Clare's perspective

After seeing her lady walk away with a bit of worry in her eyes, Alex approached Clare with a smile.

“Hi, I haven’t properly introduced myself. I’m Alex, Ms. Clare.”

Seeing Alex introduce himself with a smile that didn’t look strained when her lady was around, she bowed and replied.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Alex, but please call me Clare; you are my lady’s friend after all.”

“Oh, okay. But you can call me Alex too.”

“If that is what you desire.”

Upon hearing Clare’s formal and professional tone, Alex didn’t really know how to respond back since he had never met someone like Clare who gave off a presence like they were from two different worlds, so he turned to the basket and asked what was in it, awkwardly trying to change the conversation.

“Sandwiches, I made them earlier this morning for everyone. I don’t believe you have eaten anything yet; please have some.”

Upon hearing Clare made food for everyone, Alex's stomach grumbles since he hasn’t eaten breakfast yet.

Alex blushed and scratched his head a bit from embarrassment, but Clare did show a reaction and offered Alex one with a smile, which he happily accepted.

Clare walked to the chairs by the window and put the basket on one of the side tables to open the picnic basket. She reached inside to retrieve one of the sandwiches wrapped in paper and gave it to Alex.

After giving it to Alex, Clare then asks everyone.

“Would anyone desire one, Lady Alice, Ms. Maria, Sir Garner, Sir Rollo, or Sir Arnald?”

Alice, Garner, Rollo, and Arnold happily accepted, while Maria shyly accepted as well.

Clare handed over the sandwiches to everyone as Alex sat on the chair he was sitting on and unwrapped the sandwich.

He was deeply surprised to see the sandwich in his hand because it looked really good and tasty. It was a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, which looked simple at first, but upon looking at it closely, the bacon was glazed with honey, the egg and cheese were made into an omelet with herbs, and the bread was a soft white bread that was lightly toasted with butter.

Alex took a bite and was immediately blown away by the soft, lightly toasted white bread; the salty, sweet, savory, and crispy bacon; and the herby and cheesy egg omelet.

Taking another bite, Alex could say that this was the best thing he had ever tasted. He began devouring it until there was nothing left.

Watching Alex devour the sandwich with much enthusiasm after the first bite, they unwrapped their sandwich, took a bite, and were also amazed by it.

“It’s really good.”

Alice complimented Clare’s cooking, deeply impressed by how good it tasted, while her knights also had the same expressions.

Maria, on the other hand, no longer looks shyly at Clare as the sandwich manages to win her over.

Everyone complimented Clare’s sandwich and thanked her as she responded humbly to it.

When Alex finished eating his sandwich, he didn’t realize he had eaten it all and was momentarily confused about why the sandwich he was holding had disappeared.

After a second of thought, Alex looked disappointed, realizing that he had suddenly eaten it all.

Seeing Alex's sudden change in expression, Clare reached into her basket again and offered Alex another sandwich.

“No need to worry; I made extra.”

Alex had a big smile hearing that and gladly took the sandwich Clare offered; after eating the second sandwich, Alex sighed, satisfied and happy.

He turned to Clare, who was sitting on the chair next to him, looking out the window, and started a conversation with her with a big smile.

For some reason, as he was conversing with Clare, he was getting a feeling that someone was staring daggers at him through a wall. He, however, did not notice it because he was really enjoying his conversation with Clare, talking about all sorts of things, since Clare, as the personal maid of a formerly powerful family, was trained to be a good conversationalist as a maid.

They continued talking till the door opened to reveal Wendy tiredly entering the room.

Rubbing her eyes, Wendy sniffed the air around the room with her mouth starting to drool.

“Oh, Wendy, did we wake you?”

“No, Chelsie is being really scary in her sleep again, and I smell something tasty…”

Opening her tired eyes, her eyes landed on Clare, and she immediately ran up to where Clare was sitting and hugged her; then she started nuzzling her and wagging her tail like a dog with their owner.

Clare and everyone were surprised by Wendy’s sudden and strange action, so Alex said.

“Ummm… Wendy?”

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t you a bit close to Clare?”

Alex was deeply surprised by Wendy because she isn’t usually this close to someone even though this is their second interaction.

Clare, who was regaining the small bit of her composure from Wendy that she lost, said.

“It’s fine; I don’t mind.”

Clare let Wendy continue to nuzzle her because, from their first meeting, she saw that Wendy was completely terrified of her lady, as well as Alex and that Lucia girl, who had puffed into smoke and jumped out a window.

She doesn’t know what happened to them to get them to be that afraid of her lady, but it is the least she could do.

“Ms. Wendy, you must be hungry. Please eat this; I made this just for you.”

Clare reached into her basket and took out another sandwich, different from the ones she had given to everyone from how big it was.

Giving it to her, Wendy stopped nuzzling Clare and received the sandwich. Unwrapping it reveals a sandwich filled and stacked to the brim with meat.

Clare told Wendy to enjoy herself as she was sitting on the ground while Alex looked a bit jealous watching Wendy eat her sandwich that was around the size of her own head.

Seeing how Alex looked, Clare continued her conversation with Alex, which improved his mood.

They talk about many things, like Alex’s adventures or Nyx. However, Clare became increasingly agitated as time passed, and her professional mask had cracks showing because her lady did not show up.

Everyone in the room seemed to see Clare’s irritation and was also worried for Nyx. They tried to reassure her by telling Clare how tough and strong Nyx was, meaning he could handle himself, which calmed Clare for a bit.

However, as they waited for Nyx to return, Nyx didn’t come back.

Eventually, Chelsie and Lucia woke up and came into the room, and at this point, Clare did not try to hide her worry.

Seeing Clare, they greeted her and asked what was going on because everyone looked worried.

“Did something happen?”

Chelsie asked after seeing the mood inside; Alex turned to look at them and said.

“We sent Nyx to get something in the house we’re renting on the 19th floor, but we have not seen him come back yet. So yeah, something definitely happened.”

Chelsie grimaces hearing that and suggests.

“Why don’t I and Wendy go look for her?”

Wendy, who was by Clare’s side after seeing Clare grow increasingly distressed, was surprised but understood.

They both nodded, and Chelsie told everyone that they would be leaving to look for Nyx.

Nyx's perspective

Feeling my body was in a huge amount of pain, I was in agony as I slowly regained my consciousness.

Hearing the sounds of machines beeping and the smell of medicine in the air, I wondered where I was.

I slowly opened my eyes and saw the ceiling of a hospital room.

Realizing I was lying on a hospital bed, I wondered if I overdid it again because the pain I was feeling throughout my body was the strain of experiencing Ori poisoning.

Looking at my room, I saw that there was only one bed, and I did not see Norn with me. Maybe she is going to our room to bring one of our games back, but I don’t remember being in a standard hospital room like this since I’m a named pilot.

Using the little energy I had, I called for Charlotte.

“Hey, Charlotte?”

I waited for Charlotte to show up, but after a while, Charlotte did not appear.

“Charlotte, answer?”

I called Charlotte again, but there was no response, which made me wonder what was going on, so I decided to call another system.

“System call, Lumina.”

Every medical institution has a universal system called Lumina, which is why I call for it, but I don’t know why Charlette is not here since I’m in a place like this, which typically never happens.

However, as I spoke, I soon realized something, which was that I was speaking in a childlike voice.

I try my best to search through my memories of any of this, even the little memories I had before I became a named pilot, but I honestly don’t remember.

Is this a dream? I thought that because I have been having quite a lot of dreams of my past life as of lately.

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A thought came up in my mind that this was a nightmare because the last thing I remember was suddenly collapsing after fighting that drake that for some reason had Ori energy in its body, with Clare in my mind.

As I was thinking all these things, the lights above my bed turned on, and a ball of light appeared above my head.

“Greet—how can—you.”

Hearing what it said as it was breaking up between words, I wondered if anyone did any maintenance on it because the voice box was broken or something.

I turned my head slowly to look around the room and realized that there was something strange. The room I was in looked worn down, like it hadn't been used or set foot in here for a while.

I guess this is part of a dream or something, but deep down, a small part of me wondered if I had died again.

I ignored those feelings and said to Lumina, wondering if I could troubleshoot it.

“Lumina.”

“Ye— “

“System restart.”

“Con—irm, starting re—, 15 min—”

Hearing it took about 15 minutes to restart, I began to move my body out of the bed and realized I was in the body of my current life and was wearing a hospital gown with nanite bandages, which are bandages made with medical nanomachines, wrapped all over my body.

It hurt a lot when I moved and took all my mental fortitude to not give up, which made me doubt this was a dream, but at least on the positive side, the reincarnated life I was living was not a dream from a coma or something.

I went to the door, expecting it to automatically open, but it didn’t, so I pressed the touchpad on the side to see if it was on, but I was disappointed to see that it also didn’t work.

I try shouting for someone to help me, but all I hear is silence.

Grimacing, I guess I have to do this manually then, which is going to hurt a lot.

The thought of this being a dream or nightmare started to go away as I moved my creaking body to open the panel on the emergency lever in the door and used all of my strength to turn the handle.

Pushing open the door, I peered out of the room and put my guard up but saw no one. I could see, from the dim lighting, that the hallway seemed clean but looked worn down and old, like nobody had stepped foot in there for a long time, similar to my room.

I tried putting up my guard, but I had to lean against the wall to catch my breath because using the emergency lever and moving the door took a lot out of me.

I began walking down the hallways with just my gown and bandages covering my body.

Could this be some sort of abandoned hospital? Thinking that, it created more questions than answers because I didn’t know where I was, and the last thing I remember before I lost consciousness was the door in the boss room opening and then familiar beeping and humming sounds.

I realized it was something I had heard before and one that was in my past life.

It was the sounds of medical drones, which are drones that work in medical institutions to automate the process of most things, like getting things for doctors and nurses or, in my case, working together to help move patients.

With that line of thought, it made even less sense because how can there be a hospital from my past life in a dungeon?

While I was trying to make sense of everything, I reached one of the hallway doors in the hallway. I tried to use the emergency lever to open it, but I was exhausted after walking here and didn’t have the mental or physical strength to even try.

“Damn.”

Catching my breath, I guess that was a waste of time. I should go back to my room and wait for the system to restart since no one is here. Let’s hope that Lumina will give me some answers and that I’m not actually dead.

Going back to the room I woke up in, I lay on the bed and rested my aching body while waiting for it to restart.

Since I took my time walking out of the room and back, I didn’t wait for long.

When it finally restarted, I watched in anticipation as it booted up again because I was hoping restarting it would get it to work.

A dinging sound indicated it was done restarting and starting up, and it said.

“Greetings, I am Lumina. How can I help?”

Relieved that restarting it fixed it, I asked Lumina.

“Where am I, and what is going on?”

“You are in the medical bay of base 38, but please specify your second question.”

Base 38? If I remember correctly, base 38 was abandoned when a spatial ball appeared in the hangar, causing part of the hangar and the entire infirmary next to it to presumably be destroyed.

Spatial balls are massive black balls that started showing up in the third Kaiju War, and I remember it first appearing in Base 38, where I was sent on a mission to assist in evacuation.

From researching it, they are like temporary gates that spawn in kaijus and a really powerful one at the end, but the most threatening part was that it can show up anywhere, and whatever the black sphere touches disintegrated.

My instinct from playing video games and reading a lot of storybooks is that, in all likelihood, the infirmary I am in right now wasn’t destroyed but somehow ended up in the dungeon.

Spatial balls are like temporary gates that poke through the fabric of reality, while dungeons are mysterious places where entering them is like going into another reality or a different world altogether.

So… it’s highly likely that both a spatial ball and a dungeon can interact with each other, and this is where part of base 38 ended up.

It was kind of a stretch, but if I base this on a fantasy story, it kind of makes sense when you think about it because this is a fantasy world after all; it’s bound to happen sometime or later.

I better confirm everything first by asking Lumina.

“How did I get here, and where is everyone?”

Upon hearing what I said, Lumina spoke.

“Our sensors sense a spike of Ori energy near the infirmary, so we sent a medical drone to investigate. This led to us finding you lying on the ground with fatal injuries in the Ori energy-rich environment and next to an unknown creature. We immediately sent more medical drones to your location to pick you up and stabilize you. For the question of our staff, I do apologize, but all our staff are currently deceased.”

Hearing the word deceased, I asked what it meant and for clarification.

“There was a sudden and unknown incident that killed everyone, including our staff and patients. The autopsy suggests that it was sudden Ori energy poisoning that killed them. Due to no one being alive and that we are cut off from the outside world, we followed protocol and properly disposed of the bodies, then went into hibernation with only critical systems operating.”

So… my guess was right. I took a moment to take it all in; this was too much for me because, in some way, I am still connected to my old world in my new life…

Seeing me silent and not asking any more questions, Lumina asks.

“If you have no more questions, would you not mind me asking questions of my own?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay then, can I ask for your name? Our system doesn’t recognize you, nor any records.”

Listening to what it said, I took a breath and uttered my name from my past life that I hadn’t said in a long time.

“Named Aias Pilot, Lieutenant Alina Garner from base 27, officer code 2-4-0-4 Lima-Charlie-Echo.”

There was a second for Lumina to process what I said, but it flashed red and said.

“Apologies, but your voice and biometrics do not match up. Are you sure this is you?”

A picture pops up with a picture of me in my past life being shown to me, which I look fondly at.

It’s been a while since I saw the face of my past life, with brown hair and green eyes.

Huh… did I really look that good in my past life? Maybe it’s because I haven’t looked at my past life self in a long time, but I realized I look just as beautiful as I do in this life. Strange…

Seeing me not respond, Lumina asked me the same question again, so I said.

“Yes, that is me, access code manual input, Code 12, override biometrics and voice recognition.”

“Affirmative.”

“1100 x10 Alpha Zeta Gamma Mike Fox—M S C E electric Eternal—Athrun.”

There was another second later for it to process what I said, and I sighed in relief when it worked because I had died in my past life, which meant my access code would not work. But since it had been cut off from everything, my access code still works.

“Confirm, welcome back, Lieutenant Alina.”

“How may I assist you?”

“How is the medical bay and the hangar?”

“The medical bay is 82% operational; however, the last of our perishable medical supplies expired roughly 13 years ago. For that, I do apologize for not administering any painkillers. As for the hangers, it is currently unknown what the condition of the hangers is; we lost our connection to the hangers when the incident happened.”

“I see. Is there any way for you to connect to the hanger?”

“Unfortunately no, we only receive information from the hangar and do not have the authorization to interact with its systems.”

“I see.”

That is a shame. Disappointed, I was hoping to have access to the hangar, specifically the armory, to get some guns, but it appears I can’t since I needed a keycard at least to enter the hangar.

Disappointed that I didn’t have access to a gun, I thought to myself that this was everything that I wanted to know for now because I needed to leave here right now and back to Clare, hoping I was not too late… Oh right, it completely flew through my mind, but…

“Lumina, how long was I asleep for?”

“Around 27 hours.”

Hearing that, I sighed in relief because I thought I had been asleep for longer, like a week, but I guess the combination of the nanite bandages and the regeneration potion I drank managed to heal me fast.

Speaking of which.

“Lumina, where is my stuff?”

“In storage, would you like me to retrieve them?”

“Yes.”

“Confirm, is there anything else you would like me to get?”

Hearing that, my stomach grumbled and I felt my throat was thirsty, so I told Lumina.

“Could you give me water and something to eat if there is any?”

“Confirm. Two drones will be sent; please wait 2 minutes.”

I did what Lumina said and waited in my bed till the drones arrived. The first drone arrived with a bin that had my stuff, while the second drone arrived with food and water on a tray.

Going through the bin that had my stuff, I was really disappointed to find that other than my underwear, belt, and shoes, all my clothes and armor were shredded from my fight with that drake or cleanly cut apart, which I guess the medical drones had to do since I was on the brink of death. Not only that, but my weapons too; I only have one of my daggers and a couple of throwing knives left.

“Lumina, are there any clothes you can give me?”

“One moment please.”

Lumina, which was an orb of light, began scanning my body and said.

“Yes, please wait for a moment.”

Seeing Lumina send the drone that brought me something to eat and drink on a tray after it put the tray on the bedside table, I moved my arms and hand to turn the bedside table toward me, I then looked through the bin that had my stuff and took out a high-grade health potion.

I opened the cork to the health potion and opened the food Lumia brought me, which was a nutrition bar, which is an energy bar that contains the daily nutritional and caloric value of an average person.

I didn’t care about my hunger, but it was mainly to get the taste of the high-grade health potion out of my mouth.

Preparing myself, I gulp down the disgusting liquid and immediately bite down on the nutrition bar, which tastes like chocolate but a bit chalky.

I immediately felt the pain from my injuries start to go away, and a minute later I could move my arms freely again.

Stretching my arms to get a feel of my range of movement, I began taking off my bandages.

“Lieutenant Alina, I must advise you not to do that.”

Hearing Lumina tell me not to do that, I told her.

“It’s fine.”

Removing the bandages covering my body, I saw my left arm was covered with electrical burn scars, my right shoulder had another scar, my left thigh had a burned scar, and I guess my back had another burned scar from the drake’s blood, drooled over my back.

Health potions only heal injuries, but they don’t fix scars. I guess I shouldn’t have taken off my bandages because they would have healed my scars if I didn’t remove them.

Turning to Lumina again, I told her.

“Lumina, get me some more bandages, and do you have any anti-scarring cream?”

“Yes, we do have anti-scarring cream. Would you like us to retrieve it in cold storage?”

“Yes, do that.”

Lying on my bed, I drank a cup of water and ate the rest of the nutrition bar until the drones sent to get me some clothes and the one sent to get me bandages and anti-scarring cream came to my room. It gave me a new shirt, which was white, and a new pair of pants, which was a deep, dark blue.

I removed my hospital gown and put on my clothes, then I began putting on my belt that carries most of my pouches, which included the bandages and anti-scarring cream I just received.

Putting my dagger in its sheath, I told Lumina.

“Okay, Lumina, could you lead me to where you found me?”

“Confirm, please follow this drone.”

Hearing the hallway lights begin turning on, I started to follow the drone Lumina told me to follow.

Walking through the hallway, I made my way past the door I couldn’t open before and walked through it.

Eventually, the drone stopped, and I could hear Lumina’s voice from the drone.

“We are here; is there any other request you would like to give me?”

Seeing the door I came in, I saw, from the reinforced glass panel, a cave-like passageway, like the entrance to the boss room, so I told Lumina.

“I am going to leave, so go back to hibernation.”

“Acknowledge.”

I didn’t have time to explore the infirmary for more stuff I could use since I was unconscious for over a day; I needed to get to the surface as soon as possible.

Boras didn’t send out all of my family’s black knights to get me, almost as if he wanted me to escape them.

He is a psychopath and does things that are most fun to him, which means that he doesn’t always follow my father's orders to the letter.

A small part of me was hoping that Boras didn’t get Clare because he wanted to see me express another expression like anger to play with me, so taking Clare right in front of me would be a possibility.

If that is not the case, I need to come up with a plan to rescue Clare on my own if I have to, so I do not have any time to lose.

Walking through the automatic door, I walked through the passageway, hoping it was not the case.