District 42-Chapter 155: Searching a reason
The soldier could finally brush off what was bothering him. His last decisive and strong thought had made him get real and start to walk again.
He was going to the same floor that served for him to escape from the Third Lab. He had an idea as to why the Princess was calling him to meet her at such a place, but he was not sure since he didn’t ask at all.
Casper went to a Teleporting pad and remained there for some while trying to sort out what were the coordinates to that floor. He had passed a lot of time memorizing the coordinates of all the relevant floors that he needed, but after so long without using them, it was difficult for him to get the hang of it again.
Nonetheless, it didn’t take too much time for him to organize his thoughts and reason a bit, taking the right coordinates and teleporting to the city. It lasted just some seconds for him to appear where he wanted to, exactly at that hotel he slept in his first night outside Halden, together with Alfar and Olaf.
He thought for a while that it was just idiotic of him to go to such a place since he could have had teleported to the center of the city, which would make it easier to find the Princess. In the end, though, even unconsciously, he decided that he needed to visit that place one more time.
At first, it was just strange for the soldier to be there like that, without any apparent reason. He didn’t try to enter even the lobby of that building, just keeping his distance outside while looking intently at it. His mind was empty, sometimes an incoherent thought would cross it, but overall he had nothing going on inside his head.
"Maybe it has something to do with what I was thinking since the morning. But I can’t take a good grasp of what I want to do here... That’s something strange..." He looked up. That building was bigger than he imagined, and he got kind of impressed with how many floors it had. He needed to look straight upwards to see the end of it, which was being fixed.
"Oooh, I nearly forgot... That’s the building we destroyed with the beam." Casper was getting in a more alert state and started to look to the sides, paying more attention to where he was.
He noticed that, until now, he was being very aloof and air-headed, to the point where he was forgetting to do the most basic protocols to keep himself safe.
It was strange. Since he got disconnected from the Yanke Forces and the Army in general, he never could pass a single day without following the protocols that he was already used to do every day. Because of it, forget to do that on that specific day was very strange, even uncomfortable.
He noticed the trajectory that the beam had made through the city. In truth, not just that hotel, but some other places got struck by that powerful attack. Casper felt a bit sorry for them, but all those other buildings were already being fixed again, so it was just ok. As far as they informed him, there weren’t people that died in that incident, so he was fine as long as no one got seriously harmed.
Casper waited for more seconds, looking around as if he just noticed what was going on around him and where he was. He stared at the faces of all the people passing there, their White masks (and some with brown ones) were shining under the artificial lights of the Castle. That melancholic and dark atmosphere got him again, and he remembered how frightening that place was.
"C’mon, soldier... Why are you thinking about all these things now? Why the heck are you here? Move on, move on!" Just as he was going to walk off that local and go straight to the center of the city, or maybe call to Vick to discover where she was waiting for him, he got called for her.
"I knew you would be here, even for a little stroll. You aren’t the type of person to take the consequences of your acts so lightly, right?"
Once he heard the word "consequences" he discovered one of the reasons as to why he was there. Casper was just obliging himself to go to that place and face everything that was caused by his escape.
Vick was walking smoothly and elegantly towards him, her eyes could seem cold for someone who didn’t know her intimately, but Casper could see the tenderness behind them at that point.
Once someone got the chance to look at Vick’s eyes, in truth tenderness was the only thing they would find among all that blizzard she tried to show. Just because, even if she was good at pretending to be that cold and bossy Princess, she was just a lazy and kind-hearted lady.
She stopped in front of Casper, glancing at that building.
"I think that you are here as well because that’s the last place you and your friends went together and passed some peaceful time together... And that’s a new thing for me, honestly. I didn’t know that you evaluated your friends so much to try to keep your memories like this." She giggled, finding it funny that someone as tough as the White warrior would have such behavior.
Casper was going to shake his head and deny that matter, but he knew that he was facing the second reason as to why he was in that place. Vick had been sharp on her judgment. She said everything that the soldier was still trying to sort out even after so many minutes in that place.
After that nightmare and all the events that he needed to pass inside Halden, something lit inside Casper and brought all his past wounds. Those wounds weren’t cicatrized as he thought, they were still opened, and painfully remembering him of all the suffering he needed to pass.
He was so deep in thought that he forgot to greet Vick. He just kept looking at her face, pensive, even startled with how cunning that lady could be.
"How do you know me so well? It has been just a few months since we met." He mumbled, though the Princess could still hear it well.
"Because I want to know you, and I am always working on it. I am paying attention to you, White warrior." She seemed to be embarrassed to say so, but didn’t hesitate at all.
Casper’s heart throbbed, and he kept staring at her eyes, and it made the Princess a little uncomfortable, but she stayed and stared back at him.
"Also, they were your first friends since you got here, right? I think it’s just human to find it to be a pity, the fact that you all couldn’t keep in touch, I mean."
"I can still contact Alfar, though."
She raised a brow behind the mask, doubting him.
"You can, but would you do it?" He denied with his head, seeming a bit down by that fact.
"We passed for a lot together. Our interactions are still good, but I and Alfar will always hold some sort of bad feeling towards each other because of some things that we needed to do. Olaf was the one who mediated the group. Without him, it’s hard to approach Alfar again." The soldier admitted as he began to get out of that place. The Princess followed him, taking the lead and guiding him to the local she wanted them to visit.
"I am looking forward to know more about what happened inside Halden. I am missing a lot of details, and I feel like it will be an interesting story. Besides, I think you should tell all the truth behind this, different from what you did in the General Court..."
Casper rubbed his neck, giggling a bit. He knew that Vick was aware of his lies during the judgment. However, that was a double-edged blade. Now, he couldn’t fool her and tell other lies, and if he conversed with her honestly about what happened, he would be exposing much more of what he really was.
Nevertheless, at that point, the White warrior didn’t really care about showing to her more of who he was and what he did before get into there. Unfortunately, Vick was the most precious resource he could use there, and without information, she couldn’t work with him.
However, the soldier was feeling uneasy about that... He didn’t feel like trusting Vick entirely.
"That’s something I can think better later. And so are those two reasons from before. Actually, I rambled enough about this matter."
"Anyway, let’s go to where I wanted to take you." She took his hand and started to pull him along the streets. Casper let her be and just followed her lead. Now that she was there, it would be difficult for him to get lost in his thoughts and insecurities, and he was very glad about that.
