Shot of Silence

Chapter 2: Stranded

"Oh, you're actually cleaning the room?" The surprised voice of the still unnamed man caught Heath's attention. He responded with a quiet hum and a quick nod, continuing his task of collecting the empty bottles. 

"um, do you need help?" the man offered.

After thinking it over for a bit, Heath agreed, "I'm going for a deep clean," which meant he would be throwing away a lot of garbage. Although he inherited the memories stored in this body, it would still take some time to recall all of them one by one. 

‘Besides, he offered first.’

The quicker they finished the task, the sooner they could have a meal. However, Heath was not expecting the surprised look on the blond man's face. "What?"

"Uh, oh, nothing. I just wasn't expecting that answer," he answered sheepishly before entering the room properly.

Raising a brow, Heath finally took a proper look at the man. "He looked somewhat familiar." In his previous life, he did not have any blood relatives, at least none that he knew of after his mother, the previous Queen Regnant, died from an illness. His father had never been in the picture, and the Queen took his identity to the grave as a secret. ‘He claimed to be my twin.’ 

Could it be that he had a sibling here because this was an alternate universe? Did that mean his life could be drastically different from his previous one?

‘...a civil life?’ Heath paused, questioning the possibility.

A normal life had always been his dream, away from chaos, blessed with freedom.

Thump.

Freedom.

It was something he yearned for, yet it had cost countless lives in the Veridiania Kingdom. The ease with which he could obtain the freedom he had only imagined in the past was both enthralling and nauseating.

"Hey..." The blond man's voice snapped him out of his thoughts once again.

‘Right. I also need to find out his name–’ 

Heath hummed, indicating that he was listening, without turning to face the man.

"Look, man, I know it's been hard... but I don't think Aunt Nana would want to see her only son grieving this badly."

‘What…?’ Heath was taken aback.

‘Nana’ was his mother Queen Anastasia's nickname. However, it was an endearing term only used by those close to her.

Though the man may not have intended it, his last sentence triggered a lot for Heath. 

—There was a lot to unpack from those words.

‘My mother name is the same... and she has died,’ in his previous world she also died around this time of his life, which makes him wonder ‘Was it from the same illness?’

Not only that.

‘Did my counterpart take a harsh turn at the end of his life, after all? Was it due to heartbreak? Was his death, not an accident because of carelessness?’

Actually, in the first place, there is no confirmation that the owner of this body he's now using has died. He was simply brought to this foreign world.

'But why?' Heath wondered.

For what purpose?

Moreover, 'Who's responsible for this?'

It couldn't possibly be his dying wish, could it?

"..." Heath fell silent.

Well, either way—

"I'll be okay. You don't have to worry about me anymore," Heath replied to the blond man.

‘Ahem, that too.’ He needed to find out this guy's name without raising too much suspicion.

The man let out a huff before finally releasing his grip on Heath's shoulder. "You're always like this. Stop shouldering everything alone, would you? Don't you trust me? I thought we were best buddies."

‘Well, at least that confirms we're supposed to be close,’ Heath hummed in response.

"I'll keep that in mind." The other male let out an exasperated sigh but didn't push further.

In the end, it took them another two hours of awkward silence to clear up the mess.

"Haaaa, FINALLY! It's time to eat!" The blond man stretched before pulling out a rectangular device from his pocket. "Well, I guess we're having brunch instead. But hey, better late than never, right?"

Whereas, Heath simply hummed in reply as he was more fascinated with the item this unnamed man had just used.

‘He was using a strange box, but even now I can't detect any magic being used?’ he pondered.

That former royalty had actually noticed this brazen fact about this world: elemental magic still existed, yet it was not applicable anywhere.

‘I can still use magic, although the body gets strained, likely because it's not used to it,’ Heath noted.

However, since he didn't pass out again from the slight use of magic, he concluded that this body had encountered a mage, a magic item, or perhaps it possessed a strong ancestral bloodline.

‘Either way, the lack of magic usage doesn't make this place too far behind,’ he thought.

In fact, this place looked more developed in a simplified yet advanced manner.

‘It's such a fascinating place,’ Heath remarked.

There were numerous similarities in the technology used in this world compared to his previous one, although different mechanics operated it. Instead of relying on magic, the products here seemed to use machinery, including the machine with a bunch of buttons used to draw water for washing. Frankly, it was frustrating enough that he almost decided to use water from the sink instead.

‘The usage of words and lettering is different as well,’ he observed.

This fact was actually one of the most fascinating ones he had noticed. The lettering was not in Veridianian or Imperial Common language, yet he could still read the written sentences as if it were his mother tongue. He also just realized that he hadn't been speaking either of the two languages he had known all his life, and instead, had been casually conversing with the blond man using this new language. 

If this phenomenon was indeed due to the memories owned by this body, it made him curious whether he could simply recall the memories belonging to this body if he tried hard enough and was no longer under the influence of alcohol that the body had heavily consumed before his arrival.

'I can test that out later. For now—' he trailed off.

It might be best to find out the blond man's name before it was too late. So, he grabbed a piece of paper and a pen...

'Why don't we test how effective my magic is when used in this world~?'