Suspicious

"Consider this as your lounge for now, you have all the things you need until we find a combat zone." Clara explained. The team stood around in a spacious room that resembled a break room in a workplace.

She handed a map to Ella. Opening it, it showed the different places scattered across the floor.

"Due to last time, your movement is restricted to this zone only, best you have a library to study in or read. I will get the healer assigned to your team." She finished talking. With a phone in hand, she made her way to the door to leave.

But as she placed her hand to open it, the door opened. A young boy wearing a heavy robe and big pouch on his waist entered inside. In his hand was a long stick, something Jacob would normally see a healer hold in rpg games with an odd orb floating on the top of it.

"Speak of the devil." Clara remarked.

"Team, this is the healer mentioned. His name is Rin. A grade 8 healer from City L." She explained while Rin silently walked towards the team with a nervous expression.

"I will report back here once a zone is found." Finished with speaking, Clara left the room. An awkward silence filled the atmosphere as they silently looked at each other, until Ella broke it.

"So a grade 8 huh? What cool abilities do you have?" She asked. 

"Uh- Just healing and regeneration stuff." Rin struggled to reply, stuttering a few times.

"Anything else?" Ella asked, but Rin stayed silent this time. 

"Guess that's all then, alright." She looked down at the map, wanting to explore the zone with what time they had.

Zeph remained silent the entire time, so much so that the team didn't realize he was making his way to the door.

"Wait where are you going?"

"The library, I would like to see if they have anything on combat." 

"What about your wounds!?" She pointed at his arms, the bruising was very visible to all of them.

"It's not as severe, I can get it healed later." Without another word, Zeph quickly left the room.

Ella continued looking at the map, disappointment rose in her face as she realized that none of the few rooms seemed entertaining.

"Ugh, all science and utility rooms, well i should have expected that. Guess we can just walk around and see if we find something interesting." Seeing nothing to do in the room, and a lingering curiosity to explore in Jacob's mind, he followed with Ella.

Rin followed behind them. Outside the hall was almost empty apart from some guards stationed there, and doors leading to the few rooms in this place.

They walked down the hall for a few minutes with nothing interesting happening.

"Man, this is just boring, thought you guys would have a game setup or tv." Ella groaned.

"Maybe we could go elsewhere if we weren't restricted." Jacob turned to Ella.

"Hey it said ready to harvest, we did their job for them!"

On the walk, Jacob noticed Rin was looking at him, almost for a while.

"Anything wrong?" He asked.

"You're that glitch right?" Rin replied, Jacob simply nodded back.

"There was one in my city, but I never saw them in person, I thought they would look different." Rin responded, looking up and down at Jacob. His expression changed immediately after a few seconds, as if he just realized something.

"Oh right! Your wounds!" With a snap of his fingers a screen appeared, with a tap on an ability his hand began to glow green.

He aimed it towards Jacob and Ella, and in a moment their wounds began to heal.

"20 energy just to heal surface wounds, hope this is the only time I use it today." Rin remarked.

"Don't worry, we're in the heart of the city and far from the battlefield, nothing bad is going to happen here." Ella reassured Rin. 

They continued their walk for half an hour, still seeing nothing eventful. The boredom and fatigue started to grow on all 3 of them.

"Um, can we stop or just head back? I wanna sit down and rest." Rin asked.

"You can go to the library for quiet time if you want, Zeph is there anyway." Ella quickly replied. With a nod, Rin retreated from the group, heading towards the library.

"Does this place have good reception?" From her pocket, Ella took out a phone.

"Wait, you have a phone!?" Jacob was shocked, never seeing her phone before.

"Yeah, I just play gacha stuff or rpg games, things to pass the time when not having fun with something." 

'Man, I miss my phone, where is it even?' Jacob asked himself, slapping his pockets to see if they were there, and feeling embarrassed that it took him this long to realize it wasn't there. He groaned in sadness and frustration, now that he no longer has his phone to continue his addiction, he now has to rely on other things to keep him occupied, like touching wheat or grass.

"What's the matter?" Ella asked.

"I lost my phone. My accounts!" 

"Well, there goes your progress." Ella patted him on the back while playing a game on her phone, one Jacob seemed to know already. After a minute the two began talking about their games, passing time while standing around in the cold and silent hallway.

—---

For a while they continued talking, until Jacob noticed someone passing by. A man wearing maintenance clothing walked by with a cart. The man looked nervous, looking around and staring at a piece of paper he was holding, and at something inside the cart. Jacob thought nothing of it, but something did not seem to feel right about the man.

"Is something wrong?" 

"Just a weird gut feeling, but the guy looks weird."

"Never seen a maintenance guy before?" Ella snickered.

"No, he just feels off." He continued looking at the man as he went further down the hall.

"Again, just a maintenance guy, the reason that we can enjoy light and good internet here." After she spoke, Jacob turned to her.

"Still, he just looks suspicious." Ella looks at the man, and pockets her phone.

"Well, we can find out for ourselves." She smiled.