“Can you walk?” Sam asks after addressing Charlie’s wounds.

“I think so…” Charlie tries to stand up with Sam’s help but almost immediately collapses.

“She’s still too weak - we’re going to have to put her on a stretcher.” Sam concludes and takes out a foldable stretcher from her bag.

“Do you want to help Sam, Amicia?” Élise asks me.

“Definitely.” I help put Charlie on the stretcher.

“So, how are we heading back?” Nikki walks over to Hilda who is keeping a vigilant watch over the hallway.

“I’d like to take a different route than where we came from. Some bandits might still have been on patrol and it’s best to not go back the way we came.” Hilda replies.

“Getting away being the priority before heading back, roger that.”

Hilda nods. “We also need to find a place to spend the night, I doubt we will get back in time.”

“Alright.” Élise collects her machine gun and walks over to me and Sam. “Are you girls ready?”

Both me and Sam give her a nod.

“You’ll be home now in no-time.” She smiles at Charlie.

“Th-thanks for saving me.”

“No problem.” Élise stays close to us while we start carrying Charlie towards the bottom floor, with Hilda leading the way.

“Let’s exit through the back of the compound - with the keys from the guard we should be

able to open up everything.”

We don’t encounter any resistance as we slowly make our way out of the camp into the overgrown ruins. I keep my ears on alert but apart from a couple of birds the environment is eerily quiet, making sure I don’t stumble on a rock.

“How long have you two been together?” Charlie suddenly breaks the silence.

“Who, us?” Sam asks.

“Mhmm.”

“Not that long actually, but we really clicked well right from the beginning. Why are you asking?”

“The reason I was on that caravan wasn’t only to go and see my dad…”

“Oh, you have a partner there?”

“N-not yet. Hopefully soon. They are really nice and I wanted to ask them out when I arrived but now I get really nervous about it. After all, they probably think I am dead…”

“That’s a difficult situation, but I think that it’ll all turn out okay.”

“Is she always that optimistic?” Charlie looks up to me.

“Pretty much, but that’s one of the things I like so much about her. She’s like a safe harbour when it’s storming outside. Always there to calm me down and keep me safe.” I answer.

“Wow, that was pretty poetic of you, sis.” My sister gasps.

“I know right.” Sam chimes in.

Charlie laughs, making her wince with pain a little bit. “You two seem like a nice couple.”

“Thanks, do you want to hear the story of when Sam first saw me?” I ask her.

“Nononono, that’s super embarrassing, please don’t sweetie.” Sam is almost jumping in protest.

“Oh, I would love to hear it.” Charlie replies.

“Ah ye, that was super cute.” Élise giggles.

“So, me, my sister and Nikki went shopping…”

“Noooooo!” Sam tries to stop me with all her cuteness but to no avail.

“Oh my Goddess, that’s so dorky.” Charlie laughs after hearing the story but coughs immediately after.

“Hey hey, take it easy, ok?” Sam dictates, but her voice betrays how flustered she is.

“It was definitely a bit dorky, but she is so cute when she acts like that, even back then I already thought she was a major cutie.” I giggle along with Charlie.

“That being said, Amicia is just as, even more dorky than Sam.” My sister chimes in.

“Definitely.” Nikki agrees.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“It makes them such a good match for a couple.” Hilda adds in as well.

“Et tu, Hilda?” I pout.

“Good usage of the quote kitten. Good girl.”

“I know some history.” I pout again, my cheeks glowing a bit red because I love being called a good girl.

-Everyone does, right?-

“Huh, I never heard that one.” Charlie remarks.

“Ah, it’s just a local thing, don’t worry about it.” Hilda waves her remark away.

-Ah yeah, these people have a different history than ours.-

We all chat with each other for a bit longer before Hilda suddenly speeds up a little and moves away from our course..

“No way, it can’t be right…” She stops at a building quite a bit further away, hidden behind a lot of overgrowth.

“I think we just hit the jackpot, girls.” She says over the headset.

“What did you find?” Élise asks, curiosity filling her voice.

“I think the game devs based this area on Japan, because this definitely is a ryokan.”

“Really!?” Sam cries out.

“A whatwhat?” I tilt my head and look confusedly at my girlfriend.

“A ryokan,” Sam repeats. “It’s a traditional Japanese inn, they often have some kind of hot spring as well.”

“Oh, that’s what they are called.”

“Mhmm.” Hilda hums through the headset. “I’ll go check the inside, wait here for a bit.” We see her disappear in the ryokan.

“So, how’s it looking?” Nikki calls out to our leader.

“It looks really intact for having been abandoned for this long. Apart from some of the dust it doesn’t feel like this has been empty at all.”

“And what about the onsen?” Sam is clearly pretty enthusiastic.

“Still looking.” We hear the sound of a door sliding open through Hilda’s headset. “Wait. I think I’ve found it.”

“Aaaand!?” Sam is getting really really enthusiastic.

“Ladies, we’ve got ourselves a hot spring.”

“Yeeeeeesss!” Sam yells out.

“This room even looks clean, maybe it was designed to look like this, but what do you say, do we camp here for the night?”

“Sounds good for me.” Élise comments.

“Yes! Onsen also are rumoured to have a healing ability so it might be good for Charlie’s recovery as well!” Sam is almost jumping up and down.

“Alright then, let’s do it, otherwise Sam might be very very sad.” I sigh, secretly being pretty enthusiastic about it too.

“Exactly!” Sam already starts marching towards the door.

“Hey, easy! Charlie is still on here.” I almost stumble with the stretcher in my hands.

“Oh, right, sorry Charlie.”

“Thanks for reminding her Amicia.” Charlie looks up to me and smiles. “Is that where we are camping?”

“Yep, apparently it has a hot spring.”

“Wow! I heard those were popular before the catastrophe but I’ve never seen one before!”

“Then it’ll be a first for the both of us.” I smile back at her.

“So the hot spring is this onsen thing Sam mentioned?”

“Yep.”

“And it has healing properties?”

Sam looks over her shoulder and nods. “They are rumoured to do so.”

“Are you sure I can enter the bath with my wounds?” Just when she says that Charlie winces a bit in pain.

“I’ll look at them in a bit, but they should’ve healed up enough already. Where do you still feel pain?” We enter the ryokan, Élise holding the door open for us. And put the stretcher down near a bunch of old blankets.

“Mainly my shoulder, the rest of the pain has mostly disappeared.”

“Allright, let me take a look.”

While Sam is busy with Charlie I walk around a bit through the building. Just like Hilda said it is in a remarkably good state. The ryokan feels like it was just left here and nothing touched it for a very long time.

“Amicia, come look at this.” Hilda pokes her head around the corner and motions me over.

“What is it?”

“Just come over.” she quickly disappears around the corner again.

I decide to follow her and see what’s up. Hilda has entered one of the side rooms of the ryokan and is looking at something in the center of the room.

“Look at this!” She points at a set of samurai armour.

“Wow! That’s pretty neat, is it real?” I walk over together with Hilda and inspect it a bit closer.

“Well technically it’s digital.”

“I know that you nerd.” I laugh. “You know what I mean.”

She inspects a couple of the armour parts a bit more closely, together with the katana that is set up on the wall behind it.

“In our world I would definitely call this genuine.” She takes the katana of the wall and slides it out of its scabbard.

“Can I hold it?”

“Sure thing.” She goes ahead and hands me the katana.

“It feels really balanced.” I do a couple of practice swings. “Such a nice blade as well.”

“Well, there’s a reason why they are so popular.” Hilda smiles as I hand the sword back over to her and she places it back on the wall.

“Do you think they made a copy of our world for this game?” I ask while sitting down on a nearby chair, looking at a couple of papers strewn around the place.

“They might have. Although there are definitely some parts which feel a bit muddled.” Hilda does the same and starts looking in a couple of drawers.

“How so?”

“Sometimes it just feels like it’s a mix of countries thrown in together. Architecture that changes from building to building, no clear system to what is where and why. Like this place, it’s just weird finding this outside of Japan. These are not merely hot baths, it’s a hot spring, and Japan is one of the places that make that possible by its geography and tectonic situation.”

“Games be games I guess?”

Hilda laughs. “Yeah that is probably it, but immersion-wise it does take me a little bit out of it. Well, at least we can take advantage of it, now that it’s here anyway.”

“Immersion breaking hot spring for the win!”

“Exactly.” Hilda smiles while closing the drawer and heads back towards the main room to

Sam and Charlie.

I closely follow in her wake, mentally preparing myself to get soaked in nice warm water.

-Kitty cat go mew-