Rumia looked upon the map that she had sketched out. At this point, she had fully mapped out every single building she could think of compared to the sewers. The tunnels themselves were still disgusting to navigate, but at least she could minimize her time within them for now.

  There were a few shops, some theatres, and some public buildings that weren’t necessarily of interest. The guard station was, however. She figured she might be able to get some information from there, of all places, but right now her brain was tired.

  “Eugh…” Rumia’s face was planted on her desk. Despite all her work, it felt like she was progressing far too slowly. She needed to accelerate things somehow.

  “Are you okay?” Anise asked, working on a machine behind her. “Is homework getting to you? I can help if you need it.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Rumia said. She hardly ever did homework, mostly as a brief and temporary distraction from her wish to escape. It wasn’t particularly hard coursework, as her classes were pretty beginner-friendly. She figured she might as well do some while trying to think of more plans.

  There was one big issue preventing her from running out of here right now. That was PASCAL, the school guide that doubled as a surveillance system. If she touched the walls in any capacity in any place where she didn’t belong, she would be caught. It was the main thing preventing her from moving around the city freely

  So, the question is, how does she circumvent this? The obvious solution would just be to shut down PASCAL entirely. Not that she had any idea on how to do that. If she had to guess, PASCAL had to have a source from somewhere, but she just didn’t know where.

  “Anise,” Rumia said, leaning back in her chair. “When did PASCAL first come to the school?”

  “Oh, she’s super recent. I think it was like… a year or two before I came? Her implementation into the city has been pretty rapid though,” Anise said. “I can’t blame people though, she’s helpful.”

  “So it’s a government thing, then?”

  “Yup! Governor Esther’s pride and joy! The perfect combination of magic and technology to make a system that can secure the entire city,” Anise said. “My goal is to make something like that, one day.”

  “Huh, I suppose that makes sense,” Rumia thought. “So she’s probably stored in a government building.”

  “Uh, I guess. Yeah,” Anise said.

  She had seen a few when walking across the city. There were two kinds, external government buildings and the royal castle. The external government buildings probably didn’t have too much that was useful in them, but the royal castle might. She knew that Governor Esther resided in the castle, as well as the currently missing princess. But she didn’t know much else.

  None of the paths of the city sewer led directly to the castle. This was likely a security measure, but it was still annoying. So, if PASCAL was inside the castle, then she had no idea how to confirm that theory.

  And also, she had no idea how to disable her anyways. If she was wired throughout the city, someone would know if she shut down and it would cause a panic. It was still her best chance of escape, but Rumia was still just one girl. There was no way she could do this entire mission all by herself.

  You’re thinking too fast, Rumia. One step at a time. She thought to herself. She wanted to break this down to smaller parts, and work through her escape one step at a time. So, what was the first thing she needed to figure out?

  Where was the heart of the problem, PASCAL? If she could figure this out, she could then move onto the next step. Things would be less overwhelming that way.

  “Does the castle have work?” Rumia turned to ask Anise. “Like, jobs or anything?”

  “You wanna work?” Anise said. “I guess I’ve just been giving you my scholarship money for a while. So earning money wouldn’t be bad. Though, you might be a little bit young for a government job…”

  “Grimace is a government officer isn’t he?” Rumia asked. “And he’s not that much older than either of us.”

  “I suppose that's fair. I wouldn’t know how to get those kinds of jobs anyways,” Anise said. “I’m not super familiar with the government processes.”

  “Mhm,” Rumia thought for a moment. She stood up from her desk and paced around the dorm room for a little bit. However, she then had an idea. Something quite obvious that she was surprised she didn’t think of first.

  “I’ll head out for a second,” Rumia said, waving off Anise. She took her cloak and quickly ran out of the room. Just as she left, she heard the voice of exactly the person she wanted to hear.

  “Are you going anywhere?” Grimace spoke from behind her, waiting behind Rumia’s door.

  “Grimace! I was just looking for you, actually,” Rumia said. “I wanna work in the castle.”

  She then realized she said that a little bit bluntly. It could even be construed as suspicious with how quickly she asked.

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  “You wish to get a job?” Grimace said. “I don’t know if they take workers so young.”

  “Of course I want to get a job!” Rumia said. “I want to buy things too and I can’t just keep mooching off of Anise like that.”

  “You can get a job at a store then, I can set you up with one.”

  “But I want a government job! Don’t they pay better?”

  “I mean, I suppose-”

  “Then get me one!”

  Rumia realized she was acting a little bit like a spoiled brat. So she reigned herself in just a little bit, and composed herself. She didn’t want to look like she was acting super whiny or anything.

  “Ugh, if we’re going to discuss this then let's discuss it somewhere else,” Grimace rolled his eyes. Since they were arguing in the dormitory, Rumia agreed. They should talk in a more comfortable place.

  Rumia was enjoying the free meal, as Grimace’s treat. She should probably savor this kind of treatment, because she had no idea how any other guard would treat her.

  This was a familiar store as well. It was the barbecue that Grimace favored a while back. There were no complaints here, as more meat came towards the table for them to eat.

  “You could always work here,” Grimace said. “It’s probably an easier workload than the castle.”

  “The castle should pay better. I thought I told you this multiple times,” Rumia insisted back. “A waitress job just isn't for me.”

  “I am not sure why you are so insistent on this. You should be focusing on your studies, regardless.”

  “I’m doing fine on my studies!”

  In all honesty, Rumia had no clue how she was doing study-wise. Her mind was never on that. She was really struggling trying to convince Grimace to get her an opportunity, so she stopped and continued to eat.

  “What are you two arguing about?” Amanda, the owner of the restaurant, walked towards the two with curiosity.

  “Amanda, do you have a job opening available?” Grimace asked. “She’s looking for work.”

  “I said I wanted to work in the castle!” Rumia repeated. “It’s like you aren’t listening to me.”

  “A job opening…? My son normally works here, and with the way the lockdown currently is, I don’t know if I could support another member of staff,” Amanda thought for a bit, but then shook her head.

  “Do you know anywhere else?” Grimace asked.

  “If I had to say, probably not,” Amanda said. “The lockdown isn’t just brutal on me, you know. The entire market is suffering, I wonder how long the government will keep this thing up. It’s a real pain in the neck, and we’ve had to entirely rely on federal support.”

  Rumia heard the woman’s response, and knew it was her time to pounce. Grimace was normally pretty lenient when it came to these sorts of things, so if there were literally no other options… certainly he would give.

  “She’s right. This economy is struggling, and they aren’t hiring new people. Grimace, please. A job at the castle is my only option.”

  “Hey, if you use that money to eat here, who am I to complain,” Amanda said, shrugging. “Can I get you two anything else?”

  “...tea, please,” Grimace said. He seemed to be mulling things over. Amanda nodded and left to grab some tea. While she was gone, Grimace looked at Rumia.

  “You know you’re a real pain, right?” Grimace said. “It’s like you’re actively looking to hinder my life as much as possible.”

  “Eh?” Rumia was confused.

  “I try to look at a murder case, and I get taken off of it to look after you. I have to follow you around everywhere just to make sure you don’t get into trouble from your glow. My entire life has been essentially scheduled around you, and it has been so unbelievably frustrating for me. Now, I also have to deal with your favors?”

  “Uh,” Rumia got a little bit of anxiety at Grimace’s words. Did she really tick him off that much over time? She felt bad, even if he was her guard, she didn’t like being the cause of this much frustration. “I’m sorry. If you don’t want to then-”

  “But you’re far too important, far too interesting for me to give up on you. We still haven’t truly figured out who you are exactly, and as much as I’d love to be working on other things… you’re the damn center of this world.”

  “Okay…?” Rumia said. She was getting mixed signals from this rant, it seemed.

  “It’s just… ugh. It feels like there’s something I’m missing, and I don’t know what it is. Why you? Why are you here? Why do people care so much? I feel like you’ve got too many secrets as well that I haven’t figured out yet. I still haven’t figured out a lot in my life, really. So-”

  “Your tea, Grimace,” Amanda had walked back into the table and placed the cup of tea in front of Grimace. The boy took a sip of it, then had a deep breath, as if winding himself down.

  “Well, if you really can’t then that’s fine-” Rumia began to say.

  “I’ll talk to Governor Esther about it,” Grimace said. “Maybe you can get a job. Perhaps you being closer to the capital will be good for me, as well.”

  Rumia paused. She was confused, after that entire rant… he agreed? She didn’t understand at all what was going on inside this boy’s head. Rumia was just expecting a resounding no, but… it was a yes?

  “Thank… you?” Rumia said. “If… If you really mean it, that is.”

  “Yes, I do. I’ll do it tomorrow, since I’m going to be sent off to Lune for a brief period of time. That gives both of us a break from each other, at least,” Grimace stood up, having finished his meal. “Was there anything else you wanted to do today? I’ll cover it. We could also bring Anise, if you want.”

  Rumia was still boggled at this turn of events, and his demeanor. But, it wasn’t like her to say no to a good thing, so she just simply nodded and accepted her fortune.

  “Sure. How about we watch another play?” Rumia suggested. “I think we all would appreciate that very much.”

  “Consider it done, then. I’m sure there is something good going on at this time. Let us inform Anise, then. It should be enjoyable, at least before your experiment time.”

  Right. She still had to do one of those today. It really became engrained in her usual life that she didn’t even think too hard about the experiments anymore.

  But, at the very least, she supposed today was a successful day, if nothing else.