Chapter 12

After looking around for much longer than usual, they managed to get a hotel close to the station. Not their hotel of choice, however. They picked the only option that still had rooms, a large four-star hotel. Even under regular circumstances, a room costs a lot.

They had come to this city for maintenance before, and Laurel saw the prices when they booked a hotel. The last time she went here, they slept at a hotel a bit further away from the station. It had a lower price with good amenities. Their current room cost twice that previous hotel room.

Laurel had taken Ann to her room. This hotel provided them with a wheelchair, so she could push Ann instead of carrying her like a heavy sack of cargo. More than a day had passed, yet she showed no signs of waking up. Even Ana, at her most exhausted point, never went to sleep for this long.

She had concerns about sleeping beside someone like Ann. She couldn't say she hated her. But… being next to her felt off. After the ramming, they spent some time alone in the driver's cab while she waited for Hakade and the others to return. She couldn't shake off the weird feeling crawling on her skin. The more she thought about it, the more confused she got.

Just what is going on…

She touched her forehead, wondering if everything was just an illusion she put on herself. Maybe Ann was just a crazy girl, and everything she felt was an illusion her brain made up to explain that craziness.

A knock came from the hotel room door. Laurel got up and took a peek through the small peephole. Ana stood in the hallway. Unlike usual, she didn’t bring her staff. Laurel opened the door.

“Ana? Is something wrong?”

“I would like to check on Ann.”

Laurel let her in. Ana walked up to the bed where Ann slept peacefully. She hadn’t changed clothes ever since she boarded their train. Laurel, Ana, and Mia had multiple sets of the same clothes. It was a part of their identity. Could she have a similar reason?

Laurel had stopped herself from pulling that mask off earlier. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious, but she just couldn’t. Maybe out of respect, but maybe out of fear. She didn’t feel like she was ready to see the face Ann tried to hide.

Ana rested her head above Ann’s forehead.

“... Nothing has changed.”

“... Can you feel anything?”

“I sensed it,” Ana said. The mask looked thick. Laurel wanted to touch it, but decided not to.

“Yeah.”

Ana already checked Ann’s condition when they arrived at the hotel. Laurel expected her to wake up any time now, but based on Ana’s observations, that might not happen for a while.

“The way her body reacted to magic is different than any other mage I met.”

“Do you understand how it’s different?”

Ana shook her head. “Unfortunately… no. I don’t even understand my own magic, I just know it’s different… Like… intuition, I guess?”

Magic had largely remained a mystery, even to those who could use it. The one thing consistent about it was its inconsistency. Laurel had witnessed it with her own eyes, experienced it with her own hands. A year ago, Ana used a spell to lift the train back up onto the tracks after it had derailed. The next week, she couldn’t even lift a minivan. A month after that, her strength returned. Until this day, they didn’t know what happened to her during that week.

Laurel herself had used some kind of weird magic that allowed her to cut a part of her smartphone. She did that by accident, and she regretted damaging her phone. Maybe that regret caused her to lose that ability. She tried doing that again, but the magic never returned to her. Mia and Hakade, on the other hand, never used magic. Not even once.

“... At the very least… we won’t need to worry about her, for now.”

Laurel felt mildly unsettled by the last part of Ana’s sentence. She had just put her life in the hands of a complete stranger. It worked out in the end, but she had no way of knowing. Ann didn’t have an ID. She didn’t have a license. She outright ignored orders. And, most important of all, she cut through a large number of enemies, causing them to vanish.

Laurel shuddered when she recalled the memories. It felt real. Too real to be an illusion, yet the fact that no explanation exists didn’t help her cope with her experience.

“... The… The hotel is expensive, isn’t it?” Ana tried changing the topic.

She must have seen how shaken Laurel was. Laurel didn’t want to worry her, so she forced herself to forget about it.

“Yeah. I guess it is a city of merchants, but still, it feels a bit too much.”

They had paid too much, or so she believed. Sure, it had a couple of things that the other hotel they went to last didn’t have. It had a larger room, although the only reason she noticed the difference was that the three girls slept together last time, making it tight. It also had a swimming pool, which the last hotel didn’t have. Even then, it shouldn’t have cost her twice the price. Had they come at a better time, surely they could have gotten these rooms for much cheaper.

“Do you want to go swimming?” Ana asked.

Swimming in the sea, albeit not impossible, became difficult after the war. Some areas had been deemed unsafe, and most people would rather not take such a risk for vacation. Some areas had been restored, but because finding a beach became difficult, traveling to these spots cost a lot more.

This establishment had a large swimming pool, one of the features they prided themselves on. She saw it on a brochure placed on the front desk.

“Should I invite the others?” Laurel asked.

“... We all can take some time off.”

Laurel nodded and called the other two.

•••

Hakade had received Laurel's invitation to the pool. He told them to go first, since he still had some business to attend to. He sat on his bed, smartphone in his hand.

“So so so, how is it? Hmm? Good offer, no? For you, my friend, I'll give you a ten percent discount! On the house!”

He nodded to the man’s voice. A familiar voice with a thick accent. He had worked with him many times before. He thought about the deal he had been offered before coming to a simple conclusion,

“Since it's you, I honestly don't think it's a good deal.”

“Wow wow wow, so your friend's offer is less trustworthy compared to a stranger’s? My my my, my broken heart.”

The fact that he called to make this offer made Hakade even more suspicious. Hakade had contacted him when he first said he wanted to get his train repaired, and they met on the platform. He could have told him there.

“Besides, why would I need that in the first place?”

“Boosters that can propel you to bullet train speeds-”

“That sounds dangerous.”

Bullet trains required special tracks. His diesel train going at such speed wouldn’t be stable, and the slightest swing may send it off the tracks. Some extreme emergency must happen before he would use it.

“Lights that are so bright they can blind-”

“Accidentally turn that on in a station, and I'll be banned from entering.”

Some stations had tighter regulations than others. Some would let one in regardless of the train, others would scan to make sure the train contained no danger or illegal cargo. Some stations would go as far as to ban certain types of trains, like diesel-powered, for various reasons.

If he made too many extreme modifications, some stations may flag his train as dangerous, and they wouldn’t be able to enter. Besides, he didn’t need bright lights.

The call went silent. Hakade sighed.

“Look, man, I'm not interested-”

“I'll give you a valuable piece of intel as a bonus.”

“Just how valuable is this intel?”

It could be something incredibly stupid and obvious, like how the earth is round, but, knowing this man, it could actually be something very useful.

“You see you see you see, we've known each other for a long time, right? Right? How about I tell you first, and if you find it interesting, you take the whole package.”

“Twenty percent.”

“Fifteen-”

“Twenty, take it or leave it.”

“Gah! Fine! The intel is…”