35 Returning

"Are you done staring at my face?" He asked bluntly.

"Umm. Um. I'm sorry." I stammered with my face blushed in shades of pink.

He laughed in response. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. It just seemed weird someone like you got on at that stop."

When my face scrunched up in confusion, he added, "The dirty maid uniform stands out in this district."

Ohhh. Why didn't I think of changing out of those clothes? Stupid Rika!

"It's like you sneaked out of your house to get away from someone."

"Wait. You could tell?" I almost yelled out loud.

Somehow, I was saying almost all my thoughts inside my head out loud. I was sure I would never say these things on my own. Could it be?

"Could it be I was reading your mind?" He smirked as he placed some of his gold strands of hair away from his forehead.

"How?" I whispered.

Was he even a human being? At this rate, with the strangeness of the first district with the mana and all that I wasn't sure if I could tell.

"I'm not."

Ok... Now I was sure he was reading my mind.

"If you're not a human being, then what are you?" I interrogated him.

"A spirit, an elf, a fairy? Choose from one of the three. That's what other people named me in the past centuries, and frankly, I don't care what I'm called." He shrugged.

When I suddenly blanked out, I found myself already at the stop and out of the bus with an unwanted headache. Why was I here? My head flickered as I remembered. I wanted to go to a local cafe or have fun at whatever looked fun.

And somehow, coincidentally, I found myself in front of a cafe. How did I walk here from the bus stop? Since I was here anyway, I just went in to find myself in a comfy cafe with warm wooden chairs and tables.

I sat in one of the chairs while noticing the cafe was empty just like the bus. "Can I get your order?" A familiar smirk accompanied by his golden strands.

"Wait. It's you? What are you doing here?" I kept on asking.

"Taking your order. By the way, here's the menu." His large pale hands gave me a fragile piece of paper.

MENU

Spirit Whiskey 3 Memors

Elf Cocktail 4 Memors

Fairy Shot 2 Memors

Water 10 Memors

What was Memors? The currency in the first district was Aris. From looking at the menu, the water seemed like the safest choice.

"A glass of water please?"

"Sure. Coming right up." He grinned in response.

When he came with a glass of water, I confessed, " I don't have any Memors with me. I have Aris instead but-"

"I know you don't have any Memors. But, your first order is on me." His eyes strangely glowed golden yellow.

I accepted the glass of water when I would usually ask more questions before accepting it.

I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. Before the cafe was empty except for me and the strange waiter. Now, the cafe was bustling with people with elf ears and golden hair and eyes.

"Welcome to the spirit currency center! I was wondering when you would finally figure out." The waiter winked.

Huh? My thoughts were getting more and more disjointed ever since the mystifying bus ride.

The waiter placed several Memors in front of me. The Memors looked similar to Japanese Yen coins except each one had a different color.

"Since we are in the light spirit realm, each Light Memor will be exchanged for 100 Aris. However, the Green, Red, Blue, Yellow, Purple, and Orange Memors will be exchanged for 500 Aris."

Should I be glad that Luke was from a rich family? He never suffered from money and always put spare money in both of our bank accounts that could be accessed from our marbles for 'just in case' purposes.

When I looked into my bank account, I saw the familiar 100,000,000 Aris. I would never need 100,000,000 Aris to spend in the future, so I concluded it would be most helpful to leave about 1000 Aris in my account and convert the rest into Memors.

"17,000 Green, Red, Blue, Yellow, Purple and Orange Memors each and 480,000 Light Memors please."

The people in the tables next to me started whispering and gossiping louder than before.

"They're curious about how rich you are. It's been a while since a human being made a big purchase with our currency." The waiter responded.

"Oh. It's just that I don't have the opportunity to spend my money properly so I decided to convert most of the money into Memors." I bluntly confessed.

"Our currency won't appear in your marble but will be ingrained into you. All you have to do is to tap your wrist as much as you need to spend."

My wrist started firing up and pain washed upon me as I groaned and screamed while falling off my chair. What was left from my purchase was a pale green ivy decorated with pure white lilies tattooed on my wrist.

It almost looked like a priceless bracelet, except it wasn't. The pain woke my senses enough that I knew I wasn't in the first district anymore. "And I'm guessing I'm not in the first district?"

"Well, you are technically in the first district. It's just of that in a different dimension per se?"

No wonder no Aris worked here!

"How do I get back?" I suddenly wondered.

"Are you sure you want to go back? Most people try for their entire lives to enter this realm."

This was a fantasy world that resembled those light novels I used to read in my past life. "I'm sure there's a portal I could purchase to get back here." I sarcastically said.

"What a smart human! I could sell 100 Light Memors for each one." A beautiful woman came from one of the tables.

100 Memors? Somehow, I knew that was overpriced. "Ten for 100 Memors," I firmly said.

The woman frowned as she reluctantly gave me ten vials of translucent blue liquids inside as it was like she was pressured from the waiter to give in to me. The waiter tapped my wrist, which made the vials disappear and brought out 100 Light Memors in exchange.

When I looked back to thank her, she was already stomping back to her table. "Can I go back to the first district now?"

"Just drink your water," The waiter smiled.

I took another sip of my water to find myself in an abandoned empty shed with sunshine pouring in from the windows. There was no cafe, no waiter nor the people gossiping around me.

When I went out of Luke's house, it was in the evening. There was no way there would be this strong sunlight near this time.

I opened my marble to check the time. It was Friday afternoon instead of Monday evening I escaped from Luke's house. Of course, when I entered another dimension, the time would flow differently.

I gasped while thinking about the points Luke and I would lose from me going missing. I sighed because this was one of the easier assignments. When I walked outside of the shed, I saw that I was a minute away from my workplace. Was there ever an abandoned shed near the company?

Afraid that I was still in the dirty maid uniform, I looked at my clothes to see that I was wearing the clothes that Luke and I bought the other day. Maybe it was a service from the waiter? Without hesitating, I entered the building and went to my assigned floor.

The team that Luke and I were supposed to manage stopped what they were doing and just stared at me in surprise.

"Luke told me you were sick," One of them finally said after a long moment of silence.

"I'll go get Luke to tell him that you came," Another team member shouted after the silence was broken.

Not surprisingly, Luke came immediately after being told of my arrival and dragged me to our side of the room.

"Did you know how worried I was when you were missing?" Luke started off almost yelling.

"I thought something really happened to you when a large amount of money disappeared from your bank account." An unexpected tear dripped down from his eye.