The sound of the front door closing on the first floor was loud enough to reach the second floor where Elena and Amber were easily.

At this point, it was already beginning to get dark, and it was likely that Jonathan wouldn't be back for at least an hour or two since he was unfamiliar with town. Not to mention, the area around them was unfamiliar since they'd traveled underground to get here.

In any case, the two girls aged 17 and 19 looked around the room at the little baggage they had in the form of clothes, weapons, and some assorted tools like rope, bandages, and a book or two. Since they'd finished unpacking their stuff for now from the small cloth bags each of the three carried wherever they went, they now had time to simply... relax for the first time in a while.

As Amber plopped down on one of the room's two beds, Elena leaned against the windowsill and looked out at the city below.

The city's center was extravagant and luxurious, filled with buildings that, though they were small, were beautifully designed. However, the further you went away from that center, the worse things seemed to get.

Though this was in the area known as the [upper middle region], about a mile away from where the hotel had been in a straight line, there were some visible signs of... oddities. However, this was vastly overshadowed by the beauty of the night lights.

There were magic lanterns shining with all colors of light that illuminated the darkening streets, blinking and flashing as though they were alive.

The once crowded streets were now slowly but surely thinning out, and the isolated feeling the area gave was now almost ethereal. For Elena, who had been sheltered in the castle with its familiar sights almost all her life, this was a new and amazing sight.

As she was enjoying it, Amber spoke from her position on the bed, dangling her legs off the side and savoring its softness after having slept on the wooden carriage benches for longer than she would've liked.

"This world..."

"Hm?"

Hearing Amber's mutterings, Elena turned around to face her. Even though they'd been traveling together for a while, there had actually been pretty few opportunities for them to talk alone. Jonathan had always been there with them, which of course was comforting but also got in the way when it came to certain things.

"This world. It's pretty amazing, huh?"

Amber sighed as she kicked off the boots she was wearing and swung her legs onto the bed.

"Well, I suppose so... to be be perfectly honest I haven't seen too much of it myself..."

Elena laughed as she shifted her position and sat on the window sill, propping herself up on her hands.

"I mean, it's way different from the world we come from, Jonathan and I. Over there there's no magic or adventure. The whole world is pretty much mapped over."

"So no adventurers? I suppose a world like that would be a bit hard for me to imagine, but I don't get exactly what makes this world so amazing just from that..."

Elena tilted her head to the side. She agreed that this world was full of amazing things, but there were just as many dangers and negatives.

"In our home world, it's so easy to fall into this... rut. You do what people tell you to, running on this endless treadmill while reaching for some goal you can't even recognize. You end up like a hamster on an infinite wheel."

"Treadmill? Hamster? I don't particularly get what those things are, but I think I understand what you're trying to say overall. That the world got so familiar that the roles you had to play became fixed and inescapable, and you started not to know why you did things anymore?"

"Well, not to such a big extent, but... well, I was in my last year of high school and I was already seeing it. My parents, they were kind, caring people... but they were always tired. My dad worked for some big business... ah, like a merchant group in this world... but it was easy to see that he never liked what he did. It was scary to think that I might end up like that... you hear about that happening to so many people."

Amber sighed and rubbed her eyes with her hand as they teared up. It seemed like thinking about her parents was hard, especially without Jonathan who would usually comfort her by talking about their old world a bit.

"But surely there were lots of good things about that world. I mean, this world has its fair share of problems. Monsters, wars, conspiracies like what happened in my kingdom."

"I suppose that's true. The world I come from doesn't have any monsters, but there are definitely wars. The technology there is a lot more advanced than what you have here, so living life in comfort is noticeably easier than it is here. But because of that same technology, there are weapons that are so dangerous they could destroy cities in an instant. And they're not rare, either. The only thing keeping the world from destruction is a fragile balance between nations run by all sorts of people that can barely if ever find common ground. Relative to that, this world is..."

"I get what you're saying, but to me your world sounds pretty amazing. Jonathan told me a bit about it, that you don't even need magic to fly through the sky or travel hundreds of miles. That you can use machines to talk to somebody all the way across the world without any delay. Of the great people that have been born and died in your world fighting for what they believe in. I think that your world and its people are just as amazing."

"... Yeah, that's true. In the end, I just miss them, you know? The people that I loved that are still over there. I-"

Amber began to tear up, and as she trailed off Elena got off the windowsill and gently pulled her into a hug.

"It'll be fine, you'll see them again. Jonathan promised, didn't he?"

Elena laughed a little as she spoke, gently rubbing Amber's back like she was her elder sister.

"Though if you go back, he'll definitely be all mine. I never gave up on having him all to myself, you know? I only let you have that kiss because I felt bad for stealing the first one earlier."

Amber didn't respond, only laughing back instead. There was no maliciousness in either of their voices, only camaraderie and light competition.

However, a result of their conversation was that a single, glaring question lingered in both of their minds.

Why did he decide to come here and leave that world behind?

Meanwhile, Jonathan who was grabbing a small package of meat skewers from a stand sneezed as he took out a few coins to pay with.