The same building I woke up in stood in front of me. I had managed to get here thanks to the man in the yellow car. I learned quite a bit from the short ride inside that car. One of those was that those cars resemble carriages used by royalty in my world, and that the person controlled it with a wheel attached to his front inside the carriage. It was quite comfortable and it even had strange artifacts inside that would play music as if one were inside a concert hall—even if it didn't carry quite the same power of a full orchestra.
The music was quite odd as well, with rhythms and instruments that I had never heard before, although I had only been invited to a couple of concerts in my past, so this kind of music might have been more common than I thought. However, I couldn't imagine nobles and royalty wanting to listen to music with that kind of rhythm… it was the kind of music that could be heard in commoner inns, but still not quite the same.
I wanted to ask the man behind the wheel what kind of music that was or how it came out of the small panels inside, but he seemed to be so focused on what he was doing that I didn't want to interrupt him. Still, there would be other chances for asking someone else, since on the roads of this city, there were all kinds of cars with all sorts of colors, so stopping another yellow one wouldn't be an issue.
As for the building that I managed to get back to—or was brought back to—it hadn't changed at all. The same glass door was there, and the man in blue clothes was still sitting there. I wondered if the man had left the spot at all, or if anyone in the building had done anything related to my absence, but it was as if people didn't care.
I went ahead to the glass door, hesitant to reach for it, since I didn't know if the lightning trap was still there or if that was something completely different. However, it wouldn't give me time to think about it, as the door made the same loud noise. I circulated mana in my body and reached for it.
The door easily allowed itself to be pushed, not a single spark of lightning hitting my mana empowered body. I relaxed and completely opened the door, looking at everything else inside the building, from the brightly illuminated ceilings to the same silvery doors at the end of the hallway, and down to the man sitting behind the desk.
"Good evening," he dismissively said, not moving his eyes up from the glowing painting in his hands.
"…Good evening…" I slowly replied, still unsure on how to deal with this man.
He didn't seem to care about me going into the building, so I steadily walked into the hall and to the back, where the silvery doors and the stairs were. But after taking a handful of steps, I could hear the man moving from his spot, causing me to look at him.
"You're the one staying at eight o' eight, right?" he asked, this time carefully inspecting me.
His face turned to one of caution once he noticed the armor and the blade strapped on my back, but I disregarded it, nodding my head in response. "That's right."
"Oh okay, here," he replied, turning over to a strange piece of furniture on the wall, full of squared holes that had papers and other such things inside.
From the one with the same numbers as the ones that he asked me about, he pulled out a piece of paper and a set of keys, presenting them to me. I looked down at them, but the paper was folded so I couldn't tell what it was about, and the keys looked finely crafted, something that was likely used for a very special lock.
"What is this about?" I asked without taking them.
"Ah, we got a report that the door to your apartment was left open, so someone from security went ahead and closed it while taking the keys that were left on the counter in case that you had left in a rush. We thought it was better like this so you didn't have to call someone to open the door for you when you came back." He scratched his head while making an apologetic smile. "I know it wasn't right of anyone to go into your home, but we figured this would be best—and don't worry, door's locked and nothing else was taken. Better this than having someone go in there and take the phone or the computer, right?"
With a frown on my face I took the keys and the folded piece of paper. "What about this paper?"
"Oh that!" he exclaimed. "The building's manager left that here and told me to remind you to pay the debt on the apartment, otherwise she'll be forced to evict you."
I turned my sight on the man. I didn't understand what he was talking about. From the debt to the 'eviction'. I had no knowledge of any of that—and what's more, I had yet another debt to pay.
"Hey, don't look at me like that. I'm just doing my job," he answered with a shrug and his hands raised to the side.
Shaking my head and sighing, I ignored the man and decided to make my way back up to the room I woke up in, with the thought that perhaps I should've just found another place to stay, while forgetting about this one.
* * *
I stood in front of the door with the numbers 'eight zero eight' placed on it. Taking the intricate key out, I carefully inserted it into the keyhole of the room. It easily slid right in and I was able to turn the doorknob to open the door.
The room was dimly lit, with the only sources of light being the one coming from the hallway I was standing, the light from the small room I woke up in, and a little bit of moonlight from the window. I could tell—even in the darkness—that everything was pretty much the same as it was left the last time I was here.
I walked in and closed the door behind me. Judging by the way that everything went so far, I guessed that I could use this place as a place to stay. However, it seems like I had a debt to pay for using it. I pulled out the check I had secured inside my armor and looked at it. I still couldn't figure out how this could be turned into coins—at least I won't until I go to a 'bank' and see how it works. For now, it would be better to keep it close.
As for the room itself, I decided to look closely at the things that I missed before, starting with the large silver coffer that was standing next to a table full of dirty plates. I traced my hand over its cold silvery surface, appreciating the fine craftsmanship of the furniture before placing my hand on a vertical handle in the middle of it. I pulled on it—it resisting slightly on my pull—and I was amazed by what appeared inside as a bright light illuminated its interior.
There was a cold winter-like breeze coming out of the coffer, and the inside had a few seemingly random things placed in it, from tin cans to eggs and even vegetables. I reached out to one of the vegetables, feeling the texture of it as if it had been freshly picked, even smelling it to notice that, while it was still green, it wouldn't last for much longer.
I couldn't understand how there was such an incredible artifact in this place just filled with random food in it, but I wasn't going to question it as I was indeed wondering about what to eat, so I took a couple of eggs, a few of the vegetables that still seemed to be good to eat, and placed them on the table next to this cold coffer before closing it to ensure that the coldness of it wouldn't invade the rest of the room.
The room remained dimly lit, so to know better what I was doing, I used a small light spell to illuminate the room. It would last me for a while, and it was more than enough time to cook something with what I pulled. Luckily, there were already a few metal pans inside this table, which only took a bit of water magic to clean and have ready to use.
There was nothing to use as kindling, which wouldn't be an issue, since I wasn't planning to cook anything that would take a long time. I could just hold the metal pan in my hand while sustaining fire under it until everything was good to be eaten. But before that, I had to prepare everything else. With one of the remaining knives, I cut the vegetables I wanted to use, and then threw them into the pan along with the eggs that I started mixing with the knife.
Once everything was ready, I finally grabbed the pan and used fire under it to cook it. I had to keep a steady fire that wouldn't burn everything while making sure that it was all finely cooked. It could have been difficult to properly cook while holding the pan with one hand and keeping the fire under it with the other hand, but I remembered that Recall spell I copied from Bo'guth and did something similar with the pan, using magic to steadily keep it in the air and cook my meal.
It was harder than I expected it to be, but nothing that was beyond my ability with magic, and after a few minutes, the scrambled eggs were done. Giving it a few moments to cool down, I finally ate it with the knife. It wasn't quite as tasty as the other things I had eaten so far, like that ice cream, the golden piece of bread, or those potato chips from Bo'guth; but it was good enough to satiate me for a while.
I sighed once I was done eating, putting aside the dirty pan and knife on the same table where I found them, and turned to the other table in the room. There I saw the phone I used to talk with Salrak. Nothing had changed with it, so I went over to inspect it closer. It was still the same black mirror from before, and I still didn't understand how to use it, since most people would get the glowing painting while placing their fingers on it, but this one wouldn't react to me touching it.
Perhaps it needed magic to function, so I used a small amount of magic on it, almost indetectable, and yet, the mirror refused to respond, even when I tried pushing a bit more mana. I stopped only with a slight amount in fear of destroying it if I went overboard. There were some intricate engravings all over the edges of the phone, but since they didn't react to magic, I decided to not try anything else until I understood how this worked.
I placed the phone back on the table with the idea that I should ask someone else how to use it. Bo'guth crossed my mind… but I don't want to rely on a demon, especially when his wife was shooting arrows just by looking at me. The only option would be Nicole, so I'll look for her and show it to her once I get back to that academy tomorrow.
There was another strange book-like artifact on the same table, but I also didn't want to deal with it without understanding it better, so I left it there to ask about it as well.
I went to have a closer look at the mattress that lay on the floor. Close to it, there was an open bag full of clothes. I pulled out the clothes inside the bag. They all felt just as comfortable as the first clothes I picked up from the other room, and they were all mostly colorful, with strange paintings plastered in the middle of them. I didn't understand them, but the clothes themselves were of high quality.
I didn't want to sleep while wearing this armor, even if I had gotten used to it by now, so after struggling a bit to remove it, I changed the clothes I was wearing for one of those comfortable large shirts and pants. Again, I realized that these weren't made for me, since they were all far too large, but being this large also made them much more comfortable to move around and sleep in.
It was then that I tried the mattress. It felt strange, like laying on top of bubbles or a hard balloon, nothing like any other bed I had ever tried. It was somehow soft and firm at the same time, something that I wouldn't even think about when making a bed, as when thinking about sleeping, I would think that a bed that felt like clouds would be the best option.
I reached for the few blankets that were close to this bed and pulled them over me, trying to get a feel of how comfortable this bed was, and without realizing it, I already had my eyes closed. I hadn't felt like this in such a long time, since from the moment the Final War started, I had been fighting and flying from one place to another until eventually darkness took me, just like now, but this time, I was relaxing and allowing myself to go into that darkness, just for a good night's rest.