Elijah was taken aback for a second, though he did not show it on his face. He studied both Alex and me to see if we were joking, but then he just sighed. As he opened his mouth to speak, we heard a loud banging on the outer door.
Unable to see who knocked on the door, we knocked back. Assuming they listened to our response, I quickly opened the door to meet Alicia and Amanda.
"We found some random kid who seems to be a native of this world," I spoke before they asked questions.
"You are lucky, I guess, we already checked one of the rooms and found nothing," Alicia reported.
"Well, that's one thing checked off our list."
"Does the kid have any useful information?" she questioned.
"I believe so, he seems to be pretty important to one of the empires around these parts."
"You will address me as your highness," Elijah whined.
I sighed. From our earlier conversation, I had hoped he wouldn't be one of those arrogant nobles I had read about; yet, there might still be some hope, depending on how this conversation went.
"Perfect that you guys are here," I spoke up.
"Is it about the kid?"
"Yes, he was about to tell us his story before you came knocking."
A moment later, both Alicia and Amanda took a seat on the floor. Now that all of us were sitting in a semicircle around him, I decided to speak up.
"So what's your story, kid?"
"You will not address me as ' kid ' from this moment onward. As I have stated before, I am a prince!"
"None of us could give less of a fuck 'your highness'" I smirked.
Conveniently, right as I said that, Alex bobbed his head side to side. I couldn't tell if he meant to do that as an intimidation tactic or if there was an actual tightness in his neck. It was perfect timing nonetheless. With that, Elijah shut up quickly. After a moment of silence, he was finally ready to speak up once more.
"Since the words 'Your Highness' left your mouth, I will keep my promise and tell you my story," he began jokingly, but now he was serious.
So we were in luck, not having an arrogant child try to explain this weird situation, we found ourselves in.
"Very funny, go on now, speak up, I don't know if we have a time limit, other than dehydration."
"Ok! Can you stop rushing me?"
I remained silent to prevent any further outbursts.
"Thank you! Now, as I mentioned earlier, I am a prince of the aforementioned Alsak Empire, hence my last name. The Alsak Empire encapsulates the western part of the continent of Alder.
This only confirmed the fact that he was from a different world than us. As far as I knew, there was no Alder continent on. Earth.
"For complex reasons that I will bore you with now, my family's empire is in conflict with the northern empire of Izantham. As far as I can remember, I was on my way back to the palace when everything suddenly turned dark and I found myself in this room."
I sighed once more. Unfortunately, we didn't get much out of the kid. What's more was that my mind was now out of order, as I now had to redraft my theories of where on earth we were, and it didn't seem like we were on earth either.
Feigning a yawn, one of the guys whom I hadn't bothered to ask for their name spoke up with an annoyed tone.
"I'm sorry, was that it? I was expecting, you know, something about where the fuck we are, other than in the simulation that is"
I could tell that this was something that was on everybody's mind, considering how short his so-called story was.
"Well, I'm sorry, I should be asking you the same thing, since you mentioned this simulation of yours," he shot back.
Elijah and the man stared at each other to death before Alex intervened to prevent further open hostility.
"Well, this isn't going anywhere. Let's try to find a more peaceful solution, shall we?"
Lucky, this seemed to calm them down as they then quickly looked away from each other.
A moment later, I rose to my feet.
"Alex is right. Let's get out of this gloomy place and go ahead and check the other rooms."
Thankfully, everyone nodded. In the next moment, the rest of the group stood up, and we started to head out the doors we came from to the outer plaza.
What we saw next was a surprise to us all.
"What are more people doing here?" a young man said while staring at our group.
A moment later, my shock disappeared. This wasn't that surprising, as we had yet to check all the other rooms, which were conveniently soundproofed; we could not hear anything inside the rooms except when they were extremely loud.
"You guys must've woken up after us. We have been together for the last ten minutes." I responded
"Are you guys seriously being led by a kid right now?" He said with a scoff.
This was going to be irritating, although I was surprised that this was the first time I had been asked this. After all, what group of adults would accept a kid as their unofficial leader?
"This kid isn't leading us; he is just the most outspoken out of all of us," Alicia said with an annoyed tone.
"Whatever. Do you guys have any idea what this place is?"
It was unfortunate to hear that they didn't have a better answer than we did.
"We found a kid who is from a different world, but it doesn't seem like he has any idea where we are either," I started.
He sighed, seemingly annoyed by the large size of our group and our lack of relevant information.
"If that is the case, I don't care to hear his story personally," He finally sighed.
"Well, let's get the introductions out of the way. My name is Jason Wringer. What about you guys?"
"Jefferson Gale," the man, whom I strangely just noticed was standing in a guarding stance in front of a kid around my age, said
"And who is the young master behind you?" I snickered.
He then walked over to me and stared me down.
"Watch it, kid. If you know what's good for you," he answered in a serious tone.
"Well then, who is he if he's so important?" I questioned losing my previous attitude.
Seeing my change in tone, he made his way back to the kid. Stopping right behind the kid, he opened his mouth.
"This young man right here is the heir to the great lighting clan, and his name is-"
Not letting his bodyguard finish his statement, the kid slowly walked forward. Looking at the kid's attire, which was covered in priceless robes and jewels that I had only heard about in the fantasy books I had stolen, started to speak.
"Thank you, Jefferson, but I would rather introduce myself to these plebians. You may call me James, James Lighting, and as my bodyguard just said, I am the heir to my clan."
Okay, this is more of what I was expecting: an arrogant, rich kid who thinks the world revolves around them. Elijah was the exception and not the norm.
"Well, whatever, I shall allow you guys to speak your names."
With a long collective sigh, the rest of the group introduced themselves. Starting with the obvious, Alex, followed by Alicia, John, who had spoken to Elijah, and Derek, the quieter one, and finally Amanda.
"This is odd, I had heard that in some cases there may be multiple people guided to the same simulation, but usually in a more populated place like a town or perhaps even a dungeon, not this," James said.