I was summoned to another world. Frankly, I feel like this is a clichéd plot development, but it is what it is.

  How do I know it’s not a dream? Simple, I have never had a lucid dream. Ever.

  I could be insane though.

  You might ask yourself how I got into this situation. In fact, I myself have wondered quite a bit about that.

  The incident, as we shall call it, was initiated in my Biology class. Or rather, I was sitting in Bio with the other twenty-six students and one teacher, when everything became bright. Like, the bright, fade to white transition effect.

  There was a faint moment of a not-very-comfortable sensation, and now here I am, in the middle of what, if I am correct, is some large marble throne room. I look around a bit, subtly turning my head to take in the surrounding.

  The person whom I assume is the king is sitting on the throne, and a beautiful girl with gently waving blond hair and warm jade eyes, dressed in the classic ‘princess’ style, is standing beside it.

  If we’re going by the typical template here, this princess should have been the one to summon us through great effort using magic inherent only to royals. On her fathers orders, of course.

  Also going by the template, if we assume I’m the main character, then she will join my harem along with my three friends from my class, while I, being a blockhead, fail to notice any of my friends or the princess’s feelings.

  I’m female though.

  As this runs through my head, the princess, looking beautifully tired, steps forward at the same time one of my classmates lets out a ringing shout.

  I turn to the sound, and notice that the commotion gets louder, with various people yelling inarticulately, swearing, and a few people vomiting.

  Lovely.

  I myself have to force down my rising gorge when I see the reason for the commotion. I don’t think of myself as a squeamish person, but this warrants it. I’m actually surprised at how mild my reaction is.

  Hmmm…emotional deadening?

  Anyways……..my teacher, or rather, what’s left of him, is a rather gruesome sight. Try to imagine, if you will, what a person who melted would look like. And not wicked witch of the west; a legitimate, horror story, graphic collapse of various body parts.

  This is new.

  I’m somewhat disturbed by my lack of emotional response, and I quickly decide that discovering what else has changed in me is of utmost priority.

  “Please, everyone calm down.” The princess says. “Why don’t we talk in another room?”

  Obviously I’m not the only emotionally desensitized person here.

  The class turns its attention to her, and in general consensus, we allow ourselves to be shuffled out of the room, though I believe most of us are in shock. In any case, we have no idea where we are, and no one wants to be near the teacher, so following her is the only thing we can do.

  We are lead to a large room not too far from the throne room. While we don’t cling to each other, we do stay close, sticking to the centre of the room. The princess, I notice, is facing our little huddle from a couple of meters away, and while her guards aren’t surrounding her, they are close by and ready looking.

  “You might be wondering what just happened,” the princess starts off, “and I assure you I will answer all your questions to my greatest ability.”

  “I am Eleanor Rose Rotelessa, the first princess of this country. I summoned you here because humanity is currently losing the fight against the demons-”

  I tune out of what she’s saying. So far, the clichéd plotline has smoothly appeared, but what was that with the teacher?

  From what I gather, we, the ‘summoned heroes’, will each have a super powered ability, along with way higher base stats than most people. We can see them by saying ‘status’ in our minds.

  

  Name: Amaranthe Winter

  Race: Human (corrupted file)

  Age: 17

  Sex: Female

  Title: ??? (corrupted file)

  Strength: ??? (corrupted file)

  Agility: ??? (corrupted file)

  Vitality: ??? (corrupted file)

  Endurance: ??? (corrupted file)

  Magic Power: ??? (corrupted file)

  Magic Resistance: ??? (corrupted file)

  Skill: Enhanced Processing

  ……………what the fuck.

  First of all, my name is not Amaranthe Winter. My name is very ordinary, it’s…I can’t remember what it is. But it is a normal name, I’m sure of it. Not this name.

  Beyond that, why is human a corrupted file? And what am I, a computer? I don’t have files in the first place, corrupted or otherwise.

  The status appears to be both useless and confusing.

  “-and so, we need your help, heroes.” The princess finishes.

  “Umm…” a girl speaks up after a moment of silence, “What about our teacher?”

  “Ah, I am very truly sorry about that. The summoning magic only works with those who are not yet fully developed.” The princess says, her pale, pretty face looking terribly sad.

  The girl nods, the class nods, and just like that, he is forgotten. To be fair, he was one of those teachers who you don’t really hate, but don’t really like at the same time. Still, we witnessed his death first hand. I would have expected more of…well, something.

  The class huddles together to discuss this.

  “I say we go with it,” one of the boys says. “We’re stronger than most people here anyways, and they’ll train us.”

  The class murmurs in agreement.

  I, of course, have no intention of helping fight a war that has nothing to do with me. But I doubt that they’ll just send me on my merry way, so for now I’ll play along.

  “As we are also humans, it is our duty to help save our race. We will help you.” Dramatically announcing the summary of our mini meeting, random guy seems to have gained quite the ego boost.

  After assuring us of her undying gratefulness, the princess motions to her guards, one of which leaves and comes back with some palace servant who leads us to our rooms.

  We each have our own room, with a bathroom attached, thank goodness. My memories aren’t too clear, but I know I’m not close to anyone in the class, so I’m thankful I don’t have to share a room with anyone. It will make it easier when it comes time to escape.

  I might be overthinking things, but I doubt it.

  Incidentally, I can’t remember any of my classmates’ names. I’m not sure if this is by design, or just a random side effect of the summoning. But my memories’ fuzziness and the emotional deadening are a bit too convenient for the people here, so I believe it was deliberate.

  In any case, the room is nice. It even has a balcony with glass doors overlooking the front courtyard, although it’s too high up to escape from. They are probably trying to win us over with luxury.

  We were told that it will be dinnertime in about two hours, and that the same palace servant who brought us to our room will collect us and bring us to the informal dining hall.

  I decide to look in the mirror, just to check. I doubt anything has changed, but as I stated, finding what has changed is top priority. Even if it means checking unlikely places.

  The most likely place for a full-length mirror is the closet, empty though it might be, so I walk over to it and open it up. Sure enough, there is one, or rather, the back of the closet door is one big mirror.

  I look at myself closely, but it doesn’t seem like anything has changed. I have the same old dark brown, waist-length French braid, pale skin, and dark brown eyes ringed by black lashes. Perhaps a boring color scheme, but a familiar one. I’m still five-five, still fit but not athletic. I consider myself in the mirror a moment longer. I’m wearing a large black knit sweater like a shirt, dark jeans, and black sneakers. Belatedly, looking at my clothes, I remember my phone in my pocket, and I close the closet door as I pull it out.

  I’m hoping that I can still use the camera, but no such luck; the phone is completely scrambled. Obviously technology doesn’t like summoning magic. I turn it off, resolving to see if I can find information on summoning in the library. Then I wonder if I can read the books there. This is another world after all.

  …Actually, isn’t it odd that my classmates and I understood what the people here were saying? I suppose unconscious translation is another change the summoning magic has imposed upon us. I can only hope it works for reading and writing.

  But for now, having verified my physical changes, or non-changes in this case, I guess I’ll look at my status again. I bring it up in my minds eye again; unsurprisingly, it looks the same.

  I imagine clicking on my skill.

  

  
  error.corruption

  …

  All available sub skills chosen:

  System

  Tactician

  All available sub skills chosen

  Strategist

  All available sub skills chosen

  Magic Master

  All available sub skills chosen

  Martial Master

  All available sub skills chosen

  Master of the Mind

  All available sub skills chosen

  Artist

  All available sub skills chosen

  Crafter

  All available sub skills chosen

  Mechanic

  All available sub skills chosen

  Inventor

  All available sub skills chosen>

  …It seems that this corruption thing is working in my favour. I wonder if my classmates have it as well? Probably. I suspect it is an unintended consequence of summoning.

  I decide to see what the sub skills entail, so I envision clicking on the ‘Martial Master’ sub skill.

  What pops up is a ‘skill unavailable at present time’.

  …okay.

  I try the others, but I end up with the same result.

  What’s the point of having all the skills if I can’t use them?

  With trepidation, I press ‘System’.

  
  Sub Skill opening

  overload data

  shutting down skill

  error.corruption.override

  skill cannot be shut down

  shutting down body

  body shutdown successful>

  I black out.

  I awaken to a knocking sound, only to find myself crumpled on the floor. I assess myself for damages, but it seems like I was lucky.

  I will have to find more information about before opening it again.

  The knocking sound that woke me comes again, and I realize belatedly that it must be the palace servant getting me for dinner.

  I rise, straighten my clothing, hover indecisively for a second, then put my phone at the back of the drawer beside the bed; there’s no point carrying it around. I make sure that it’s unnoticeable though; sometimes, my penchant for black comes in handy.

  I open the door to find about half my classmates standing behind the palace servant. I join them as I close my door behind me, and we all shuffle behind the palace servant as he continues knocking on doors.

  Eventually all of us are out, and we are lead to the dining hall. It’s big, even if it is the informal dining hall. We are told that the king and the princess will meet us after dinner, and as we sit down around one large table, servers come out with large amounts of food on plates. They set the dishes down in the middle of the table, and it is only then that I realize how hungry I am.

  I reach for the food, piling my plate high with slices of rare meat, bread, and what looks like broccolini; they’re serving it to us, so I assume it’s fine.

  The food is good, if simple, and we tear into it. It has been a long day, and it’s not over yet.

  The classmates on either side of me are also digging in, and I take a moment to study them. To my left sits a girl with fluffy, curly, light brown shoulder length hair, and delicate purple glasses over milk chocolate eyes set in a pretty face. She’s wearing a sky blue blouse over faded jeans.

  To my right sits a boy with hair closer in color to mine, though mine is a touch lighter. His eyes are bottle green, and he’s wearing a plain black t-shirt over dark jeans.

  He seems to notice my gaze and looks up, and I note in surprise that he has a small scar above his right eyebrow. He raises his left eyebrow, then turns away and continues eating.

  I turn my gaze around the table. Most people are sittings with friends, or rather in their friend groups. The two beside me and I appear to be the only ones not in a group. It’s not, I’m sure, that we don’t have friends. Speaking for myself, I am the only one of my friends who takes biology, and I’ve never felt the need to actively become close with any of the people who are in it. I suspect the two beside me are in the same situation.

  I finish my food quickly, and then, bored, I take to studying the person across from me. It takes much less time to eat when you’re not talking.

  The person across from me isn’t very interesting, but what I do gather from her conversation with her friends is that they’ve quickly come to accept their new names. I suppose there’s not really much choice if you can’t remember your old one. They’re already calling each other by nicknames, though. There’s something to be said for adaptability.

  In which case, I suppose I’m Amaranthe Winter.

  I wonder if my classmates’ names are as weird as mine. I listen in again, focusing on the group across from me and letting my eyes slide out of focus.

  There’s a Rebecca, a Payne, a Moss, a Cerise, and a Coral. I feel like it’s my last name that makes it weird, though some of their names aren’t quite normal.

  I refocus and notice that my neighbours have finished eating as well. They are also looking at me. Not that I can complain, seeing as I was looking at them earlier.

  Seeing me notice them, the girl smiles at me and says, “I’m Wisteria”, holding out her hand.

  I shake it, replying “I’m Amaranthe”

  The boy snorts.

  I turn from the girl to smile and say, “Is something funny?” in the politest, most frost-coated voice I can come up with.

  “No, not at all.” He grins and holds out a hand.

  With some amount of reservation, I shake it as he says, “Forest.”

  I raise an eyebrow but decide not to comment.

  At that moment, a guard comes in and announces that he’ll bring us to see the king and the princess to sort out statuses and what we should be doing.

  We all rise and follow him. As we walk, I whisper to Wisteria, asking if I can see her status. She looks at me for a moment before nodding and opening it for me to see.

  

  Name: Wisteria Oak

  Race: Human

  Age:17

  Sex: Female

  Title: Summoned Hero

  Strength: 2000

  Agility: 5000

  Vitality: 2000

  Endurance: 1000

  Magic Power: 35000

  Magic Resistance: 25000

  Skill: Master of Earth Magic

  Sub Skills: hidden

  I nod. I have no idea what the average stats are for people here, but since she’s a hero, I assume her stats are good. However, this means that my status is most likely unusual. Not good.

  “Can I see yours?” Wisteria asks politely, and I swear in my head. I really do NOT want to show anyone my status.

   skill subset ?> a monotone thought crosses my brain, which I’m pretty sure did not originate from me. I will think about this later, but for now I think yes. Thus,

  

  Name: Amaranthe Winter

  Race: Human (corrupted file)

  Age: 17

  Sex: Female

  Title: ??? (corrupted file)

  Strength: ??? (corrupted file)

  Agility: ??? (corrupted file)

  Vitality: ??? (corrupted file)

  Endurance: ??? (corrupted file)

  Magic Power: ??? (corrupted file)

  Magic Resistance: ??? (corrupted file)

  Skill: Enhanced Processing

  Sub Skills: System

  Tactician

  Strategist

  Magic Master

  Martial Master

  Master of the Mind

  Artist

  Crafter

  Mechanic

  Inventor

  Changes to

  

  Name: Amaranthe Winter

  Race: Human

  Age: 17

  Sex: Female

  Title: Summoned Hero

  Strength: 1000

  Agility: 2000

  Vitality: 3000

  Endurance: 2000

  Magic Power: 45000

  Magic Resistance: 17000

  Skill: Enhanced Processing

  Sub Skills: Master of Air Magic

  .

  I show Wisteria, and she nods. Just like I couldn’t see her sub skills, she can’t see mine, but I changed them just in case someone else can. One can never be too careful.

  Wisteria then asks Forest, showing him hers and prompting me to show mine. Forest’s status looks like this:

  

  Name: Forest Snow

  Race: Human

  Age: 17

  Sex: Male

  Title: Summoned Hero

  Strength: 25000

  Agility: 20000

  Vitality: 10000

  Endurance: 13000

  Magic Power: 1000

  Magic Resistance: 1000

  Skill: Master of Swords

  Sub Skills: hidden

  When we finish that, we walk the rest of the way in silence; I’m lost in my thoughts, and from what I can tell, Wisteria is thinking and Forest is naturally quiet.

  I’m divided, honestly; on one hand, I don’t want to abandon my recently made allies. But if I choose to stick with them, escaping becomes much harder. Of course, if they want to be heroes, I’ll leave without a second thought. I have a feeling, however, that their feelings are more in line with me than the would-be heroes.

  As I ponder how to bring up escape with them, because of course it’s hard to trust people you’ve basically just met, we are brought into the courtyard where the king and princess are standing with a few others.

  After the king gives a speech to the effect of ‘I’m very thankful you are willing to fight for humanity’, he leaves, and the princess takes over.

  “I would like you to sort yourselves into three group; those with magic skills, those with fighting skills, and those whose skills are a mixture of both.”

  I suppose that with my original status, I would be in the ‘both’ group, although I believe it would have depended on what sub skill I chose. I ended getting them all though.

  With my new and (kind of) improved status, I can now firmly say I belong to the magic group, so Wisteria and I walk over to an indistinct gathering of people who seem to be the right group while Forest walks in the opposite direction, presumably to join the fighting group.

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  When we have more or less divided ourselves evenly, it’s fairly obvious that people whose skills involve both magic and fighting are in the extreme minority. Their small group is flanked on both sides by the relatively larger fighting and magic groups.

  “Well, now that that's done, I’ll introduce you to your teachers. This is the Knight Captain of the 1st division, Cain Frost.” She gestures to a pretty, tough looking blond woman with a sword at her hip. “This,” and she gestures to an unobtrusive brown haired, brown eyed man, “is my fathers best magician, Elias Gray.” Then she points at this flashy looking guy with red hair, piercings, and a long sword at his hip and says, “This is the man who is known as the best magic swordsman in the Adventurers Guild, Leon Pine.”

  So there’s an Adventurers Guild. Another cliché, but important information none the less. I store it away for later.

  I switch my gaze to look at my new teacher. Is it better to stay for a bit and learn here, or escape as soon as possible? My instincts are telling me to leave, but what am I going to do if I do leave? In any case, I need to visit the library and get more information on this world and on my abnormal status, so I’ll be here until then, unless something unexpected happens.

  He smiles at us; it’s not welcoming, though it’s not exactly unwelcoming either. It’s more of an ‘I have better things to do than teach brats, but I’ll do my job properly’ smile.

  He looks like he’s around thirty, and like I said before, unobtrusive. The sort of person you wouldn’t really notice if he wasn’t pointed out to you.

  “Okay, I guess I’ll start by looking at your statuses. I have no idea what to expect, and I can't teach if I don’t know. You,” he points at a girl, “Come up here and show me your status.”

  She walks up to him nervously, and shows him. Obviously, I can’t see her status, as she only showed it to him, but I can see how his face scrunches up, just a bit. He nods, tells her to go back.

  “Right, I’ll show you guys my status, without the skills, to show you how your stats are different from most people. Keep in mind that I’m considered one of the strongest magicians in this country.”

  Finally, a base line. Now I can see how abnormal we are.

  

  Name: Elias Gray

  Race: Human

  Age: 31

  Sex: Male

  Title: King’s Magician, hidden

  Strength: 341

  Agility: 453

  Vitality: 356

  Endurance: 308

  Magic Power: 4785

  Magic Resistance: 5510

  …So basically, we have an extra zero, although it looks like he built up his fighting stats a bit. That, or our stats are very unbalanced.

  “By the way”, he continues, “an average person will have stats around the 100 mark. An average adventurer will have around 150 to 200 for the stats they don’t specialize in, and 1000 to 2500 for the ones they do specialize in. The fighters tend to have lower individual stats, but the total will be around the same, since magicians really only have magic power, unless they’re fighters as well.”

  Basically, he built up his stats, but ours are also unbalanced.

  It seems that he’s actually pretty overpowered himself. I do have a question I’ve been thinking about for a while, however. If we suddenly have so much strength, then why haven’t we been impacted by it? When I took out my phone earlier, it felt like the same action I’ve been repeating my whole life. But I had a sudden strength gain; it definitely shouldn’t have gone that smoothly.

  Well, I’ll ask later, I guess. I doubt it actually matters.

  The rest of the time was spent as each person went up and showed him their status, evidently to get more specialized teachers for us.

  When it was my turn, I dutifully showed my status.

  “Enhanced Processing?” he frowned and looked at me.

  I shrugged, feeling some disappointment, though I hadn’t really expected him to know.

  “Well, since your sub skill is Master of Air Magic, it shouldn’t really be a problem.” He frowned again. “Where are the skills for your sub skills?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t use the skill.”

  “That’s because the overarching skills are passive, they come into play when you learn the skills under them. You should have some.”

  I shrug, helpless. I don’t have what I don’t have. Then I come to a realization.

  “What if Enhanced Processing just means I can learn faster, but the skills have to come from an outside source?” I say at the same time he says, “I suspect that your skill means you have to learn from an outside source. You’ll probably learn faster than others once you acquire the skills though.”

  His eyebrows flick up in surprise, but other than that, neither of us reacts to speaking at the same time.

  “Luckily, I’m an Air mage, so I’ll be teaching you.”

  With that, I go back as Wisteria walks up.

  I don’t know whether this is lucky or not.

  After he’s seen all our statuses, and helped pick sub skills for those who hadn’t, he leaves with the other teachers. Apparently, tomorrow he’ll be giving us all a crash course on basic magic while the princess contacts the specialized teachers.

  It’s pretty late; the sky has darkened. It’s not pitch black, but dusk has set in. Somewhere along the way, the princess left, and now we’re just standing around in the courtyard. Interestingly enough, we seem to be sticking to the lesson groups.

  The magic group appears to be congregating around one of our classmates, a pretty girl with long black hair, nut-brown skin, and dark eyes. Why, I don’t know.

  I look at Wisteria, who came back to stand beside me, but she looks just as lost as I am, so I poke the guy standing nearest to me. I actually have to walk over to reach him, though.

  “What?” he turns around irritably.

  “Why is everyone excited?” I ask, only at this point wondering if I even care.

  “Her skill is Master of Magic!” he says, half excited about it, half irritated by me.

  …Okay?

  My face must look as blank as it feels, because he snorts, apparently disgusted by my stupidity.

  “Look,” he says, “We all have skills like Master of Fire Magic and stuff, right?” Not waiting for a response, he continues, “So she has Master of Fire Magic as a sub skill, which means she can learn all of fire magic, instead of just one branch of it.”

  Despite being obviously annoyed, he still explains it properly. I nod obediently, and he goes back to whatever he was doing before I poked him.

  “…Is that amazing?” Wisteria asks me.

  I shrug. “Who knows? I have no idea how the magic system even works. They didn’t exactly explain it clearly.”

  If it is amazing, then I guess I’m amazing as well. The idea is somehow amusing to me.

  We stand in silence for a moment before Wisteria says, “Should we go meet Forest?”

  I shrug. It seems to have been decided that we’re a group, though I can count the number of words Forest has said to me on one hand, and the random guy I just poked had a longer conversation with me than I have had with either Forest or Wisteria.

  Although I suppose they are the people who have stood closest to me since we came here, if that means anything.

  We walk over to the fighters group casually, treading a semicircle around the ‘both’ group, who are all talking very excitedly to one another.

  I try to see Forest, but I can’t find him, even though it shouldn’t be that hard. I shake my head in annoyance; there’re only eleven people in the group, surely finding one person among them is within my capabilities.

  “Ah” Wisteria says, and I stop and look at her.

  “I found Forest.”

  “Where?”

  “I’m right here.” I jump a bit at the voice that comes from my left. He sounds half amused and half irritated.

  I frown at him. If it wasn’t dusk, I would have seen him. Probably.

  We stand in an awkward triangle for a few moments. In the first place, we never became friends in class, so even though we’ve kind formed an alliance, we don’t know what to talk about.

  I look around. We’re in a kind of conspicuous place; a little off to the side, partway in-between the magic and fighting groups, but also not part of the both group.

  Wisteria evidently realises this too, as she says, “For now, why don’t we go stand over there, by the trees?”

  Forest and I agree, and we walk over to the few trees.

  I huff in laughter at a sudden thought, and Wisteria turns to me in question. Forest, obviously too lazy to turn his head, slides his eyes sideways at me.

  “Ah, no, well” I say, but it’s kind of embarrassing.

  Forest raises an eyebrow at me.

  “If they look for you,” I say to Forest, “they won’t be able to see the forest for the trees.”

  Well, it was more of a mutter, but whatever.

  He snorts, and Wisteria giggles. I will myself not to blush.

  At that moment, the princess chooses to reappear. I’m not sure whether to be thankful or not.

  She tells us that servants will be getting us up for breakfast, an hour after sunrise, and that we are welcome to any of the palace facilities. If we need anything, we just need to ask a servant to bring us there.

  Yes to the library, thanks.

  We are then brought back to our rooms. Before we separate, Wisteria grabs my arm and says, “Come to my room at sunrise.” Surprised, I nod, and she does the same thing to Forest, who raises his eyebrow but agrees anyways.

  I hesitate for a moment, then decide not to enter my room right away. Instead, I go in search for someone to tell me what they did with the teacher’s body.

  I didn’t really like him, true. But I like whatever this emotional numbing is even less. We all seem to have forgotten that we watched someone die some hours ago. I frown and increase my efforts.

  When I finally find a maid who knows, she pales drastically…and then throws up. On me. Mostly on the floor, but some did get on me.

  She freaks out.

  “I am so sorry miss.” She’s on the floor, pale, trembling, almost crying, and in front of a pile of her own vomit.

  This is not going well.

  “Well, for now, will you stand up, please?” I’m trying to be gentle, truly I am, but the vexation, of the day and the vomit now splattered on me, is in my voice. She pales even more.

  She jerks to her feet but keeps her head bowed.

  “Why don’t we have someone come clean this up?” I say, gently this time. I would normally just get angrier the more a person acts scared; but in this case, she probably has a legitimate reason to be scared, and realizing that, I soften.

  She trembles more.

  “Is there a bathing room I can use?” I ask.

  She nods quickly.

  I hesitate to ask this, but… “Are there clothes I can borrow?”

  This time, she nods hesitantly. “There are…I’m not sure that they are to your liking.”

  I smile wryly. “Anything other than this is fine.”

  She goes stiff.

  “I’m not mad, so you don’t have to be so frightened. Anyways, will you take me to the bathing room, please?”

  She nods, and says “If you don’t mind, I’ll wash your clothes while you’re in the bath.”

  “Thank you, that would be wonderful.”

  We walk further down the hall, and when we pass another maid, I say, “I’m terribly sorry for this, but I was sick, in the hallway there,” looking perfectly embarrassed. Well, being covered in vomit is embarrassing regardless of whose it is; though I’d much prefer it to be my own, if it were to happen anyways.

  After a few twists and turns, we come across the bathing rooms. I could have taken a bath in my room, but honestly, I don’t even want to go near it like this.

  Then I realize, “Is the bath even going to be open?” If we were on earth, it would be around ten at night.

  “Yes, it’s open at all times. Magic crystals keep the bath water clean and hot all the time, so there’s no need to close it.”

  “I see.”

  I go through the women’s door to find change rooms, of a sort. I immediately strip, handing all my clothing to the maid. Actually…

  “What’s your name?”

  She looks a bit spooked, but answers me anyways. “I’m…Sanda.”

  “I see…I’m Amaranthe Winter. Pleased to meet you.”

  As I smile, I realise that it would have made more sense to do this while I wasn’t naked. It’s a bit late for that, though.

  I nod, then point to my bra. “Do you have…delicate wash?” I’m not really sure what they would call it here, but I think I got the point across.

  She nods, then says “We don’t have anything like this for you to wear now though.”

  I wave it off, saying, “I’ll wear whatever you have.”

  She nods and leaves the change room, presumably to wash my clothes.

  I turn to find soap and shampoo. My hair’s still clean, but since I’m bathing anyways…

  I sincerely hope they have deodorant in this world. I just thought of it, but for all our sakes, please. I don’t want to be around teenagers without deodorant. Heck, I don’t want to be around myself without deodorant. Not to mention the fighters, who will be working out…I shudder at the thought.

  Bath supplies, I remind myself. Bath supplies.

  I quickly find a shelf with orderly buckets filled with soap, shampoo, conditioner, skin stuff to wash off, skin stuff to put on when you get out, etc.

  It seems the palace people are really into this beauty thing. There are even different brands and scents, presumably so the ladies don’t have to carry their favourite shampoo to visit the public bath. It might as well be a store for bath supplies in here.

  I grab one of everything. Why not? I’m not allergic to anything, so what’s the worst that can happen?

  I can’t find anything unscented, so I go with lilac. I believe I read somewhere that it’s calming, but I like the smell well enough anyways.

  Putting my haul in a small basket, I move into the shower room.

  The faucet system is fairly straightforward, so before long, I have hot water raining down on me.

  I wash my body three times, for the psychological benefit of knowing that I’m entirely clean.

  Then I have to take my hair out. I slip the elastic around my wrist so that I won’t lose it, and work to undo the braid.

  I wash it with the shampoo, then apply conditioner and do my best to comb it with my fingers.

  I turn the tap off and the water stops. I wonder if the plumbing here is different…

  Sanda said that the bath part is still open, but I want to get some sleep if I’m getting up at sunrise tomorrow, so I guess I should hurry up at bit, though it’s useless if she’s not back with clothes for me.

  Turning the water back on, I wash the conditioner out of my hair, and regretfully turn the water off again.

  I pick up the basket of empty bottles and walk back into the change room, grabbing two towels from the neatly stacked shelves of towels. One towel for my hair, one towel for me.

  After I’m dry, and after I’ve gotten rid of the empty bottles and put the wet towels down a laundry chute, I wait for Sanda to come back with my clothes.

  I quickly grab another towel and wrap myself in it; no need to flash her twice.

  The door to the change room opens, and Sanda comes in with more than just clothes.

  I blink in surprise, but quickly go help her, putting most of the stuff on one of the benches in the room.

  “I thought you might need more than just clothes…” she says, and I note that the pile mostly consists of things like a toothbrush, toothpaste, and other essentials.

  “Thank you, that’s very helpful” I say honestly; I shudder at the thought of not having a toothbrush.

  “Umm…I’ll just wait outside,” she rushes the last bit, handing me the clothes and scooping up everything else before leaving.

  That's my cue to change, I suppose.

  The underwear is pretty much the same as mine, though the bra is…well, it needs some work. It’s really just a tube of fabric with fasteners. Oh well.

  There are actually two sets of clothes Sanda gave me; one looks like a nightdress, and the other is some sort of pants and tunic combination.

  For now, I decide to put on the real clothes, even though I’ll just change when I get to my room.

  The pants are black and made of a thick, flexible material. The tunic is sky blue, long, and exceedingly comfortable, as are the pants. Really, the only thing to complain about is the bra.

  There are even socks and boots, black of course. The boots are made of leather and have a thick sole that's pretty soft. I gave my sneakers to Sanda to wash, so I’m glad she remembered to bring shoes.

  I gather up the nightdress, and fill a basket with bottles of the same stuff I used in the shower today. I’ll want to shower in the morning.

  Pushing the door open, I re-join Sanda and we walk in silence to my room. I open then door and put the stuff Sanda brought in the bathroom, and I put the nightdress on the bed.

  Then I turn to her.

  “I can…bring you to where we buried him.” She says. She looks rather ill, but at least she’s not throwing up.

  I nod. “Please.”

  It’s a long walk, and the end result is a little patch of earth with no defining characteristics. I’m not even really sure why I’m here. If this was Earth, I don’t think I would have gone to his funeral.

  I stand there for a few minutes, shivering slightly.

  The day was pleasantly warm, but without the sun, it’s now chilly, and I have bare arms.

  I nod once, then turn to go. I’m not sure what that accomplished.

  Sanda leads me back to my room, and I thank her. She tells me she’ll drop off my clothes when they’re dry.

  I change into the nightdress, brush my teeth in a haze, yank open the balcony curtains, and fall into the bed.

  It has been a long day.