The joyous mood was cut short the moment Mateo spoke. Being looked at by the whole family with weird expressions on their faces made Mateo feel uneasy, something he decided to tell them.
"Yhw si enoyreve gnirats ta em, si ereht gnihtemos no ym ecaf?"
Now genuinely worried, everyone turned to face Amy who had slipped into the background, after all she was the only one with Mateo when he woke up.
"I -I don't know what is going on, I swear. H- he was already talking like this when he woke up, that's why I screamed for help earlier."being stared at by so many people brought Amy's anxiety back to the surface, evident by her stammering and trembling.
Taking her word for it, everyone turned back to Mateo, wondering on how to break the communication barrier when Leone got an idea.
" How about we make him write what he's saying, so that we see if it's a speech problem or the effect of some weird potion he took while in the DEAD-ZONE."
Since there was no harm in trying and no other idea had been pitched they agreed, leading Mateo to the round dinner table and giving him a pen and book to convey his thoughts.
Fortunately, it didn't seem to be a speech problem since he wrote words none of them knew, unfortunately that didn't make understanding him easier.
Wilson, the only one who didn't partake in the hug siesta, had been observing the situation from the beginning finally brought out his thoughts on the matter.
"I think he can understand us when we talk and himself when he says something, a feature shared by multilingual people but I may be wrong. So how about we start with simple questions and suggestions."
Turning to Mateo he said "blink twice if you understand me", and Mateo blinked twice.
Before celebrations could begin, Wilson lifted his hand in a gesture demanding for silence. With the gesture well received despite being seen as disrespectful towards the elders, Wilson continued with his exercise, telling Mateo to say and write the word YES everytime a statement was true.
With this, questions about the thirdcalling and the DEAD-ZONE were asked, rapid fire style. The answers received were "sey" and "on", which were decoded quite easily to mean "yes" and "no". With this, it was concluded that the language being spoken was English, well backwards English or Mirrorword for short.
The families finally got their sense of relief, after all, the communication barrier had been broken through. Amy, the only one not celebrating for obvious reasons was about coming clean to everyone about taking advantage of Mateo, but a look from him conveyed that her secret was safe with him, an act that washed away the anxiety and increased the dam of love in her heart.
With Mateo now awake and the necessary questions asked, everyone was returning to their previous tasks when Leone's phone rang. Dropping the bow he was using to teach Amber and Ayleen archery with, Leone looked at his caller, someone he had saved as OTAKUFACTIONSPY #5 and picked it.
The voice on the other end spoke first, identifying the caller as a young woman in her early 20s, earning Leone two questioning gazes from his archery students, something that made him secretly happy.
"Erm, hello boss, it's me Zelda" said a sultry sounding voice.
"Yes Zelda, I remember you. Hope you called to give me some useful intel and not to casually chat."
"Ah yes boss. As you instructed, I got close to one of the sub-leaders and by luck it happened to be John."
"Hmm... John, am I supposed to know him."
"Yes leader. He is the one with the mana vision, you know, the one always on TV. Anyways, I got some juicy info, wanna hear it?"
"I don't think I would still be on the call if I didn't want to, Zelda."
*giggles* "You're so funny leader, guess that's one of the reasons I'm attracted to you. Well that was just by the way.
According to John, all the people who complete their third calling become stuck I that egg-like pod".
"Yes I already know that."
"Good. What you don't know however is that the mana doesn't just sustain them during that one month, it changes them, makes them stronger and faster by upgrading their body. It's almost like every cell gets filled with mana. And best of all, it is their unlocked stats that gain the most boost from this whole event."
"Hmm, that's some very useful intel, I'll keep it in mind to reward you."
"Wait, bit I've not even said the best part. The newbreeds as they are being called now, also speak a different language, a language that sounds powerful and according to John, the words spoken are filled with mana.
He believes the only way to revert them back to their old languages is to drain them of mana, but then again it's just a theory."
"Hmm, I see. Well thanks for your services."
"Don't you want to know what I want as my reward, Mater."
"I know I'll regret asking, but what do you want."
"You. I want you to ravish me, love me and adore me alone and no one else, dear Master, can you do that for me."
"You know I can't do that Zelda, I'm in a relationship and want to stay in it for as long as possible." stated Leone, rubbing the palm of the angry Amber while ignoring the stares attempting to pierce through his hide of shamelessness.
*Sigh* "Silly master, you don't have to stay in it any longer than you don't want to. Just say the word and the ungrateful b*tch will be no more, but till then she should enjoy what she has because she never knows when she might lose it. Ciao." and with that the eccentric Zelda hung up, unaware of how Amber's rage generated whirlpools in the aquarium display in the hall.
Except Amber, no one else reacted to Leone's strange call since in their eyes this caller was at least decent, the others spoke of much more depraved and debauche acts that made the adults question the sex lives they thought were colourful enough.
With new information about how to temporarily cure Mateo, they marched to the dungeon hall where all their personal dungeons were stored, to provide an open space for Mateo to spam his spell and drain mana.