Chapter 196 - Updated Later
Chapter 196 – Updated Later
Del felt sleepy. He was sleeping on his bed last night, but as his father had predicted, he was returned to earth. The bed felt different from before, this one wasn't as soft as the clouds, but still soft enough. The smells of antiseptic made a way up to his nose.
The bed seemed to be a hospital bed. Then, a familiar voice came out right at his left ear, "Del, hey, Del, are you awake?" He nodded to the left and opened his heavy eyes, slowly. His eyelids felt like it was glued shut, but he was aware of the figure besides him.
"Cassandra?" He spurted out one word.
"Hey, welcome back to the land of living," Cassandra said.
"Did I really die?" Del asked.
"Yeah, this is not exactly your body," Cassandra commented.
"Whose body is this then?" Del asked.
"Yours, but a copy of it," Cassandra said.
Del tried to move his hand, he felt no different sensation. He then lifted up his hand to his face, there was no significant visual differences. He then put his hands back at the bad, and he asked another obvious question. "How long have I stayed here?"
"A day, probably? The soul-transfer requires a day or two to stabilize the new host. It seems that you have passed the test. Sorry for the ruckus, but like what I said earlier, you're about to enter the sanctum of something that I don't even know at all," Cassandra said.
"I see," Del nodded.
"Anyway, our associates will meet you later after you're discharged from the hospital. Your sister have awoken up too. You'll be given your clean clothes, to be exact, your school uniform. Anyway, good luck, Del."
Cassandra walked out of his room and Del sighed. He wondered what kind of thing would be waiting for him. He observed his own body, he only hadn't looked at himself at the mirror. So far, nothing was looking out of place yet. He was wearing a hospital gown, but there was no sign of injury in his entire body.
He checked his private part, and he didn't see any sign of injury there. It seemed that this body was indeed a copy of his old body. To be precise, it was the exact same copy. There was sign of old scar on his body. The sample for the clone might be taken right before he was killed, but well, he had no idea.
He looked around for Anna, but she couldn't be found. Well, she might be in another room or something. There was no IV attached to his body. Why was that? Del tried to stand up from his bad. His body felt heavy, as if someone put an elephant on top of his body. What was this? The sign that his nerve tried to connect his brain to his entire body?
Del lifted up his heavy feet and he stepped to the floor. It felt wobbly, but it was still strong enough to support his body. He tried walking with his feet which was more similar to a spaghetti than feet. He walked while holding the bed with his hands.
He slowly regained the strength on his feet and began to walk normally. He felt no difference between his old body and his new body. It seemed that nothing was changed. He begun to move his feet and his hands. It seemed normal.
He then moved his jaw and moved his head. It didn't feel painful at all, it just felt as same as before. Whoever did this know whatever they were doing. There was no significant difference in his body.
He looked up and down with his eyes, and he looked left and right. His eyes coordination were good. His hearing wasn't impaired either. Del accepted that this body was indeed a copy that he resided in. Hopefully, it wasn't the corpse of someone that got reanimated.
A nurse came into his room, "Mr. Moore, I am here to discharge you." She smiled and he approached Del.
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Walking back to the cabin with their new body, both Anna and Del were still dumbfounded that their body was an exact same replica. Anna was still had to wear bandages all the time due to his burn trauma. Anna also noticed nothing different from her body.
Everything seemed to be awfully normal as well. They had been asleep for only a day after all. Nobody would miss their disappearance, Del would assume that intelligence agencies had taken care of that. He also noticed that the tablet that contained Pidma alongside his arms and his backpack had gone missing.
He had a hunch that the intelligence agencies also took them. He just hoped that they hadn't used it for something hazardous. Still, it was a little bit too much positivity on their side. If the intelligence was smart enough, they would have utilized Pidma as much as they wanted.
Let's just hope that they didn't fiddle too much with it. If they did, no one would stop them. Del was unarmed at the moment, and the only thing that they had was Anna's magic. Del only could use magic if he had his Grimoire with him which was his own tablet.
When they arrived at the cabin, there was nothing different. Still, the lights on the cabin were turned off. Did Walter forget to turn it off or something? Del entered the cabin and looked around.
"Where's Walter?" Del asked as he looked around the entire house. The shoe rack didn't have Walter's shoes on it. He might have gone outside, but there was no trace of his belongings inside of the cabin either.
Anna walked towards the coffee table and picked up a piece of letter. "Walter left us, he left because Salve Group needs him as security details. He said that the new caretakers would be waiting for us in our command center. "
"Caretakers? So there are more than one of them?" Del asked.
"Perhaps?" Anna shrugged and put the letter into her pocket.
Both of them walked towards the storage barn and opened the small door leading towards it. The room was dark. The lights were turned off, but they hadn't left for a long time. Suddenly, as Anna left, the door was shut and the room's lights were turned on.
Inside of the room were six different people. All of them were wearing military uniforms, a modern one, the one that originated back from earth. However, they could be differentiated into two different groups.
One was the one wearing multicam while the other was wearing digital flora uniform. Although both of them were wearing federation military patch on their left shoulder, the patch on their right hand was different.
One was an United States flag while the other was the flag of Russian Federation. Was this some sort of sick joke? Or was this the thing that Del had no idea about the intelligence that hid even more secret.
"Hello, Moore." One of the Russians walked towards his direction. His voice was cold. His footstep was heavy. He was also a demon. He probably had lived here for a long time. "Did you miss me?" It was the voice of the executioner.
Del shrieked and took a step backward, slowly.
"Petrov, you're scaring our new associate," A woman intervened. The woman's voice was also recognizable. The woman was Borodina, or what was her full name? "Name's Lara, you might only know me as Borodina."
"And you three?" Del pointed his hand at the Americans.
"We're from External Affairs. I'm Mcnamara. I'm the Director of Department of External Affairs and Foreign Intelligence." She then put his eye to the woman beside her."Her name Is Clarissa Heren, she is the Vice Director," Mcnamara said.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Clarissa Heren, a former pilot turned into the head of department," Clarissa said.
"Nice to meet you, Clarissa," Del shook her hand.
"What's your story ending up in here?" Anna asked Lara, weirdly enough.
She acted the same way to the Americans as Del to the Russians. It looked the people that killed Anna was the Americans. Well, both of them were equally scary and suspicious. However, Lara was holding Del's tablet. "You forgot to lock the tablet, Moore. Why don't you use the fingerprint scanner on this device?"
"I forgot to do that," Del scratched his head.
"Well, it's not like anyone else is able to use this thing anyhow," Lara commented.
"Would you kindly answer my question?" Del asked.
"Sure, but what do you want to know?"
"How did you end up in here? I meant, there is no America nor Russia in here. How did you all end up in this world? Is it because of an accident? Or is it because of something else?" Del asked.
"Well, it's quite a long story involving a lot of abnormal phenomenon. Are you sure you want to listen to that story?" Lara asked.
"Yeah, to trust is to know, after all."
"Very well then. Let me start from this…"