As much as Zachary wants to stay where he was, with Reshanxra on the altar, he understands that he needs to make haste and return to Aggrae.
The short sleep, or rather, a meditation, was necessary to reset his condition. As he was in a hurry, Zachary opened another teleportation portal after waking up and jumped straight into it.
He had yet to hold a proper 'conversation' with Reshanxra, as she is now totally aware of the changes to herself. She doesn't understand yet what the changes were, and how they happened, but she's at least aware that Zachary is the reason.
The first thing Zachary wanted to find out was the length of his absence, or how long he had been off-world.
The void travel this time was silent and normal, devoid of any sort of anomalies like what had occurred the last time, much to his satisfaction. Despite his rush, Zachary had concealed his presence, especially the energy emanating from his soul, to a very high degree.
The point is, he could not be tracked down with little preparation, and while the Outergods have keen senses, the void travel this time was too short for them to interfere.
Even Zachary himself was quite perplexed as travel between universes wasn't supposed to be so short.
In almost the blink of an eye, Zachary was ejected from the other end of the portal, appearing straight in his chamber where he put down his mark.
Taking in a breath, the smell immediately reassured him that he had indeed returned to the Aggrae world.
It was a short visit to another world, followed by a major incident that disoriented his grasp of time due to being knocked unconscious. The encounter with that Outergod had been his first true life and death crisis in this life, which had triggered his mortal instincts to life again.
It was half past 12 in the afternoon when he appeared in his bedroom. There's a calendar in the room, but Zachary doesn't know how much time has passed yet. To know that, he had to talk to someone, or watch television, but there is no television in his room, so he had to go out.
Before that though, Zachary noticed that the room was clean and not dusty at all. 'Someone kept this room clean,' Was his thought after he also noticed the faint fragrance lingering in the air.
After rolling on the bed a few times, Zachary got up and exited the room.
"Ah!" Zachary ran into a maid just as he opened the door of his room, and the woman instinctively shouted in surprise. Which also startled Zachary himself a little, but he hid it perfectly.
That was what happens when you're in your own home, by the way, you let your guard down.
"Young Master!" The maid called out when her eyes fell on the figure standing in front of her.
"Hello…" Zachary greeted her with a smile, but he honestly couldn't remember her name. Rightfully so, because the maid was hired shortly after Zachary left the mansion, and her job was mostly to clean rooms.
"What's today date?" Zachary asked her.
"Eh? What?- I mean! What?" The flustered maid fumbled and ended up repeating herself.
"What day is it today?" Zachary asked again.
"Oh… it's 3rd day of 2nd month..." The maid answered. Though she's perplexed at why he's asking about the date.
"It is? Hm… Alright. Are you new? I don't remember seeing you around." Zachary asked as he leaned on the door frame.
"No," she answered, before adding, "Actually. It- It's been! Close to three years!"
At that moment, Zachary immediately understood that at least three years had passed since the day he went through the portal on the moon. He frowned as he didn't expect the time difference would be so…wild.
After bidding his farewell to the maid, Zachary went invisible and searched for his mother. He did on the first floor, but she's currently accompanied by a toddler playing with some blocks on the floor.
She was seated on the sofa, reading a book. Her expression was calm and focused on the lined-up words.
"Whose kid was that?" Zachary said, and that frightened the hell out of Amanda as she instinctively flung the book toward Zachary while screaming for her dear life.
Zachary dodged the book without shifting his gaze away from his mother.
"You f-!" Zachary was certain she was about to let out a very nasty snarl, but it stopped very quickly. Pretty much as soon as she registered Zachary's face and voice.
She sat stunned for a few moments, but then, "Baby!" She said as a wide smile graced her pretty, aged face. She stood up and ran toward Zachary before hugging him tightly.
Zachary reciprocated the hug, and thank goodness he changed into his own clothes while he was in his bedroom just now, because the outerwear he had before was not quite hug-friendly. As you might expect from outerwear that could pass better as armor, as it was made from the materials Zachary plied from the bioship.
Amanda wanted to hug him longer, "You stink!" The stench on him was just unbearable. Though Amanda also found a pretty funny smell aside from the you-haven't-showered-in-days smell.
From the note, Amanda could guess that Zachary had been in contact with a girl before, which led to Zachary noticing the weird look she was giving.
Technically, Zachary hasn't showered for years.
"Why are you looking at me like that, though?" Zachary sniffed his armpit and felt like his body scent was kind of okay, which doesn't justify the looks on her face.
She sighed and said, "It was nothing, baby. You're grown up now, after all." While still pinching her nose shut with two fingers.
With an eyeroll, Zachary relents and says, "Fine, I'll go take a shower." He turned his body around, but stopped in his tracks.
"So, whose baby are you babysitting, Mom? And, where's dad?" He asked.
Amanda chuckled as she heard that first question, but then she said, "That's your baby brother, silly boy."
"…."
"I'll go take a shower…." He said and quickly exited the room and headed to his own.
Zachary had been gone from home for around four years, but Amanda wasn't too concerned about where he had gone or if he was fine or not. All because her husband once said that he had assigned watchers for Zachary, which he did, but he got bad news barely hours later, on that very day.
As a smart man, Neil naturally hid this piece from Amanda. When she asks her husband about their son's whereabouts, Neil would simply make things up.
She had told him to bring back Zachary once in a while, which he obviously couldn't as Zachary's whereabout is completely unknown. While he had been a little concerned sometimes, that would be swiftly dispelled as he'd remember that Zachary isn't really someone who needs to be worried for.
Still, the lies he made up were getting harder to track or even make sense. He'd only manage to avoid a death sentence mainly because he keeps her busy with you-know-what.
It was unavoidable that Amanda would eventually get pregnant simply due to the frequency, and that doesn't even considering other factors such as Neil's… ahem!
Anyway, the mansion was in a great mood for everyone, and Zachary's return made his parents very happy. Especially Neil, because he could finally stop lying to his wife.
Luckily, Neil dragged him aside before dinner, telling Zachary some of the things he made up to get Amanda off his back about getting Zachary back home. Zachary snickered when he heard Neil whisper to him this, because Amanda would surely ask what he'd been doing all these years.
The dinner went great, and as expected, Amanda really asked him what he had been up to while he was away. As much as he wants to see how Neil and Amanda would react when he tells the truth, he ends up going along with the stuff that Neil had 'briefed' him on.
"And who's the lucky girl?" Amanda asked as she remembered the weird smell on Zachary from earlier today, and that honestly caught Zachary off guard.
Of course, Zachary decided not to tell the truth about sleeping with a literal female alien, as that's just super weird. Plus, there had been no cross-civilization contact yet between this planet and others across the universe.
That can't be said for certain, though, because while the majority of people would pass things like that as baseless conspiracy theories, some were quite convinced about it being otherwise.
Zachary initially wanted to dismiss his mom's inquiry, but his father's reaction suggested that it'd be wise to consider his words before speaking. Neil's eyes went wide when he heard his wife's words, and he discreetly looked at Zachary with the corner of his eye, a bit curious to hear the answer.
'How did mom know this?' Neil heard Zachary's voice in his head. Neil frowned because he initially thought he was hearing things again, and that hadn't happened for a very long time already.
The CTE he suffered had already fully healed a while back, by the way.
'Dad!' Neil heard it again, and he shot up to his feet abruptly at the dinner table, which surprised both his wife and Zachary.
"What's wrong, dear?" Amanda asked, concerned.
"Ah-! It… It's nothing, honey. Hahaha… I think I forgot to take something from the study…" Neil waved her off, but judging by the narrowing of her eyes, his attempt to deflect her worry had failed.
Neil calmly sat down again as he shot a look toward Zachary.
'Was it just imagination? Or…' Neil said internally to himself.
'No, it's not. Dad, I'm talking to you.' And he heard Zachary's voice in his mind again.
'How-! Why am I hearing his voice inside my head?' Neil felt like he was losing his sanity, and this fruitless back and forth made Zachary choose to stop trying to telepathically communicate with Neil for now, as the dinner table had gone quiet for a beat too long.
Amanda's focus was still on her husband, specifically his unfocused state and contorted expression. She could see the confusion in his eyes and thought something was definitely out of the norm.
The dinner ended not long after, as Amanda was concerned about her husband's condition. Zachary was now allowed to watch his baby brother in proximity, and he took that window to inspect his baby brother's, named Adonis, Life Code.
Nothing was wrong with his Life Code, but when Zachary inspected things even more closely, he saw that there were a few layers of code hidden in his Soul Edict, and that immediately caught his attention and curiosity.