Chapter 4: Arrival

"Names please", one of the guards at the gates of Akuta said. "I'm Eguru and this is-"

"I'm Rodrick." Eguru wanted to ask him why he gave them a wrong name but had to wait until they passed the guards. "You may enter."

So they did. Once they were out of reach Eguru asked him. "Didn't you notice? Those are guards from Legrandeus. They're searching for me but don't know how I look like. I don't wanna go through the troubles of being chased down by some guards."

"I see... Then it would be best to change your appearance in case they find out", he suggested.

"Not a bad idea at all. I might have to do it. But for now bring us to an hotel. I'll give you directions. We need to rest and actually recover for some time."

The other man agreed and so they were making their way towards an hotel. The streets were full of people and they got all kinds of weird stares. People even made some rude comments but both of them ignored those people. They didn't care.

After a while they entered a hotel named "Gilliard" which apparently means "Golden Cherry" in their language. Verzo had to walk with the support of Eguru though as they obviously couldn't just take that wooden platform into a hotel. Reservating a room for four weeks Eguru was handed the keys and both of them slowly made their way to room number 219.

The hotel's inside was elegant and looked rather golden just like the name suggested. Everything had the same three-main-colors: White, golden and a light pink. Some things were painted black for a nice touch.

Hallways were long and you could gaze upon lots of different designs on the walls. There also was a red carpet down the entire hallway. But they weren't going that way. Instead they took the elevator and searched for their room.

About two minutes later they stood in front of room 219. Eguru opened the door with the key he was given and they were greeted by a large room with two seperated beds. Each on the other side of the room. In between those beds were small tables. It had some interesting decoration like cherry blossoms and golden ornaments but that was about it. The walls were painted white-golden and looked way different than the ones in hallways.

Entering the room you could see many different doors leading into different rooms. But for now Eguru helped Verzo get into bed and he then proceeded to go into the bathroom. After he was done with his small business he checked the bathroom to see what they had available. Everything they needed.

He looked for deodorant and actually found one he used to cover his rather bad smell. It smelled like a regular deodorant but he didn't complain.

The next thing to cover was food and water. Hotels naturally offered these to their customers and even delivered to all 800 rooms. Knowing that he used the telephone that was somewhere in the living room and called the reception. Luckily there was no language barrier and he was able to communicate easily.

Just fifteen minutes later their food arrived and Eguru put the wagon beside Verzo so he could eat too. The other man ate while standing. "Thanks man. You did everything on yourself on though? I'm impressed."

"Yeah, I have quite the experience in terms of hotels. Used to be in a lot of them while traveling", he said and then put the next piece of food in his mouth.

He asked them to bring a few slices of bread and two cups of soup and then two bottles of water for each one.

Eguru wanted to recover as much as possible within one or two weeks so he'd be able to do what the system said and he also wanted to participate in the festival that was coming up. Unfortunately he didn't know when exactly it started but he could most definetely just search for results on Apex.

After they finished their meal he put away the wagon and both of them went to sleep. It was natural for them to be exhausted at this point.

At around midnight Eguru woke up and decided to look through his phone again. He texted Lia and then went on Apex. He wanted to know when the festival was and he quickly found results.

"June 16th." That was in 10 days. Luckily the festival lasts for almost a month as he found out when scrolling further. They got plenty of time.

A while later Lia texted back and they talked to each other for a while. Both of them talked about their recent days and later on the conversation made less and less sense until Lia fell asleep.

Since Eguru had nothing to do he went back to sleep awaiting the next day. 'Verzo sure is sleeping for long huh...'

He entered the land of dreams.