Time To Enjoy A Break

Oriente 6, Heaven

It was the first time in years that I woke up without the fear that it would be my last day. There were no gunshots to be heard, no people running through the corridors giving orders, no alarms going off, hell, I was even able to sleep longer than usual today. But I didn't feel as calm or relaxed as I expected.

It may be that being in an unknown place is one reason, that it is difficult for me to sleep upside down with this body, it may be another, but I think the main thing is to have a crystal angel by my side who does not stop talking to me even though I just want to stay in bed now that I can.

"And that's why I think you should keep using that name" the girl I spent the night with told me.

....

"Sorry, were you telling me something?" I told.

"I've been talking for 20 minutes!"
"How you have not noticed!"
"Are you okay?"

There was nothing in the conversation that interested me in the first place so I ignored her completely. I'm still sleepy and I don't want to get out of bed now that I can.

"Calm down, it's nothing," I told her, resigning myself to not telling her what I thought of her, even though she helped me.

"Well, as I told you"
"I think to keep calling you Cesar with ..."

She looked at me again with a curious look, even though I was still in bed under my blanket.

"Those ... mountains," she said as she touched my chest, which was noticeable even between the sheets.
"It's not good to call you that."
"I think it would cause more problems."
"So I thought you should change your name."
"And since you are used to Elise"
"I thought you should use that name"

"Well, I think you're right about the name."
"But I'm sorry that they call me that again"
"Not that I have good memories of that time"
"It's not something I can stay calm about, because I still feel like I have to pretend to be Nanami every time I hear that name and act like I know what I'm doing to make others feel relieved."

"How long have you been pretending to be her?"

"Not much really, but it was the last moments of the war against the dragons, so I was more concerned with raising the morale of the others, making them believe that Nanami did not die and try to reach the lower palace alive, than with discovering how to be a girl".
"Again, when your life is on the brink of death and a mistake could be your last, you tend to learn important things quickly and remember them permanently, staying in your head like fire.
"But other things, less essential to keep you alive, you don't remember, you just take it for granted that they happen".
"Speaking of things that went wrong, shouldn't you try to fix the portal?"

"Well, I never said I'd come to work early on the first day, but the train doesn't pass for another two hours, so I thought I'd spend some time talking to you.
"In fact, it takes so long that I am going to bathe in the hot springs before going to work."
"And don't even think about following me, I'll call the police if you do!"

"Why would I want to do that? You are almost completely transparent, like looking through a window, it would be difficult to distinguish your parts from what could be the bottom, and in the water, I think that if you were completely invisible".
"Also, you are always naked.
"Although, now that I think about it, your body does actually fog up when you bathe?"

I only managed to see a translucent punch right in my face for half a second, it was so hard to see that I could not react.

"Idiot, are you really thinking of spying on me?"
"And not even because I'm a girl, but out of curiosity that I'm made of glass?"

"Science demands that I research the subject and your noble sacrifice"
"Don't worry, I will write down the results in a book, I will do it as detailed as possible, in fact, I will have to include photos to present them as proof of my findings".

"Moron" the angel said as she ran away crying.

After that, I arranged the room we were staying in and went to the restaurant for breakfast. I could not describe the happy face I had when I saw all the options I had to choose from, once again I had a time when I could not choose what I wanted to eat and by the way it was pleasant to look at. But after careful consideration, I gave my request completely thought out and planned.

"I want the meat sandwich along with vanilla ice cream, also 2 pieces of fried chicken and all covered in chocolate please!"

"Gaining fat for the winter?"Said a girl behind me.

"Urakaze!" I answered surprised.
"What are you doing here?"
"Can't I order something like that?"

"No, of course you can," said the samurai girl.
"In fact, it helps me that you ask for more."
"I was just looking for you because one of our clients, who I will not reveal her transparent identity, complained about what you could do to her and incidentally revealed that you could take advantage of your situation to cause more problems for which you are prohibited from using the water hot springs outside your schedule, which is from one to three at dawn".

"At dawn? who would use the hot springs at that time?"

"Nobody, that's exactly the point"

"Fuc.. of course"
"I will follow the rules"
"Anything else to keep in mind?"

"I thought you might want to solve your problems with your father, and since that would also help me keep me as the owner of the hotel, talk to a friend of mine, he is a lawyer and maybe you would be interested in talking to him, you might be able to get your money back".

"Well, that sounds good.

"He lives in the town that follows the dirt road north and finally turns right at the intersection. He lives in the only white house there."

"Okay, I'll pay him a visit after I finish my breakfast."

"Thank you, and please remember to reverse the transfer of ownership"

After I had eaten everything I could stand, I made my way to the lawyer's office so that I could solve this problem and pay Momo for all her help.

So I left the hotel and walked down the street. It was almost winter here as you could see the first snowfall and it was freezing cold. Obviously not the best idea to go for a walk with the clothes I have, which are the same ones I have had since I was in Tunisia, in the desert. On the way back I'll see what I can get to withstand the weather. According to the Urakaze on this planet, Oriente 6, their seasons were a little behind those on Earth for what would be the end of February. Not the best time to be running around in a top and shorts.

"Very well, this must be the crossroads, now I must continue north when I get to the right".

Now that I thought about all this in my country, it would indeed be summer now. The hottest time of the year, all the plants are dry, and the best time to go to the beach to watch the sunset.

I also wonder what happened to my mother, I'm sure she's still living in our old house, but hey, we've been living there all this time, so no one's complaining. She must be president or something by now, or running a political campaign for someone else, as long as she's still secretary to that lawyer and helping people with their businesses.

She was not the type of person who liked politics, in fact she was only a secretary at first, but she is so good at her job that by the time she realized she was running the company from the shadows. Despite how important she became, she always made time to spend with her family and even organize an occasional activity in the neighborhood. Her income was not bad, but it was not enough to help Maria, which is why my father was a bodyguard, because together they did what was necessary.

"Okay, now I have to turn right at the intersection to go north.

Speaking of Maria, I wonder how she is doing, I imagine she might still be in the hospital in Japan, because although her health has improved, I do not think the doctors will let her go so soon without monitoring her a little to make sure she does not make any mistakes. Maybe our mother has to go, she has to make a trip to pick her up. It is not as if there is such a specialized hospital in our country, and once we decided, we chose to treat her because Japan's neutrality in the conflict assured us that they would treat her well and that the medical service would not be overloaded with wounded from the front.

I imagine she still spends her time practicing magic tricks or reading a copy of that black notebook she used to play with so much a few years ago about the same thing. She might even go around bothering doctors while she comes up with a new one. Like the time when she was in school and tried to do the trick of cutting a bill from the public and returning it to its original state, but it ended up not going well and she ended up destroying it. It was fun to see her cry when she thought the police would take her in for that, hell, I think I'm smiling right now just remembering it.

But after a few more steps I stopped where I was. Well, I had walked enough and the town was still nowhere in sight. In fact, the road was now just a small path in the middle of the forest.

I was completely lost now, without the slightest idea how I got here, and since the whole forest looked the same, I couldn't tell where the hell I came from.

Let me guess, I am in the part of the forest full of traps that the hunters left behind and that Urakaze told me not to approach.

Don't panic. I am just in the farthest place from home I will ever be in my life, I can get out of this easily. I mean, I've been through worse things before, unfortunately for me. The only thing I have to do is walk through where I came from in this forest that looks the same everywhere, or like plan B, walk south, except I don't have a compass and I have no idea which way the sun is pointing on this planet.

So right now the best thing I can do is find a river and follow it until I come to a house or a town.

Seeing the advantages of having a bigger pair of fox ears, I can hear better, so I can hear a river a few moments after I start looking. After walking through it for a few minutes, I came across what might be my way out of this situation.

I had come across a small Japanese temple, the kind where a god is supposed to live. Although it seems strange to me, because if we are in this far away place, it would be normal to see a big temple and not a small, uncomfortable and forgotten one, you know, now that I think about it, I still don't know what the hell Urakaze is, is she an ancient samurai and maybe one of those gods I don't know? Besides, this temple was pretty dilapidated and even the weeds were growing under the floor, no doubt it was not a place that people visited often, and there seemed to be no path to get here. So my situation hadn't changed much.