I turned around to look at the person responsible for the shock but the status window moved along with my head and appeared over the face of Mr. 'fan'. It was like he was phasing through the status window like a ghost!
I silently whispered, "Status" and the screen disappeared revealing the skinny face of the young boy. He looked at me with confusion and said, "Did you say something?"
I felt like I was caught red handed stealing something valuable, yet I smiled and replied, "I didn't say anything, you just surprised me. I was just thinking about something unimportant when you suddenly approached me. But, do want something? Why did you approach me so stealthily?"
With a confused expression he answered, "Alex, you're acting weird. I was calling your name but you didn't reply so I had to see what was going on. Anyways, if you're done eating, let's go back lest we should anger the masters!"
"Alright, let's go." I was already finished with my food a while back. I hoped my body would be somehow able to digest it! I was also tired from a hectic day, so I just threw the matter of the status screen to my future self. For now, I'll just go back and sleep.
***
Skid! Skid! Skid!
I didn't know if he was doing it intentionally or it was his habit but as James walked, he would drag his feet on the ground. His shuffling was really annoying especially when I was having a headache right after calling to Delta. Delta isn't responding today either. I don't even know if he'll ever respond to my calling!
'Too much is going on and my mind is in a mess right now. I thought I would escape from this village somehow but yesterday after dinner 'my fan' told me that the village was surrounded by a forest and monsters! Fucking monsters! If only Delta would just reply to my calls!'
Keeping my monologue aside and to distract myself from the annoying sound of James' walking, I asked him, "The public toilet is quite far. I wonder why the others aren't coming with us."
"Did the operator hit you too hard that you lost your memories Alex?" he replied in a calm tone.
'Shit! I forgot I was Alex, a slave who was born and brought up in this village! I cannot just ask things that are common sense! I need to do something to get out of this predicament!'
Not minding my inner panic, James plainly replied, "Well, even if they wanted to, they cannot come. Only the named slaves and the utility slaves have the right to use the public toilet meant for the slaves. The unnamed slaves had to use the forest for their morning ablutions. Everybody in the village knows that!" He was calm and after smiling, he looked at me to see my reaction.
Just like how Alex would react, I didn't mind his stare and blankly looked at the road ahead. Without changing my gaze, I replied, "You were so quiet James so I thought I would start a conversation. But, I think I'm still not too good at it."
After hearing my words, James just smiled innocently and looked away. From the corner of my eyes, I noticed him going back to the way he was previously.
'I wonder if I was able to clear up his suspicions of me. I hope this doesn't come back to bite me later! I'll have to tread carefully from now on.'
As I was thinking silently, we arrived at the public bathroom. It was about a 20 minutes' walk from the stable. As I looked at the toilet, I noticed a queue of six people and immediately I knew how much more I'll have to wait.
Sigh!
***
Earlier today while I was in the toilet, I tried to see what would happen if I looked at my locked stat. I thought I would be able to assign some of my free stat points to my mind stat and suddenly start doing magic! Unfortunately, nothing happened, I was just staring at the window like an idiot!
I did figure out something nice while I was mining today. I looked infront of me, there was only the stable and nothing else as I've already finished my quota again today and was alone in the stable. Without even calling Delta or the status window, I directly said, "Space one."
Whoosh!
Just as I said those words, a small black vortex appeared infront of me. I looked at it and then I moved my pupils, as I did, the vortex moved and followed my pupils. To make the vortex vanish, I whispered, "Space." The command made the vortex disappear into the thin air.
Swoosh!
After confirming that most of the features of the system and the status are voice controlled, I felt like I've just solved the biggest mystery of my life!
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Moving towards the water storage, I whispered, "Space two." A black vortex appeared infront of me again, about half in size of the previous one. The darkness of this vortex was comparably lighter than the space 1. It looked less opaque.
'Maybe it's because the capacity of this space is one fourth of the first one.'
As I was thinking about the vortex, I arrived at the water storage. As I moved to look at the storage, the spiraling vortex moved with my pupils and touched the surface of the water. The space was around the same distance as my wrist from my face. I looked at the black vortex and said, "Store and set capacity to point zero one cubic meter (0.01m³)." It was similar to giving commands in programming and that was something in which I was good at. I couldn't say that I was talented in it but it was still decent enough to get me a job.
Whoosh!
Glob! Glob! Glob!
I looked at the vortex as it started spinning clockwise and sucking in the water. I could see the water level in the container slightly dropping but there was still plenty of water in the 'tank'. 0.01 m³ volume of water was similar to 10 liters of water! Because the tank had around 500 liters of water, this stunt of mine would mostly go unnoticed. Earlier today during lunch, I found that there was a river in the village, I would later go and fill my space two of the inventory completely with water!