Well, that was an interesting trip. It was less sad than I expected when we visited our parents' grave. I guess we already started to move on so we didn't fall apart at the sight of it. At least I hope so. We paid our respects and prayed for them in the afterlife. After that Ferlin stayed behind at the fort while me, Cass and Linne continued on our trip.
I must say I was surprised when we saw what the purpose of this trip was. It was to buy a gryphon. Yes, a gryphon. The mythical flying beast with a body of a lion, wings of the eagle and a tail of a snake. Well, that's how myths describe it. In this world it does have a lot of features from the eagle and a snake's tail, but I just don't see any lion in it. Anyway, while I was surprised, my sister was appalled by it. She tried to convince Cass to reconsider at any cost. Sadly, I kinda made that worse by doing an impulsive action that I now regret.
You see I never saw such an animal before so, while they were arguing, I approached it. Its handler was there so I was safe. Safer than expected since it looked like it reacted to me very well. So I thought, what the hell, why not mount it and imagine flying on it? There were reports of rogue gryphon knights so I was sure it was possible. Sadly or thankfully, depending on how you look at it, my sister noticed me and ran angrily towards us. She gave me an earful for this.
She would have made the purchase impossible hadn't I manage to convince her by promising to reveal my true powers to her. Thankfully I didn't promise her to show her the true extent of them since it turned out I underestimated on how much she wanted the full truth.
After we returned to Metzaca, she called me and Cass to a necromancer workshop. They have been popping up ever since Miss Pireni was officially hired for her talents. Anyway she revealed that she called in a favour and that we had the entire workshop for the entire night. I guess she really wanted to know the truth. We started the talk in what might be the weirdest place where I had a conversation with someone.
Linne started by confirming the suspicion I had. She knew that I reincarnated into her sister's body. At this point it was inevitable that she would realize it. Recently I accidently overheard her saying that I had been behaving more openly ever since we arrived in Metzaca. I thought that was wrong and that I haven't changed, but between me becoming older and us settling in a city devoid of anyone we might know the shell of isolation I made might be cracking without me noticing it.
I told the truth to them that I didn't know how or why this happened, that there was no real Tilly and that I didn't even know how I died. They were still suspicious of what I said and I wouldn't blame them for that, even if it is true. I seriously don't know how I died.
My last memories were as following: reports of several large riots came in which forced me, the military governor of Frishac, to leave in the middle of the meeting to respond to the situation. But before I reached my office my vision started to blur. I was losing the control of my body and soon fell unconscious. When I woke up, the only thing around me a black void. I couldn't see anything, I couldn't hear anything, I couldn't smell anything. Nothing. There was nothing. By the time I left that cursed place I ended up in a new body in this world and that's how my story as Tilly Eltek started.
Since they didn't fully believe me, I told them that I was dumb enough to be scared of everyone when I was a child because they might have been cannibals. Yes, I realize NOW what an idiot I was back then, but what was I supposed to do? Back then I didn't have access to information about this world so I thought the elves were an alien race from my universe known as Thadrakos. Back in my previous life they were infamous for being cannibals and their remarkable similarity to elves in their physic. They were shocked to hear that though I am sure they were laughing inside after they put themselves together.
Anyway we continued our conversation until we finally reached the topic of my powers. I surprised them by showing them something that something that so far only I can do. You see, another reason why we were in this workshop was so that I can show them my powers. Before we started with our conversation I showed them how I could reanimate a skeleton. It wasn't too hard though I wish I learned more refined method compared to mine which is forcing the bones to stick together and the skeleton obeying my command. If any necromancer had seen me doing this method, I am sure I would get scolded for it.
There was also a corpse there which I waited to use it in the right moment for a little prank. That was when I told them that using my magic could mentally damage people if they didn't know up front what was about to happen. They didn't believe me so I casted the magic without them realizing it. Both of them jumped out of fear when the corpse rose up and started talking clearly. From what I know, reanimated corpse usually only moans and grumbles so for mine to speak clearly was a testament to my skill. It would have been even more impressive if the corpse was fresh so that I could have made him talk about himself. Sadly his brain decomposed too much so he mostly relied on my instructions and memories to act. Even more sadly, idiot me had explained that to Linne and Cass without remembering to stop using magic on the corpse.
Hadn't I realized at the last moment that the corpse was about to spill out my actual name, then Cass would have been successful in finding it out after I just said earlier I wouldn't tell them. She still had smirk on her face after finding out that I was a military governor in my past life. After that it was clear I didn't want to reveal any more so we made a deal: they would help me with my search by creating a printing company while I would give them clues so that they could look around too. I was surprised at what extent they were willing to go for, but Cass said she was already thinking about investing into one and this would be the last push she needed for this plan. With the economic rise of Metzaca in the last several years, this could have been a good investment, especially with the historians coming to the archipelago to investigate its ancient history.
As for me, I gave them the clues they could work with knowing if they could find anything about it, then it was time to reveal the whole truth. I did admit to them that this was a long shot, but they didn't mind. There was one last thing. I promised to Linne that in exchange for this conversation would be allowed to ride the gryphon when I was older. She did, and then she slapped me for ever thinking on how her older sister might be a monster. She finally accepted the true me because for the first time in days she actually called by my name. Never was I happier for getting slapped even if she didn't hold back. Anyway, from tomorrow onwards I will have an easier time getting new information.