The Guide is Actually a Body-Switching Esper [BL]-Chapter 449: What’s That All About?

Hearing Damien’s question, Lane momentarily froze.

Ah, damn. He had been supposed to think about it throughout the day, try to come up with something to say to Damien so that the man wouldn’t be angry at him...

But he hadn’t. Once they had stepped into the dungeon, he became so preoccupied with hunting the monsters that he had forgotten to come up with any reasonable excuses.

What could he even say, anyway? ’I didn’t mean it?’ That would make it even worse! Then, he would have been stirring unease and doubt among the team members for no reason.

No, since it had already come to it, then it was better to just own it. Damien was already aware that Lane was critical of the Association, and there was no reason for him not to share his views with the others. There was no rule that prohibited people from speaking against the authorities. Damien might have been acting as if there were, but those were only his personal principles. He couldn’t possibly force Lane to follow them as well.

So, after a moment of pause, Lane shrugged his shoulders, trying to play it cool.

"We were just discussing what everyone’s talking about," he said nonchalantly. "It’s not just me who feels that way..."

"No, wait, but... First of all, what’s that all about?"

"...Huh?" Lane blinked, glancing over his shoulder. He still couldn’t see Damien’s expression from this position, but he had no doubt that the man was wearing a deep frown...

"Ah."

It finally hit him.

That’s right, Damien was likely not even aware of this whole thing! After all, despite being younger than Lane, he was pretty much an old man in a twenty-nine-year-old’s body, or at least he behaved as if he were. He didn’t use social media at all. None of them. At most, he might have had a personal email, but that was about it. He wasn’t even using any of the video or music streaming services...

And nothing about the progress with the teddy bear monsters had been reported in the news. The Association’s higher-ups surely knew about the issue, but it seems that they hadn’t informed Damien. Well, no surprise there - Damien was still just a Team Leader, and they hadn’t told him about the summit’s location either - but still.

Even as the public was quickly growing uneasy, discussing the monsters’ myths, the conspiracy theories and the potential apocalypse, Damien remained blissfully unaware of anything.

Truly, Lane couldn’t help but sigh, shaking his head. What would Damien even do without him?

...Then again, he had known about it for a while now, and hadn’t said a word. It hadn’t been a conscious decision on his part to avoid the topic, it was just that...

"Lane?"

"...Right." Lane let out another sigh. The reason he hadn’t told Damien about it was that he had learned about the ViTube channel and the myths from his secret organization. The videos had been slowly gaining traction back then, but they hadn’t gone truly viral just yet. Lane probably wouldn’t have stumbled upon them so early on if it wasn’t for his subordinates informing him, as his algorithm likely wouldn’t have recommended them. And, since it was somewhat correlated to his secret identity, Lane subconsciously avoided talking to Damien about it...

It wasn’t like the information about the summit, which he had heard about from Nyla, and was more related to his relationship with the Allen Guild, which Damien was well aware of. The latter was natural to bring up, while the former...

Regardless, it wasn’t important anymore. Now that everyone was talking about it, Lane didn’t have to worry about explaining how did he stumble upon it.

"It’s about those teddy bear monsters," he briefly explained. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"Teddy bear..." Damien repeated, but then shook his head. He had overheard enough to know which Gate they had been talking about, and the monsters did indeed resemble teddy bears, even if in a somewhat unsettling way. How Lane chose to call them wasn’t the point here. "What about them?"

"Well, you know that the Association has allowed a team of experts to enter the dungeon to try to establish communication with the monsters, right?"

"Yes."

That much was common knowledge. It had even been reported in the news... It had been months ago, though, and since then, there hadn’t been any public updates, at least as far as Damien was aware. He had been too busy with his responsibilities and his personal problems (that is, Lane, who died, then disappeared, until finally revealing his true identity... And causing more trouble since then) to keep an eye on it, and honestly, he had half forgotten about it. It wasn’t until he had heard his team members discuss it earlier that he recalled that there were such efforts underway...

"Right. So, they had been uploading videos online, documenting their progress," Lane continued explaining. "At first, it wasn’t anything special... But recently, they posted a video where the monsters were talking about the history of their world. And, well... Let’s just say that people found it much more... interesting."

"...And?" Damien urged Lane to continue. Although he had overheard parts of the earlier conversation, for most of it, he had been still busy preparing for the raid, and as a result, he ended up missing out on some vital information... Such as, "What was it about their history?"

Lane didn’t respond for a while. It wasn’t that the answer was difficult for him to give - he, for one, rather liked the monsters’ myths, since they supported his views and the goals he had been working on. It was just that...

He straightened up, and scooted over to the side, turning around so that he could see Damien’s face. Since they were going to discuss it, he wanted to see the man’s reaction.

"They had also experienced the period when the Gates had appeared in their world, unleashing the monsters. And, according to them, allowing our world to be Manaformed is the only correct way forward..."