The Guardians....they think the world is just a comedy. Aefia stared blankly at the screen with a smile that showed she too found it funny. Slowly enough, an idea came into her mind. She slowly creeped over and out of her door and walked towards her room, remembering the way there while also confusedly taking the wrong turn sometimes.
While walking, only the small sentence stayed in her mind, the one that she had gotten as a reply from the Guardian of space. It made her laugh uncontrollably but silently and it kept replaying in her mind. "Sorry, the skill can only be used when the user is dead. Come back in the next to life to purchase it. Otherwise, you may call customer service at 'Next life' and then pay the next fee of life. Thank you for the money, although there is no return policies.😁"
Unknowingly, her heels were clattering a very loud sound which she had grown absurdly used to it because it were something worn almost everyday. Her ankles and back of the heels were sore the whole day and sometimes she would secretly swap to sneakers during the day. Thanks to her time pause skills, even during a close call moment, she could remain with her painless footwear without anyone noticing.
"Hey you!" A guard suddenly chased behind her, suddenly conscious about how she probably looked like a school student with her simple appearance and a ribbon-tied hair. The only thing was, she didn't have her coat so the simplicity stood out and made her look like a middle-school intruder.
She quietly turned around with her hands in a surrendering position while looking a little confused with a sudden tremor. The guard slowly approached her as he glanced at the way her wrist was blackened. During the night, the lights at the palace were turned off, and around five thirty in the morning, the maid servants and guards would go around to relight them.
"Who the heck are you?" He spoke with a familiar voice that installed even more confusion in her mind as the words from the Guardian of Space stayed looped in her mind. She couldn't laugh, but she couldn't stay serious either. Slowly enough, a small light bulb flickered in her mind and she raced towards her room without a backward glance.
The guards followed behind as she banged open the door to her room and immediately sat down at her table while flipping open her laptop. It was an insanely fast and light gaming PC, which she had already occupied with a few games that were found on the software store. Eagerly, password was typed in within seconds and the tabs flashed to life.
Her games were saved, and were left in their opened state so she didn't need to wait for the loading and extra chores that were a requirement. Finally feeling like something was warding off her boringness, the mouse was connected and the keyboard was dusted. Aefia didn't like even a small speck of debris being left on her device's surface during gaming.
The guard soon arrived at her door's entrance and slowly opened it to glance inside just to check the intruder wasn't doing anything. Since her face was already directed towards the door, and the laptop's bright lighting illuminated it in the mere darkness, he immediately realized that Aefia was the one strolling along the corridors of the palace.
Turns out, she was just bored and decided to come along and play video games on her laptop. Her headphones were connected after a short while of aggressive typing and mouse abusing, while she stayed unaware about how the guard was standing near the door already. The only thing she knew was, she had probably paused the time and now was freely playing games.
"You have woken up...but this late at night?" The guard slowly knocked on the door, trying to not creep her out. He walked up near the starting of the carpet on the ground and stood there, waiting for a reply. Hopefully, she wasn't a little too emerged into the thing that was keeping her busy, and raging.
Upon hearing the voice, she slammed shut her laptop and glanced forward, while pulling off her headphones and letting them fall while hitting the wooden table. It created noises that made her feel more irritated, regardless the fact, she was already growing mentally unstable with the horror game she was currently playing. Just a few seconds ago, she had to escape from a monster who fought, and this game had no such attack back feature. It wasn't an action-oriented one she would usually play back on Earth.
Realizing that her skill had ultimately failed, she confusedly replied while her front visiion occupied with a small red surface that read 'Skill failed to activate due to user's lack of health'. She wiped her face while letting her mouth form words even she didn't understand at first. "I don't know, I was hungry and decided to take a walk."
The guard stared at her with a confused look as if she was speaking a completely different language before letting out a laugh. "You were hungry, so you thought walking would help you?" Immediately afterwards, he wiped up all emotions from his face while staring at the clueless Aefia who yawned and flopped her chin against the table. "I don't even know what I am saying. I guess horror games are meant to mentally kill people."
"I am sorry to ask...but have you been gaming for a long while now?" He hesitantly asked while noticing how she looked tired, but her energy was endless. Whether it was due to the heavy doses of medicines, or that she was still recovering, was an uncertain matter that rarely struck her mind as she straightened herself back up and stood on her feet.
"I had been doing so for a very long time, years to be accurate. I sometimes played the whole night and survived with only ten minutes of sleep, and somehow that too has become impossible by me within three weeks somehow." She spoke while walking towards her shelf and putting back the devices the way she had found it when entering.
"Three weeks including the amount you had been unconscious?" He asked with a confused and curious gaze at the way she found the placement tasks impossible, combined with the frustrations lightening on her face. "No, three weeks before I fell unconcious." She glanced downwards at her fingers.
It was odd how her mood suddenly swinged to this and realized, the doctor's heavy dosage had a high effect on the central neuron system of the brain. If she were awake the past few days, she would have found walking itself extremely hard as a daily chore.
Luckily, that wasn't the case and this amount of side effects were just the aftermath of the five days antibiotics course which even she didn't know about. Although not a physician or a chemist, the guard very well knew that inserting too much medication into a human's organ system could result in other big illnesses like kidney failure, therefore, she needed to be out in close observations of odd pains and sudden nausea.
The doctors themselves had once warned them that if she were to wake up any sooner, they would have to take turns watching over her movements and keep her away from heavy task. Given how she was a workaholic, the table was supposed to be off limits to her and a personal maid servant or guard would have to keep an eye out for that. But the only fact was, no such concern seemed to rise within the duchess.
"I have a question for our young master here...but it might upset you to answer it." The guard slowly spoke while preparing his legs to run out in a sprint if she seems to be undergoing one of her anger tantrums. Slowly getting into the willingness to continue the conversation, she decided to walk over to her table and sat down.
"Sure, I won't mind answering just any kinds of questions. Most probably, I think I already know what you are about to ask by the look on your face." Aefia spoke while placing her chin on top of her hands which were held by the top of her elbows. Her face seemed to showcase slight curiousity and looked at the way the guard was slowly turning nervous.
"During the times you were recovering, the duchess didn't ask, didn't come to see about your health. She didn't request any reports nor did she ask whether you were going to wake up soon." The guard spoke while lowering his voice and diverted his eyes' gaze towards the carpet he was stepping on, while moving backwards one step and let out a breathe. "My fear is...young master may be upset to hear this and I wanted to ask, are you..." He trailed off and Aefia had instantly grapsed what the blank lines were.
"You wanted to ask what would be my reaction to her reaction of my time during the recovery. I am not sad, nor angry. She didn't give birth to me so even if she abandons me on the streets, my answer would still round up to the following...'let her be the way she wants, I don't consider her as a mother to begin with'." The unexpected reply sent shivers along the opposite person's arms as he hesitated for a long time.
"For someone who decided they would just steal a daughter of another mother and tell public that they were being raised by them, just imagine what level of greed they might have? But of course, the greed I mean by that isn't something like what you are probably thinking." She continued speaking when the guard seemed silent for a long time.
"No, really I understand. It's your magic the reason she is chasing you for." He silently replied while lifting her face. With the realization that the girl was indeed a talented person with speech and conversations, he indecisively complimented her skills. "Young master is a very intelligent person in situations like this, I had an image in my mind that you were going to be naive when I told you, but you have a positive mind unlike the others."
Aefia smiled as she leaned back on her chair. "Honestly speaking, I simply trusted you by saying that. If it were someone else, some other guards standing in your place, I would have acted a little...shocked maybe?" She scratched the back of her hand where the stitches were. "You had helped me learn about the map of Nikoan that day, and out of the few people who seem to acknowledge my situation, I was comfortable with saying about the truth."
"Oh really? That is a very pleasant thing to hear that young master trusts me like that, but speaking of a few days ago...I believe you have missed many happenings within the time you took to recover. Would you like to work on them from now? But perhaps you are tired and still need time to rest, then I will explain the remaining in the morning." The guard bowed as he let a smile fall on his face.
"A week worth of work...honestly I think I will get right into it. The earlier I start, the faster it will finish. You may bring the lists of tasks out and I will set up this table. It won't take long right? Morning is within a little over three hours."
She spoke while standing up and opening a drawer that was at the far side of the room, bringing out a box and an ink bottle. The guard stared with disbelieve, only two items and that's how she worked? That was one kind of a shock he had received for a very long time. What seemed like people needed multiple things, she only needed a couple to the maximum.
He walked out towards the study while mumbling things to himself while going through the corridor. The entire palace was silent and darkness flowed through, the only thing that made it lively was the echoing footsteps of his own shoes. When it were Aefia walking down the hallway, it were as if six o'clock had already struck. The only other person who might have been awake was George, and he would be in his room sorting through the small stack of excess works from the other empires. Mostly of which would be a request to visit.
Now that there were three people managing different aspects of the household, the street overall had depleted to a pace where even a break was acceptable. When entering the study, the light was noticed to be left on and the reports were left in scatters across the ground. He hurriedly took the bundle of papers and reports while walking away leaving the door slightly opened.
Sleepiness hovered over his eyes as he rushed back to her room, and slowly kicked the door open. Similar to when he had first seen her, she was busy with her laptop with an annoyed face. Small amounts of sound escaped her ears and soft buzzing could be heard as he walked up, placed the paperworks, finally, shut off the device.
Aefia starred up with an angry face while also seeming calm. She rubbed her eyes and moved the device forward, almost nothing seemed to be happening for a few more seconds until a voice was heard with a slightly muffled tone. "By the way, what date is it today?" She spoke with pulling her hands off her face.
"Before that, may I request to confiscate your device so you could pay optimal concentration to your work?" The guard smiled while dragging away the laptop and she pulled off the headphone too. "Take it, distracting as it seems, I too agree with that. It's just...the horror game seems fun, realizing there is actually a way to kill the enemy, more specifically the ghost." She spoke while dipping the glass pen into her ink bottle.
He happily took it and held it below his arm while placing the headphone to hang on his wrist. "So the day, as you asked earlier, is supposedly the night after the original banquet that was scheduled." He spoke while remembering the last minute declaration. Like to what said, many things had happened during the time she wasn't awake.
"Wait, what?" Aefia spoke with a shocked face as she accidentally let dark black ink fall from the tip of her pen, staining and ripping the paper. The day...after the banquet?