I look at the white house, and back to the paper.

Yeah, it's still blank. I had to use a soul-searching skill to find what house he was referring to. I'm still not sure if it was an elaborate prank or not, but I'm showing up for tea anyway.

The house is as bland as I expected, we really take colors for granted, huh? Hotel could probably make better looking houses, maybe they should create a few buildings here--that would be a repeat of the last universe, but it would make this world objectively better.

I wait in front of the door as Hotel is messaging the blind girl--what was her name? Leilani? I think that was her name. It's probably going to take a while for her to answer, considering time passes differently between the two universes.

Once Hotel's done with their message, I knock and wait for an answer. It only takes a few seconds for a woman to open the door and usher us in; she doesn't look surprised at all, so I guess they did expect us to find the house with a blank piece of paper.

The house is perfectly symmetrical; if there's a room on the left, there is the exact same room on the right, same thing for stairs, one that goes up and another that goes down. There is some furniture--depending on your definition of 'furniture'; everything from the closets to the tables are basically melded into the floor, as if they are part of the building itself instead of something you can pick up and move around.

Maybe this really is a video game simulation where the developer tried to cut cost on textures, which is why every item in there is part of the house. That would be a nice twist, but because of the way my reincarnation works, I doubt that's the case.

"Ho!" The woman exclaims. "Is that your kid? They are adorable! Since when did you become a dad?"

Guess I'm a dad now, I don't know if dads and moms are supposed to act differently, my parents didn't exactly pay enough attention to me to tell the difference. "Yeah, I adopted the kid recently, still figuring out how to be a parent."

"That is nice! Raising a kid can be hard, but as long as you give them lots of love, everything will turn out alright!" She calls out to someone in the other room. "Hubby! Is the tea ready?"

"In a few minutes, I love you!" Her husband replies.

"I love you too!"

I groan, I'm really tempted to tell them to get a room, but I'm not sure if they would even understand what I mean by that. Do people here even have sex? Or is it just a perfect utopia where everything 'naughty' has been banned? Surely they had to make those kids somehow, right? I hope that's the case, please let there be something weird about this world I can investigate, please don't let it all be boring, peaceful happiness.

I hear a little 'ding' sound, I turn to Hotel, and they read a message from Leilani. Wait--she already answered? The time difference must not be that high...wait, even if it wasn't, Hotel sent that message a couple of minutes ago--did she just answer as fast as she could?

I wonder if she feels something towards Hotel? Whatever, it's none of my business, as long as these two have fun.

The husband enters the room with four cups of tea on a platter, he gives a quick kiss on the cheek to his wife before lowering the tea on the table. Her wife visibly blushes at the act--are those two seriously married? How do you blush over something so simple if you've known each other for that long? Then again, I would feel weird too if Trin suddenly pecked me on the cheek, even if we did way more than that together, so I can't judge them.

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The husband tilts his head quizzically and asks, "Hey champ, you look deep in thought. What's going on in that head of yours?"

I don't like how they are talking to me like we're friends, but I am the one who decided to show up, so I only have myself to blame for giving that impression. "I'm just thinking it's a shame that this is one of the last places I'll ever visit. I was expecting something more interesting," I answer bluntly.

The wife leans back in her chair, taking a long sip of her tea. "What ever do you mean by this?"

I sigh. "Let's just say I've travelled for a very long time, and my passport will no longer be valid after the next country I visit."

This is the best way to put it; there is technically a way for me to keep going from dimension to dimension past that limit, but that would require a pretty big sacrifice.

Hotel is enjoying the tea, they look at their surroundings like this house is the most interesting thing in this universe--as far as I know, it might be. There's innocence in their eyes; despite the fact they were a god once, they still feel so very young, I tug lightly at the tendrils that link the both of us together.

Hotel's soul is deeply rooted in mine, and what I did was nothing short of a half-assed surgery that delayed the inevitable conclusion. If I let them fester in my soul, they will be assimilated, essentially dying and turned into raw experience. Separating them from my soul completely wouldn't be much better, it's very likely that Hotel would be destroyed in the process too; giving them a cloned body is the best compromise, but it only slows down the soul assimilation, and every time I jump to another dimension our soul will be mashed together again and speed up our soul fusion greatly.

There is--according to the UM--only one more death we can afford before the damage is truly irreversible.

However, there is a third, theoretical option that could solve all of this--soul anchoring.

The idea is that I would forcefully anchor both my and Hotel's soul to two different universes, which would make separating us a lot easier and safer. However, doing so would trap me in a specific universe, and I'm pretty sure it would not solve my immortality either; I'd only revive in the same universe over and over instead.

See, the problem with anchoring is that it's deep soul surgery, and while it's not particularly hard to anchor yourself to a universe--as souls tend to do this naturally--it is extremely hard to undo without the help of another soul surgeon. In other words, I'd be stuck in one universe forever, and I'd have to deal with everything that implies.

I'll be honest, it's kind of scary. It's scary because I'd still be immortal, but I'll have to deal with the consequences of everything I do; I'll have to watch people I love die of old age, or use my power to keep everyone alive and watch as everyone have to deal with the burden of immortality. What if I get mad with power? What if I get bored and realize there's nothing more to do here? What if, what if, what if.

But the alternative is to have Hotel perish because of my selfishness, and I don't feel ready to make that choice, I feel like I need more time. I've been doing this for an eternity, you know? It doesn't feel like I really belong to any universe, not even the one I originally came from; It feels like I belong in all of them and none of them, is it really okay to settle down like this so suddenly?

The man snaps me out of my thought. He asks, "You may enjoy travelling, but is staying so bad for you?"

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, staying is pretty bad for me. Although I doubt you really understand what 'bad' means when your happiness is served on a silver platter."

He takes another sip of tea. "You are willfully rejecting the martyr's gift. Any issues that may arise from this is your choice."

I raise an eyebrow. "The martyr?"

"Of course. If it wasn't for him, the world would be plagued by war and injustice. He takes all the pain and suffering for us, so we can all live in harmony. Don't you think it's a shame to waste his sacrifice?"

I snap my fingers. "Theeeeere it is. I was wondering what the catch was." I get up from my chair and knock on Hotel's head. "Okay buddy, I know what we're doing today."

Hotel looks up, looking mildly annoyed. "I'm not done writing my reply."

Is this what parents feel like when their kid spends all their time on their phone? "You'll write this on the way, c'mon." I pat them on the shoulder and they begrudgingly follow me.

"Where are you going?" The wife says. Her happy expression and tone doesn't change, and yet I can feel disappointment from her soul for a split second, only for it to be quickly absorbed by an unseen force.

"I'm going to hang out with someone that really needs it."