48 New Home

In order to ease the atmosphere within the room, Daniel basically had General Eric rush all the way to his dorm after the brief and somewhat painful conversation with his new roommate. While his foster parent is on the way here, Daniel finally took the time to take a look around his new humble abode.

The dorm room is formatted mostly in a rectangular manner, with only the wall surrounding the entrance being semi-circular in shape due to the design of the entire skyscraper itself. Two identical sides of the room could be seen when one enters the dorm room, with a single bed, frame, matress and all. A small wardrobe is placed beside each bed which allows people to hang around 4 to 5 pieces of clothing while the drawers below allows for more after the clothing is folded. Finally, a study desk is placed at the very end of the room on each side, facing the rectangular window to allow the sun to become the natural lighting for the students' studies.

The only thing that is not identical on both sides was that on Daniel's side of the room, another door is placed next to Daniel's desk that serves as the entrance to the bathroom.

After giving a long precursory glance around the place, Daniel headed in towards the bathroom that still looked rather steamy since 666 has just took a shower within.

Taking a look, Daniel found a semi-circular room within, with a shower pod placed on an elevated platform on one side of the bathroom that is currently being concealed by a plain white curtain. On the other side of the room are the toilet and the bathroom sink with a mirror placed on top.

Daniel did not dally around in the bathroom for long before hearing the intercom placed beside the entrance of the door ringing, playing the tune of a famous piano sonata that everyone would instantly be able to recognize. Since Daniel did not synchronize the intercom to the biochip within his brain yet, he was unable to answer it remotely, so 666 did it for the both of them.

"Speak." 666 said in an emotionless manner that would lead people to belive that he sounded quite cold and heartless, even though he meant no offense.

"Hi, um... this is Eric, I'm Daniel's uncle? Can you put him on the intercom please?" The person on the other side spoke slowly, as though a little wary about the perceived hostility of Daniel's roommate.

"Hi, uncle!" Daniel immediately walked towards the intercom and took it over from 666 when he realized that his roommate really doesn't know how to behave like a normal person and spoke with a loud voice. "I'll oipen the front entrance for you now."

Through the intercom, he could see from the security camera placed on the other side that Commander Eric is currently waiting by the automatic doors by the entrance of Building D. Since Eric is not a resident within Building D, he would not be able to enter the door unless someone from the dorm buzzes him in. This is even the case for students who resides in the other dormitory buildings and teachers that are not responsible for managing the dorms.

After being sent through the doors, the intercom directly turned itself off. Since Daniel's room is located quite far down the hallway from the elevators, it took Uncle Eric a while before he managed to find his way here. When Daniel finally opened the door for him, he found that a few minutes have already passed since he last spoke in the intercom.

"Hey, sorry for being late." Uncle Eric said with a smile and explained. "No one from the admissions office told me that you were already done with your entrance assessment, so I had to rush all the way here after your call."

Daniel simply waved the uncle off and said nonchalantly, "That's alright, the admissions officer is probably too busy sucking up to our Student Council President to even realize his blunder."

Raising an eyebrow, Uncle Eric thought that he must have missed something from how his foster son's opinion of the admissions officer changed from when they first arrived, but did not have the time to ask him about it since he found himself facing another teenager within the dorm room.

"Hi, I'm Eric. I assumed you were the one I first spoke to just now?" Eric spoke in a courteous tone, obviously wanting to give a good impression of himself towards Daniel's roomate as the latter's guardian.

"That is correct." 666 answered in a monotone voice. "It is an honor to finally meet you face to face, sir."

666 instantly stood an attention and gave the general a military salute in the Federation style. In response, Eric did the same completely through muscle memory.

"I'm sorry, have we interacted with each other before..." Eric asked in a rather curious tone, since he found that the person before him seemed to be quite familiar with himself even though neither of them have actually met each other face to face before.

"All I can say is that I used to be under your command for a while." 666 replied without even flinching at the general's scrutinizing gaze. "I apologize for not being able to elaborate further than that since the mission I did was classified."

"That's reasonable." Eric nodded, looking as though he has understood. Although, inwardly, he is actually astonished by the fact that a seemingly young person like 666 is already taking part in top secret missions without his knowledge even before the person is of age.

"I thought there were laws for protecting minors that prevents them from being enlisted before reaching the age of 18. Why..." Eric thought to himself as he gave another scrutinizing look at the teenager before him.

"What's your division and rank, may I be so kind as to ask?" Eric spoke again after spending a few seconds in deep thought.

Instead of replying by word of mouth, 666 directly transmitted his military personnel profile directly into Eric's biochip since his identity is sensitive enough that it would not be appropriate for Daniel to listen in to their conversation.

After taking a look at the person's profile, Eric could not help but widen his eyes, before showing a rather complicated expression. Finally, he heaved a sigh and gave a slow pat on the teenager's shoulder, stating with a heavy tone, "You've served the Federation well, young man."

Instead of feeling gratified, 666 felt a little confused and gave a retort, "I was simply following orders, sir."

Seeing that the young man himself is oblivious to how horrifying the atrocities that he has faced, Eric wanted to speak but could not open his mouth. In the end, he simply shook his head and heaved another sigh of disappointent.

Throughout the entire time, Daniel felt as though he had somehow turned into a third wheel, as he had no idea why his foster parent is reacting this way while his roommate is still acting nonchalantly. Though, since he knew that he would not be able to access such information, he simply tried his best to stifle his questions so he could maybe pry them out of his roommate when they are alone in a future time.

After Eric and 666 introduced themselves to each other, the three of them decided to get a snack down at the cafeteria on the ground floor. Since the standard meal does not include an afternoon snack within the academy, one would need to use their own credits to buy the food at this time of day.

666 was initially content with paying for his own food, but Eric insisted on paying for everyone since, in his own words, he was the only adult in the room and it was only a matter of course to treat teenagers who haven't even gotten their first stipend yet.

666 had initially wanted to give out a rather unceremonious retort and say that he had already been given a monthly income since young from his involvement with the military, but seeing how he was not reading the air again, Daniel directly gave 666 a look before placing his palm over the other's mouth to prevent 666 from saying anything until the latter realized that it would just be better to stay quiet and let the adult treat them.

Since the cafeteria is rather empty, the academy did not allocate any human chefs here at this time so the only thing that the three of them could eat were from the artificial food synthesizers placed against the walls close to the entrance of the building.

Without pause, Daniel directly went up to one of the machines and stated with an instructional voice, "Minerva, give me a random dessert from Jake's Recipe A. I also want a melon soda with a 20% surcose base and 25% carbonated."