Carlos quietly closed the door and turned back to me with a serious expression. I continued to munch on the food offering he brought. I wasn't really scared of what this encounter may bring. The government had already ruined any scare tactic he could possibly throw at me.
"It seems that you are not scared."
"I expected to be questioned sooner or later. I am surprised that it took over a week though."
Carlos smiled before pulling his chair closer to my hospital bed. I didn't like the sudden closeness, but I decided it was best to act calm.
"You mentioned before that you didn't go into the Crystal City Tower dungeon."
"I did."
"How?"
I bit my lip. Open-ended questions were not fair. My only options were to answer and tell the truth, answer and lie, or not answer at all. Either way I am sure they already had a copy of my medical file and knew the injuries I sustained.
So there was no way I could say I got them from the Crystal City Tower. Plus I didn't want to openly lie to the association. I also was not dumb enough to provide information that did not benefit me. They didn't have my true interests at heart.
"High level hunters have access to a terminal in the towers that gives them access to other towers."
Carlos wrote my answer down on the tablet that he had suddenly pulled out. It was the same as I had seen other employees use.
"I see. You would like to provide that information anonymously, I presume."
"If possible."
"Ms. Richards, when did you start noticing the changes in the tower?"
"Soon after I became a hunter."
That wasn't a lie. Technically, everyone was a hunter once they came out of the tower. I was simply hiding when that time was.
"Why did you not report this sooner?"
"I don't want to stand out."
Carlos tapped his pen on the tablet a few times. There was a frown on his face as he seemed to contemplate my answers.
"As you did not enter the dungeon of Crystal City Tower, which tower did you enter?"
"The one northeast of the city."
"Can you describe the dungeon floors of that tower?"
"The first floor is an expansive beach with a sea. The tower is a boss dungeon. There are no exits unless you defeat the boss on the floor."
"So you had no choice but to take on the boss?"
"Yes, from the moment I stepped into the dungeon I had no choice."
"So you sustained your injuries on the first floor?"
I paused. I didn't like how he caught on to the information I did not provide purposefully. I guess I had no choice, but to tell him everything.
"No. I had entered the dungeon previously and defeated the boss on floor one. I proceeded to the next floor and quickly became overwhelmed by the boss on that floor."
Carlos raised his eyebrow and waited for me to continue. I gripped the blanket on the bed in my fists.
"The boss of floor one is a giant suicide crab, while the boss on floor two was a beaver, I believe."
"Suicide crab?"
"As soon as it knows it is going to be defeated it attempts to blow you up with it in a magic blast."
"How did you defend against such an attack?"
"I didn't. You simply need to find cover and wait for it to die on its own."
"I see. Then what about the beaver and floor two?"
"Floor two is a giant lake where you cannot see the other shore. As soon as you interact with the water it appears. It can manipulate water with its tail."
"So that is how you received the injuries to your rib cage?"
"Yes. After I retreated to the cliff nearby I came up with the idea to use poison to kill it, since I could not take it head on like the crab."
"And that is how you became poisoned?"
"Correct."
Carlos sat back in his chair and sighed.
I began to wonder what else the association wanted to know.
"Being a hunter sure sounds dangerous."
I was not expecting Carlos' nonchalant attitude. Memories of being interrogated by the scientists about the tower in my previous life filled my mind, making me tense.
"Not only that, but the doctor here sure is terrifying as well," he continued. "Saying that you wouldn't make it through the night and then informing us that you have been making a miraculous recovery."
"You're not going to ask me anything else?"
"Do you want me to?"
"No."
"Then this is the least amount of information I can get to please the higher ups. Having information that no one else does about another tower is more valuable than you think."
"But that's…"
"I know. All they care about is beating the floors of the towers as efficiently as possible. I'm sure they are going to ask more about high level players being able to access multiple towers, but I can always say it was a reward you won in the tower for best time or something."
I opened my mouth in shock. Carlos was treating this whole thing like a game or something.
"Look if you want an interrogation I can bring in the other lady. She always tries to get brownie points with the chairman. It is annoying."
Chairman?
"Seriously, all they do is create more meaningless work. What was the point in setting up the association and then dumping the work on others so they could dive into the towers?"
Carlos looked haggard for a moment before slapping the tops of his legs and standing up. He packed away his tablet and headed for the door.
"Um… Carlos?"
He turned to look at me with his hand on the door.
"I believe that every hunter should have the right to not share any information and hunt the way they want. You guys are the ones risking your lives in there, after all. It is my job as an association employee to assist you in that, so we can push back the monster waves and no one else has to die."
Carlos looked like he was looking past me at something else. I felt that something bad must have happened in his past. Since things had changed so much in this timeline, I had already forgotten about the chaos, but there were several people who had lost their lives in the monster outbreaks already.
Carlos nodded to me and then left the room. I felt a subtle silence fall over the room as I silently thanked him for asking the minimum number of questions to satisfy the association.
I wish I had gotten to know him in my past life. I felt like we may have gotten along well. It was more a feeling that we would have understood each other well.
However, I couldn't explain my difficult past this time. I couldn't explain the horrors I went through. It never happened in this time and it never would. Not if I had something to do with it.
My nurse came in with my breakfast and sat it down with a huff.
"Honestly, they think because they now have government recognition that they can just waltz in here and demand to see patients when they are still trying to recover."
I smiled weakly at her.
"I am mostly recovered now though."
"You are not well until we release you from the hospital. They only cornered you here because you can't leave."
Well she did have a point there. If we were outside the hospital there were any number of ways to avoid them. Until my release, I was pretty much stuck in bed or in the physical therapy room.
"On that note, has the doctor mentioned my release yet?"
"You know that man is overcautious. He knows all of you hunters will just go right back into the tower if given the chance. Just be patient and think of this as a forced vacation."
"Well there is that forced part."
"I will bring a tablet for you later. We recently added a digital library and game section."
Her approach to making me feel better made me feel a bit like a sick child she was trying to pacify. She had helped me a lot so I decided to just smile at her and eat my breakfast.
"Kai!"
The sound of Callie's cheerful voice saved me from wallowing in my misery after breakfast. She came in with a bunch of colorful boxes in her hands. It seemed my cry of boredom had reached her ears as many different kinds of board games were presented to me.
Mat filtered in behind her with a lunch box and flowers. I was starting to think that they had nothing better to do than come visit me in the hospital.
"Seriously, you guys don't need to come visit me every day. I can entertain myself."
"We want to visit you. Do you not like our visits?"
Callie looked at me sadly and I reluctantly gave up. In the end, it felt nice to be visited every day. Besides, the way that Mat nodded vigorously behind her was a bit… intimidating.
"Well there are so many choices… What shall we play first?"
"I know! This one!"
At times like this it was best to let Callie indulge in what she wanted, so we spent all afternoon in a fierce battle to gain the most territory. I figured this would be a good learning opportunity for her and crushed her thoroughly.
"No fair, Kai! You could at least take it a little easy on me."
"Wasn't this to make me feel better because I am in the hospital?"
"Um.. Well yes. That is right! I let you win!"
"You would let me win just because I am in the hospital?"
"Uh.. No,"
I patted her head and let her think over her answer while Mat quietly cleaned up the pieces of the game. Visiting hours would be over soon and they would need to clear out all the items they brought.
"Let's have a rematch tomorrow. I know I will be able to crush you tomorrow."
"I believe in you."
I watched them leave, this time Mat carried all the games and Callie carried the empty lunch box, the contents of which we had all enjoyed together. The warm smile I carried for them fell from my face as I looked over my empty room once more.