Facing Challenges

On the endless path of the mansion's hallway, Miss Zione's heels loudly echoed for no one spoke up even a single word. As a girl with keen eyes, Luna was oftentimes reserved as she did not like talking when not needed thus his silent aide did not help her liven up the setting, not that she needed it.

Because of that, she chose to focus herself on silently praising the complex interiors of his mansion which was carefully designed down to the smallest details. Not a single thing was irking to the eyes which some of the rich failed to show.

'A place where I can only imagine on books,' Luna thought as she looked around.

Her attention were mainly taken by the floating objects that didn't have any support aside from magic that she guessed so it was. It was an object glowing like fire which she thought was an equivalent of light bulbs. Aside from that, she did not see any actual light bulbs around the mansion which revealed how backwards they were when it came into science and technology.

Meanwhile, Luna kept her thoughts to herself and supressed any unusual expressions to prevent Miss Zione from thinking she was weird. It was enough that Akiro looked at her that way after the discussion they had earlier.

Then after walking upstairs to a hallway with maroon colored walls, they turned left, and finally reached a door, to her relief.

'Seriously? This should pass as a company with its size,' she thought as she compared one place she often visited.

Then Luna finally heard Miss Zione speak.

"This will be your room, Miss Luna. A dress is in the bathroom. Master said to have your clothes changed," Miss Zione said.

Her room was quite big as it was twice the size of her bedroom in their family's house. The main things that a bedroom should have were provided except that the room loudly screamed of royalty as if it was a princess' room. It was enough to consider as a comfortable haven of a rich young lady even though it lacked the technologies she was familiar with.

Luna showed her delighted expression towards Miss Zione without any guilt that she'd be living there for free since it wasn't her fault that she ended up in that place. 'I will be helping Akiro in his work anyway,' she thought, grinning.

While she was preoccupied in her new room, Miss Zione informed her that she was leaving because she had to prepare her food. The latter nodded silently to which she bowed and left. Then Luna stared at the door where Miss Zione left, thinking that she had yet to see another servant of his. It was only Miss Zione who did anything that her master would tell her without blinking an eye.

'Such a dedicated assistant,' Luna thought, praising her loyalty towards his strict master.

Then Luna found a white door. Except for the main door of the room, it was the only one inside. She opened it out of curiousity and found a large tub made out of some unknown marble. It had hot water inside which continued releasing a fuzzy smoke. On one side of it was a long blue dress safely hanged on a wooden stick. Luna smelled herself, she was not that smelly but she felt some stickiness on her body.

"It's time to take a bath!" she shouted and hurriedly closed the door. Luna took out all her clothes and slowly stepped into the tub. She then took a bar of soap on the nearest container she could reach.

"It's really good to take a bath," she uttered as she sunk her head deeper into the warm water.

When Luna stepped out of the tub, she noticed that the water continued to flow. She was left in astonishment after the water cleaned itself without any advanced technologies. The water was as clear as a mirror after the bubbles had disappeared.

"Amazing, but am I that dirty that it has to immediately clean itself?" Luna asked although jokingly.

Akiro was indeed the owner of this mansion.  She shook her head and let him out of her mind.

Luna bore light hatred to him for he took him out of that Candy Kingdom and even knocked her out although he did not punch him, Akiro only used magic.

After watching the water clean itself, Luna took the dress and the underwear beside it. She did not see the underwear earlier. However, she was somehow amazed as it looked similar to the ones found in the modern world. 'It was good that I did not have to adapt on wearing entirely different clothes,' she thought.

After fitting clothes, Luna walked into the mirror and saw that the flowy dress fitted right into her body. She was gladd that there was no corset needed. It was what she read in the novels and history classes after all.

"It's beautiful! It's not entirely weird to wear," she uttered as she turned around while looking at the mirror. She loved the shade of blue in her dress. Although she didn't like frilly clothes, the design was simple and comfortable enough to move and it reached just below her knees. Because of that, the length of the dress did not become a problem for her.

Meanwhile, while her dress was much elegant than her clothes earlier, Luna picked them up and folded them neatly. She placed it on a small wooden basket and decided to wash it later. It was special as her former clothes would always remind her that she belonged to a world named Earth.

After that, Luna went out of the bathroom and sat on the bed. She began to dry up her hair carefully with a cloth placed beside her and while doing it, she felt drowsy.

'Why do I felt sleepy these days?' Luna thought.

Before she knew it, her body fell on the bed slowly with her feet on the floor and slept soundly. Not long after her eyes opened and looked around. Everything was dark and she could not see anything no matter how hard she tried.

"W-where's my bed?" Luna asked, nervously. Her soft bed disappeared and instead, she found herself on a cold floor that sent shivers down her spine. She quickly stood up and walked three steps forward.

"Where am I?" she said while holding her arms from the cold.

No one answered and her voice only echoed back twice. Her knees trembled and immediately fell on the floor. She hugged herself and Luna felt her eyes went blurry.

'What do I do? I hate darkness,' Luna thought reminiscing a dreadful memory. Her body was still trembling when she heard an unknown voice called her name.

"Luna... Luna,"

Her head hastily turned left and right but failed to find where the voice came from. "Tsk, I would not be of any help to him if I would get easily scared like t-this," Luna mumbled.

'But it's really scary. I-I, forget, forget it!' she thought.

She immediately stood up and not long after, a light far away suddenly appeared. Luna didn't think twice and ran quickly to escape the darkness. As she went closer and closer to the light, the voice who's calling her got louder.

Luna stopped for a while and caught her breath. With her hands on her knees, she forced herself to maintain standing and refused to fall. Loud creepy voices continued to call her name and her mind was not in its best state. She helplessly ran towards the light until she closed her eyes as she embraced it.

"Miss Luna!" She heard a loud voice and felt someone shook her body.

Luna opened her eyes instantly while catching her breath. She found herself sleeping on the bed with half her body on the floor.

"I'm just dreaming?" Luna whispered. She sighed in relief after knowing it's just merely a dream. The term nightmare suited it better.

"Are you okay?" Miss Zione asked worriedly.

She turned her head on the left side and saw Miss Zione. 'So, she's the one who woke me up,' she said.

"Don't worry, don't worry, I'm okay now," Luna said and stood up to prove to Miss Zione that she's really fine and nothing bad had happened. She did not need her concern but when she thought of the weird things they would do if they think that something was wrong with her body, she desperately acted fine.

Luna only sighed in relief when Miss Zione believed her and led her to the table at the center of her room. The smell of food on the round table made her hungry.

"Your meal is ready. You can eat now Miss Luna," Miss Zione said.

Luna went towards the table and sat on the chair. She badly wanted to eat now. Her mouth watered at the sight of appetizing food. The two pieces of bread she ate earlier weren't enough after all. It's just a pity that she had to eat alone.

Nonetheless, a great idea entered her mind and was about to suggest when someone knocked on the door.

~~To be continued--