Chapter 38 –  Bad Days

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In the attic of the Orient Inn, during the night, Ramiel was busy fiddling with the camera. He is touching it all over, secretly taking pictures of the surroundings.

It has become his hobby to take pictures of this town. It is ‘fantasy’ town despite its normalness. So Ramiel was quite fond of the town despite its lack of the fantasy he imagined.

Other than the various guards that sometimes would carry lanterns that didn’t have any fire on it. The European-like town of Tal was quite wonderful.

Ramiel lived once in an urban city. He mostly saw these kinds of architectures on the internet, or when his father would take his family near the borders of Scandinavia for a trip to his grandparents. Though the place where Ramiel’s grandparents lived was quite much better looking than the Town of Tal in terms of aesthetic.

The Town of Tal has that charm far different from the modern earth. There were no fluorescent light poles in the streets. But instead, there are lamplights. The road isn’t brown bricks and is mostly just cobblestones paved in. The citizens were wearing rough clothing, and almost no one other than the merchants is ‘chubby’.

It is mostly a medieval middle age kind of town. The world is still unknown to Ramiel. He is a newcomer in this chaotic world after all.

Ramiel pointed his camera outside. Using the magnification of the camera’s lens, he scouted the exteriors of the town, hoping to capture something or someone of interest in it. He moved the lens to the right, left and even up in the rooftops. Holding the camera with both of his hands, Ramiel continued his scouring of the streets.

There was nothing special he could find as he does though. The streets were empty as the night goes deeper. Aside from the patrols, almost no one was walking in the streets of Tal. Ramiel felt that as usual, he wouldn’t capture something or someone again.

It has become his hobby to use the camera to scour the area. It became his hobby to use the camera while it still functions. He understood that nothing lasts forever so Ramiel thought that he might as well use the camera while it is alive. It is his last connection to the world he once lived. He takes good care of it to the point of obsession. But he also thinks that making use of it fine too.

I really wonder what I would do after this loses power.

As Ramiel thought of that, his expression suddenly changed extremely. His face paled, his eyes went wide open, and a strange smile came over his face, almost like madness.

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But Ramiel stopped the look he is giving the moment he realized how his face got rather stiff. He continued on moving his camera as per what he does every single night. Actually, Ramiel should be studying the language of the land. But still, when he cannot focus he would instead do this.

He should really sleep with all of the complications he got. But as it stands, Ramiel still didn’t find sleeping this early ‘natural’. Not because of the fact that he got used to sleeping at 3 in the morning. But let us just say that during the month he begged on the streets.

He rarely got sleep. Most of the time, Ramiel would stare at the clouds with blank eyes. In the day he would beg for food, and in the night he would daydream endlessly that he would be back to his real world.

Now imagine a person that has been in a safe place for most of his days—A peaceful place where chaos can be less seen, a good haven where days would go by in harmony.

Now imagine this person going to a vacation. The ship he was riding sunk in the bottom of the sea. He then found himself in an unknown world robbed of his belongings. And imagine this person, who hasn’t been put in such condition of despair, would do?

What would be the most logical thing a person who wasn’t used to such hardships do in such bad days?  Would he steel his will and mind in order to combat such situation?

Or will he do something else to survive the situation?

Ramiel survived through something. Let us just say that other than possessing an iron will or the determination of steel. There are other ways that usually the most normal person could do rely on when in times of despair. The emergency exit of the mind that most people who at least, for example, was forced to eat raw almost rotten organs of unvaccinated livestock’s would obviously go!

It is the natural reaction to such despair! And Ramiel, as a normal person would obviously head to this path. It is all absurd after all, all of it. And despite the way, he is holding up right now. Ramiel, inside his head, has a certain kind of gloom that is just barely holding.

So in his own simple ways, Ramiel distracts himself from his worries through all of these. From scouring with his camera during the night, and sometimes watching the contents he captured. Ramiel, in order to keep his mind intact, does all of this in order to function.

He is working without minding his complications.

He is enjoying his new hobby for himself just so that he can function.

It is a cruel world out there for Ramiel.

And as his eye focuses on scouring the streets.

Time passes...