“Innkeeper…” Bella said while looking at the wall of mold covering the Luxury Suite. Now that it was the second day, even the wood right below our feet had slowly been infiltrated by the black stuff. “Do you know of one of the primary rules of Magic?”

“Uh, no. What’s that?”

The elf glared at me, tilting her head in confusion, “You can use Magic, can you not? Did you not pay attention during your classes, if you do not even remember that much?”

“Let’s just say I didn’t. Can you explain?”

She sighed and looked back at the door. “Magic can either Unravel or Conjoin. Unraveling means to break down the structure of anything you wish. Conjoining means to, well, bring together to create larger structures. You know that much, I assume?”

“Y-yeah…”

I let the explanation sit for a moment. Because that one detail had indirectly just told me everything I needed to know. Out of nowhere, Bella had decided to get down to the heart of Unraveling and Conjoining and explain it all away. Because even if the words were different, and the terminologies were not familiar, the process itself was.

She was talking about exothermic and endothermic reactions. She was talking about how atoms came together in the absence of heat, and then drifted away when more heat was provided. To Conjoin was to take heat away. To Unravel…was to add heat. That was why the shelf caught on fire last night. My wish to keep the blast contained had caused the most basic form of Unraveling Magic to activate.

I had just added enough heat to the wood to make it burn.

And based on that, I could more or less guess what she was about to say.

“So, what do you think is the one thing that is most necessary for Magic to happen?”

This time, I didn’t need to force her to give me the answer. Bella was talking about the most basic law of physics. The one that held basically everything else on its back. So, I answered as she wished.

“The structure. You can’t manipulate that which does not exist.”

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms. You cannot Unravel or Conjoin something that doesn’t exist. But how did that apply here at all? When I was attacking using those blue blasts, wasn’t I Unraveling the air? Wasn’t that why it looked like the area around it was quite literally rippling?

The structure of Magic could never truly disappear, because the air was always there. It always contained the atoms you would need. I made the same point to Bella, who looked at me with a groan.

“Well, yes,” The elf shook her head. “Once more, the entire point of the rule is that there is always air. If you do not have anything else to use as a structure, you can use the air around you. At the same time, you are basically sacrificing the oxygen you are breathing. In a locked room, you never use the air as your base structure, because you will only suffocate if you do.”

“Ah, I see. But I’m sorry…I still don’t exactly get why it is relevant here. We have all the air we need, Bella, and that mold is quite literally killing us. I really need your help to get rid of it already.”

“The point, innkeeper, is that I cannot use Magic.” She lied to my face with a confident expression. “The structure required to use Magic is not in me. I don’t have a mana circulation system in my body, so I cannot help you out. Sorry.”

“And that’s why you know so much about Magic?”

“No, I…!” She bit her tongue, looking away. In her attempt to be smart and prove a point to me, she had inadvertently pushed herself into a corner. “My…family. They can all use Magic, so I know the basic rules. That’s it.”

She had promised me that she would do whatever I asked. Now, I was not sure if elves were known to break promises, or if they were bound by some kind of honor code. Either way, Bella was clearly trying to get out of this scot-free. By claiming that she just did not know Magic, she could ignore my request without hurting my feelings.

It was, by all means, the best way she could have done this. Unfortunately for her, seeing her use Magic had been one of the first things that I had done in this inn. No matter how much she lied, she would not be able to lie about that. I needed her powers, and I was not going to give up so easily.

Without her, the people of this inn would be stuck in here forever. We would all be stuck here forever.

“I am sorry,” I replied. “I know you are lying, Bella, and I am serious about this. If you don’t help me do this, we will die. All of us will die! It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when. And the when is tomorrow! Do you understand that? It is twenty-four hours, and that’s it. All you need to do is raise that damn hand, shoot the mold with me, and then never talk about it ever again!”

Every word that came out of my mouth carried in it a pill of poison. Every time I finished a sentence, I unconsciously stepped forward until Bella was pressed against the wall of the Resplendent Roundabout. Looking at me with an indescribable fear on her face, she trembled from head to toe, profusely sweating.

“I…I…” she mumbled, looking away at the corridor which would lead to the stairs. “I don’t know how to…use Magic. Sorry, innkeeper. Sorry. I don’t know. I don’t know anything…”

My breathing, in contrast to hers, grew heavier. The more she complained and tried to claim that she could not use her power, the angrier it made me. There were people who were going to die. Earnest had been stuck dying for twenty-three years and had only just found his freedom. I had come here from a whole other planet and had nothing to do with these people. And yet, I was trying.

In contrast, here she was. Even with the power to actually make a change, she refused to even try. She refused to step up, and try to do more, and be more, and make a change.

“Yes, you can,” I whispered, gulping to hold back my rage. “I know you can, Bella, and we need that power right now. Do you not understand? What part of it do you not understand?! People are going to DIE!”

“Y-yes. I…I understand.” She shook her head, and her eyes began to moisten. My heart beat with hatred. For her, and also for myself. I didn’t want to do this. I did not even recognize the person who had just said all of those things, but that person had been me. It had still been my voice. “I...am…not. I can’t use the…Magic. I can…not. I am not…”

“Bella…you don’t get it, do you? You…you’re just being a brat. I don’t care, ok? I don’t care about what happened. It’s in the past. You can’t change it. You can’t do anything about it. It’s done, so move on! I need your he-”

She vigorously shook her head and started to step forward. Her sobs became audible as the tears began to flow. Right against my body, her hands reached up to my chest and pushed. A soft grunt from the elf, and I was caught back enough to be sent back a step or two.

With that opening, she quickly sidestepped and ran straight into the corridor leading outwards. Before my hand could reach out and grab the girl, she had already made her way to the edge of my view and turned the corner to disappear. Soon, her footsteps, scattering around the Third Floor, made it out of hearing range.

Leaving me all alone. Standing there, in front of that stupid tourist attraction which did not even deserve to exist, I was left looking at my own hands.

“You…” I groaned. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

Hitting myself on the head was not enough. It hurt, but it wasn’t enough. The entire time, I had known it was wrong. Of course, just shouting at her was not going to work. That was not what someone like her needed. But my worst parts had taken over. My most deliberately annoying aspects had come together to ruin the last bit of hope that I could have had.

This loop, at least…

“No! Fucking…dumb…”

Just thinking that made me hate myself more. For a second there, I had tried to find an escape from what I had done. It was true, but it still wasn’t right. Just because I could wait it out and reset our relationship did not make me a better person. It did not mean that I had learned from my mistakes. In twenty-four hours, I would just get another chance for no reason at all.

Letting out a few more curses, I started to walk down the corridor and to the stairs.

I did not even have the right to talk to the girl anymore. Not unless I could somehow make it up to her. And that, too, would be meaningless if not done in the next twenty-four hours. I would never be able to forgive myself. This was why I had known this was not for me. You did not need more proof than this to understand why Laura Mason was never meant to be the innkeeper.

Why, just like the Magician in Room 001 had told me, I was nothing more than an impostor. Someone pretending to be someone she was not.

The real Laura Mason was the one who had just come out. The one who said selfish things and forced her own ideals on others. The one who did not hold even an ounce of compassion, because she was incapable of understanding. The one who had never even managed to make a single friend in her pathetic twenty-one years of existence because of how insufferable she was…

I reached the Second Floor and walked to the Elemental Rooms. They still puzzled me, but I did not have the heart to try to find out more right now. I wanted to cry, but even that didn’t happen. Even that was impossible for someone as heartless as me, after all. For the worst of the worst…

“-tell anyone…”

“Yeah, I understood it, alright? Stop being so annoying!”

A familiar pair of similar voices reached my ears long before I turned the corner and found the twins standing in front of Room 201. Not Room 202, which was theirs. They were standing in front of Room 201, grabbing the handle. Nathan and Fera’s room. The couple who hadn’t shown up for breakfast today. The ones who never showed up after the first day.

“Hey,” I called out to them. “What are you doing there?”

Trev looked up at me with uncertainty in his eyes. He stuttered to let out even a single word, but his brother turned with some assurance. Looking me in the eye, he shook his head and shrugged.

“Uh, nothing. Why do you ask?”

“I didn’t see Nathan and Fera this morning. Did you check up on them? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, yeah, nothing! They’re fine. The dinner was really heavy last night, so they weren’t quite feeling up to having breakfast just yet. It’s fine, innkeeper. They will be alright.”

I shook my head, already tired of the day. “Dinner yesterday was stir-fried vegetables. That is not heavy by anyone’s standards.”

“Well…it’s heavy for Fera.” Trev cleared his throat. “Very heavy, because she’s a tree nymph and all that. They get full really quickly.”

“Then why didn’t Nathan come down?”

Tray let go of the door’s handle, and both brothers started to walk down the corridor. I held my ground, hoping to get some answers out of them. But the closer they got, the more intimidating they seemed together. The scarier they seemed, the worse my anxiety got.

If it had been someone else, maybe they would have replied. It was only because nobody wanted to talk to me that they did not care to explain. That was why, even as I tried my best to stare them down, they quietly walked up to their room and got in. All I did in return was stand there and look as the door was locked, leaving me alone in this corridor, too.

“I…”

Nothing came out beyond that. All I could manage was walking up to Room 201 and knocking twice. When I did not get an answer, and the door remained locked, I gave up. Exhausted, I looked back at the spiral stairs leading down and started moving. I didn’t need it. I didn’t want any of the answers.

Not me, at least.

Maybe someone else could do it. We were all going to die, anyway.

Reaching the First Floor, I did not even dare to look in the direction of Bella’s room. Instead, keeping my eyes on the floor, I dejectedly walked down the stairs. Past the Lobby and the Kitchen, I quietly made my way to the Innkeeper’s Room. I made it there, got in, and locked the door behind me.

I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t do anything except lie down on the bed and curl up to go to sleep. Maybe because somewhere in my heart, the real Laura Mason still believed that she had done nothing wrong.