I had to update from my phone so tell me if there are format problems. I will fix them tomorrow when I get my laptop back.
***
'I feel like I've been sleeping for years.'
THUMP THUMP THUMP
My heartbeat was so loud It nearly made me deaf, and my entire body ached incredibly…as if someone beat me up in my sleep.
"Oh! You finally woke up brat. Did you have fun sleeping like a rock?"
I could hear his voice calling me but I struggled to even just get up. However, this time that strange "cold" I felt when I woke up last time wasn't there anymore, instead I felt very…"light"? I wasn't sure myself…
"Yes…good morning." I greeted him back but my throat was dry and my voice came out very coarse.
"What's wrong? Can't even get up? I'm not getting any closer to you so just get up by yourself." I heard him from a bit of a distance away, maybe from the sofa's direction.
"Yes…"
It took me some struggles but I slowly raised my upper body, I was sweating all over again, it's the third time I woke up like this now.
This time it just lasted much longer. I saw that city, the people, the doll, many places and ...
DRIP DRIP DRIP DRIP
'Eh?' As I reminisced about the dream, blood started pouring down from my nose.
'What was that again?' Among them I felt like I forgot about something but it probability just wasn't anything important anyway.
"Mhh? You're bleeding?" I heard Gilgamesh's voice getting closer and turned its direction but he grabbed my hair and turned my face in the other direction.
"You're not looking in my direction until I'm sure you're not gonna throw up."
'Oh, that makes sense.' Apparently yesterday's accident still bothered him.
"Mmmmm, it doesn't look too bad, just drink this and you will be fine for the bloodless." After saying he tilted my head up and shoved in mouth a glass of something that tasted like…orange?
"Done. Now go wash, you stink."
"Ok" Now I felt much better than before, the blood I shed was also nowhere to be found anymore, so I just got up from the bed ready to go take a shower.
"Ah but one thing before."
"What is it?"
"Did you see many women in your dreams this time or the last? No, there were always many priestesses, anyway, in which one did you see the most women?"
Women?
"This one, why?"
"Mmmm I see… and how many of them did you…see?"
How many I saw? Mmmmmm let's see one, two, three, twenty, fourty…seventy, eighty….mmmm I think there were even more though.
"...I think I lost count after eighty of them."
"Mmm good good, you can go now." He gave a few nods to himself before allowing me to go back to taking a shower.
***
12:22 AM
It was very late, I've apparently slept for a total of sixteen hours.
Gilgamesh put me to bed at 8 PM yesterday and I woke up at 12:02 AM today.
Now in front me he laid a table with a lot of food, maybe even a bit too much? It was certainly more than a single meal.
"You skipped breakfast today so you need to make up for it at lunch, eat it all." Seemingly reading the doubt in my mind Gilgamesh quickly explained the reason for all the food.
So without asking anything else I started eating.
"So, how is it?" He asked me while I was chewing with a smirk on his face.
"Mmmmm…emmm is it good?" I wasn't sure what else to say… It was just food.
SMACK
"Why are you asking that to ME?" He shouted as he smacked the table while clenching his fist.
"...Well, I guess I just wasted some food then, damn mongrel, if I see any leftovers I'll whip you with a belt." He smacked his lips seemingly offended.
"Why should I leave leftovers? Didn't you tell me to eat it all?"
"...Nevermind." I could see a vein popping on his forehead for some reason after I said that. Maybe he had a blood pressure problem?
"Do you–" I tried to ask him about it but I was cut off before I could.
"Shut up and eat mongrel."
'Ok.' It wasn't really my problem anyway so I just got back to eating my food.
It was a lot of food but it felt like it didn't take up any space inside my belly, really a strange type of food.
***
After finishing the… was it a brunch? Well, after that he gave me new clothes to change into but told me to keep the same scarf as yesterday and to never take it off unless explicitly told to by him.
But why were we both dressed in white?
I had a white t-shirt with black short trousers and a white cap.
Instead Gilgamesh was… ah wait I saw this dress before on TV, he's dressed like Michael Jackson, even the hat is the same.
"I finally look majestic enough to go out in the sun, let's go brat." Fixing his hat he gestured for me to follow him outside of the hotel.
Many people stared our way, or more exactly at him, as we went outside.
"Attendant."
"Ah, me? Y-yes sir?" The worker outside the entrance gave a short stutter as he looked somewhat flustered.
"Bring me my car." He requested as he threw the Supra's key to him with incredible speed.
"Yes sir, immediately." Catching them with surprising familiarity, almost like a reflex, with a single hand he gave a meek bow before hurrying to fetch the car.
"That was surprising." Gilgamesh mumbled as he looked at the waiter disappearing in the distance.
"What was surprising?" Unsure of what he might have meant with that, I asked him.
"I just didn't think that boy would have such reflexes given his shyness. Well, I guess this place wouldn't be a worthy dwelling for the likes of me if the attendants were mediocre."
"But then…why did you throw him your keys?" Now I was even more confused.
"Mm. Oh that, well I just thought it would be amusing to see him scramble to try his best to not let them fall." He answered with his usual smile and slightly narrowed eyes.
'I see…so it was for "amusement".'
I didn't consider myself smart but I long since realized this man had a set of values I had never known about, one different from other people. But that must have been normal probably, he wasn't a man of this era after all.
However the difference was so stark I found myself having a hard time memorizing these completely new morals.
'Should I even do that? He said all I needed to do was follow his lead, right? Did that mean.....that as long as I follow him…I wouldn't need to "worry" about making any decision anymore.'
Maybe because I was still tired from the dream but for a moment I felt some lukewarm heat rising in my chest.
***
After the Supra was delivered we sat on board, with Gilgamesh at the stirring wheel.
I thought he wanted to drive around like last time but he was driving without breaking any law today.
Today was very "unusual" too.
The sky wasn't particularly bright but somehow the color of everything I saw as we passed by seemed more vibrant.
Truly "strange".
We continued cruising for a while. At first I tried to continue attempting that Reinforcement thing he taught me about, but when I did he told me to put the knife away and just take it easy until we got out of the car.
At one point we got stopped by a police car though. The police officer didn't look like he was in a really good mood.
But he shouldn't have stopped us, now he was probably in an even worse mood after getting stripped and hanged by a street light with his partner by their boxers.
He resumed driving for a while until we were...well I have no idea where we were now as I've never been in this part of the city before but it was near a big park with a lot of cherry trees.
"Here take this." He parked the car in a parking lot near the park's entrance and handed me a strange box made of copper.
"Hold this on you at all moments. I will take a stroll around to satiate my boredom. Also don't leave the park, it's an order. If you find nothing to do you can continue to try reinforcing the knife."
"Ok." I nodded and picked the box with one hand, it wasn't really big, I could cover half of its surface with a single hand and both of my hands were pretty small.
"One more thing."
"Hm?"
"Don't speak with anybody, only speak if they talk with you first. Or talk when nobody is around. Is that clear?"
"Sure."
We got out of the car and Gilgamesh locked the doors before he started walking away on his own with a sudden gust of wind that appeared out of nowhere making his coat move like it was floating like a cape as it was hanging by his shoulder.
Many passerbies couldn't stop themselves from staring at him as he passed by.
I simply turned my gaze away and made my way inside the park. It was extremely big on the inside, pink leaves occasionally fell from the trees and were moved around by the winds.
I walked around for a bit searching for a place without many people around to sit down.
After some time walking around I still couldn't think of anything to possibly ever do here but he told me that I could continue exercising on reinforcement I decided to just do that.
So I continued searching for a bit but there were really a lot of people around. Maybe too many but it was a Sunday so many people were on holiday or on a break. Finding a secluded space in this park was not gonna be easy.
'Where should I go?'
As I was pondering to myself I looked at another side path…
Somehow I found myself unable to look away from it.
After a few seconds of waiting I followed the path and found the place I was searching for. It was a pretty desolate location, surrounded by many trees with two benches and a table.
There was also one person already present who was looking at the trees around the area.
I didn't pay him much attention though and just sat on one of the benches, setting the box near my legs on the bench. I wasn't gonna find another place, especially on a Sunday like this.
I took out the wooden knife and activated my magic circuits.
SHIII VTZZZ
Then I tried inserting my magical energy inside the knife.
CRACK
But the handle already started cracking so I stopped to give it time to mend the cracks. But just then.
"Hmmm? Isn't that Reinforcement? Is he a magus?" The person who was standing still while staring at the trees turned my way.
"...I don't think I'm actually a magus though." Seeing as he talked to me first I answered like Gilgamesh told me to.
"Eh?" He made a somewhat "surprised" expression before making his way to the benches. "Wait, how more importantly how did you see… actually never mind. Anyway, why are you practicing magecraft in a place like this? Shouldn't you be doing this at home, kid? People might see you here."
"...But I was told to." I replied back unsure of what else to say as that was indeed what I was told to.
"Is that so? Well… I guess it shouldn't be my place to talk about it." He said somewhat flustered as he scratched the back of his head.
I only noticed now that he was close but this man had only a single arm, his right, while the left sleeve of his black sleeved white jacket was actually hollow.
"Wow, that knife just stitched back together by itself, wish I had something like this back then. Anyway, I can see that you are having a hard time using reinforcement? Do you need some help?" He seemed very "impressed" with the wooden butter knife and even offered to help me. "I'm not who knows such an expert in magecraft but I definitely can help if it's Reinforcement."
He was a stranger but he talked to me first so it should be fine right?
"...yes, thank you. I have yet to succeed at this even once." I accepted the man's offer as I did need some help on this and had no reason to refuse.
"Ok, well, for starters why don't you show me how you do it once again?"
Listening to him I used my already activated circuits to try and reinforce the knife again. I focused on the steps mentioned by the stone tablet.
BANG
But it quickly snapped again before starting to knit itself back together.
"Hmm, I see, you are just missing the structural analysis part, if you add that in it should improve." The man advised me but I had no idea what he meant by that.
"Structural analysis? You mean understanding the inner structure?" It sounded similar to the one step mentioned in the instructions.
"Hmmm, honestly, the name I use is just how I always called it so I'm not sure if it's the right term but it should be a bit different. Until some time ago I also used to make mistakes with reinforcement a lot but then with a little aid I kind of understood why.
Anyway, structural analysis is essentially one of the steps I take when I reinforce an object. When you activate your circuits you connect them to the object you want to analyze.
When you do so, the structure of the object will appear in your mind as if it were an X-ray vision."
'Isn't it similar to what happens when my magical energy briefly enters the knife.' Pondering on it for a bit I tried to move my circuits with my mind to connect them to the knife.
After a few tries I succeeded at connecting one circuit with the wooden knife and he was right, it did look like an X-ray.
Now, I could certainly feel those gaps more clearly than before.
"Good, you are doing well. Magic circuits are like little brains so they can process and analyze information, actually from what I know…not many use them like this to reinforce objects but I do. How many did you connect?" He complimented me before asking me a question.
"I connected only one." I didn't really think about connecting more as it was pretty hard to just connect one so connecting more would be even harder.
"With only one connected you can probably only see its physical structure but as you connect more the amount of information received and processed will increase as well, making it much easier."
"Is that so? But I can already see its structure. What else could I need?"
"What else? Mmmm, I'm not really good at explaining those things, so let's see." The man scratched his chin in thought for a bit before continuing his explanation.
"Well if what you are seeing now is the physical map of the object, I guess you can think of the rest of the information as a map that is made of its story instead of materials."
"The story of this knife?" I said tilting my head as I didn't take my eyes off the knife.
"Mmm if a friend of mine had been here she would have probably been able to explain it to you better than I am. Anyway, it's something I found about recently as well.
If the object is relatively young then you can probably reinforce it just by looking at the physical map. But the older it is the more its history has an importance I guess, so you need to look at that to learn things like: how old it is, how many times it might have been used, why the blade and hilt are shaped like that, etc etc etc…"
"So the better I use this structural analysis the easier it is to reinforce the knife?"
"Yes, definitely." He said clenching his fist in what looked like a gesture to "cheer" me on.
Actually now that I look at him he doesn't look much older than me, he was a teenage asian boy with spiky red hair.
Not that his age really mattered.
After that he continued to instruct me as I continued to try and reinforce the knife.
BANG
BANG
BANG
He pointed out my mistakes at every error, he talked like he went through every single one of them like I am right now as if reminiscing about his own experience.
BANG
The knife broke again but I was better after every attempt unlike yesterday with the help of the boy who was guiding me.
It was like I had suddenly gained a more detailed instruction manual about the task I had to do with even a few notes on why I was failing at it.
BANG
The knife now took more time before it broke, and a few times it didn't break at all even if I failed.
BANG
We must have been at it for more than an hour now, I was getting pretty tired honestly. But I decided to continue trying until I couldn't anymore, he told me to train on this if I found nothing else to do so I must do so until I can't anymore, right?
I picked up the knife once again and tried to connect my circuits to it.
And finally after more than an hour–
SHIII VTZZZ
–I connected a second circuit to the knife.
***
Hope you liked, pls leave comment and reviews and maybe a few power stones too
And yes Gilgamesh somehow transmitted the ancient babylonian r*pe technique to a child. Shit is wild.
But hopefully he will never have to resort to it.