…

"So, he did actually make it here. I suppose I owe GS a favor."

…

"So far, I'm somewhat impressed with your progress. Let's see how long that can last, young one."

...

"You don't know me yet. But soon, you will. Good luck, my young eponym."

RE: FALLEN

Chapter Three - RE: AWAKEN (Reawaken)

The moment that Zakariya came to, he felt like someone had taken a hammer and slammed it into his skull. Trying to nurse the sudden migraine, he began muttering to himself. "For once I didn't have a nightmare…" His expression shifted to one of mild annoyance. "Instead, I have a weird-ass dream with a disembodied voice talking to me. Not much of an upgrade, God."

"Dear sister, it seems our guest likes to talk to himself."

"Indeed, Rem, what a strange specimen." At the sounds of two very familiar voices, Zakariya's brown eyes shifted to the side, where he saw two extremely familiar figures. Two maids, one with pink hair and pink eyes, and the other with blue hair and blue eyes. The ever-so-popular maids, Ram and Rem. So, this was still happening. That officially wiped any doubts about this situation being real. After a few moments of silent thinking, he spoke up.

"Judging by your uniforms, I'd say you're the maids who work at this mansion. Tell me, where exactly am I, and who owns this place?"

"This is the estate of Margrave Roswaal L. Mathers," Ram replied, as Rem picked up from where Ram left off.

"Miss Emilia brought you here. We have been instructed to be hospitable to you, as you are now a guest in the House of Lord Roswaal. I am Rem, Head Maid of this Mansion." She then pointed to Ram. "And this is my sister, Ram."

"It's nice to meet you, Ram. Rem." He bowed his head in respect for the maids, ever so slightly. "Please do take care of me." Inwardly, he began his plotting and planning as he slowly straightened up, calculating his chances of surviving and the best way to go about this timeline. This was about the time he wanted to deviate from Subaru's path, anyway. "Could either of you spare me a bit of your time and show me around the mansion? It would be greatly appreciated." The twin Onis looked at each other before nodding and walking out of the room without a word, with Zak following close behind. He discreetly pulled out his phone, noticing that he somehow had connection in this world. 'Jeez, is God being too gracious? I know I asked for my phone to be taken with me into Lugnica, but this is absurd.' After some half-distracted fiddling, he noticed that there was a data limit on his phone, about 20 Gigs of data a month. That was a serious downgrade from his old unlimited plan, but hey, who was he to complain? He effectively had an infinite source of knowledge about his old world and this world with Wikis, so… 'I'm good to go, holy shit!'

After turning off his phone, he paid close attention to his surroundings and the tour Rem/Ram were giving him. He idly wondered how he would manage to survive in this timeline. Maybe he should try to befriend Beatrice soon, since, without Realize, he was effectively powerless. And even then, relying on Realize would be a death sentence, it was basically a coin toss. Unreliable. After all, he needed to minimize the number of deadly situations he put himself in. What if he somehow lost Return by Death? If he was to survive, he needed to use his prior knowledge to his advantage and start working around the issues that were ahead. There were countless threats that he was undoubtedly going to face soon. The Wolgarms, the White Whale, Betelgeuse, Regulus, Ley, Elsa. The enemies just kept piling up in number, and he needed to be prepared, he needed to be strong if he really was to bring the change he desired to this world. But at the same time, he didn't want to change canon events too much. That could cause ripples in space-time that had a chance to render his knowledge worthless. This was a deadly balancing act he found himself in. The only thing keeping him from going crazy under all this stress was the thoughts of his family in the old world, and how he wished to redeem himself so he may have the chance to go to Heaven alongside them.

But even still, it wasn't just him he had to think about here. This wasn't just an empty RPG world of NPCs, or an anime world anymore. This was his new world, his new life, his new reality. Everyone here was real, with souls, memories, emotions. And if he was attached to the fictional versions of them… He knew it was only a matter of time before he got attached to the real versions of the characters he knew. Ram, Rem, Emilia, Puck, Beatrice, Reinhard, Crusch, Wilhelm, Felix... All beings he was attached to because of how well he had gotten to know them, their stories, through Subaru's eyes. And now he was to live with them for God knows how long?

...It didn't matter what happened from now on. He knew that this was a test, a punishment, and a blessing all at once. If he only cared about his own happiness and safety… would he be damned anyway? He grew nervous, as the thoughts of being forced to burn alongside demons made him involuntarily shiver. He refused to let that happen. He'd find his 'happy ending', but he'd also ensure the same for this world… or he'd literally die trying, multiple times over. It was at this moment Zakariya noticed a familiar figure exit her room. "Emilia, good morning."

"Ah, Zak! You're looking much better!" The silver-haired half-Elf smiled as she walked over, her tone chipper and bright. "I hope you were able to rest well!"

"Considering the fact I've been awake for… basically an entire day, without anything to properly keep my energy up…" He softly smiled in amusement. "Yeah, I rested well. Like a newborn babe." Aside from the weird dream bit, but no one needed to know about that. Though he was already missing his coffee… that was gonna be hard to get used to, a world where he couldn't get his life-blood known as caffeinated drinks. The thought almost sent him into a depressive state. 'Oh, coffee… How I will miss you dearly.' Yeah, he was a coffee-addict and he wasn't ashamed of it. Zak swore to himself that he would find some way to grow coffee beans in this world.

"Oh, that's good to hear! But why exactly were you up that long?" Emilia's expression was one of worry, which he found somewhat adorable.

"Oh, it's nothing much. Just some travel. Took me a while to get to Lugnica from where I came from." He effortlessly lied, just as he did with Reinhard. He just needed to make sure he kept using the 'hidden until an astronomical event occurs' excuse for… basically the rest of time. He'd also have to make up some nigh-impossible specifics to make sure no one tried searching for the fake 'country' he claimed to hail from. Ah, that reminded him… now that he was in Arc 2, and within the confines of Roswaal's mansion, that meant he was to meet the clown magician soon. Yeah, that was going to be the one character he had reservations about meeting. Buuut he kinda had to deal with it, this was his house, and he didn't feel like leaving. Plus, if he was in the same situation as Subaru, then would Roswaal get someone to assassinate him for ruining his plans if he left? Too many variables, not enough time to analyze everything. At least not now, not until he aced Arc 2. All he knew was he needed to befriend both Rem and Ram to survive Arc 2, make sure they didn't feel animosity towards him, and, well… kill him. That, and he needed to be wary of Roswaal. He never liked that creepy-looking "magiclown", as his friends put it, and with his current knowledge… he disliked them even more.

Welp, he was sure nothing could go wrong from here.

Okay, how the fuck was he supposed to know that the law of 'everything can go wrong' actually applied in this world?! He thought this was real life now, not a show with fictional laws! So far, things were actually going wrong. Namely, Roswaal was even more of a manipulative chess-master than he remembered! Well, that could be due to him not watching the first few episodes of RE: ZERO in a long while, but still! He was barely able to keep himself from doing anything rash by remembering this was basically the one guy he didn't want to piss off in this current arc.

"Soooo, Zaaaak, is it? What brings you to Lugnica?" The clown-looking Magician asked him, blue and yellow eyes staring into his own brown eyes. Zak sighed, taking a bite of the prepared breakfast before responding.

"It's a bit… complicated. I actually don't remember how I got here. First, I was in my house, the next moment I black out and wake up in Lugnica." Not a lie, to be honest. It's just he blacked out into death, but no one needed to know he was a resurrected soul brought to this world. "Maybe I was kidnapped, maybe not. I just found myself in a situation where I needed to make the best of what I had."

"I seee, I seee.~" Roswaal did his annoying thing where he elongated the vowels of his sentences. "Tell meee… do youuu know about this country's current situaaaation?"

"Honestly? Nope. The lands I hailed from were much more focused on themselves and trying to make sure the place didn't burn into ash while keeping everyone contained to keep a massive virus from infecting people." Not like it worked that much since there were so many idiots running around without masks and getting themselves infected and killed. And people wondered why he gave up on humanity.

"Soooounds diiire." Roswaal quirked an eyebrow, seemingly now interested. Which made some sense? Zak was pretty sure that if someone didn't know anything about the COVID crisis, they'd be curious and ask questions too. "Perhaaaps this was a blessing in disguiiise.~"

"Maybe." Zakariya hummed, as he took another bite of the food that Rem prepared. "But I do miss certain things about my homeland, despite how unsafe and unstable it could be at times. Like my... family, for one." It was then, that the gravity of his family's situation finally came upon him at full force, forcing him to choke down his emotions and a sob. It took him a minute, but he managed to push down the sadness that was encroaching upon his mental state. "A-anyways, Lord Roswaal, what is this country's current situation?"

"Oh, we are simply without a Kiiiing, that's all." Roswaal casually said as Zak sighed inwardly. Yep, same situation as before. Great. Might as well put up the facade of shock.

"...You're kidding me." His eyes shifted to the basically parasitic clown/Lord, who shook his head negative.

"I'm afraid not, mister Zak. We are in quite an interesting situaaation. Thaaankfully, we have a council of wise men acting as heads for the country until a Kiiing has been elected." Zakariya sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in faux annoyance.

"And now I appear out of nowhere in such a dire situation. I definitely look sus." He muttered. Y'know, he was starting to wonder if it was too late to just ask Reinhard if he could stay with him. At least in Felt's Camp, he wouldn't have to worry about manipulative clowns. It took a good chunk of his brainpower and his knowledge of this world, and Roswaal himself, but he managed to pull suspicion off of his back. Not to mention, Emilia and Puck also stood up for him.

"Well theeen! Please forgive me, young Zaaak! If Miss Emilia and Puck are vouching for you, then I believe you!" Zakariya released a sigh of relief internally at that. "Yes, yes! Youuu helped Miss Emilia retrieve her insignia, so I am in your debt! So tell me, Zak! What do you wish for from this man?"

"A job would be nice, I suppose. I'm currently bottomed out on money." Zak shrugged in response, though inwardly he felt like he just sold his soul to Satan himself. Which was strange because there was another part of his mind telling him that dealing with Satan would actually be better than dealing with this guy.

...But why as it that he still couldn't shake off the feeling that things were just going to get worse for his situation? All he knew was… he hated clowns, and he hated Roswaal doubly so.