Chương 99: Lost and found

Sydney lived in a mansion. Dennis wasn't sure why he was surprised by that realization. She literally told them about it. Bragged, even, about having two pools and a jacuzzi. He knew that they were moving toward a mansion. It just didn't click for him that this was where they were going to live. Or something. Come to think of it, he wasn't really sure what he was doing here. He understood the chain of events – but did he really want to just live in NLA?

He got here mostly because he was still confused and trying to find his footing, and didn't really care what his surroundings looked like while he was busy figuring himself out. If Mary or Lily wanted the surroundings to include central heating and a jacuzzi, he wasn't going to stop them. The mansion clearly belonged to someone filthy rich – from the old world, that is. Sydney gave off an impression of being a struggling accountant – not a mansion-owning material.

The building was on the older side, with furniture that seemed to be at least a decade old, if not two. The foyer was missing a door. And a wall where that door was supposed to be. Sydney pointedly ignored the missing wall, just stepping over its remains. Theatrically, she raised her arms and turned around in one motion.

"This is my place," she said in a somewhat bored tone, though he could hear mirth underneath. He guessed that she was just naturally 'bored', for lack of a better word. Or she was just unlucky to be born with that type of face. It was probably the face.

"Some ground rules," she continued, pointedly looking at the four of them. Mark was missing, lost somewhere on the way to the building. Probably parking the truck. Or Sydney kicked him out while Dennis wasn't looking.

"Don't murder anyone, don't mind-control anyone, don't do suspicious magic without telling me what it is and…" She looked at Mary, narrowing her eyes. Mary smiled, gently.

"Don't get caught eavesdropping on secret elite meetings." Mary's smile became a bit more forced. Dennis was feeling called out. Which was totally unfair, so far what he did was at most one murder and a half. He still wasn't sure how to count the immortal hobo. It was a baby body count by any apocalypse metric.

"There's secret elite meetings?" Dennis murmured.

"For the elites? Why are they secret?"

"And some Farmers, and a bunch of other people who are important for this or that thing," Sydney nodded, waving her arm like it was something completely unimportant.

"That is, if there are secret meetings. Which there aren't. Especially in an hour, in an old pub a mile or so to the west. The green one." Mary gave her a tiny, almost unnoticeable nod. Sydney smiled.

"Good," she said.

"Coincidentally, I have somewhere I need to be quite soon. Is there anything pressing you need? Or anything I should know? If you have a vampiric Skill that requires you to drink blood every day, now is the time to tell me. Or if there's going to be a second wave of monsters spawning soon that you forgot to mention? Another apocalypse?" She studied them carefully.

"Nothing? I can leave you and you won't summon demons, turn into demons, or get hunted by demons in the short time I won't be here?" While Dennis was pretty sure that 'demons' was just a wild example, he couldn't help but think that El'el definitely could summon some if she wanted. Lily could turn into one. And he was, in fact, probably hunted by a dude who ate souls. From that point of view, the woman's intuition was frightening.

"We're cool," he said casually. It wasn't anything he wouldn't be able to deal with. The woman sighed, though it was hard to notice.

"Okay," she said.

"Kitchen is that way" She waved her arm to the left.

"And you can take whatever rooms you want. I'll be back before the night, hopefully. Be nice." She left, leaving them alone in a mansion, which might or might not actually become a place where they'd live for an indefinite amount of time. In other words, an actual home. Dennis didn't remember having a home since the apocalypse started. Just places where he slept. He just didn't think about it. Huh. He wondered…

"Who wants to check out the pool?" Mary asked cheerfully, interrupting his train of thought.

"I don't know how to swim," Lily said carefully, as if checking if it was okay for her to engage in a conversation. Dennis was almost used to the mess that was her aura. And, anyway, it was definitely getting better.

"And isn't it a bit too cold?" Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"But, you see…" Mary smiled mysteriously.

"We can warm it up with magic!" She glanced at El'el.

"Can we?"

"It shouldn't be hard," the elf agreed.

"I would prefer to eat something first and familiarize myself with the lodgings, if you won't mind." As people dispersed, Dennis realized that he was thoroughly lost. Not literally, but… he was a bit lost in his mind, some voice at the back of his head questioning what he was doing. He picked the first living room he saw for himself, not really caring about the thing. He wasn't sure if it was because he was the first one to pick or what, but everyone else picked rooms nearby despite the absurd size of the mansion.

Lily, specifically, seemed like she didn't want to have a room of her own at all and would've preferred just to live with him, but thankfully Mary stopped the worrying duckling-tendencies by suggesting that they share one together. They picked a room literally across the hall from his, as close as possible. El'el, at least, didn't have any aversion to privacy, and picked one slightly further away, seemingly happy with a bit of solitude. Despite the general feeling of being lost, it wasn't all bad.

The kitchen turned out to be as big as his old house, and the fridge was full with an honestly absurd amount of fruit and vegetables. Meat was a bit suspicious though. Not rotten or anything, but the origins of it were questionable. Dennis doubted that they had animal farms in NLA. Maybe chickens? The meat they had found was definitely not from a chicken. Mary showed off her cooking skills, preparing them all a stew 'just like her grandma did'.

Dennis wondered if the mystery meat was included in the recipe from the start, or if it was a new addition. The two pools were a lie. Like, the pools were there, yes. But they were empty, without any water. It kind of made sense that maintaining pools wasn't exactly a priority for the people lately, even if they were as 'well off' as Sydney seemed to be, but why the heck would the woman brag about them if they were unusable? Was she just that petty? Desperate to show off?

Who the hell bragged about having two pools while not actually being able to use them? Okay, she didn't lie because of the technicality, but the whole thing seemed… a bit childish, from her? Not that Dennis wanted to swim. He was just weirded out by the weird quirk of Sydney's character. Jacuzzi worked though. The house had electricity and running water, some-fucking-how, so they took turns enjoying their time relaxing.

The fact that Sydney's house, in her rich extravagance, had power was enough to send him on a search for a computer to check if she had the internet. It was almost an instinct from his old life – He was clean and well-fed, so the next thing to do was to find some comics or manga to read, or maybe rewatch the animated Justice League again. It was a numb sort of longing, something he hadn't felt in a while. The first days of the apocalypse and survival in the Echo felt, in a way, natural.

The world was turned on its head, everything was new and chaotic, and there was a weird sort of comfort in that chaos. He just fought and leveled up, high on the feeling of becoming faster, and fixed problems as they came at him. When everything was in chaos and there was no actual certainty whether he'd survive in the next hour, let alone in a day or a week – he thrived. He had his goal and moved towards it. Kill a monster, get faster, become a speedster, live his dream.

He didn't care about his old life, or his comics, or his figures. In a way, the slight taste of normalcy was pushing him off-balance. He was used to living in the moment. Reacting. Kill this monster, save that person, grind, repeat, move. There was always something he had to do. There was no way back to his old life, not that he wanted it. There was always a threat. Or a goal. Dennis wasn't sure if he needed to get faster. He wanted to, but… Getting faster wasn't the goal. Just the means.

With a roof above his head, and a certainty that he could just… continue living, he was as close to his old life as he could be from the time it all started. He was lost. Without immediate threats and urgent goals, without the need to survive and grind, with a roof above his head and food in the fridge and clean clothes… It was like his mode of thinking wasn't made for situations like this. Wasn't meant to be safe, not fighting or trying to save someone.

Apocalypse-Dennis, the one who killed monsters when he saw them and saved people when he saw them, and that was all that he did… He was lost. Of course, he'd figure out how to properly hero, he'd look for villainy and ways he could help, but… he wouldn't do it right now. Right now, everyone was resting. It didn't feel like the right moment to push things. The only thing he could come up with was going back to how Pre-Apocalypse-Dennis lived. That one always knew what to do when there was no urgency.

He found a laptop. It didn't even have a password. There was no internet. No pre-downloaded movies either. The mansion had a small library. Not even a library, but a room with a bunch of bookshelves and a place to sit. There were no comics. Even the books seemed more like a haphazard collection than what someone was actually reading. Lots of 'classics', a few random encyclopedias, a very big bible… but no fiction, aside from a few very mainstream tomes.

Curiously, most of the books seemed to be expensive, with pretty hardcovers that were too good for the contents. It wasn't someone's library. It was a decorative piece for someone rich who threw money to fill the shelves to look sophisticated. The mold in Dennis' basement held more value than this whole 'library' combined. Dennis wandered the mansion like a ghost. Too safe to act like the new him. Too far from home to go back to his old habits. Too unsure of himself to know what a hero would do. Home…

He never cared about it. And now he missed it. Was his mom dead? Maybe that was why he wasn't looking for her more actively. He didn't want to confirm. He found the others in the common room. The three of them were hunched over a table. They were playing cards. Hopefully, not poker. Mary was enthusiastically whispering something to Lily while simultaneously waving her hand in El'el's direction. El'el was watching the cards in her hand with a furrowed brow. He found it cute.

It was like she was trying to curse her bad hand out of existence with the power of her mind. Lily was almost completely relaxed, cozying up to the warmth of the fire and paying little attention to the game despite probably winning. A fireplace was crackling nearby. The sound was soothing.

"Mind if I join?" he asked.