"So? C'mon, Sir Darian, we have all day," said Zrelekai, happy that he would finally be able to understand something new. Still holding the pistol in his hands, he patted the seat next to him, inviting Darian to sit there.
"Yes, as I was telling you…" Darian slowly sat down on the bench and began to speak. 'I guess I really don't have any other choice here…' While speaking, Darian thought of something totally different. 'But still… what might happen if they know about my past?'
'Yeah, they might be able to understand more of my thoughts, but there isn't more than that, right?' Darian was currently speaking about the black hole phenomenon while these thoughts remained stuck in his mind.
'There can easily be more than anything… well, while they might have gone and destroyed my important things in the rocket at first, now there isn't anything important in the rocket anymore… right?'
'Well, I've got all my important things in the base with Rusty…' As he thought about this, he suddenly remembered Ashikunz, the Krukin who could walk on the desert.
'I don't know his way of acting yet… but it might be dangerous. If that creature is as strong as everyone says…' Darian realized that if Ashikunz were to arrive at his base, the worst might happen, as probably none of them would be able to fight back.
'But I mean… why would he care about my base this much? There are some scientific things, but other than Zrelekai here, no one else would know how they work.' The moment he formed this thought, he looked over at Zrelekai, who had a confused expression.
"Is there something you don't understand?" asked Darian, worried that he might not have explained things properly and his head might blow up.
"Yeah… why did you keep talking about black holes non-stop?"
Without noticing, while Darian was stuck in his own thoughts, he had kept talking about black holes without mentioning other important things.
'Even if I think about it, it won't make much difference…' thought Darian while looking once more at the pistol. His pulse quickened. 'It's not like I have much of a choice.'
Hours passed. Darian had told Zrelekai almost everything, but unlike the times he talked with his friends about this topic, he didn't have the same enthusiasm he felt when he told Liro, Vane, and the others about his past.
Now that he was talking with Zrelekai, everything felt forced. He didn't want to explain these things to an enemy, but he didn't have another choice.
"Oh… and so you met Snowy? And in your first meeting, something like that happened…" Zrelekai, who couldn't believe Darian's words, suddenly got up and started to walk back and forth non-stop.
"Yeah… well, I explained how the transformation with him works to—" Darian was brutally interrupted by Zrelekai, who was lost in his own thoughts. In fact, now that Darian was answering, he wasn't listening at all.
"But what is that creature in the end? You said that it was the only one of its species on that planet?" Darian was about to answer, but Zrelekai didn't give him enough time before he kept speaking.
"And that huge shard… I'm sure you said that the moment it passed over your head, you couldn't see the sun for a moment? Like something big had passed above you… something that didn't want to get hurt by that shard…"
"Sadly, I don't know anything about this. But you know, space is such a mysterious place; humanity will probably never be able to discover it all." Suddenly, Zrelekai kneeled in front of Darian with such a serious face that it made Darian gulp in surprise.
"Can you remember the shape of the object?" asked Zrelekai while looking directly into Darian's eyes.
"I don't know… everything happened too fast for me to even understand what was going on."
Hearing these words, Zrelekai didn't give up. He felt that he wanted to find an explanation for everything Darian was saying.
"But what if that huge object is the black planet instead?"
Hearing this sentence, Darian's heart beat faster for a single moment. Wait… But after a second, he understood that it was physically impossible.
"No, sorry to tell you, but it isn't possible." Hearing these words, Zrelekai felt a bit surprised.
"How can you be so sure?" he asked. Zrelekai believed more in his theory than the one made by Darian. "Saying that it is physically impossible means that you have an actual answer."
Darian nodded, understanding that Zrelekai hadn't broken down, but remained calmer now that he had a different theory. 'Maybe he's trusting me more?' thought Darian before speaking again.
"As I've already told you, I met Snowy in my fourth year. If you think about this carefully, two hundred years would have already passed on Earth. But according to what I told you, and what you've agreed to because of some old records, the black planet crashed against the Earth five hundred years ago." Hearing these words, Zrelekai could only nod in agreement.
"So with my theory, it means that the black planet would have crashed on Earth actually three hundred years ago, and not five hundred…" Zrelekai returned to his feet and, without breaking down, slowly sat on the bench again next to Darian.
'Still, Snowy had told me he had a sort of duty…' Darian began thinking about the few times he was able to speak with Snowy in his mind. 'Nah, it can't be possible. There is literally no correlation between the black planet and Snowy. I guess he must have another reason that he hasn't told me yet…'
Zrelekai, noticing that his theory was able to make Darian this lost in his thoughts, felt a bit happy. "At least you found it a cool theory, right?" he asked while smiling warmly.
Darian snapped back to reality and realized that Zrelekai's face wasn't the same one he had before when Darian was hiding something. 'Does he really think I'm thinking about his theory…?' Darian gave one last check of Zrelekai's face, which was extremely happy and lacked the old teasing look. 'Maybe he really trusts me more… well, that's great to know. At least I'll survive longer.' "Well, yeah. At first, I might say that it surprised me, as I've never thought about anything like that."
"Hehe, I'm pleased to hear those words. Still, you really don't have anything in mind?" It felt like Zrelekai wasn't asking this question because he knew Darian was hiding something, but because he really wanted to hear his opinion. Hearing his way of talking, Darian felt a bit reassured.
"Mhmm… honestly, I never focused on that thing. I mostly focused on what happened to my body, completely ignoring that huge thing," answered Darian, as he was finally forgetting the fact that Zrelekai had a literal gun in his hands and that if he said something Zrelekai didn't like, his head would explode.
"Mhmm, yeah. To be honest, as long as it doesn't affect us, we don't have a problem, right?" Zrelekai, after talking about this topic, immediately changed it. Without giving Darian enough time to understand what was happening, he continued.
"The thing that surprised me the most is the fact that you've got zero magic at all…" said Zrelekai as he looked Darian's whole body up and down.
"Well, I already told you that the power comes from Snowy and not from me," answered Darian.
"I know… but the strangest thing is that you're the only human who hasn't got magic… everyone born on this planet was able to unlock it, and even the people of your time had magic after the collision of the planet," pointed out Zrelekai as he tried to find a solution to Darian's condition.
"It doesn't matter how much I studied it, I wasn't able to come up with an actual answer. It feels like something changed after the crash of the black planet," said Darian, annoyed by the fact that this was still a mystery to him.
"Maybe the black planet brought something to Earth that changed people?" proposed Zrelekai, but Darian immediately discarded that option.
"My body would have changed, too. The fact that it didn't happen made me think it was something different." Darian remembered the White Wing project. 'And we found those things that talked about the magic experiments. It isn't possible that it was brought by the black planet.'
Now, Zrelekai didn't even notice Darian's sudden change in expression because he was also lost in his own thoughts, unable to find a solution.
"I think it is because Snowy enters your body… but it doesn't make any sense at all." Zrelekai pressed his fingers against his forehead as he was stuck in his thoughts.
"Nah… I've noticed that my body has remained unchanged since Snowy entered my body." Darian suddenly yawned as he felt a bit tired. "I'm sure I might come to this conclusion some day," he said while getting up from the bench to stretch.
"I'm sure you will, and don't worry, I'll help you during this time." Zrelekai placed his hand on Darian's shoulder. Darian, both surprised and unsure, created a sort of fake smile to agree with him.
"Yeah…" answered Darian, unsure about his answer.
"I think it is late enough. Come with me; I'll let you explore the laboratory tomorrow." Zrelekai started to lead the way with the pistol still in his hands, and Darian followed from behind.
'Damn, he's right… I totally forgot about this part…' Darian realized that both he and Zrelekai had remained in the hallway for over ten hours, spending the whole day talking about scientific stuff together.
Darian gave another look at Zrelekai's hand and noticed that he still had the gun. 'He acted differently than the other times, yeah… but I wonder if he actually trusts me. Let's wait until tomorrow so I can ask more things about him.'
Darian and Zrelekai finally arrived at Darian's room. Zrelekai was the first to enter, and the moment he looked at the bed without the mattress, he said, "Oh, silly me! I completely forgot that you were missing the mattress."
"Oh, don't worry, I've been able to sleep…" said Darian. Suddenly, he looked away and whispered, "Even if it was one of the worst sleeps of my life…"
"I'll do it for you, don't worry." Suddenly, Zrelekai stopped in front of the bed and pointed his finger toward it. 'Is he using his power again?' Darian sat down on the stool and remained with his eyes locked on Zrelekai, studying what he was doing.
"Mhmm… not yet…" Zrelekai whispered some weird things while he had his eyes closed. After some seconds, a literal mattress appeared on the bed. "Oh, finally! It might not be the one you're used to, but it is definitely comfortable." Darian couldn't believe his eyes; a literal mattress appeared in front of him, and it felt like Zrelekai had created it as if it were nothing.
"Well, I guess I'm going. Goodnight, Darian. I'll come and wake you up tomorrow!" The moment Zrelekai went out the door, Darian heard it close again and lay down on the extremely soft mattress.
This mattress was entirely made of wool. The moment Darian lay down, he could feel how soft it was; his whole body was slowly falling asleep without him even realizing it.
'He's actually nice… maybe he's not such a bad person after all…' Darian thought about this whole day he spent with Zrelekai, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized this creature wasn't as nice as he thought.
"What am I even saying… he's literally an ally of someone who has kidnapped all of my friends…" whispered Darian as he looked at the ceiling.
Darian realized that he hadn't talked about science this much with anyone for a long time. The only one who could keep up with him was Liro. 'But he doesn't have this much knowledge…'
"I can't trust someone like him… I need to use him. If he is actually doing experiments on Snowy or Catripple, I definitely can't trust him… but he can trust me, and I need to use this so I can discover more things…" Darian moved his body to the side as he felt more comfortable.
"But at least he has got nice theories…" he whispered before falling asleep.