'Ok, ok let's calm down. I might be wrong here, why don't I just make sure once…'
"Ms…? Asha, just to confirm, where exactly am I, and how long have I been here?"
"You are currently inside a research facility …. don't worry, it's just a place where you learn new things. As for how long you've been here.. about your entire life."
'Learn new things my *** . Haven't I become a lab rat before I was even able to wake up? And since that has been confirmed, then I am indeed in big trouble… More than trouble, I guess this can be called digging a hole for yourself. Even the lady in front of me, Asha, introduced herself as a "researcher" at the University of Hyd… is that the same Hyderabad as in my world? But anyways, that means that there might be others also. And while Ms. Asha appears to be nice, I don't know about the others… sh*t. I should've been more careful! I feel like crying now! According to the situation, I've been in this place for a long while, meaning I was never exposed to the real world, and that I never learned any language, and yet! Just now, I just had a proper conversation with the lady opposite me in one of the native languages of India, hindi. I probably also shouted a bit in english too before…. Damn, how am I going to explain that? How? I need to think, I need to think properly…Got it!'
While Alaukik's internal thinking looks like it's taking a long time, it's actually just a few seconds in the real world.
"Thank you for answering my previous questions… I just have one more question. In fact, it's a question about myself, what am I? I mean, as you can see, I am clearly not a normal human being. I can, as you stated, control space, and I also have knowledge about a few languages used in the world. I know what the world looks like, but there are still a lot of things I have no idea about… what am I and what is this world like?"
Yes. After some thinking, Alaukik's idea was to directly confess his supposed "knowledge" and pretend to not know anything about the human world. As for how it would work out, and whether the researchers would accept that explanation, he did not worry. Because if he were to create a lie about how he got that knowledge, he would have to add more lies in case they tried to double check him, and then one day he would definitely slip up, which would probably end badly. Thus, he directly turned the question to the researchers as to how he learned the languages of the world while sleeping in the lab.
"To that question, I'm afraid even I don't have the answer. We don't know much about you except that we found you in the wreckage of a building after a meteorite fell and that you can control-or at least influence the fabric of space. I'm sorry I can't be of more help" said Asha with a sad smile on her face.
'A meteorite fell?? You mean like, when a big piece of rock falls towards the earth? I was found in its wreckage??'
"Doesn't that make me an alien?" Alaukik asked, with shock clearly written over his face.
"No, no, we checked, but you're not an alien. You're 100% human, just different from normal humans. But before I go into detail, why don't you eat something, then we'll talk peacefully," saying this, Asha got up and started to leave the room. However before she left,
"You will be back right, Ms. Asha?" questioned Alaukik in a slightly trembling voice, even though the moment Asha mentioned food, his entire body started to feel the pangs of hunger.
"Don't worry my boy, I will be right back after you're ready," Asha replied with a smile on her face.
Asha wanted to let the boy have some alone time, and also discuss with the other members of the RC about how they will move forward from here on.
And as she left the room, she pondered on how she could convince the others that he should be treated as a normal magician, and not a weapon, because she could see in the eyes of Jamshed that he wanted to use the child as a weapon of war. She knew that she would have to give it all she had if she wanted to save this child from the cruelty of the world towards magicians.
Soon after she left, another young man entered the room. He walked towards Alaukik, who was still sitting on the ground, thinking about the entire encounter till now, and introduced himself.
"Hello! My name is Devendra! I've been tasked to bring you what you want to eat. What do you want to eat?"
"What do I want to eat? To be honest, I don't know, what kinds of food are there? What do you recommend I should eat?" said Alaukik.
The reason he said this was because as he told Asha, he did not have much knowledge about how the world works and what it looks like.
Devendra, after hearing this, brought Alaukik some liquid food as he thought having solid food right after waking up might have some bad effects.
Finally, a while after Alaukik finished eating and was talking a bit to Devendra, Asha returned with a heavy look on her face, but as soon as she entered the room, she forced herself to smile to not worry the child.
However, what she didn't know was that Alaukik's spacelocation (that's what he's calling it for now) allowed him to see around corners and even through small cracks. Meaning, he noticed the change in Asha's expression, and knew that whatever happened when she was gone was not good. But, he controlled himself from asking, as he didn't want to reveal all the tricks up his sleeve, even though they might be only a few.
After coming in, Asha began to speak,
"Well, you wanted to know more about this world right? Let me tell you, this is a world where magicians exist. It's been a few decades since magic was modernized and is now accessible to anyone with the talent for it. As for how magic works, we'll talk about that later…."
And as Asha continued with her explanation, the only thing that was going through Alaukik's mind was
'Oh my god… I'm in the Mahouka world!'