After that fiasco, I made sure to keep track of the energy in my Focus at all times. Of course, it is a common rookie mistake to not do so, and I was a rookie, but I still didn’t want a repeat of the situation last night. No, I wasn’t going to clean anything up. Cleanliness is a virtue that I don’t care about: I’ll just ignore the mess on the side of the room and continue trying out different types of Arcane Magic. Or I would have, if I didn’t nearly run out of the rotten food that Dabiva had as leftovers. Now that I know that she left this room for the last time about seventy years ago, I wondered how I was still able to function and survive off of this kind of food, and how it even lasted so long. Honestly though, I clearly wasn’t a picky eater and I could eat just about anything to survive. Now though, I realized that I need to leave this room to go get some food at least.

I didn’t leave this room for quite a while now, and I really didn’t want to, which is why I just ate the rotten food instead of going outside to try and find more fresh food. However, now I have no choice, and I need food, so I’m going to venture out into the essentially abandoned wing of the Galamon palace and see if I can find any good food. Though I was fine eating rotten food, since it was better than the extremely old skeletons, I definitely wasn’t satisfied and I really was craving some fresh food at this point. Therefore, I remade my disguise as a servant, full with a large trash bag filled with coins over my shoulder. But before that, I used a mirror and some scissors to cut my longer hair down to about the size I saw after coming out of the dungeon, since I liked that look, and also tossed my orb staff in the bag. It wasn’t that heavy anyway, and with my newfound strength it was even easier to carry things. Lightly working out every morning to maintain that strength really helped keep me fit. I actually started to somewhat enjoy working out, and I’m sure I’ve never even had a thought anywhere near that thought in my mind before these days.

I kept the majority of my coins as well as my notes in this room, though, because I was definitely going to come back. The money I was taking with me was just in case I could bribe someone into giving me a lot of food, and the orb staff was, of course, for last minute instinctive self defense.

Opening the door for the first time since I found this room, I went outside after making sure no one was around. I closed the door behind me as I walked to the right, away from the room that had the “back door entrance” to the dungeon, because I didn’t check through these rooms yet. Most rooms were again storage rooms for useless things like clothes and blankets and stuff. In some rooms I found some more money, which was always a nice bonus. In other rooms I found some antiques and stuff, which was pretty cool, but I didn’t care about those too much so I left. Finally, in the room right next to the large open stairway going both up and down, there was a freshly stocked food storage! It made sense, I guess. This was probably for the servants, just like most of the storage spaces on this wing, or at least floor, since I’ve never went up or down yet.

And it seems like I won’t have to, for a while, I thought happily, fitting as many of the fruits, nuts, and other not-really-food but still maybe useful things like straw into my bag as I can without arousing suspicion before turning to leave. I was just whistling a tune from the folk song “Only a Stranger” from my hometown when I bumped headfirst into someone walking into the room!

Ffffffffuck! I thought. My heart leapt up to my neck. For all my various accomplishments, anything social was most definitely not one of them, and I knew that if I didn’t handle this situation the right way, then I could be in serious trouble

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I looked up and saw a cute young maid, with long black hair and green eyes. My face reddened and I opened my mouth to say something but I couldn’t get anything out…

Don’t get me wrong. I can normally at least hold a conversation, but when cute girls are in the picture, it’s a completely different story.

I guess she misunderstood my actions, because she said “Aw, are you embarrassed that you’re taking more than your ration because that technically doesn’t go against the Oath? Haha, it’s okay, we all do that sometimes. Don’t tell anyone I told you though. So, what got a young man like yourself swearing an Oath to the Galamon to serve them? My parents made me do it a couple years ago, but I’ve only seen you around now and it seems like you would have stuck out to me if I saw you before. You just started, didn’t you?”

She talked so fast and at such a melodious pitch that I didn’t even have to look at her ears to know that she was an Elf. But I did and they were, indeed, elven ears. But I quickly reigned in my thoughts at her expectant look and answered her.

“Um, yeah. Yeah, I started, like, a couple days ago. Why become a servant and take the Oath? Oh, haha. You know, the usual. Security, stability, stuff like that, haha,” I said, probably still with a red face. I kept my answer as vague as possible because I wanted her to get bored and leave so I didn’t have to keep lying to this young, innocent, and beautiful person.

Unfortunately, it seemed that my vague answer only interested her more. “Oooh, mysterious, huh? I like that,” she answered in a sultry voice, smiling and bringing her finger up to my face, lightly trailing down my cheek.

Nope! Not innocent! What the hell! I have to run right now! I thought. In desperation, I interrupted her right there and said with a cheeky grin “Why, it seems that I have to go to the bathroom, really bad, right now. Nice knowing you. Goodbye!” I called before running past her to the right, because I didn’t want her to follow my trail to the mage room under any possible circumstance. I sucked in a breath. That was a close call! Never want to see her again, no matter how cute she is! I thought.

I heard her voice ringing from behind me, laughing her head off while calling out to me, “Wait! Haha, did I scare you away? I’m Selza, by the way. Until we meet again!”

I snorted under my breath, “As if!” as I ran until a turn of the hallway, where I slowed down and cursed. There were many servants walking around the far end of this part of the hallway, and a man with much higher class clothing was also ordering some of them to do things, like “You set the table now” and “My father needs a nurse, you go help him.” I could hear him from here because of his loud commanding voice coupled with the echo in the hallway.

Shit! An actual Galamon? I go out of my Mage room for one day! One day! And I’m running into servants and Galamons here and there! I thought angrily as I ran back the way I came. Selza would be preferable to this! I didn’t see the Galamon notice me so I think that was a possible crisis averted.

When I actually reached the staircase near the room where I met Selza, I saw a maid walking away along the path that follows from going down the stairs. Yes!!! She left without seeing me come back this way, I thought. That’s one immediate problem solved, I guess.

I all but ran to the Mage room, jumped inside, and locked the door behind me. Taking many deep breaths, I leaned on the door with both arms, stabilizing myself before plodding over to the bed and immediately lying down.

Well, I never want to deal with this kind of situation again, I thought. My last thought before allowing sleep to take me away was that I actually need a good plan the next time I have to do this.