Dawn- An age of Darkness

The door wasn\'t locked, so I went in and- there were two girls inside, chatting and a bunny watching over them, nodding off as they talked. She woke up every two seconds and fell asleep by the next second again. \'Cute.\'

I almost had this urge to go there and snuggle her without a word. But unfortunately, I didn\'t live in a fairytale. 

"Welcome back. And didn\'t you say, thirty minutes?" Viola said, pouting slightly. 

"Sorry, about that." I chuckled. "Lost track of time."

The other girl was quiet though.. Seeing me, she stood up, bowed slightly, and left without another word. 

Viola however stood up too. "Thanks," She said to the girl. 

The girl looked back before leaving, she had a smile. She still didn\'t say anything though.

I had no idea what was going on here and I had no intention of knowing either. 

So, I just locked the door and went over to the other bed. It was really late. 

"Let\'s get some sleep. There was a relative of my acquaintance downstairs so I kind of forgot about time. Sorry about that." It didn\'t hurt to apologize, after all, I was the one who didn\'t keep his word. Then again, I kind of forget though. 

Viola was actually in some sort of nightgown. Where the hell did she get that? Hey, no one gave me complimentary clothes!

Wait, she was a princess.

\'But isn\'t my social standing higher? But I am in a different country.\' I didn\'t know why but I was thinking of loads and loads of weird things. 

She lied down on the other bed and snuffed out her lights. "It\'s okay. She kept me company."

I snuffed out the lights on my side too. For once, I was glad these lights weren\'t pixies. If they were then what? Kill them?

Yeah, I didn\'t want to think about all that. Actually, I didn\'t want to think about a lot of things. Maybe, staying up this late was really a bad idea. 

I kind of hoped for Alisa to come this way and sleep next to me, but she didn\'t. She was already asleep anyway. 

"By the way, why did you help me? The first time, there shouldn\'t have been any promises of a reward." 

I guess it was a fair question. 

But my eyes were literally starting to stick like glue together. "I have my own ideals and goals. I didn\'t save you for a reward. I saved you because I wanted to."

"I see." She seemed satisfied with that answer. 

I didn\'t lie so I didn\'t need to clarify anything either. 

For now, I just focused on sleeping. 

And my body didn\'t disappoint. I fell asleep almost immediately and was hugged by the spirit as usual. For some reason, this thing was a bit livelier today and it was hugging too tightly- not suffocating though. 

Sigh, this was never-ending. 

Well, at least now I had time to practice a bit. But as I felt tired, I went to deep sleep mode within my sleep. Weird. 

***

I woke up with a bit of drowsiness. It wasn\'t that bad. But by the light, I had a feeling we already went past the ten mark. \'I need coffee.\' But regretfully I was almost out. 

Noon just became the new morning I guess. 

I tried to sit down and my hand fell on something soft. 

I squeezed on instinct and a second later carefully unhanded her, slowly got out of bed, and looked out the window with a throbbing heart. \'The hell!\' I was panicking on the inside, but very calm on the outside. \'That was soft!\'

And the amount of skin I felt through the clothes shouldn\'t have been possible. Meaning, she wasn\'t wearing any!

"Mmmggh." The girl also woke up, rubbing her eyes. Yawn! She stretched her arms and looked around before finally locking her eyes on me. "Morning."

"What were you doing in my bed?" I tried to stay very calm. She didn\'t need to worry about what just happened twenty seconds ago, no sir!

No wonder, I was being made a literal pillow last night!

"It was getting a bit cold, so-"

I had a distinct feeling that last night was warm for some reason, and now I knew why. 

Well, technically, I\'d finally be able to get rid of her in a matter of a few hours, so I didn\'t feel like complaining too much. Didn\'t stop me from doing that though. "Well, next time, snuggle Alisa or something."

But since I made a mistake too, I tried to let her off the hook easy. Oh wait, wasn\'t it her fault she was on my bed in the first place?

"Who\'s Alisa?" She tilted her head, a bit confused. "Your girlfriend?"

I cleared my throat. "No, that bunny sleeping on the other bed."

And I didn\'t have a girlfriend. I did have a fiancée though. 

"Oh?" She grinned, yawned, and got up. 

I changed my shirt and went downstairs to get fresh. The girl followed me. 

She had bed hair, she probably wasn\'t wearing any underwear, and she was a mess and yet she was still following me around in this inn. The inn in question was empty. Empty of customers not of staff. 

Could it be that this girl was, well, an idiot? I knew she was a bit slow when it came to certain things, but honestly, it sometimes felt like she was way too childish for her age. Then again, I didn\'t know her age, and in this world, a lot of things were different than just appearances. 

And when the staff saw her out like this, they pulled her in some room and told me that now they\'d shower. The owner was among the staff. Those giggles were very frightening. 

I didn\'t bother asking questions and just went to the nearest bucket of water to wash my body. Showering in this world was a luxury. And I was about to indulge in the act. 

Sigh. Well, at least I didn\'t smell anymore. Mostly. 

Once I made it back to the room, I found Alisa still sleeping peacefully. 

She looked too darn cute and the moment I was about to pet her, the nuisance of a girl came back. 

She had makeup on, she looked kind of nice, and she actually smelled good too. Floral perfume I guess. It was definitely better than the one she had the other day. 

Oh, and she was definitely wearing some this time. 

She smiled and came inside the room alone. The few that were following her went away giggling. 

Anyway, without petting and stuff, I just woke the bunny up and put on my armor. The girl put on her uniform too. I tried not to look too much, but I had to say, it was tempting. 

\'All women are sisters… all women are sisters… all\' the charm my uncle taught me when I was little, wasn\'t working. And uncle was a playboy so…

All we needed now was breakfast and we\'d be done. 

Though I had a feeling things wouldn\'t be too easy in the court either. 

The original plan was to drop the girl at the palace safely, start a coup and overthrow the whole government. The starting of the coup was the job of Gorgon and the others and how they\'d do it- no one told me. But that\'s where I came in. I\'d use my connections with the princess and act as a savior and suppress the coup, blame everything on the duke, and secure the missing prince and princesses. In case, the whole government was rotten, I\'d change sides and aid the coup. Or at least that was the plan and it should have started last night after returning the princess to safety. And my part was going to come this evening.

At this point though, I doubted it\'d go according to the plan. 

***

Breakfast was only made of quiche and a glass of milk. Apparently, the owner of this place thought I had a thing for milk since last night I ordered it instead of booze. 

She even often signaled weird stuff and even some weird remarks. She even said stuff like how the princess was nice tasting and- yeah. Why would Viola taste nice and all that? I didn\'t know why but that sounded awfully sexual for some reason. 

Was this a demi human thing or something?

I did get it that she was joking but this was a mission and I wasn\'t interested in cheating. Though I had the feeling they weren\'t joking and literally shipping me with her. After all, would they really be dumb enough to joke about the princess of this whole country being compared to a drink?

I sure hope they weren\'t that dumb. But I still hope they were just joking. Seriously, this was just a demi human thing, right?

***

This place apparently didn\'t serve breakfast, so everything was from last night. They wanted to buy us a nice meal from the nearest restaurant but since we weren\'t waking up, they didn\'t. And when we did wake up and they wanted to, the princess just forbade them. 

I didn\'t know why but they seemed to have misunderstood our relationship. And since the girl literally woke up in my bed, I had a feeling one of them might or might not have caught that sight. Then again, they probably didn\'t spy on us, so maybe that was a farfetched accusation. I didn\'t dismiss it though.

This food wasn\'t that bad, so I didn\'t have complaints there. 

After we were done eating, I thanked the owner and prepared myself to pay her and then realized, I still didn\'t have money from this country. 

She just rejected my idea though. Apparently taking money from me would mean disrespect to the whole nation. 

I had no idea what that meant but since I didn\'t have money, I didn\'t argue. 

Before I could get out, the owner came to me and started whispering. "She can be a handful but she has heart. Please take good care of her."

As I thought. I really wanted to be wrong, but I was right. Even undeads had heart, so what the hell did that even mean? Then again, most of the undead didn\'t have a beating heart and the few that did were literal monsters. 

I sighed and didn\'t respond. 

Anyway, we were finally out. I sure hope there weren\'t going to be problems along the way. The sun was really strong though. And I was already drained of my energy.

"I hope everything goes well." Viola smiled. She was energetic. 

\'Good job setting up a flag.\' I stared at her with glassy eyes.