“Well, I can’t say that I was expecting this handwrite but, I understand your troubles, Miranda. You have my condolences.”

  I don’t think anyone has died but I sure sounded as such. Let me tell you something, just as I said this, the last part that is, Miranda brings both of her hands to her slender waist, grabbing it at the same time. Not only that, she looks upwards towards me and stares me in the eyes. She was about to say something as I saw her way to voluptuous lips opening up but it seems she decided to say nothing. After all, she can’t disagree with me. I was messing with her of course and it seems she noticed that however, I can’t have only women messing with me without at least retaliating a few times. I just hope I won’t regret it.

  “Putting this small undeniable fact to the side. What’s written on here tells me nothing and only leaves me with more questions. She said that I'm here so that I can actually save the Magical Girl. Can you elaborate more?”

  “Not really, I know as much as you do.”

  And that shut my question down in a damn instant. I don’t believe her for a second as she flashes a sly smile at me, not only that, she brings her right hand towards her mouth, more like her index finger as she extends it upwards and gently touches her silklike lips. From there, she leans a bit forward towards me. Alright, it seems I’m paying dearly for my early joke.

  I’ve noted that, don’t joke with Miranda as she will seal her lips.

  “I see, I will figure it as I go it seems. Can you at least tell me where I am? From what I've gathered, I should be in the same world as when we first met.”

  Let’s see if she can answer this at the very least. She does go back to normal as I ask this, so maybe she will say something about it? I hope so

  “You’re correct, we are in the same “world” as when we first met.”

  And that’s it, nothing more, nothing else. I did notice that she put a little emphasis on the word “world” so there is more to this than I’m understanding it to be. But what can it be? This is a different world from reality, that’s easy to understand but, what? A simple different dimension? Maybe. I doubt it’s a parallel one as it would mean that, in the real world there is something similar to this place, while I don’t know every corner out there in the world, I can somewhat confidently say that, there does not exist such a place. If there was, this place feels something straight out of a fairy tale, it would be known for the entire world. Now I’m left with even more questions, great.

  “What do I have to do? I was supposed to be sleeping with Kiana and now I’m here... Just as the notes said, I’m here for a purpose, can you tell me what I have to do?”

  I’m starting to doubt how much information I can get from her; I don’t know if it was from my early joke or if she actually does not know it either. She’s supposed to be my guide, at the very least she will have to tell me what to do.

  “Sleeping with her? The two of you sure are moving quite fast.”

  “What?”

  I let out this simple word the moment she said this. My eyes are wide open filled with confusion and so is my mouth although my eyebrows do frown a bit thanks to the confusion. What the hell does she mean by that? Kiana was having a weird dream, similar to the ones that I had, once that was done, we were supposed to sleep…

  That little sly fox!

  “I didn’t mean like that!”

  Argh my cheeks are a little red from the embarrassment. “Sleeping with Kiana”, that was the problem! Dammit she caught on that and made that remark. Once I understood what I said, not only I recoiled back a little bit thanks to the embarrassment from blurting out something like that, Miranda also gives me a sly smile as I do so, as she’s amused at my overreaction. In this sense she does seem like her Empress. Let’s move this to the side as smooth as I can, I need to keep my composure. Yep, still not embarrassed at all, nope.

  “Ahem! You still didn’t answer my question though.”

  There, I was smooth as her skin, in other words, extremely smooth. I mean, I haven’t touched her at all but her skin does seem to be really smooth… Why am I making this analogy? Am I really this embarrassed? So much so that I cannot form comprehensive thoughts?

  “For now, nothing. You still haven’t progressed far enough in the story. You were brought here to get familiar with this place.”

  I haven’t progressed far in the story she says… It’s as if I’m reading a book, experiencing it first hand at that. I mean, I can see her reason after all, it has been only two days and yet, I could write a single volume from how much it has happened, although I would’ve to write in there my time here otherwise, I think it would be a little short for a volume. Either way, I was brought here to get familiar with this place. Well, it seems I was right on my theory when I said that I was going to spend quite a bit of time here.

  “Is that the case? Alright, show me around then.”

  I hope she’s not unfamiliar with this place as much as I am, it wouldn’t make much sense but, nothing here makes sense so, let’s see what she will do. Without speaking a single word, she nods at me, showing off that she agrees with what I requested her to do. We first go to the kitchen and it goes as expected.

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  She gave me a tour of it.

  Yep, nothing more than that. She told me, more showed in this case, what the refrigerator has inside of it, in this case it’s rather empty, it has a few ingredients here and there plus a single bottle of milk. From there she showed me how the oven and the induction hob work, not so much for my surprise, these things are well beyond advanced. Not only they work with electricity, in a place like this mind you, they also have screens on them and the induction hob, you turned it on, increase the heat, decreased it and so on, by simply touching, not pressing, not moving a knob, nothing of that sort, it has an area with a screen that you simply touch and from there choose the hob where you want to be warm or not. The oven follows the same design. After this, she showed me the rest of the kitchen, but nothing too exciting.

  Next!

  The sofa area is the next one, she didn’t say much about this place, only that, if I want to rest for a few moments, I could do it here. She did say that the sofa is extremely comfortable and to be careful to not fall asleep while reading any of the novels. A weird remark from her but, it’s possible that she actually fell asleep while reading and got schooled because of it. Somehow, from her personality, I can see it happening. From this, we go back again to the big door, or as she called it, the door for the outside. She said that, for now it’s sealed but the next time that I’m here, I will be able to go out and explore this fantasy-like world. Alright, the next trip is another sealed door, one that is to the right of the chessboard area if we look at it from where we are.

  “This one is much smaller than the previous one, if that one is used for the outside, what’s this one for?”

  A simple question where the answer should also be simple. But nope, what she will tell me will confuse the living hell out of me, not only that, it seems she will break a few walls with it.

  “This door allows you to go back to the story. You will even be able to go back in time and rewatch any event of the story that you missed or skipped by mistake.”

  And my mouth literally hit the ground with the loudest “thump” that you can even think of. What the actual heck does she mean by this? I can understand the first part, it seems a little way to dramatic as once I open the door I either will get eaten by a bright light and then wake up in the “Story” or, once I open the door, there is a portal that will do the same thing but, in this case, teleport me to the “Story”. As I said, way too dramatic and unnecessary but this is not what confuses me the most. What does she mean by rewatch the “Story”? I can understand missing something, maybe I was looking at Kiana and missed a part of a speech from the villain, something understandable as Kiana easily grabs your attention by force, yes by force, all thanks to how beautiful she is. But what about skipping then?

  “What?”

  Ah ups, I actually got this out into the world. That should show just how much nonsense she spewed in that simple phrase.

  “Ah yes, sometimes you are in a worry and you end up skipping an event because of it.”

  Her voice is still cold, calm and of course, extremely gentle as if she’s speaking to a damn child. I mean, I don’t mind it but, come on! That did not ease up a single percentage of my confusion at all! Whatever, maybe I should just move on, I doubt she will actually give me a real answer.

  “What about the last door? Are you going to say that I can take control of Kiana and tackle the dungeon for example?”

  I was joking when I said this, and I mentioned the dungeon because it simply crossed my mind for some reason. I didn’t mean any of this and yet, this woman in front of me, this somewhat short elegant woman not only slowly opens her mouth in surprise, at the same time she brings both of her hands close to her chest, embracing each other with it and she also leans forward towards me a little bit.

  “That’s correct... I never expected you to guess it.”

  Alright, I want to end all of this. What!? I’m actually, correct? All of that nonsense? Nah, she’s playing around, messing with me. It has to… Wait a second, let’s see if she does keep this up.

  “Uhm, ye-yeah! Of course, I knew this, that’s why I said it! But, would you mind explaining it a little more? You know, my knowledge about this is very limited so...”

  And she reverts back to normal as I say this, as I ask her to explain more about it. Right after this, she extends her left arm towards the other door, pointing at it with her rather slender index finger.

  “It is as you just said. That door will allow you to go out into Kiana’s story and gather resources from it, so that you can do whatever you need to do here.”

  Alright, this explanation is much more down to earth, I can actually get behind it. I still have to understand the need for such a thing but since this is my first time in this area, this understanding can change in the future, maybe I really will need to go into her world or “Story” in this case. I somehow have to keep my mind open so that I don’t get to surprised if the case does happen.

  “Ok, I can understand that. Let’s move on then, we are only missing the chessboard. Although before that, why are these two separated doors? Couldn’t you have only one?”

  “I don’t know, this is supposed to be for a supposed “game”. Ask the creator, I can’t answer that.”

  She sounds as serious as you can imagine. Sigh… The more questions I ask her, not only I rarely get a real answer for them, she leaves me with more questions. To be honest, I will ignore this, I can’t be breaking these many walls just like that, I mean, what if it never comes to fruition?

  Yes, move one then!

  With this brilliant response on her part, we get moving towards the chessboard. Once there I ask the same question, what’s this for? If the main door is for the outside, one of the others is to rewatch the story and the other one is for me to gather resources, then, this chessboard is nothing more than a simple chessboard... It’s just like the kitchen and the sofa area, in this case, something to pass the time, a way that I can bond with Miranda as only the two of us are here. Welp, I only thought about that in this precise moment, though I doubt such a thing would happen. The bonding that is, I can actually see her playing chess with me and even somehow messing with me.

  “Have a seat, I will do the same.”

  Can’t say that I was expecting this from her but, oh well, time to have a seat, I guess. Without much of a choice really and without feeling any ill intentions from her and to be perfectly honest, something that I actually never felt from her in all of this time. She has a tremendous amount of magic energy and she also has Black Magic on her arsenal and yet, nothing that resembles anger towards me, let alone any bloodlust for example. All the emotions that I got towards her were and are more so because of those two facts rather than her trying to kill me for example. I’m stronger than her but that does not mean that she cannot harm me at all, in fact, she could kill me in this precise moment. You know, us humans are quite a bit fragile if not protected by anything. But why am I talking about this now? Anyway, she sits down first, gently pulling the chair backwards and softly sitting down on it. I follow her lead and after that we stare at each other.

  ……..

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