Chapter 10. Being Recognized
Juwel still could not sleep deeply even though he had been sleep-deprived for several days. Today he had only slept for two hours.
Outside in the living room, Corvos still had not slept.
There was no room for Corvos, and obviously Juwel did not agree to share a room with Corvos, so Corvos slept in the living room.
Corvos sat on the sofa with an open book in his hands. His eyes carefully moved along each line.
He rarely went to sleep early. It was a habit formed during the years he lived in darkness. Even though he no longer needed to hide, no longer had illegal dealings or nightly plans to draft, he still kept that rhythm.
Lach cach.[1]
The sound of the bedroom door opening caught Corvos's attention for a moment. He glanced at Juwel, but the other person did not glance back even once. Juwel kept his familiar indifferent expression and walked straight to the main door.
Corvos turned another page.
"If you do not remember the way back, then just call me." He reminded him.
As expected, Juwel ignored him.
When he reached the door and touched the doorknob, he stopped as if he had remembered something. Juwel took a facemask from his pocket and put it on to cover most of his face.
For a rare moment, Juwel turned his head. His indifferent eyes looked straight at Corvos.
"It seems that dark circles are one of the things you brought with you into this life."
After saying that, he turned away without waiting for any reaction.
"Cach." The door closed behind him, leaving Corvos sitting silently inside the room.
Juwel opened the iron gate. Its design made him feel as if it was a tightly sealed cage. When he looked around, all the other houses had the same design. It was probably part of the local culture, maybe to guard against thieves.
There were two paths to take, one to the left and one to the right. Juwel needed only one second to decide. He turned and chose the right side. While walking in the alley, he finally understood why Corvos hinted that he could get lost.
There were many alleys here. They were small and narrow. The paths were not built in a systematic way, so they looked chaotic. The roads were not completely straight, and the curves made it difficult for a person's perception to distinguish whether they had turned or continued straight. It was easy to lose direction.
No one knew what Juwel was thinking when he chose his paths. No one knew whether he was using logic or whether he walked based on impulse. While Juwel walked, he still saw motorbikes passing through the narrow road. Every time a bike brushed past his shoulder, it made him feel something unfamiliar. It was a danger he could imagine, but Juwel had always lived with danger in his previous life, so his courage had been forged. That conflicting emotion pulled at him inside.
After a long walk, Juwel finally escaped that maze and stepped onto the main road.
Outside, the cold wind slipped through his collar and made him shiver. He pulled the zipper of his hoodie higher. The thick, warm fur hugged his neck and reduced the night's chill.
The gusts of freezing air swept past, so he pulled his hood over his head to cover his ears. The sweet scent of hoa sữa drifted in the air. It brought a strange feeling. It was a type of tree he had never seen in his previous life. The sound of traffic in the distance mixed with the murmur of people, creating a distinctive melody of the city at night.
Overwhelming.
Cars sped past quickly even though it was already night.
Noisy.
Horns blared every few moments. There were sales calls, and sounds came from every direction, but Juwel did not know where they came from.
Juwel stood stranded by the roadside.
It had been three days since he arrived in this world. He had pushed himself to his limits to adapt to his new life, yet even though this place shared many similarities with the world he came from, three days were far too short for him to grasp everything he needed to know.
And that weighed on him.
Juwel was not the type to crumble under pressure, but, of course, this was an entirely new world, a new civilization, new surroundings, even a new body. There was no way he could simply accept it all with ease.
It was also his first time walking outside alone. Corvos had guided him around the neighborhood before, yet going alone felt entirely different.
It unsettled him, because it meant he was slowly forming ties to this world.
And that meant the distance between him and his former world would only grow. Perhaps one day, he would forget he had ever been a person from there at all come to think of that place as nothing more than a fragment of imagination. He didn't know, he didn't know… Perhaps it would be like his memories of his family: their faces growing hazy, their voices fading away, until nothing remained.
"BEEP!!!"
A car horn jolted him out of his dark thoughts.
Juwel exhaled, rubbing his temples, forcing down the turmoil.
He had decided he would unwind tonight. So he would.
"Does he feel the same things I do?" A sudden thought rose in his mind, unbidden.
He decided to walk around the area to observe the world he had stepped into. The buildings stood close together, and the streetlights cast their glow onto the tiled road, giving it a quiet charm. A few figures passed by. They lowered their heads because of the cold, their steps quick as if escaping the biting wind.
Juwel walked past a small park where clusters of milk-flower trees were blooming under the lamps, and a few playful children were still lingering around. There were also adults walking nearby, or sitting on benches chatting or looking at the scenery. He stopped for a moment and watched them. His breath turned into thin wisps in the cold air.
His heart was stirring.
It was coming alive again.
The novelty of this new world was awakening all his senses, lifting his emotions, helping him shake off the lingering grip of the nightmare earlier.
Juwel stopped in front of a small convenience store tucked away on a narrow side street at the corner.
The warm light spilling from inside softened the cold of the winter night. He had not intended to stop anywhere when he left the apartment, but the passing thought of needing personal belongings made him change direction.
He murmured to himself as he recalled the basic items.
Having to use the personal belongings of the original owner of this body made him uncomfortable, even though he was living in that body now. Not only because of the idea of privacy, but also because it reminded him that this was not truly his body. He could not shake off the sense of unfamiliarity and loss of control.
Juwel opened the door and stepped inside. The small bell above the door chimed as he pushed the glass. The sound signaled the arrival of a customer. The interior was warm, with neatly organized shelves. A staff member at the counter was fiddling with her phone, not paying attention to the person who had entered.
"You can just pick anything you need," she said automatically. Her eyes never left the screen.
Juwel ignored her and swept his gaze across the shelves. From personal care items to food and drinks, everything was laid out in order.
He walked to the personal care section and picked a toothbrush, a face towel, along with several other basic items such as body wash and shampoo.
While choosing, Juwel did not forget to check the price tags attached to each item. He was not someone who cared much about money, but money was important.
A simple toothbrush was listed at twenty-five thousand. A rolled face towel was around seventy-eight thousand, and a small bottle of shampoo ranged from sixty thousand to one hundred twenty thousand.
Juwel quickly memorized the numbers and began considering the basic cost of living in this world. He ran his eyes across other shelves, evaluating products from frozen foods to snacks and drinks.
He frowned slightly. His mind was quick to calculate. If he only bought basic personal items, the amount would not be large, but if daily expenses such as food and fixed bills were included, the monthly living cost might not be small at all.
He had already checked the finances of the original owner of the body.
To put it plainly... things were not good.
Despite that thought, Juwel appeared remarkably calm about being several billions in debt. Juwel had never been the type to care about money, from the day he was born until the day he died.
Standing at the checkout counter, Juwel quietly observed. The store clerk was a young woman, and she was quickly ringing up another customer. When she swiped a card through the machine, he watched the process closely. With just a light swipe, the amount was deducted without any physical money exchanged. The beep of the barcode scanner, the sound confirming a completed transaction, and the clerk saying thank you. Everything ran smoothly, neatly, and far more automated than anything he had seen before.
Money here took many forms and felt strange to him. It was merely a virtual number on a card. One could not see it or touch it, yet it was legal and widely accepted. However, he also realized that to make an entire society trust such a system, there needed to be political stability, legal enforcement, and high trust in the institutions handling the physical money.
When it was his turn, Juwel placed his basket on the counter.
But before the clerk could scan the first item, a man shoved forward from behind.
"Give me a pack of cigarettes!" he said. His voice was slurred, thick with alcohol. His flushed face already revealed his condition.
Juwel glanced at him once, then turned away calmly. He did not respond. He was not the type to be easily provoked by disrespectful behavior if it did not concern him.
The store clerk hesitated for a moment, then quickly did as he asked, likely used to this type of customer. She moved to the shelf beside the counter, grabbed a pack of cigarettes, and set it in front of him.
"Twenty-seven," she said softly but clearly.
The man had just grabbed the pack of cigarettes when he immediately tore open the plastic wrapping. He let the plastic shell fall to the floor without paying it any attention. He put a cigarette between his lips and spoke again.
"Umm, let me borrow your lighter too."
The store clerk's expression was starting to look a little annoyed. She rummaged through the drawer and took out a lighter. She handed it to him with clear reluctance.
The man flicked the lighter, lit the cigarette, and took a long drag. Only a few seconds later, a cloud of thick white smoke rose and drifted in the small, confined space of the convenience store. The clerk slightly wrinkled her nose. She clearly disliked the smell of the cigarette smoke, but she said nothing.
Juwel stood silently. His eyes slid over the man, then stopped at the cigarette in his hand.
So this was what tobacco looked like in this world.
In his old world, tobacco was a luxury. Only nobles or high-ranking knights and soldiers could own it. It was an image tied to wealth or authority. Yet in this world, it seemed to carry no noble meaning at all. A drunk man with crude manners used cigarettes as a casual everyday pastime. Everything about it created a strange contrast with what Juwel once knew.
When the man left, he carried the heavy smell of smoke with him. The convenience store became quieter. The clerk returned to the counter. Her eyes passed over Juwel, and then she froze in surprise.
Her eyes widened as if she had seen something beyond her imagination. Emotions flooded across her face. There was awe, excitement, and perhaps even a hint of disbelief. However, she was clearly trying to restrain herself so her expression would not cross the line.
Juwel immediately recognized that something was wrong. A sense of unease crept into him. What worried him was the possibility that this person might know the original owner of this body. Since he was still wearing a mask, he believed it would be better to make her misunderstand that he was not the original owner, rather than letting her think he was.
Juwel kept his expression as natural as possible and acted as if he did not know the girl. He really did not know her. To reduce unnecessary attention, he intentionally broke the tense atmosphere with a request.
"I also want to buy a pack of cigarettes, but the kind with thinner and smaller sticks."
The clerk hesitated slightly at his request but quickly nodded and began searching the shelf. Her hand trembled faintly while she made her selection, as if she was still affected by his presence. While doing so, she did not forget to ask:
"Do you need to buy a lighter as well?"
Juwel recalled the man earlier and the way he used the lighter. It looked easy to use, but Juwel still refused.
"I do not need it. Do you have matches here?"
The clerk looked a little surprised at his answer. She quickly found a small matchbox and handed it to him along with the pack of cigarettes. Juwel accepted it and examined the matchbox. He preferred the handcrafted feeling and the scent of burning wood from matches more than the modern convenience of a lighter, although he admitted that a lighter was much more practical.
Besides, he did not want to create unnecessary trouble when he only wanted to smoke a single cigarette. He thought it would be best to use whatever was commonly used here.
After that, the clerk rang up his purchase.
[1] Sound