Cursed Odyssey

"Get in,"

Joseph entered his solitary room, the door creaked shut behind him, snuffing out the last sliver of the already waning light. The darkness that enveloped him was so absolute it felt almost tangible. He couldn't see anything at all - not even the faintest glow. So dark that it made no difference whether his eyes were opened or closed.

The room had an air of decay - like a pile of rotting animal corpses heaped atop a mountain of feces.

Feeling around him, Joseph explored the boundaries of the cramped space that barely allowed room to spread his arms. Then he leaned back against the jagged metal walls and slid down to sit, only to be met by the sharp, rocky, uneven ground that was wet and pricked at his hands and bosom. The floor seemed to mock the very concept of rest, yet Joseph quickly made himself comfortable regardless.

Alone once more, the only company he kept was the monotonous hum of the prison and the foreboding murmurs of his own thoughts.

This place… This feeling… With eyes wide open… Darkness… A sight oh so nostalgic…

After all, this was the view of Joseph's very first memory.

Confusion, endless, hopeless darkness, and scurrying rats and cockroaches were his only companions back then.

What accompanied him now was in many ways parallel, but in reality, worlds apart.

It was then, for the first time, Joseph's face relaxed as he let out a deep sigh of real emotions.

Things went even better than I expected, He could not help but smile.

The lie detector, Norman's death, and even his short-term blindness were all a calculated plan. It was all in the pursuit of knowledge.

Man's most prominent emotion is that of fear, and its oldest, most primal offspring is the fear of the unknown. Even Joseph was not immune to its deathly grip.

In a new world where he knew absolutely nothing, and even worse, where much of his former memory was missing, this fear could not have been more present. Where the rules of existence were as alien as the deepest ocean's depths, anything was possible, and death was looming at every corner.

Death?

Who was to say the concept of death even existed in this world? Hate, love, pain and happiness… Human needs for food, water, shelter and companionship, even the very laws of physics… Who was to say they would exist in a completely new reality?

The fact that humans existed, that they were bipedal creatures with two eyes, a mouth, two ears and a nose, built upon a foundation of flesh and bones with a soul to have free will…

Who decided that?

For all Joseph knew, this new world could have functioned in no such way. On the simplest level, perhaps a ritualistic prayer was necessary at a certain time on a certain date, or else he'd die.

The weight of infinite possibility crushed down upon him.

He could not even begin to imagine a colour beyond his experience, nor conceive of sensations his flesh had never known—so how then could he fathom a reality built on alien foundations?

From the instant Joseph woke into this world, even unconsciously, his senses stood numb, focused on nothing but internalizing all he saw and forming a framework for this reality, using his existing knowledge as a basis to which he'd identify any difference.

It was then that things made themselves abundantly clear to him. Despite the unimaginable difference in worlds and cultures, The people around him were no doubt human, down to their minute mannerisms and ticks, and even down to organ and bone placement.

Gravity anchored him. Fire burned. Water flowed. He saw many of the same elements of the periodic table, colours painted the world in familiar hues, and so did familiar smells he'd come to know.

In many ways, he felt like he was still on earth.

What was clear to him, was that this was no mere accident or coincidence. No, it couldn't have been. What were the chances? Indeed, it was there by design.

The creator of this new world must have had some relation with the one of his previous life.

Even the existence of Ki was shared between the two worlds. That was the only logical conclusion to him.

The realization of familiarity brought some comfort, but neck-crawling concern remained itching.

Magic— rituals, powers, cults, powerful entities…

Naturally, there was Ki, back on Earth. But this magic or rather, Arcane Arts, felt nothing alike. Again, what if certain magical rituals were obligatory for survival? What were the possibilities and limitations of magic? Did it have the power to control minds and enslave people? How could he be certain he was not already under such a spell?

There were far too many— a book of a million words could not even begin to describe all the possibilities that arose in his head from even this one new aspect.

As such, Joseph wasted no time in pursuing answers as efficiently as possible. Though, he needed to keep a low profile— the longer he took, the more danger there was— so a balance needed to be struck.

Nevertheless, things did not go as planned and he was possessed by an unknown force that nearly killed him against Urslan. The unknown struck first, which further heightened his urgency.

Time became his enemy then, each second a gamble against forces he could not name.

His first insights came from eavesdropping on conversations among his cellmates. Then there was his abrupt conversation with Samsara and learning about the slave mark and lie detectors. These gave him all the pieces to come to a startling discovery, and to ultimately design his opening gambit.

It first started with this simple question: 'If the slave mark had a lie detector, and the lie detector worked, how come it only saw certain clear lies as lies, and ignored others?'

It was only when he gave himself time to ponder over what caused the lie detector to react and what didn't did he finally realize the truth…

When Rayah asked why Joseph protected her, he responded with: "I just wanted to protect you. I would never be able to live with myself,"

This was a clear lie, yet the slave mark remained inert and claimed it as truth.

When Joseph said that he 'loved Rayah' once again, there was no reaction… despite being certain he harboured no love or admiration for her.

But, when Samsara asked if he knew anything about Ki, lying then, and responding with "no" did elicit a reaction.

Why was that? Observing this made him come to a hypothesis… And it was one easy to confirm.

The 'truth' that set him upon this train of thought was: "I am Zephyr…" This was a clear lie, yet the slave mark claimed it was the truth.

Assuming the slave mark was not faulty, taking all of this together, it only made sense to come to one final conclusion:

The original Zephyr, the owner of this body, was still present somewhere within Joseph's mind.

It was not Joseph who loved Rayah and wanted to protect her, but the original Zephyr.

"Lie detector" was a misleading name for what the slave mark actually did. The lie detector did not work by sensing a lie, but by detecting the presence or absence of truth.

As long as the truth applied to at least one of them, then the slave mark would remain inactive.

Fortunately, this lie detector operated only on spoken words, even in solitude, which allowed Joseph to test and confirm his theories. Thoughts, however, were safe from its scrutiny.

"I have three eyes", a clear lie to both Joseph and Zephyr caused a lie, while "I have no clue how Ki works, or how I was able to access it," Was the truth for the original Zephyr, but a lie for Joseph, thus there was no reaction.

With this, it was all confirmed, and he had all night to test it. And, through asking specific cleverly engineered questions, It did not take too long for Joseph to discover the two central rules that seemed to govern his and Zephyr's bond:

All senses were shared between them except the senses of touch and smell.

Zephyr could not read his mind, nor could he read Zephyr's mind.

To Zephyr, it was akin to watching a movie through Joseph's perspective. It was a familiar feeling to Joseph himself as it was exactly what he felt when he got possessed fighting guard Urslan and his flames.

The only way of communication Joseph had with Zephyr was visual and auditory. He had whispered to himself out loud that he opened his 1st Ki gate, which meant the original Zephyr was aware of it, and was why telling Samsara he had no idea what she meant was considered a lie, as it was then a lie to both of them.

However, that was not all he did. Once again, by cleverly and selectively engineering questions to force certain lies, Joseph was able to piece together not only certain parts of Zephyr's admittedly odd personality, but also parts of his past.

It also revealed that it was in fact the original Zephyr who possessed his body when he sensed Rayah was in trouble, which affirmed his suspicions and put his mind at ease that it was not some all-powerful entity outside his grasp controlling him from the shadows.

Yet, despite all that, he remained ignorant on many things… Most importantly, why did the original Zephyr not attempt to communicate with him? Did he allow Joseph's soul to possess his body? Was he able to regain control at any time just as he did before? His body was weak, and his peers treated him with a lack of respect… But… How powerful was he truly? Was he in control? Did he exist simply because the original Zephyr allowed him to?

Could the original Zephyr simply erase him at will?

Joseph could have probed deeper, asked more, and unravelled more mysteries with his questions. However, he wisely chose caution over curiosity. The questions he posed to himself were surgical in their subtlety, meticulously avoiding any indication of his awareness of the original Zephyr's existence. After all, he could not predict how the original Zephyr would react.

From what he saw, to say Zephyr was a degenerate was perhaps even an understatement from Samsara.

For now, it was best that he befriended and appeased the original Zephyr— to lull him into trust, and make him believe they shared the same goals and interests. He could not risk being possessed once again, or possibly even worse…

This meant to not only protect Rayah, but also express his love and admiration for her. A very minor inconvenience as it also served to lower suspicions of him suddenly acting differently.

Gaining the original Zephyr's trust all went into his next plan… Getting away with killing and bypassing the lie detector…

Though then, he was more knowledgeable than ever, it was far from satisfactory. He still knew little to nothing about the world, and he could not risk asking his cellmates and Samsara too many questions lest he raise too much suspicion, especially about earth.

He could not reveal himself as a transmigrator… If others knew, especially the prison warden, he could only imagine a bleak outcome.

Thus, with the clock ticking to a possible unbeknownst doom, he thought of one option.

As Samsara told him about the prison mines, he had already made the correct assumptions.

Now, with all pieces in place, it was time for him to begin the opening gambit…

With the existence of weak magicless dregs, negligent guards, and a daily mining quota, Joseph sensed an inevitable exploitation of power, likely involving the theft of crystals.

He would need to identify someone he was confident of overpowering, and then manipulating before positioning himself in an area this target would be guaranteed to eventually reach.

At a surface level, the plan was simple: lure one such person out, subdue them, extract as much information about the world as possible, and then dispose of the evidence if necessary. However, this neglected all the consequences.

How could he get away with murder?

The answer was obvious, yet its execution was far from simple:

Gaslighting himself.

Knowing that the prison's lie detector functioned in the same manner as his slave mark, all he would need to do was convince the original Zephyr inside of him of his innocence and pure heartedness.

This was where understanding the rules of their bond came into play. He needed to abuse the fact that the only way the original Zephyr could perceive the world was through Joseph's sight and hearing, so all he needed to do was inhibit them, then create his own narrative.

For sight, he purposely blinded himself during the battle.

And for hearing, he spoke friendly to show pacifism and created a large sound-cancelling bubble around where he and Skylar mined.

Through the use of Ki, the sound canceling bubble was a simple move one would use for quiet assassination in his previous life. In his time as Wolf, such a bubble would have taken less than a second to create, but now, with his current constitution and having just opened his first Ki gate it took him several hours while mining at the same time.

It was hard and arduous, hinging on the fact that they would need to stay mining in one spot for the entire time, and if his target came too early and the bubble was not ready, the plan would fail and he'd be forced to try again another day. Time was of the essence, and Joseph couldn't afford any setbacks.

That was why precise positioning was prudent, especially as he needed to find an area with unsteady dripstones.

All played out as expected. If not, even better.

He planned to act as passively as possible towards Norman, and exercise his strength to gain his respect and dissuade any thoughts of retaliation, but even he did not expect him to reciprocate that friendship.

With his final act, Joseph threw that rock and killed Norman all with his eyes closed to keep the original Zephyr in the shadows. Norman's screams and the sound of falling rocks fell into the sound-canceling bubble that did not allow sound to enter or escape. Joseph, who was too far out of its range, heard nothing.

In the end, he received much of the answers he needed about the world. Whether Norman felt true kinship between them, or merely a facade, was irrelevant to him. His mere existence was a hindrance. He knew about Earth.

In Joseph's eyes, the consequences of killing him were far more favorable than keeping him alive. He was an unstable variable.

Putting trust in such a person would have been the height of foolishness.

Though calculated, this plan was far from flawless. There were only two points of failure in this plan, and only one that could have been minimized.

The first was Skylar who served as both bait and his guide. If she had gone to tell a guard rather than leave like he told her too, things would have ended in disaster. That was why, before parting ways, he whispered to Samsara to keep an eye on her and prevent her from doing that.

This served as a test of trust for both of them— a gamble he was willing to make with his brief interaction with them both.

And last was if his information about the prison's lie detector was false. If it functioned differently to his slave mark, or if the interrogator sensed something wrong and had other methods of extracting the truth…