I was in the lab of the renounced man the Mad Scientist, weirdly enough he doesn't like to be called that, even though nobody knows his real name, so he got stuck with that.
What a peculiar situation to be in...
Now I was looking back on how I got here in the first place.
We've been stuck here for a few days with no results on how we could sneak into the underground prison.
But it wasn't all that bad, we managed to learn more about their culture which was an interesting thing to see.
Piligers are split into three sections.
-High Stuff
-Soldiers
-Citizens
The high staff are few and have the same role as the nobility, with the General being at the top of it all.
The soldiers were surprisingly the majority but with a few unanswered questions.
Some Piligers grew up here, they were in smaller numbers, but in the past few decades, more Piligers started to come from 'outside' with no memories of how they got here.
The higher-ups claimed that they were from other outposts, but no one ever saw another outpost of Piligers.
With time they settled down and made families making everyone get used to these unusual accuracies.
But every time soldiers are lost in battles against Viligers, new Piligers seem to come from a different outposts to even the numbers, making Citizens theorize that they are reanimated corpses of the killed Villagers.
Finally, the citizens were people who didn't want to fight or were incapable of fighting, most of those being people who kept forgetting chunks of their life forcing them to have a simple life to not bother others.
Everyone's dream is to get back to their former glory and be recognized by the world, ever since they were little they heard how good their ancestors were and encouraged them to be like them, resulting in a society that runs towards their destruction while dragging the other nation with them.
The more we learned, the easier it was for us to blend with the rest, and at one point we decided to split up to cover more ground and gather more information.
Since I was better equipped in case something went wrong, I was chosen to spy on the castles and the people inside them, and Froggy was infiltrating the soldier's camp.
The first day went smoothly, and nobody questioned when I presented myself as a gardener, not even the gatherers themselves, they thought I was extra help for them and didn't refuted it.
But on my second day, trouble seems to find me, as one of the most unexpected men seems to take interest in me.
There isn't a lot known about this man as most of the time people seem to disaper around him, which resulted in everyone saying the same thing.
Do as he requests, and you may live.
That's why I was in his lab, ready to take out my crossbow or diamond sword at a moment's notice.
"Tell me, gardener, what do you think about the outside world?"
The Mad Scientist was looking through his chest while talking with me.
"I'm afraid I don't know much since I haven't been there."
"Then try to guess."
"Uhh...since they don't want to communicate with us I can only assume that they don't like progress, and instead warships the System."
"That's an interesting take. Now tell me, Gardener, what do you intend to make with your life?"
My life? I guess I want to get to my home dimension, but what's with the sudden questions, I thought he wanted me to just throw some trash he had!
"I didn't think about it, I'm content with the life I have right now, so I guess I'll keep doing this."
"Is that so, ah there it is!"
He stood straight and held a milky white potion in his hand, and started to drink it.
Particles started to appear around him and he pressed a button that I didn't see, which blocked the door behind me.
I was found out so I quickly prepared for battle, I equipped my diamond armor, and took out my loaded crossbow ready to shoot.
"So your true colors are finally out. I would suggest you against firing that weapon since the potion that I just drank absorbs 90% of any damage against me. And if I press this button a few special potions will be thrown into the lab that would most likely slow you down enough for the rest of the soldiers to catch you. Even your monster friend won't escape this."
How did he know about Violet, did she slip up somewhere?
Also, what did he drink, is true what he said or is it a bluff? Can I even afford to call on his bluff?
"You seem to know about my identity for a while, why didn't you alert the guards then?"
"You're a smart one as well. Indeed could've called the guards to kill you but the fact that you have a monster flowing you, have four skills, an unknown name, and items in your inventory that I have never seen before. I had to capture you instead."
How does he know all of that?!
Did someone betray me? No that couldn't be possible since I haven't told anyone about Violet yet.
Does that mean he has an ability similar to my monster friend?
How is that possible, I know there's little information about the illusionists but I don't remember them being so overpowered!
"And yet you haven't ordered to that Mister Illusionist!"
Violet finally made herself known beside me and the Scientist was surprised by what I said.
"A name only known by the master and its disciple, and yet you seem to know it as well, you're making me more curious Mister Spy, who are you, how much do you know about my specialty?"
"I'm a nobody, and I know enough to hold a fight against you. Also, you still haven't answered my question."
"Ah yes, while I think I can do that, I would lose a lot of soldiers because of that, and the General would not be too happy about it, especially when we're so close to the big invasion. So I propose a trade, Mister Spy, I answer some questions while you'll answer some of mine, who knows, if we get well enough we could do a few experiments together. "
"So you want to trade with me since it's too risky to capture me."
"That's the short version, yes."
"What if I refuse?"
"Then I'll have to kill you and extract whatever I can out of your soul."
Well, that took a dark turn very quickly. Now what should I do?
I have an iron axe with me and a bucket of milk, I can break the floor and wash off any debuff potions he'll throw at me.
But at the same time, I can do this after I get some information out of him.
Who knows, maybe I can negotiate the freedom of the witches like this.
"Can you free the witches as a payment instead?"
"No, I cannot."
He said that with a smile on his face.
"OK then, shoot your question's."
"Why would I shoot them? Sorry, I'm getting distracted here, my first question is a simple but deep one. What are you?"
This confused me a little since I didn't expect this.
"You mean, who I am?"
"No, not that since I know whatever you'll tell me would be a lie, you see I have an item that lets me see the truth, I can see some item's that people like to keep secret, but not only that, my special device told me you are closer to that monster friend than an actual human, also you seemed to be connected to four dimensions and I only know the existence of three."
What was he talking about? What did he mean that I'm more like Violet than a normal human, I don't look anything like her! Also, how does he know so much about other dimensions, people bearly know about the Nather, so how does he know about The End, what about my word?
"Sorry that I'm not answering your question, but how do you know so much?"
This didn't seem to bother him, actually, he seemed to be happy with me acknowledging his intellect.
"You seem to forget that we were once the pinnacle of science, even though written records are no more, communicating information from mouth to mouth was still a viable option, that's why we managed to restore a part of our old libraries. Although even then we didn't know what happened in the Great War we know what was the aftermath, a huge part of the continent was ripped apart and thrown into another dimension, the one we call it Nether, with the help of the achievements, we managed to find a way to access that dimension, unfortunately, the Stone Kingome has the last working portal since we don't know how to open another one. But that was a dimension created by the system, not the same place where the attack came from, that's why we called that dimension The End, since it only brought destruction on our land"
The man clearly loved this subject since he spoke every sentence with passion, and I was impressed by the information he knew as well, I only found out about this recently, but it's well documented subject for them.
"With my special item I can see some interesting stuff, or feel something that I usually don't feel. The people living in this world have one connection, the monsters that appear at night have two connections, one to this world and the other to The End, imagine my surprise when I looked at your monster and saw how different it was, and it had connection to three dimensions. And then there's you, who has connection to all of what's know plus one! So what are you Mister Spy? A monster, an alien or maybe the avatar of the apocalypse?"
Those were a lot of accusations thrown around that I was uncomfortable to think about.
"Honestly I don't know how I got here, I just randomly woke up over a year ago, and tried my best to get back. I can guess how I got the connection to the Nether since I've been there, but I haven't gone to The End yet so I don't know how that connection was made. But if you saw a connection between me and my friend Violet, that could mean that I was summoned by the entity that rules over The End."
My statement took him by surprise since he probably didn't expect an answer.
"Usually if you aperear in a place you don't know, it takes a while to adapt, but your skill page shows that you did more then adapt into the new world, you actually thrived, and so much only in a year? Did you start at different level, since I can see you need the same amount of XP as everyone else."
At this point I think the monocle is the magical item that he keeps using to spy on me, that's the only thing that looks odd on him.
"No I'm just a hardworking person."
"If your hardworking manged to get you to this level I don't want to know how see the people that take years to get to this level. Also why do you think someone from The End summoned you when I pointed at the connection."
I was hesitant to answer this question, but in the end, he said it himself that he doesn't know how to get there. And maybe he would know a way back to my home dimension.
"The End dimension, is also known as the home of the Endermans, there's little monsters besides them and it's ruler, only the Endermans seems to be the only mobs that appear in all worlds."
Except mine.
"You talk like youve been there, yet you claimed that's not the case, how so?"
"It's some general information from my original world."
"The one you can't get back to...this only makes me curios about your world, since it seems to be more advanced then what my ancestors did."
"I don't think we trust each other where I can share that information."
The Mad Scientist froze, before giving me a smile.
"Trust is earned by exchanging information indeed, so what's your question then?"
I took a deep breath thinking about my question.