincarnated as a mortal on Earth.”
I was silent for a while, as they let me sit and absorb the information. Finally, I asked, “So why did it matter enough that you had to test me? I’ve got over-the-top healing, so what?”
The HR manager considered the question briefly before answering, “We placed you in this life in the first place in order fill a critical-grade heroic need that had suddenly become unmet. When you began appearing to be a completely different soul class than what we thought we were placing, I had to determine whether a placement error had occurred, and whether a correction was required.”
I felt a chill. It was obvious what a ‘correction’ would constitute in this case.
“You had to decide whether to let me keep living this life?”
She smiled tightly. “That is correct. But that is no longer a question, given the extraordinary recent events. It is clear that the wizardry operating on you and this world as a whole has risen to an extraordinary level. An ordinary hero could not meet the heroic need present here. A being like you is an absolute necessity”
Again, she pressed her glasses into place. “Thus I must speculate that some entity at a higher level manipulated my department into putting you here. It does appear that someone above us acted to put you where you are now, in order to do what you are doing now.”
I frowned and said, “Speculate? Can’t you just ask them?”
“Certainly. In the same way that you can ask questions of those at my level. But we have a saying about that. ‘All prayers are heard, but most are inappropriate to answer.’ It is my experience that those above me take the same approach to inquiries from my level.”
After a long pause, I said, “Did you just imply that if I need to ask you something, I should pray?”
She raised her eyebrows slightly. “Didn’t you learn that as a child?”
I just stared at her while thinking, that would seriously work?
Her lip curled oh-so-slightly.
After absorbing that for a moment, I noted, “Well, none of this makes any difference to me, right? What I need to do is the same, regardless.”
“For now,” the IT lady nodded. “But, based upon my assessment, I must begin treating you as one our initiates until someone above me says otherwise.”
The HR manager added, “Although you would be in training at least for the remainder of your current life.”
They were suddenly confusing me again.
“…Training? For what?”
After glancing to the HR manager, who pursed her lips and nodded, the IT lady looked back to me and answered.
“For entry into our realm of existence.”
