Grey pulled himself up and through the fireplace, patting himself down from the soot and smiling. Though his smile was probably quite creepy right about now.
"Sorry about all of this. Like I said, I can’t take this off. I promise I’m usually a lot more handsome than this."
Grey’s words very clearly made her several levels more uncomfortable, but he didn’t seem to care at all as he strolled toward her.
She fidgeted. Grey could practically see her toes curling through the shoes she wore as though she was forcefully rooting herself in place. She was trying very hard not to turn tail right this moment.
"So, water?"
"Oh, right, right." The girl remembered the reason Grey had agreed to approach. She pulled at her hip, taking out a small vial.
Grey raised an eyebrow and wondered whether he should just kill her now if she was going to play games, but then the vial suddenly expanded into a liter-sized metal bottle.
"Here."
Grey didn’t hesitate, barely sniffing it at all. His metal jaw unhinged and he swallowed in large gulps.
He didn’t consider poison in the slightest. The idea to drink water was his own. If this girl had prepared to poison him ahead of time in some 5D chess move, then he’d just have to hand it to her.
What he was really paying attention to was whether or not she would attack him.
To his surprise, though, not only did the waterfall of water not end as quickly as he expected it to, but she wasn’t making an attempt to attack him at all.
Grey was quite subtle in how he watched her. There was nothing about his posture that suggested he even thought she might attack.
But other than clenching her fists around her staff, the girl made no such attempt.
’Interesting...’
Grey gasped for air, sighing with relief. He checked his stamina and just from that session alone he gained another 3 bars. He felt alive.
’That can’t be normal water. Maybe there are some advanced electrolytes in there.’
At least there were some benefits to this shithole of a place. The advancements were next level.
Usually it would take some time before Grey felt some benefits outside of acute relief from that water. But he felt revitalized almost instantly.
In the time he was thinking about it, his stamina actually ticked up again from six to seven.
’The Looping Necklace feels like it’s helping again. I’m sorry, May, but it looks like you were better off dead, at least for me. Wait—.’
A random thought popped into Grey’s head as he looked toward the moon shining down through the windows.
’—if there was a night span between the tutorial and the start of the registration, that means I didn’t just last a half day like I thought. And that means when I died, I went more than a day back...’
It was hard to assess the value of time while you were stuck in a cave. But that wasn’t what was important.
What was important was the fact that the time loop that he had been in wasn’t based on a day. It was based on something else.
What was that something else?
"Alright, thank you." Grey handed the water bottle back. "That water was really helpful to me. I can help escort you back now if you’d like."
"Ah, right... yes, please."
Grey nodded. "Let’s go."
’After I finish dealing with this, I’ll have to come back. There are a lot of good materials in the mech of the witch I don’t want to leave behind.’
Grey knew he didn’t have enough space in his Tool Space for those materials, which was why he wasn’t too broken up about it. He had also already used the most valuable of the materials—the Aurum Nullite and the Cyber Core—so what was left behind was much less so.
The cool breeze of the night air hit Grey and he sighed as his stamina ticked up to eight.
Honestly, he didn’t expect such a turn. That water was definitely not normal.
He wished she would hurry up and attack him already so that he could take it off her body.
’If it wasn’t for those fucking bastards, I would have already attacked her myself.’
Unfortunately, if he could help it, he would rather not fall into another scandal so easily. Sure, they could edit and manipulate things as they pleased, but he’d rather not make it easy for them.
If he attacked this girl first, especially after she just gave him water, he would be handing them their narrative on a silver platter.
"So, what’s your name?" Grey asked, making small talk.
The young woman trailed him a step or two from behind, but he walked ahead as though it didn’t matter much.
"... My name is Sabrina."
"Oh, that’s an interesting name. I’m Grey."
"What’s interesting...?" Sabrina’s voice trailed off as though she realized she really didn’t want to make conversation with Grey. But Grey didn’t seem to notice as they left the ruins of the Wicked Forest Witch.
"I know a Sabrina, I mean. Well, I have no idea if she’s alive by now or not. It kind of sucks what happened to our world, no? Where did you live before?"
"... Spain."
"Really?" Grey blinked. "So you’re not speaking English?"
"No."
Grey frowned a bit. That didn’t make any sense. He didn’t understand Spanish, and even if he did, he would know it when he heard it.
If there was automatic translation, that would make sense. But he didn’t have a Nexis Suit that functioned properly.
So how was he understanding?
"That’s cool." Grey chuckled. "I’ve heard great things about Spain, though I’ve never been. I’m from North America."
"I can tell."
Grey burst into a fit of laughter. "You know, there are two other countries in North America, right? You really are the stereotypical European."
Sabrina seemed flushed for a second. It was like Grey had baited her into saying that on purpose. What did he mean by it?
"I’m Canadian, actually. From a place they call Saskatchewan."
"They say Canadians are very nice..." Sabrina replied.
"Maybe. But we’re also responsible for 90% of what’s in the Geneva Convention."
Grey’s grin rattled his metal jaw.