Chapter 23
The First Encounter
Part 1B
"I have a request for all of you. I need you to assist me to keep my family safe until I get a way to take back my county." That was the emporer request. Looking around me, I was thinking, What was the reason behind asking a group of odd people gathered in a forest, among them women and children? Also, those people were totally strangers, so was it normal in this world to ask favors from strangers? I don't know why that didn't make any sense to me. At the same time, I was looking around and checking the faces of the people around me and their reactions. The faces of the ladies I was with were without any expressions, except for the surprise of the identity of the man who was talking, and the new group was strangely standing apart, which made me come to the conclusion that they are not together or else they would have stood together.
The same thing I was doing, the emperor was doing it also, looking at the faces of the people around him. Although nobody reacted to his request, at least I was expecting some questions, so did he apparently, but no one asked or said anything at all; everyone was looking at him only. After almost one minute passed and everybody was silent, finally I turned and looked at him, and I took the initiative and asked him, "How can we help you? Your highness?" There was no ceremony or any etiquette in the way I addressed the ruler of a country; just by adding the word your highness only showed some kind of respect, not that I know of a way to speak with royalty or act in front of them, and all the knowledge I read previously, whether it is fiction novels or history books, doesn't help in real life since no one can remember every single detail or have the time to search his memory to obtain the correct information.
The emperor looked at me for a second, and with a smile like he understood something, he nodded. Widening his smile, he said, "Thank you." He then looked at the others and said, "Can everyone introduce himself or herself, please, before we begin?" We both turned to the others at the same time. Since I was the first one to speak, at the first time I preferred this time to wait and listen to the others first. I was also contemplating whether I should disclose the truth about myself to these people whom I don't know. If I can trust them or not, in fact, I don't trust anybody at the moment because, in my simple opinion, trust is something earned, not something given. For some reason, everyone kept quiet and everyone started looking around, like they wanted someone else to start. It didn't occur to me that everyone was hesitant because they were in front of the ruler of the country or got intimidated by the situation. For some other reason, I thought that everyone was hiding something.
While I was thinking and waiting for someone to speak first, the group consisted of two men and a young boy. One of them, who was wearing some type of uniform, spoke first and said, "Hello, my name is Murad, I am from the Thames Kingdom, and this gentleman is Ozak," and then he looked at the young boy who was behind them. The young boy started shaking like he had been electrocuted and almost fell down, but luckily the man called Ozak ought hem before he fell and helped him stand while asking him, "Are you okay?" The young boy nodded and said with a low voice, "Yes, thank you. My name is Julian, and I am from Arathis." Everyone, actually not everyone, but the uniformed man, was the one I was able to see his face, and the surprise was visible on his face. Next, what they did was look at four people beside them.
The other group was four people: two men, a young man, and a little girl. I have noticed that the little girl is looking at me and paying more attention to me rather than anyone else. When she noticed that I was looking at her, she didn't even blink but smiled at me, a very bright smile like a sun shining out of her face. I couldn't hold myself back from smiling back at her, too, for some reason. I didn't notice at that time that I felt relaxed, like there had been a weight lifted from my shoulder. One of the two men stated, speaking, addressing the emperor, and said, "Greetings your highness, My Name Ajbadan, I am from the Mythical Lands in Arumina, and this Azmar, Raco, and Amran." There was nothing about the way he introduced himself and the others, but I wondered for a bit why he used the word I instead of we. But I didn't linger on that much because the next group that had to introduce themselves was me and the two girls that I countered in the middle of the forest, of whom I don't know their stories yet, as well as the new young girl who suddenly speared here, and we pretended to know her at the beginning to avoid any misunderstandings or complications.
At the same time, we cannot claim that we know each other since all the time that we have been traveling together was a few hours, and all I know about them was what they told me, which was that they found themselves here, like I did, and they didn't know how they came here as well. So was it the right time to disclose this strange information, or is it better to hide it from the rest, although we can share it with the emperor later on, because there are really suspicious people walking together, each one of them claiming that he or she came from a different place? At the same time, if you look at it, the other two groups also came from somewhere different, and from the look of the man named Murad, it was also strange. The knowledge I had about this world was embedded in the AI chip in my brain, which I named EMM since the voice was female, but since I entered the fog, I lost the connection totally. Even the device on my wrist is not working now, so I simply cannot access the information stored in my brain, especially the general knowledge. I only know what I memorized and encountered in the normal way.
So I don't know if the cities or countries that they mentioned are next door or at the end of the world. The three girls who were close to me, but between us by a couple meters, were looking at me at the same time I was looking at them. Also, everyone else was looking at us, and since I was still in the location where I appeared the first time and didn't move, I was the closest one to the emperor.
Anyway, since I am not going to take on a responsibility that is not mine, I decided to tell the truth, but not all the truth, but half the truth, and most importantly, I cannot mention that I came from another world. Although Emika was reluctant on me traveling alone but to hide my identity she already made for an identification of her country, that means I am a citizen of Angariya now. For some reason, I am not that worried about the beings in this world, although they look human, but absolutely they are not, because simply on earth, if I were an alien, I was sure I would be dead now after they tried to study each and every part of my body and brain, but here I was treated like being like any other.
I made up my mind and turned to the emperor and said, "Your highness, my name is Aden, and I came from Angariya. The ladies here, we just got acquainted in this forest, and I believe each one of us came from a different country, and for unknown reasons, so far we have met all here."