Chapter 353: The Difference Between a God-touched and a Reincarnator?

Benjamin smiled softly and looked down at his own hands, turning them over and studying his palms as if seeing them for the first time.

"I am me, Ten. I’ve always been me, and I’ll always be me, no matter what form I take or what changes I undergo. So I’m not afraid. I am forever me... even if it turns out that I wasn’t the original version."

{Master...}

[Hm? What is it, Sys?]

{...Master is extraordinarily amazing...}

[Ehhhh?! Sys is actually praising me out of nowhere! That is so rare. And hey, I can feel fear and relief coming from you through our connection. Or is that just my mind playing tricks on me?]

{It is Master’s imagination. I do not feel emotions.}

[Sure you don’t.]

"So you are currently stopping something so essential to occur between us with some kind of ability?" Tensei asked again, trying to wrap his head around the situation.

"Not just the ability alone. Willpower is also involved in the process. You need willpower to hold in a severe need to pee, right? Same principle applies here. My will is keeping the hold active."

"Again, and I cannot stress this enough, please stop using such vile and uncomfortable analogies when explaining important metaphysical concepts to me," Tensei rolled his eyes in exasperation, his wings twitching slightly behind his back. "So let me summarize to make sure I understand correctly: whenever we are in each other’s presence, you will actively switch and adjust yourself using your [Form Manipulation] ability... and your willpower, yes?"

"That’s correct. But I believe we should both seriously investigate and find out why we’re trying to merge together in the first place," Benjamin proposed, his expression turning thoughtful and serious. "I was sick of running away from this problem, from the mystery of my own existence, so that’s why I faced it now, head-on. But it leaves me to ponder: is one of us an alternate dimension personality that is not supposed to be here?

"Or are we fractions of the same soul that got separated somehow? Maybe we both are clones of an original person who no longer exists? There must be something extremely fundamental and true about why we’re trying to merge. If we can find that out, we can make it so that we are completely separate individuals with no pull between us. The original can go to hell and stay non-existent."

"Again, I have to ask because it is bothering me: why are you so calm about all of this?" Tensei asked, looking a little disturbed by Benjamin’s relaxed demeanor in the face of such an existential threat to his identity.

"No, no, it’s not like I’m calm in the way you are thinking," Benjamin patted his shoulder reassuringly, though Tensei seemed dissatisfied with the gesture, his face showing clear discomfort at being touched by Benjamin, of all people. "I’m not calm, I’m confident. I have too much to lose, too many people who care about me and who I care about in return, to simply disappear or merge into some guy.

"Aaaand I do have strange dreams at night, weird and unsettling visions, about dimensions breaking apart, about myself dying in various ways, about meeting people who technically shouldn’t exist according to my normal lifespan, and about remembering memories that I never actually lived out with my own body and senses. I already knew that something was up with my existence from my time even back on Earth, long before I ever came to Elyndor."

"Ah, yes... That makes sense. You were a reincarnator, were you not? Someone who died on Earth and was reborn in this world with your memories intact?" Tensei casually stated.

But Benjamin looked at him with a suspicious squint, his blue eyes narrowing and his head tilting slightly.

"What?" Tensei asked, feeling awkward under the scrutiny, his golden eyes shifting away for a moment.

"No, it’s not what you said, but how you said it. The way you say the word ’reincarnator’ so naturally... it’s almost as if you’re speaking from personal experience. Almost as if you are a reincarnator yourself." Benjamin stated directly, watching Tensei’s face for any reaction.

"Why would you come to such a strange and specific conclusion based on such a small piece of evidence?" Tensei asked, his wings flapping once behind his back before settling back into place.

"No, hear me out. People who are native to Elyndor, that’s people who were born here and have always lived here, they use the term ’god-touched’ when they refer to people like me who came from other worlds.

"I have heard it many times from many different people. It’s the standard term in this world. But you didn’t say ’god-touched.’ You said ’reincarnator.’ And only the two other reincarnators I have met so far — Maria and Ren — had called themselves reincarnators. That word is common from Earth. Not from Elyndor."

"...It is a strange and indirect way to figure out a mystery, but you are correct in your deduction," Tensei nodded his head slowly, his expression becoming more open and less guarded. "I was initially from Diana."

"...Who the hell is Diana?!" Benjamin shrieked, his composure breaking for a moment, then he pondered for a while, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Let’s go somewhere else to have this discussion. Maybe that beach fraught with dangerous monsters. I don’t want the women of Verdant Spire to know much of this conversation. Some things are better kept between us for now."

"Oh... I see..." Tensei nodded, before his eyes went bloodshot, "Wait, did you just say monste--"

And without even touching Tensei, without making any physical contact or speaking any words of teleportation, Benjamin took Tensei with him in a fluid and seamless manner, transporting them both across a vast distance to a shore that neither of them had been standing on moments before.

A beach that Tensei did not know existed anywhere in the Whispering Wilds, with soft white sand stretching in both directions as far as the eye could see, and a vast ocean of deep blue water extending to the horizon under an open sky.

The wind was more aggressive there, stronger and more constant, whipping through their hair and their clothes with a steady and insistent force.

The sound of the water lapping against the shore was soothing and rhythmic, a natural music that filled the space between words.

And the beach sand sank slightly under their soles as they stepped on it, soft, loose, and warm from the sun.

With a small wave of his hand, Benjamin caused two large boulders to rise out of the ground, pushing up through the sand as if they had always been buried there and were only now being revealed.

They were smooth and flat on top, perfect for sitting.

Benjamin sat down on one, and Tensei sat down on the other, facing him directly with only a few feet of sand between them.

"No, but seriously, I have to ask: are you a Superior Spirit? Or maybe you have become a defacto god without realizing it? The casual way you manipulate the environment around you suggests a level of power that most beings never achieve."

Tensei wondered aloud, his golden eyes studying the boulders and the beach with curiosity. "So... what did you want to talk about so urgently that you did not want your women to find out about?"