Needless to say, it was a mad dash to Room 001 with immediate effect.
Me first, followed by Bella, and trailed by a confused, over-excited Poltrick in dead last. The moment the three of us stopped in front of the room, I could hear the sounds of someone moving around inside. The Magician was awake, and he would need to answer our questions now.
I knocked on the door, and something fell down inside. The sound of glass shattering rippled through the small opening below the door, and then a short yelp from the man inside.
“Sorry…” I whispered, before raising my voice. “It worked, though! It worked, like, amazingly well. I just blasted one of those big, moldy monsters with one shot. My body kind of feels really weak, however. I mean…I-don’t-think-I-could-do-another-one-of-those levels of weak. But it worked!”
More glass shattered inside the room as hurried feet pattered around. Running from one corner to another, the man had clearly been caught off-guard by the reveal and was now struggling to gather himself. It was only after two whole minutes of jumping around that a paper was finally slid out of the door.
Unraveling or Conjoining?
I looked at Bella for that one, handing her the paper for more context.
She nodded and took my place, getting closer to the door to answer. “Unraveling, sir. Very much unraveling. It was very amateur and uncontrolled, as one would expect, but the results were quite satisfactory for this particular condition.”
“Amateur? What do you mean by that?” I threateningly put my hands on the elf girl’s shoulder. “Are you trying to say that I am not good enough?”
“No! I am saying that…you would fail even the most elementary Magic exams. The point of Unraveling Magic is not to merely be destructive, but to control that destruction for results you actually want. And nobody wants uncontrolled blasts of pure energy.”
“Call me stupid, but I think that uncontrolled blast of pure energy was exactly what we needed back there.”
A paper slid out, hitting my sandals.
Get better, then.
“Wha-?”
I passed it to Bella, and she had an equally amused reaction to the words. Holding back a snicker, she let the note be stolen by Poltrick, who did not have the same level of self-awareness.
Laughing loud enough to wake up even the people on the Third Floor, he smacked his belly with joy. The paper fell down and flew back inside the room. By then, the dwarf had fallen down to the floor out of pure ecstasy, and even stopped stroking his beard every second.
“Oh…” He brought himself back under control, standing up. “Oh…to be expected, yes. Of course, the innkeeper cannot even use her Magic properly. It is incredible. Just fantastic. You would fail even the most elementary of exams!”
“Said like a true Gregson.” I groaned, using all of my willpower not to smack him across the face. “I don’t see you using Magic, do I? Don’t go around chastising people with talent when you don’t have any yourself, you chubby log.”
Bella gasped, and even the man inside the room seemed to have the same reaction.
“Chub…what!?” He cried, and then stomped his foot on the floor. “N-never call me that again! That’s it. I’m off!”
With that, for some reason, the dwarf retired. Not a single word spoken, and no more jokes about my lack of control. Angrily wobbling out of the corridor, he disappeared in an instant, leaving the two of us all alone.
I looked at Bella, hoping for an answer. But all she had on her face was a slightly sour expression.
“What happened?”
She shook her head and then replied in a whisper. “That’s not very nice to say, innkeeper. I’m sure you didn’t mean it, but I think he could have taken that personally.”
“Well, he should. What do you mean? He can’t attack me personally, and then think I’m being rude when I return the favor.”
“Yeah, but you’re a human.”
“And…so…?” I began to speak, but as a heavy realization set in, I stopped myself. Saying anything more than that would only make it worse from the elf’s perspective. This wasn’t my world, and I needed to be careful about that. No matter how rude that dwarf was to me, there were probably lines that were not right to cross, even in this world.
Pulling some of my messy hair back, I looked down with a quiet shame. To that, Bella responded positively. Putting on a slight smile, she calmed me down.
“It’s alright, innkeeper. We all make mistakes. And as I said, it didn’t look like you said it on purpose, so I won’t say that it was your fault.”
“Bella…I am not…” I began to explain, but then I wondered just how many times I would be fine with explaining this. If things went the same way, then that light would appear and reset me back. It would wipe all of her memories about the last two days. And I would have to tell her all over again.
“Not well-versed in species politics?” She asked, still smiling. “That’s fine. You wouldn’t be the first.”
“Something like that…yeah. But teach me! Please. What exactly did I say that was so wrong?”
Bella’s smile grew. It became something much more natural and pleasing. She nodded and explained.
“Well, dwarves are known for their Conjoining Magic. It is almost a natural trait, in fact. When dwarves are born without that power, it is considered to be a curse. They are looked at as…defective products. Considering I haven’t seen Sir Gregson use any Magic…”
He was ‘cursed’.
From the perspective of the dwarves, at least. He was a defective product, as Bella had put it. Suddenly, my words from before felt weightier than they had any right to be. A simple jab had bounced back to pierce my heart instead. If I could take them back, I would, but the damage was already done.
Annoying as Poltrick was, it gave me no right to say something like that.
“Again, it’s no big deal, innkeeper.” The elf reassured me. “Knowing Gregson, I am sure he will bounce back very quickly. And more than any of that…we have something to do.”
“Something to…oh, yeah.”
We still needed to get those two out of the Third Floor. The Head Chef and the Chief of Staff Operations were waiting for us. Even if I felt guilt at what had just transpired, I did not have time to let it weigh me down. I could apologize to the dwarf later. Right now, I needed to do something more important.
“Th-thank you, sir!”
I gave the man in Room 001 my regards before the two of us started moving. And as we departed, I heard the man laughing inside. Barely audible, but still loud enough to reach me.
There was no telling what he was laughing about, but I liked to assume that it was because his experiment was a success. Primarily because the other way around would be far too disturbing and horrific for me.
Anyway, we walked.
Moving through the Lobby and up the stairs, I knew that I was still a bit too weak to release a blast. It had taken a slight physical toll on my body, and there was no escaping that biological cooldown. Yet, I wanted to be closer to my goal. In no time at all, the mold in that staircase would probably turn into monsters and consume all of us again. We would all loop.
Now, it wasn’t like I knew if I would still have the Magic after that. I did not even know if I would have to break that wall once more. All I knew was that in this particular loop, I could save them. They were on the very edge of a very grim fate, and I could alter that. Even if it meant all of us being snapped back in time by that white light anyway.
Reaching the staircase, I found it odd that nobody was present on this floor this time around. Nathan and Fera had not been seen at all since the first day, and neither had the twins. We could have checked up on them and asked if everything was fine. We could have. But they were not the ones in immediate danger. The people on the Third Floor were.
Past the five strange rooms and into that tight corner, we finally reached our destination.
The mold had definitely grown. It was more slimy, less solid, and had reached out even beyond the staircase to cover parts of the corridor. Along with that came a weird, slightly sweet smell that tinged the entire area. Not the sort of scent that one would associate with mold, yet that was what I had been given. Space mold came with sweet smells.
“Here we go.” I pushed my hand up, even as every bit of my brain told me that I shouldn’t. “I just need to do it again, right?”
“No! Wait. Don’t do that yet.”
“What do you mean?”
Bella pushed my hand down. “You’ll overexert yourself and break your arm. It doesn’t look very pretty, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Just wait for some time, and it should be back to normal.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. Amazing, Bella. We do not have the time, though.”
“Yes, we do. It’s still barely afternoon.”
I could explain it to her. I had the choice of going through everything that had happened over the last three days with me and telling Bella everything. A process that would take time. The one thing I didn’t have. At any moment, this wall could start producing those mold monsters. At any moment, we would be swarmed by them once more.
Did I, then, have the time to explain it all to her?
Or was there only one choice left to me? The choice to point my arm in the direction of the wall and shoot.
Broken arms be damned. Based on how time loops usually worked, maybe I would even get it back. I didn’t know the rules, after all. I could assume that it would all be fine and just send it. It was something to think about.
It also didn’t require much thinking, really.
I raised my hand and prepared to blast the mold away once more.
“Innkeeper!” Bella spoke with a slight inconvenience in her voice, as if she believed I was doing it all as a joke. “Please don’t even try to put your hand up. As I said, I’ve seen arms break because of that. Some people just don’t have the physical constitution to handle multiple blas-”
I like Bella. I really do. She’s a sweet girl.
That was why I have to clarify that I did not actually plan on shutting her off like that. But also…I did not know that the blast would happen that quickly this time around. The exhaustion in my body didn’t seem to matter much either. The moment I put my hand up and started to imagine that blue blast once more…it just happened.
Nothing particularly heroic or well-timed like the first attack against the monster.
With the elf still mid-sentence, and my hand aimed at the wall of mold, I shot. The blue rippled echoed out of my hand, hit the black barrier, and ripped right through. The slime flew everywhere, smacking us across the face and splattering all over the corridor. But the staircase behind it was finally revealed.
And would you know it…no broken arm! (Though I suspect Bella wasn’t lying, so I would have to look into the reasons for that later.)
“That was…anticlimactic.” I sighed.
“Y-yeah…”
I guess it was time to go up and bring them back down. Just a few more steps, and the Northflame Inn would get its Head Chef back.