Chapter 781: A Thousand different roads
A scholar once said that all roads lead to Rome.
Another scholar stated that the “dao” was the road to achieving harmony with the universe.
So would it be really be a stretch to say, there would be a thousand ways to get to another world?
-The Ramblings of an Otherlander Sage, who lost his names to the annals of history.
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When Zhen Liu met Elsa not too long ago, he didn’t have to explain anything to psychic, candy-making veteran.
One of the unexpected upsides in conversing with a telepath was that there wasn’t much need in having to explain about one’s self to them ,since they could just pluck the information themselves without much fanfare or issues.
As such, when Zhen Liu decided to tell Jack a bit more about himself, he made damn sure not to tell him everything. More specifically, he didn’t tell him about the kaijin, the library or [Chaos] since he didn’t want to muddy this dude’s “isekai” experience with his own messy shenanigans. Granted, that idea was probably thrown out the window when he told Jack about what kind of “otherlander” he was.
“Wait, wait, wait! Let me get this straight, you are technically from my world, or at least a version of my world, where you died…”
“Yes,” Zhen Liu nodded.
“And your current form happens to be…”
“As far as I can tell, someone who died at the exact same time I did, who’s name is now mine.”
“Right, and now you have somehow got your soul in this body alongside a whole mess of memories that belonged to the previous owner of that body?”
“Same hardware, partially different software,” Zhen Liu replied while pointing a finger at his head. “Y’all have computers where you’re from, right?”
“We do, and now I’m definitely sure you’re from Earth, since you know about computers.”
“You doubted me before?”
“Damn…I think I owe my cousin five bucks, because you basically confirmed that reincarnation is real,” Jack commented with a click of his tongue while completely ignoring Zhen Liu’s earlier question.
“To be fair, Zhen Liu interjected. “I wouldn’t exactly call this reincarnation, since I wasn’t born as a baby on this world. Another term I’ve found to be more appropriate is “transmigrator”. More specifically, a soul transmigrator. That’s me.”
“Soul transmigrator…,” Jack repeated. “I like that.”
“Thanks.”
“But damn dude, I can’t imagine what it would be like to die, only to suddenly wake up in another dead guy’s…wait a minute, so that bit about you being considered a cripple…is it true that you managed to cure-”
“Short answer, no,” Zhen Liu interjected in order to speed things along. “For whatever reason, this body of mine still can’t employ aether in a traditional manner…I gotta use my puppets to pick up the slack for me…feel guilty about it, though.”
“Guilty about using puppets? That’s weird,” Jack commented, fully unaware that Zhen Liu wasn’t referring to real puppets in the first place.
“It is, but moving on…how the heck are you connected to this world exactly? Last I checked, this place doesn’t have an electric grid yet your diner here seems to have enough power to work all of its gadgets and appliances like it’s the most natural thing in the world, so what gives? Not to mention, you clearly don’t look like someone who has been living on Valresta for years.”
“Hah! An astute observation, my friend,” Jack praised with a thumbs up. “Well, I don’t know if there’s a specific term for it, but that door you walked through wasn’t originally part of my diner. It just showed up one day, and I’ve been connected to Valresta ever since.”
“Really? You just had an isekai door show up out of nowhere and connect itself to your place of work? That’s…wait a minute…”
Just as Zhen Liu was about to comment how lucky and convenient it was for Jack to have a door to another world, instead of having to die or be erratically transported with no of way of going back, he realized in that exact same moment the implication of that statement.
That, technically speaking, Zhen Liu was back on Earth. And if he was back on Earth, then that meant all he had to do was walk through the door opposite of the one he just entered and…he’d be back.
Zhen Liu had honestly kind of gave up on the dies of going back to Earth at this point, since by all metrics he should be fucking dead, but he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that he was intrigued by the prospect now that the opportunity presented itself.
Plus, a part of him thought that it would be kind of interesting to show the kaijin how Earth looked for real. After all, for reasons beyond him, they seemed to enjoy all the cultural stuff that came about from them poking through his memories of the place.
‘One could read about a place and dream about it for a week. But if you get the chance to visit, you’ll remember it for a lifetime…wait, did I read that somewhere before?’
Of course, there was just one massive question that had to be answered before Zhen Liu even entertained the idea of asking to use this otherworldly door: was it his Earth or a different Earth?
‘At the very least, I can conclude that Jack is from an Earth with a similar level of technology as the one I’m from, since he just name-dropped “videogames” and didn’t so much as flinch when I mentioned the terms, “software” and “hardware”, but that isn’t entirely conclusive. I need to ask more questions, need to find more answers.’
After mulling over the matter in silence for a couple of moments, Zhen Liu prepared himself to ask a series of questions he never thought he had to ask before. Hopefully, Jack’s answers weren’t too far off.
“Jack.”
“What up?”
“You said that this diner is located in the United States?”
“Yessir.”
“Mind if I ask some questions? Last person who said they were from Earth had psychic powers, so…”
“You want to see if we’re from the same one? Aight, go right ahead.”
“Cool…”
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*Bing-Bong*
For the sake of the ease of reading, the following question and answering will be listed off as an interview.
“Z” will be used to represent Zhen Liu, while “J” will be used to represent Jack.
Thank you.
*Bing-Bong*
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Z: How many states are in the USA?
J: Last I checked there were about…fifty? I think there some applicants to be the fifty-first state not too long ago.
Z: Has there been a moment in history known as the Great War or the World War?
J: I’m not too sure about the former, but I know that there were two of those latter ones.
Z: You mentioned videogames, what are the three biggest consoles of the current generation? I don’t need names, company works too.
J: N@ntendo, Pl@ystation, @Box.
Z: Alright, probably a loaded question here, who was or is the 45th president of the United States?
J: Saanvi Balay.
Z: That is…wait a minute, what the fuck?
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∆Hah! Told you it wouldn’t be that convenient.∆
=Tsk! Damn recency timelines…=
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Zhen Liu picked at his ears as he was pretty sure he heard a radically different name than the one he remembered being president at the time.
Not wanting to go into too much detail, he remembered the president being a rather unlikeable man.
“Could…could you repeat what you just told me? Because I think that I found where our world’s differ…”
“Uh..sure? The forty-fifth president was a woman named Saanvi Balay. She got famous, well, more famous, after being named the first ever female and Indian president of the States back in 2016.”
“Uh…huh…and what was she famous for before that?”
“She founded one of the biggest tech companies in the world, Mango Inc.”
“Oh…”
After hearing that last bit, Zhen Liu realized that there was a bigger divergence between his world and Jack’s world than he had initially thought.
‘I knew it couldn’t be that convenient.’
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World Name: Earth-3(Personal name)
Divergence Point: 1976
Divergence Detail:
In 1976, a technology company called Mango, Inc. was founded by computer prodigy and future business magnate by the name of Saanvi Balay, an American Indian woman who became the titular example of someone going from rags to riches.
Mango Inc. would be competitive with Microsoft for a number of years, with their rise to prominence happening in 2007 thanks to their invention of a device called the oPhone.
Saanvi Balay would later become the President of the United States in 2016, by being one of the rare few candidates that managed to get both the left and right wings of the government to come together. Thanks to her leadership, the economy improved to the point that the average minimum wage could now afford a house, mental depression hit an all time low and the world managed to avoid a pandemic thanks to a timely vaccine roll out.
Saanvi Balay would end her term being given a Nobel Peace prize, and a call from the people to run for a third term. She would accept the former but bow out of the latter.
