The rain calmed down quite a bit in the next few minutes, as if leaving the Arena was making the rain fall less harshly.
It was cool and wet, but refreshingly so, Bell's body was still warm from the strength exerted to lose that twenty versus one against Teacher Brutus.
As Bell and the others ascended the giant staircase for what felt like the seventh time today, Bell noticed that her clothing was slowly being cleaned by the downpour. The strange thing was that the staircase was entirely empty as of now.
'How long was I out?' Bell thought to herself.
She tapped the Pathfinder on her wrist twice and read the time.
[4:37 P.M. Thursday]
'Oh yeah, it hasn't even been a week since I left home...' Bell thought wistfully.
With a deep breath, Bell breathed in the thick scent of petrichor, and Bell's focus on the smell cleared her mind of all thoughts. Thus, Bell was able to properly examine her physical state.
Her arms, back, legs, and chest were sore, not to mention her entire body ached. Bell knew where the soreness came from, but the cause of her aching body was unknown. On another note, her clothes were drenched by the rain and she didn't see a reason as to why she would need to open her umbrella.
After Bell's quick examination, she looked at the others.
Not a single soul in the group was completely dry, with a handful of them being utterly caked in mud. Their hair wasn't safe from the rain, thus it looked wet, heavy, and clung to the back of their clothes. Wren, Michael, and Torm had dark circles under their eyes, most wore either a neutral expression or a slight scowl.
Minus Mona, she looked perfectly fine somehow, minus the wet part. She looked energetic and happy, with a great smile plastered across her face. Bell took a step further away from Mona at the sight of her unwavering cheeriness.
'It cannot be natural to be this happy all the time.'
Bell felt the fatigue ramping up in speed and rapidly catching up to her. Her legs were slowly getting more tired, her arms were heavy, and her eyes especially so.
'Should I stay up for dinner or take a nap beforehand?' Bell thought.
She took a few steps towards Mona and struck up conversation.
"Hey Mona, do you want to shower first, or should I?" Bell asked as she grew near.
Mona turned to face Bell and with a smile, said, "You can go first, I have to fold my laundry anyway."
Bell then asked, "Actually... Where can I do my laundry? I'm running out of clothes."
The group reached the top of the staircase, and conversations started to start while they turned and headed towards their dorms.
Bell's mind wandered, the sound and sensation of the rain and petrichor slowly drowned out the conversation around her.
'I might head to the library later on tonight... After dinner, maybe?'
They passed the first of many dorm areas along the ring. They were all set up in the exact same way as the one's that belonged to Bell's group, the architecture, materials, even the placement of individual buildings.
Bell noticed this during their initial trip to the dorms yesterday, but Bell never gave it much thought.
'Why is that?' Bell wondered.
After asking the question, no further thinking was done on the topic, and the group passed the second of many dorm areas. Bell decided to tune into what the others were talking about for a few seconds as they continued to head to their dorms.
Michael, Pyralis, and Wren were talking about what weapon they wanted to forge, going into the specifics of the purpose of their weapons and such. Aramine, Torm, Jude, and Magnus were conversing on what they could have done better in their gank fight against Teacher Brutus. On the other hand, Mona, Strella, and Hilia were talking about how to conserve Stardust during such a fight.
After getting a gist of what was going on, Bell zoned out once more, allowing the rain to simply patter against her, she rather enjoyed the feeling, surprisingly. In New York, rain was a rare thing, and Bell was always pestered to wear a raincoat, hence the extreme wear and tear of her old one.
She only had unfortunate experiences with the weather in her raincoat, so she grew a slight disdain for the rain. But in this instant, here and now, she found the light pattering quite nice. It cooled her of her sweat, cleaned her clothing of the mud, somewhat, and the sensation against her skin was actually somewhat soothing.
'Well, now I have the option to not go through that anymore, at any time' Bell thought to herself, considering using Creation to conjure a new umbrella. 'I mean, I can just make whatever I need, which is nice.'
As they passed the third and fourth sets of dormitory buildings, Bell remembered that she was thinking about an experiment with her Creation ability. Bell can always observe something and create a copy based on the observations that she had made. Hence, the dagger with the strange patterns on it resting in Bell's room in a drawer somewhere.
But when she had used it to slice her palm during the Welcoming Ceremony yesterday, the feeling of the blade wasn't the same as when she had dreamt of it that morning. The sharpness was lesser, the material felt strange in her grip, and the weight was off, not to mention the fact that she had probably gotten the patterns wrong.
Of course, in the moment, Bell was a bit preoccupied to really make deeper observations on the blade, but she had remembered the sensation and later contrasted the two.
But what if Bell were to actually create something, then use Creation to replicate that item?
After Bell proposed the idea to herself, she entered her dorm building, with Mona, Aramine, Wren, Strella, and Hilia close behind. The Eriksons separated from the group at the staircase while Aramine and Wren bid their farewells at the door.
Bell and Mona entered the room, and upon the door closing, Bell sighed and headed towards her sub room. With an empty mind, Bell was slightly painfully reminded of the aches caused by Teacher Brutus's strange ability.
Upon closing the door, Bell headed towards her drawers and pulled out the required materials for her shower. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash, face wash, loofah, towel, more clothes, all of the works.
It was then that an idea struck Bell.
'I should probably just keep my bottles in the shower... Mona and I could simply separate our products... yeah...'
She came up with that plan on her way into the bathroom that separated the two sub rooms in their dormitory. Bell flipped on the lights, placed her bottles of body care onto a small, tiled bench area located at the end of the shower, and then took a long shower.
'Should I try to recreate them?' Bell thought about her dirty clothing that were currently resting in a haphazardly placed pile. 'Nah... I'll just put them through the laundry with the others.'
Then, half an hour would pass, and Bell would internally rage at trying to get the conditioner out of her long hair. All the while muttering the phrase, "I should just cut it all off..." as she did.
After drying off, wrapping her hair in a towel, changing into her new set of clothes, and grabbing her dirty clothes, Bell exited the bathroom.
Mona was sitting on the couch and reading something on her Pathfinder as Bell exited, she looked up with a neutral expression. The sight almost made Bell jump.
In any case, Mona spoke, "You take quite a while, don't you?"
"The conditioner was really fighting me today." Bell defended herself, as if to avoid some sort of strange source of embarrassment.
Mona then nodded with closed eyes, as if saying "I understand," without uttering the words aloud.
With a shake of her head, Bell went into her sub room and gathered all of her dirty clothes, placing them in a hamper.
Bell considered doing her laundry right now, but she was going to head to dinner soon with Mona, and something would probably happen to her clothing if left unattended for too long. So, with a hint of caution regarding all of her dirty clothing, which consisted of most of her entire wardrobe, Bell decided to not begin her laundry now.
'Besides, I still have a bit of homework to do, I think.'
Bell headed towards her suitcase and rummaged through whatever was left in it to find her journal and a pen. It didn't take long, immediately afterward, Bell ripped a page cleanly out of her journal and wrote:
[Knock on my door when you're ready to go to dinner]
Then, Bell opened her own door and slipped it underneath Mona's closed door. Soon after, Bell was reading one of her novels at her desk, simply letting time pass by.