Chapter 27: Chapter. 27: Gearing up

I opened the door with a deep frown, picking up my things from the ground; my backpack and bags.

“You’re already tired of replying?” Ash asked with confusion.

I sighed. “Just leave me alone…”

Ash did not reply to me, but I didn’t care. She had been⁠— she had been teasing me about the whole tree lady ordeal for the past thirty or so minutes. And at this point I had had it, I didn’t want to listen to her stuff anymore! I was tired of her teasing for today.

I tiredly shook my head upon entering the house, what first greeted me was a large hall with arches and wooden flooring.

“Woa, quite fancy,” Ash commented. I almost rolled my eyes, but I did agree with her.

The long hall had chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, probably covering the length of the building; an arch on one side spanned the entirety of the hall. It led to a living room with a big window that enveloped the length of the wall. The inside of the room had couches, carpet and a coffee table, though there was also another rather peculiar piece of furniture present. A big box that reminded me of a counter, and a grassy green carpet filled its top with holes strategically placed at its edges and corners. Must be some sort of game.

The view of the window was akin to a forest, a myriad of trees and bushes filled the small scenery like a terrarium. I simply assumed it was the yard. Oh, and there was a TV.

The other side of the hall was split into multiple arches; two arches that had the same width as each other and the last one, half as wide. The first arch contained a room that Ash was more than happy to go into. The walls were a nice cream color and the cabinets an earthly brown, a modern stove and a huge fridge that accommodated for our desires⁠— it was the kitchen.

To be honest I had no desire to indulge in trying to find food, or existing in the living room. So I moved forth trying to see what the next arch was. Heavy disks filled the ground, complex geometrical constructs were strewn across the room with bars and things that just seemed generally heavy. I had heard of these before⁠— a gym?

I shook my head and ignored it. The house wasn’t actually that big⁠— it was much bigger than the apartment or the hotel room, but in comparison to my house it was… well not as big. if I wasn’t going crazy there was only one more room to visit. I headed to the next arch, it was much smaller than the last one. Upon entering, I saw a bedroom. There was no door, just a simple thick curtain for privacy, which I found rather odd.

There was a big curtain that covered what was probably a window, the light filtering from underneath shimmering like water. The room was a chilly and relaxing blue, and the pure air put me at ease. A king sized bed was at the center along with a nightstand and a television right next to the doorway. Upon further examination, it was quite nice.

I heard Ash’s footsteps come my way and eventually pause right outside the doorway. I turned to see her eating something I couldn’t quite make out.

“Oh, you’re claiming the room? Sure.” She nodded and went away, her footsteps going in the direction of the kitchen.

I sighed and set my bags on the ground, leaving my backpack at the foot of the bed I moved to sit on the fluffy sheets. I just had to calm down. Ash hadn’t been teasing me the entire time, but she did make it a point to be annoying about it, which was, well… annoying.

Taking my time I just laid on my bed. I felt odd. Raising my hand up high, I couldn’t help but stare at it, doubt settling on my mind. Was all this training making me stronger? I felt relatively directionless. Well there were things I wanted to do, such as helping Ash, but⁠—

I didn’t really know how to go about doing those things, right now I guess all I could do was train and maybe take breaks. Maybe? Everything just seemed so aimless, was anything even happening at the moment?

Ash was… Ash was a royal whose origin I couldn’t even tell. It never particularly bothered me, after meeting so many Grim Reapers or other Royal Lords it hardly mattered. Perhaps I should’ve kept asking questions to get answers. But in the end, I just didn’t want to. I liked Ash. Even if her perspective was different from mine, and even if she was mean at times I still liked her, and perhaps even felt connected to her.

Though I was unsure if that was due to disliking the Underworld as well…

I closed my hand and tried to use my aura; gray mist poured from my palm. If I had used it, perhaps everything would’ve been fine against the tentacle monster. However⁠— did I really want that? In retrospect, I hadn’t really done that much before that. And I still haven’t done that much.

I’ve learned new things. I’ve broadened my horizons. But there was still so much I didn’t know about the world, and there were also a lot of things I didn’t know of the Underworld as well. Wasn’t I practically ignorant?

Lowering my hand, I simply laid in silence. Not thinking about anything in particular. It was probably just another episode of self doubt, things were⁠ new to me. A lot of them were. And maybe it was because of it that I felt so down.

Maybe, I’ll just sleep.

◇ ◇ ◇

I had a headache. An awful one. The sun peeking over the buildings didn’t help either, instead it seemed to simply worsen it for whatever reason.

“Cheer up,” Ash nudged me with a flat smile.

“This is your fault.” I grumbled recalling how I was woken up.

I was literally shaken awake quite forcefully. To be honest, I felt as if I hadn’t slept at all. And my mood was down under, somewhere⁠— gone into the depths of the abyss. Taking a look around I had to make sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. I was sitting on a bench along with Ash. It was just a random bench on the sidewalk. In the end, I just went with my magical clothes since I had no time to think.

“Just try it, I even bought it for you,” Ash said with slight disdain.

A sigh almost escaped me. It was just so surreal. Being woken up because we were in a rush, and then⁠— stopping at a small cart with wheels that sold ice cream. I didn’t know what ice cream was, or how did one get cream out of ice? But that wasn’t the important part to me at the moment, the important part was the hurry and waking up.

“You woke me up like that just for this?” I asked, looking at the ice cream cone between my fingers. It had a bright pink cherry color.

Ash shook her head. “Enjoy this while you can.” With that comment made she turned to look at the passing cars and ignored me.

I frowned and closed my eyes. It really wasn’t worth it to ponder over it or get mad over it. It had already happened. With a sigh, I tried licking the ice cream mimicking what Ash had been doing.

The chill on my tongue soon turned into a delicious milky flavor. It was good⁠— it was really good. I perhaps would’ve been a bit more excited had my mood been better, but it was still really good nonetheless.

It didn’t take long before I had begun biting the cone, and not long after it had vanished from my hand. Ash nodded at me in approval for some reason, but I didn’t think much of it.

“Now we go to our actual destination.”

Tilting my head at Ash’s words I looked at her. “Where are we even going?”

“The armory, of course.” She nodded.

“The armory?”

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“You’ll just see.” She grinned with some joy. Was this armory place so great?

◇ ◇ ◇

“Just to make sure.” Ash turned to me with a serious expression. “You brought that general access card of yours, right?”

I nodded as I pulled out my wallet and examined its insides, finding the card there. I was quite proud of not forgetting my things in spite of certain situations happening⁠— That’s when I realized something was missing.

Mr. Sullivan’s business card was missing…

“What’s with that look?” Ash asked in confusion.

“Nothing.” I shook my head.

She would probably think it’s dumb to even care about the card. All things considered it was a bit pointless, but Mr. Sullivan was quite happy handing it to me, so it was a bit disappointing.

The elevator door opened with the usual chime. Ash, being Ash herself, just forgot about my awkward realization and grabbed me by the hand. The reception was much emptier than usual, and as per usual no one really cared for our presence. Though instead of stopping by the receptionist we just walked past him.

We walked into a small carpeted hallway, the walls much taller than its width. And soon we stood before nothing, just an empty wall.

“Alright, and here is when you pull your card and use blood on it.” Ash said pulling her own card and running her finger across its edge⁠— the edge became blotched in red in an instant. “Now you just do this.” She approached the wall and sliced the card through it as if she were cutting it. “Once you’ve made an opening you just cross and you’re done.”

As soon as she said that, she herself went into the opening leaving me alone in the hall.

“Must be convenient…” I grumbled and bit onto my thumb. I couldn’t make myself bleed just from doing nothing unlike Ash. Running my finger across the card, I mimicked Ash by moving the card across the wall to cut it. To my surprise it was effortless.

Soon a rift was opened. It was much like my scythe, just easier. The rift seemed much more stable, and I couldn’t really see the destination unlike the other ones. In the end, I just shook my head and decided to cross it; Ash was waiting for me to do so, after all.

In the blink of an eye I was transported into a metal room with shining lights all over⁠—

I paused. Everything was grim and ever present. My headache appeared once again and I began to feel dizzy from the sudden influx of rotten emotions. It all reeked of hatred and death. Pure despair was the only thing I could feel.

Taking a brief second to stabilize myself to avoid collapsing on the spot. I turned to look at Ash who was looking at me with confusion.

“You could’ve told me we were coming to the Underworld.” I said with venomous annoyance.

She rolled her eyes. “Where else would we go?”

“Anywhere but here,” I grumbled. “This place is pure hatred. It gives me a headache.”

“Ah, empath.” Ash nodded. “Well, we won’t be here for long anyway. We are just here so you don’t die.”

I took a deep breath and decided to begin ignoring the emotions once again. It was like a switch⁠. The headache became weaker and I was finally able to parse together what Ash had said, as well as my surroundings.

We were in a grand hall made out of pure metal, lights lightened the ceiling like a prison of sorts. There were also little lights lining up the walls in geometrical shapes, and in front of us were shelves upon shelves of magical artifacts. From strangely shaped weapons of war, to things that looked like eyes or even guillotines.

“Just to make sure, can you carry a lot of things? You know like your scythe that you can bring out?” Ash said while looking at things I identified as rifles.

“No?” I asked in confusion. “My scythe is more like part of me and is summoned.”

Ash raised her brow before she began thinking. “Damn, here I was just hoping to arm you to the teeth and call it a day.”

“I see…” I nodded and began to browse the shelves. Everything seemed rather useful, from an eye which worked like a camera⁠, except more… omnipresent. Or well that’s what I thought it did based on the label it had. Everything had labels surprisingly. Turning to look at Ash who browsed a different shelf, I couldn’t help but ask. “Can I just grab anything here?”

Ash nodded. “Yep, this is our private armory, though almost every armory shares the same artifacts. Perks of the Underworld I guess?” She shrugged. “No shortage of new things.”

I nodded hearing her explanation and went to a different shelf, this one had a box with small objects. A few among them were rather familiar. The same grenade that Ash had used? I picked one up and wondered if to take it with me or not. I could put it on my pocket but⁠— couldn’t I just do the same thing as the explosive?

I shook my head and put it back where it belonged. At that moment, Ash came to my side.

“Alright, here are my recommendations.” She handed me an oddly shaped meat thing. “This gun will disintegrate matter if its weaker than your magic⁠— it feeds on blood, I must add.” She pulled two tubes that were slightly smaller than a water bottle. “These are flashbangs, and, well, they go flash and bang? Essentially blinding people when they explode, created by the humans from the realm we currently live in.” I couldn’t help but be surprised hearing we used their weapons too. “And my last recommendation is this.” She pulled a familiar object.

It was a bone wand, red lines ran across from it. “It’s a wand created by an attendant, it grants temporary control over anything bone. Self explanatory.”

I nodded and looked at the items under my arms. The meat gun was quite… gross. For a second I thought it moved on its own.

“I get to choose which ones to take, right?”

Hearing my question Ash frowned but eventually nodded. “All can be forfeit except the wand. I feel like you’ll need it in the future.”

“Okay…”

In the end, I grabbed the wand and one flashbang. Though I couldn’t help but wonder if I would need to even use it. We also ended up returning with a portal made by me. Turns out the card was only a one way entry.

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