After explaining to Ossa, he was dismissed and asked to do whatever he pleased. The spirit said he needed to make sure of something and locked himself inside the office.
Left alone outside the room after being kicked out, Rai heaved a long sigh before walking toward Area 1, where the minion rooms were.
For some reason, the corridor was empty. It was just noon, but no one seemed to be outside of their room.
'Or they are having lunch in the shared dining hall. Come to think of it. I haven't eaten anything yet, only drinking the Magicule liquid I extracted from that girl, Ciel.'
And as expected, when Rai reached his room, his partner, Ami, wasn't inside. The room was clean, and the bed was tidied up nicely, including his. He remembered he had no time to tidy his bed in the morning. The fact that it was tidied now meant Ami did it for him.
'I need to thank her.'
A quick glance at his System Watch showed it was already 12:30 PM, and the small word 'Lunch' was written below the time.
"Well, let's go to the dining hall then. If I am not wrong, it's located between Area 0 and Area 1 in the large room on the map."
Probably his partner was in the dining hall too. Every minion could get a set of rations for free, but many things, such as dessert or something that wasn't included in the allocation, needed to be paid with Grind.
And so after deciding, Rai walked toward the dining hall while humming happily in a good mood. The fact Ossa kicked him out earlier didn't affect him at all, as when they met again, the spirit surely had a complete answer to something he wanted to ask.
The dining hall was large, massive even. It could accommodate more than a thousand minions at once. The middle and highest floor had separate dining areas, so the ones on the lowest floor were filled with minions and mechanics who ran this place.
When the door was opened and revealed the large clearing, Rai was momentarily stunned due to how massive it was. The hall was bathed in a warm, inviting glow emanating from state-of-the-art lighting fixtures that adorned the ceiling.
Soft beams of light cascaded down, casting a gentle illumination upon the scene below.
Floating tables and chairs, suspended effortlessly in mid-air, adorned the dining area. They seemed to defy gravity, but Rai had learned something like that was possible since he visited the Alpha Mall with a flying disk instead of a lift as a way to move between floors.
Moving through the hall were robots, serving minions in a black bodysuits they were in. Some had normal clothes, but most minions didn't bother to change as there would be a gathering to train after this.
Besides, most also didn't have any interest in clothes, and their black uniform was enough. They could buy clothes they needed outside when they were promoted to a Captain and were permitted to use the teleportation room twice a month.
'I guess Rena is a bit special among the minions too. Or rather, wasn't she promoted to Captain yesterday?'
Or she just ransacked many clothes when she returned from missions. That was possible too.
The atmosphere of the dining hall was alive with a symphony of conversations and laughter intermingled with the soft whirring of the robotic attendants.
That might be a problem for Rai.
"How can I find Ami among them?"
A quick observation was what he needed to understand that's impossible. He also stood out quite a lot due to his current appearance, wearing a black and red jacket and having a beautiful face that could even put a girl to shame.
When he scratched his cheek, looking troubled, someone was running over to him.
A girl with long, twin-tailed pink hair was skipping happily while waving her hand. Her face was bright, and her pink eyes sparkled when she saw him. The light blue star paint under her eye got folded as the corner of her lips rose.
Her pink jacket ruffled around on top of her tight bodysuit.
"Rai! Spread your arms!" Rena shouted from afar, gaining a lot of attention from the minions sitting near the entrance.
But once they saw her, they quickly averted their gazes as if they wanted nothing to do with her.
Rai, the subject of her interest, looked a bit confused but still spread his arms because of her request.
"Hyap!"
But his confusion disappeared just a second after.
"Wha?!"
For some reason, Rena jumped while spreading her arms like him, diving straight in his direction.
As a gentleman, catching the girl that jumped onto him softly was a good attitude. And the fact that the said girl gave him a set of clothes and saved him from hunger caused by the side-effect just added to the reasons why he needed to catch her.
But…
*Thud!*
"Ouch! Ugghh…"
Rai had no intention of doing that and stepped to the side, letting Rena slide onto the shiny floor face first and groaning in pain.
Looking down, he asked the girl, "What are you doing?"
"Trying to hug you…" Rena raised her head and looked at Rai. Her nose turned slightly red from the collision, and she bloated her cheek in a pout. "But you dodged. Hmph! You're really bad when you are not transformed!"
"Sorry for being a bad guy. I am an evil organization member, after all." Rai replied nonchalantly and turned around, deciding to ignore Rena.
"Ah, wait!"
Rena quickly got up and chased after him, walking beside him with her hands behind her back. She leaned forward, peeking at Rai's indifferent face.
"You know what? I've been waiting for you to ask for your opinion about the clothes! You could at least catch me earlier as thanks. Hmph! You're really not fit to be a gentleman." Rena huffed and threw her face away.
"Even though you already touched my breast, I won't give you that liquid again if you don't apologize!"
Instantly, the area around them went quiet. Rai also stopped in his tracks and looked at Rena with a questionable gaze as if looking at a crazy girl. He noticed that she was smirking playfully while hiding her mouth with her small hand.
"Is a pudding enough?" Rai asked.
"That's enough. Nyahahaha." Rena nodded and giggled happily. "You do know how to act like a gentleman."
"I save that for Magical Girls."
His reply wasn't surprising for Rena, as Ossa told her that Rai joined because he wanted to play with Magical Girls. She had nothing against that, as she also wanted to play, but differently.
And so both of them went to sit around an empty floating table. Once again, the minions sitting near them walked away for some reason. Rai looked at the girl, who was probably the culprit, but she hummed without caring.
A tube-shaped flying robot approached their table and took their order. The food name was simple and similar to his original world, except for the ration, which had 'RAT-01' as its name on the menu.
Rai quickly ordered 2 rations and 2 puddings, one for Rena and one for Ami, and paid 40 Grinds. Finding her was impossible without communication in this large base, so that was the only thing he could do.
"Hmm, caring for your roommates too? You're really a funny guy."
Rena poked fun at him with a giggle following afterward, but Rai was too lazy to get along with that. But Rena also just wanted to do that, so she continued even when she was ignored.
After a while, the robot from earlier returned with a tray on top of its circular-shaped head. The rations were in two bowls. They looked like porridge with thin slices of meat on top.
Honestly, it looked unappetizing. Even for free food, this was just too much.
In contrast to it, the pudding was as big as a small bowl, wrapped nicely in plastic. It looked really good, like a luxury food.
'I should've ordered a pudding for me.'
Just when the robot was gone, he regretted his choice to save a bit of money.