Chapter 118: Revealing My Secret

“Rick, are you all right?!” Alicia asked as soon as I regained consciousness.

“I-I think I’m going to die…” I said, still feeling my stomach churn.

“I told you not to eat it,” Sarah said, puffing her cheeks at me.

“I couldn’t help it—it was cake. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had one?” I asked, annoyed.

Alicia held her hands to her chest, a sad expression on her face. “Is my cake really that bad?”

“Alicia,” Erina addressed the princess, “did you taste it?”

Alicia shook her head.

“Uh… why didn’t you try something you made before offering it to someone else?” I asked, incredulous.

“Well, it looked good, it smelled good, and I followed what Ingrid said, so it should have turned out tasty, right?”

Justine picked up the plate of cake that had been given to me. There was still a decent piece left. Without any hesitation, she raised the plate toward Alicia and said, “Try it.”

Alicia looked surprised at Justine. It wasn’t like her to act that way toward the princess, but there she was, staring at her with her dark eyes. The blonde girl took the plate, cut a piece with a fork, and brought it to her mouth. Her reaction was immediate.

“This is horrible,” Alicia said, sticking her tongue out in disgust.

“This is for you to learn not to offer your food to others without tasting it first. No—you should taste it throughout the entire process,” Justine said, annoyed. “Honestly, it’s been almost a day and I can still feel that awful taste in my mouth.”

Erina was standing near my bed, leaning against the wall with her usual cat-like smile. She seemed to be enjoying the sight of Justine scolding the princess.

She leaned closer to my ear and whispered, “Justine takes food very seriously, so she hated Alicia’s cake more than any of us. Isn’t it amusing?”

I looked at Justine, who seemed like a teacher scolding Alicia, while Alicia looked deeply regretful over her first culinary creation. Diane was telling Justine not to be too harsh, and Sarah watched them all as if they were a lost cause. Seeing that chaotic scene between them made a smile spread across my face, and I said to Erina, “Hehe, yeah, it really is.”

I considered that weird bunch my family, and there was something bubbling inside me—the words I had been thinking about for a while now surfaced in my mind.

“Girls, we need to talk,” I said in a serious tone.

“Hey, you had to stop them? I wanted to watch them argue a bit longer,” Erina said, as if I had just unplugged her TV.

“It’s important. Justine, it’s about that talk we had before entering the dungeon,” I said to her, and she reacted by widening her eyes.

“Are you sure? Wouldn’t it be better to tell them after our mission is over?” Justine said, sounding uncertain.

“No, I’ve made up my mind. I trust you guys—I really do. But I felt like I should carry this on my own. Normally that would be the case; however, it might affect you too, so I need to talk about it sooner or later.”

All the girls in the room looked at me, curious about what I was about to say. I took a deep breath. There was no easy way to explain this. I thought about where to begin, but in the end, my mouth just blurted it out.

“I transmigrated!”

My voice echoed through the room. I waited with my eyes closed, expecting some kind of reaction—but nothing came. The only sound I could hear was the indistinct chatter from the tavern below.

“Trans… migrate… What the hell is that?” Sarah asked, having no idea what I meant.

“Is it some kind of magic?” Erina asked Justine.

“Who knows? I’ve never heard of it,” the girl with glasses replied.

It seemed I had chosen the worst possible way to tell them.

“It’s better if I start from the beginning. You girls know me as Richard Forster, but even though I have this body, my consciousness came from another world.”

The five girls remained silent as they listened to me. Their faces showed all kinds of reactions—curiosity, disbelief, uneasiness, concern. But I didn’t stop at the sight of their unsettled expressions; I just kept talking.

“In my world, the story of yours is written in a book. And for some reason I still don’t understand, I woke up in Rick’s body. That’s how I know certain things about your world. That’s how I knew about the boss of this dungeon.”

There was much more I could say. I hadn’t even scratched the surface, but I felt there was no better way to tell the truth than being direct.

I fell silent, waiting for one of the girls to say something.

“How long?” Sarah broke the silence. “How long have you been in this world?”

Her voice was just as serious as mine. It seemed like she actually believed my story.

“Since the day we found the Lost Temple. When I woke up at the inn, I woke up in this body, and soon after, I merged with the original Rick’s memories.”

“Hmm, I see,” Sarah said. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Eh?” I let out a surprised sound.

“Hmm, I don’t think that changes much for us,” Diane said with a thoughtful expression.

“That’s true,” Alicia added in a cheerful tone. “We met you after the transmigration, so Rick never changed for us.”

The other girls nodded in agreement.

“And before that day, I saw you more like a brother,” Sarah said, her cheeks slightly flushed. “So to me, you’re still the same Rick I fell in love with. So it’s not a problem.”

“W-Wait a second,” I said nervously at their reaction. “Aren’t you accepting this a bit too easily? I’m saying I came from another world—that I basically took over the body of someone you knew, even if it wasn’t on purpose. This is the kind of story anyone would think is crazy!”

“Hey, hey, don’t be so dramatic. Those are just details,” Erina said in her laid-back tone.

“You’re a man who received the blessing of a goddess in a Lost Temple,” Justine said calmly. “That alone is already far from ordinary for us.”

“And besides,” Diane added, “you’re not the kind of man who would lie about something like this with such a serious expression.”

“This story is hard to believe, but if it’s you, Rick, then I believe it without a second thought. After all, you’re my prince,” Alicia said in her cheerful voice.

“If that’s what was making you so nervous, I’m sorry to say—but you stressed yourself out for nothing,” Sarah said to me in a rather cheeky way.

There I was, worried about how they would react to the truth, yet they all seemed to believe me. Seeing them look at me the same way they always had, I really started to feel like a complete idiot for ever doubting them.

But there was still one part of the story I needed to tell—the most serious part of all.

“Well, there’s more to it than that. Rick—no, I have a problem I still need to deal with. Like I said, the story of this world is written in mine. Some events have changed since I came here, but I don’t think it will be enough to change a certain event.”

“And what would that event be?” Alicia asked me.

“In the story… I die,” I said bluntly.

“W-What?” all of them said in unison, caught completely off guard.

The atmosphere in the room, which had been light and relaxed, turned heavy and cold with just a few words. Their expressions darkened, and none of them dared to speak. Maybe some of them were hoping I’d say it was a joke—but I kept going.

“If we continue our journey and go against the Silver Fang, we’ll definitely run into the people who will try to take my life.”

Alicia’s expression grew gloomier upon hearing that. Her eyes were fixed on the floor, as if she felt guilty just for being there.

“It’s not your fault, Alicia. It’s just a coincidence that our enemies overlap. Sooner or later, they would have come after me anyway.”

Her eyes snapped back to mine as soon as she heard that. “What do you mean by that, Rick?”

“Does this have something to do with the marks on your back, Rick?” Diane asked without hesitation.

“Yes, exactly. My family’s inheritance. It’s something people are willing to come after me for. But to them, whether I’m alive or not is just a technicality.”

Even with my joints aching, I made a real effort to remove the shirt I was wearing and turned my back to my Valkyries, exposing the secret of my body to them. On my back, a circle filled with alchemical formulas, written in red, was carved permanently into my skin like a tattoo.

“It’s time you knew.”

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