After finis.h.i.+ng his dinner and waiting for Zero to return to her room to do her homework, Roland arrived at the doorstep of apartment 0827 as promised.

The door creaked open after he knocked on it a few times.

Garcia, still wearing that ice-cold expression of hers, said,

"Come on in."

After entering, Roland found that the decoration of her apartment was much more luxurious than his. The flooring was changed into real wood. There was a shoe shelf by the entrance, and a crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Even the walls were painted over with fine white paint. It was definitely not the original cheap paint that covered the walls of this tube-shaped apartment building before.

"I don't have extra slippers. You can wear mine for now." She pointed to a pair of slippers decorated with furry rabbit ears in the bottom layer of the shoe shelf. "I love wearing large slippers so they shouldn't be too small for you."

Roland put the slippers on. They were not small but they were winter slippers. He felt hot the moment he put them on. He could not stand the pair of furry rabbit ears and could hardly imagine what Garcia looked like when she wore these cute slippers.

She seems so standoffish. How can such a pair of slippers match her dry personality?

He walked to the sofa and sat on it. "By the way, could I have some water? Dinner was a little salty."

Garcia frowned and gave him a look. "Only cold water."

"Cold water is fine."

When she turned around to fetch water from the kitchen, Roland held his head up and looked around the room. All the apartments in this building had identical layouts. Every two adjacent apartments were symmetrical. Based on the layout of his own apartment, he was certain that this corridor facing the entrance must lead to the storage.

As he expected, he saw a similar room at the end of the corridor, but Garcia had redecorated it. She even changed the door into a louvered sliding door. Normally, this type of door could not be locked, which was good news for him. But he was still worried that she might have also dismantled the iron door and refurbished the outer walls when decorating.

When Garcia returned to the living room with a gla.s.s of water in her hand, Roland had stopped looking and leaned on the sofa to watch the TV.

"Thank you!" Roland said as he fetched the gla.s.s. "You live here alone? But in the parent's meeting this morning, they all said that you're the daughter of the Clover..."

"No, I'm not. I've got nothing to do with the Clover. You could even say that they're my enemies." Garcia interrupted in a cold tone.

"Enemies?" Roland was stunned. "Then your cousin..."

Garcia seemed somewhat depressed. She explained, "They're taking advantage of my cousin by getting him to talk me into going back, but if I leave here, the Clover a.s.sociation would demolish this building."

"So it's the Clover a.s.sociation that launched the mall expansion project next door?"

"Who else would dare to demolish such an ancient building?" Garcia looked confused and asked, "You live here. Why don't you know this?"

This is going to be bad! She isn't Zero. She's a mature grown adult. If she inherits the characteristics of Princess Garcia, it would be even more difficult to fool her.

"Ahem... I've paid little attention to what's going on around this place. Plus, I've lost my job earlier and haven't stepped out of my apartment for almost six months." Roland s.h.i.+fted the topic in a hurry. " You've told me that a martialist has some other jobs besides partic.i.p.ating in contests?"

"Yes. For a martialist, to partic.i.p.ate in a contest is just equivalent to training. The most important mission of us is to fight against erosion from the outside world instead of winning prizes and publicizing the martial arts to the audience."

"What erosion?" he was stunned and asked.

"You should know the Fallen Evils. They're one kind of the erosion and also the most common. They aren't people who lost their control over the Force of Nature after awakening. Instead, they're those who were eroded by the outside world, thus turning into another lifeform. Conventional means can barely harm them, so we need to stand up and fight against them." Garcia explained to him with a low voice.

Roland swallowed hard as a sense of unease grew in his heart. "The Dream World is eroded?

"What's the meaning of the outside world?"

"I can't tell you more about that unless you join the Martialist a.s.sociation and obtain a hunting license."

"Why?"

"Because not all people who have awakened their Force of Nature will choose to side with the martialists." Garcia p.r.o.nounced her words one by one. "Some people even hope that forces from the outside world would break into our world. These people are hostile to all human beings. Hence, a hunting license would not only allow a person to fight against Fallen Evils, but also permit martialists to kill those awakened people who want to destabilize the society."

"So that's why it's called the hunting license?" Roland was frightened upon hearing this. In other words, if I confirm that I've awakened with the Force of Nature and refuse to join their Martialist a.s.sociation, wouldn't I be considered as their mortal enemy?

Garcia shook her head as if she saw through his concerns. "A small part of the awakened refused to join the Martialist a.s.sociation or to work for those forces of evil. They're called the centrists. Our Martialist a.s.sociation won't take action against them, but the Fallen Evils are different. Most centrists act alone, so they would frequently get attacked by them. If you don't plan on joining the Martialist a.s.sociation, you'd better hide your power forever."

Seeing as Garcia had told him so much, Roland could not help but feel awkward. He initially thought that she was a callous person, but actually, she was not that difficult to talk to. When they first met each other in this world, he had even thought that she was an arrogant woman who thought she was above everyone else.

"When we first met each other, your immediate reaction was to reach for the weapon on your back, so why should I be nice to you? You should feel lucky that you didn't actually pull your weapon out. Otherwise, you would already be lying in a hospital bed." He finally loosened up and let go of his earlier doubts, but all he got was a blank stare.

Just at this moment, Garcia's phone started ringing. She glanced at her phone and frowned, saying, "I've got to take this call."

After saying that, she took the phone into her bedroom and closed the door behind her.

Apparently, she did not want Roland to overhear her phone call.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!" Roland thought.

He stood up right away and took off the slippers fas.h.i.+oned with furry rabbit ears. He then quickly walked to the end of the corridor with bare feet.

Through the gaps in the louvered door, he was able to get a glimpse of what was inside. Garcia had redecorated it into a walk-in closet where there were various types of female clothing, including some female underwear.

However, nothing could stop him from exploring the truth of this world.

He pushed the louvered door without hesitation, and while smelling the fragrance of those female clothes, he walked into the closet.

After walking through layers of clothing, he found a dark turquoise gate at the far end of the closet. He noticed that it was unlocked and its handle was covered with a thick layer of dust which stood out of place among the clean surroundings.

Has Garcia never entered this Gate of Memory?

But this was not the time to think about this. Roland took a deep breath and lightly turned the handle.

The smell of seawater immediately filled his nose, and the sound of waves lapping the beach came from afar. The deep blue sea slowly unfolded in front of him like a vast curtain.