Chương 5: Sleeping 10 Hours is the Real Dimensional Threat

Apartment 4B cost Soren's coffers 80, 900 yen a month. It was enough for someone who earned minimum wage and was tired of palaces and grand, luxurious stays. This apartment had a single window, a counter, a bed for when Soren remembered to sleep, a chair, a desk, and of course, it included a bathroom with a slope in the toilet area where the stairs to the 5th floor passed by; this work of modern engineering forced Soren to do his business leaning heavily forward.

The building was located in a humble and old neighborhood, without a single neighbor interested in managing the condominium. It had a metallic gray color, so dull that it seemed to absorb light instead of reflecting it; some of the neighbors already believed this residential building had been forgotten by postmen and by the government itself. The plumbing was peculiar, possessing a dubious level of reliability.

Some pipes ran right across the ceiling of his apartment, transporting hourly drops of liquids, and sometimes solid waste, that banged against the plastic. However, the only window in his apartment provided a breathtaking view of nothing more, nothing less than the gray wall of the other building, featuring a clothesline that had seen better days of equilibrium. Soren became a fan of these conditions.

He developed an ability to perceive that certain flaws symbolized authenticity, because that window, which sometimes got stuck, faced north, and on the 5th floor noises emerged at four in the morning. These noises could suggest either ghosts or a profound misunderstanding of how water should behave during the early hours. From the first floor of the building onwards, the exterior paint was already quite worn; on some floors, the clay-colored brick was visible, along with a few Asian hornet nests.

However, on the ground floor, it was a different story: there was graffiti featuring various iconic Japanese personalities. By the entrance was Vegeta from Dragon Ball, and on the side, next to a garden full of weeds, there was an illustration of Shin Chan, and yes, he was completely naked. It was perfect for Soren. Soren woke up. His digital clock read 17: 47, which meant he had slept a lot—10 hours and 2 minutes of sleep.

It was an unusual amount of time, especially for someone who had spent centuries learning to function on just four hours of sleep. Four was enough for him to have all the physical energy and mental clarity for his routine activities, as well as to develop new spells or produce new artifacts. But it seemed that closing dimensional rifts had begun to wear him out more than he had calculated. Or perhaps he was simply getting older; believe it or not, it was 800 years of old age, a feat that is not for everyone.

User Rest Log Sleep duration: [10h 02m] Previous record: [6h 07m] Note: [Congratulations! You have reached a new personal record.] Secondary note: [The System did not have this category available to date. It created it five minutes ago just for you.] Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Tertiary note: [It is not an honor.] Soren was still half asleep; he had to read the System's notification twice, not because he hadn't understood the message, but because during all this time in Tokyo, the System had never invented a new category for him, and it was necessary for him to validate this novelty. He already thought the System was going crazy, or else it was actively taking initiatives to try and drive him crazy. 6h07, he thought, at that time I had an excuse.

Next, he closed the notification with a blink of an eye and concluded that there was no harm in breaking personal records. Still wearing his kimono, which he loved to wear as pajamas, he remained lying down for exactly two minutes, staring at the ceiling as he reflected. On that ceiling there was a special crack; it vaguely reminded him of the outline of the coast of Portugal.

He had noticed this precisely from the very first day he entered that studio apartment, where the landlord, a grumpy man already of veteran age, presented it in a rushed viewing, always with a scowling face that showed he left no room for negotiation. The viewing took exactly 39 seconds to get to know that entire space. The two phrases Soren remembered from the landlord that day were: "80, 900 yen a month" and "Don't go jumping on the bed, you'll end up opening that crack even more, boy."

Since then, he never stopped noticing it; there are things that leave a mark on us, and that crack for Soren was a reminder of how happy he had been in that country. Time to do an update, he thought. Status Update Crown integration: [8. 2%] Seal status: [Stable] Energy recovery: [Complete] System recommendation: [Maintain the routine without exception] Emotional support: [Good luck with that] But maintaining the routine, that had been Soren's plan during those three years in Tokyo. In fact, that plan had worked.

Working during the night, sleeping during the day, and existing on the fringes of modern society, where no one observed him too closely to ask any kind of inconvenient question like the old ladies at the grocery stores do. Soren made himself so mundane that even Karma got bored of him and went to pick on someone else.

It was like letting the world forget that Soren had ever been anything more than a night-shift employee at a convenience store, with his exemplary attendance and a professionalism worthy of a best practices manual for stock replenishment. But now, even the damn System was playing the role of psychologist, therapist, or some kind of emotional coach. For it to wish him luck, it must be dying to see the next episodes.

Soren already felt that it acted like a know-it-all about everything and then some; this habit was already making it annoying. However, Soren still had the mental discernment to only recognize emotional support coming from specialists in the field, not from a supercomputer. The plan had worked up until the previous night. He got up and, in just one step, reached his counter, where he kept his kettle.

He started heating the water to make instant coffee; it was from those cheap sachets sold in bunches at the supermarkets. For him, some achievements deserved respect; he had already drunk from the best coffee harvests in the whole world, served in cups of gold or silver. The kettle whistled.

But this instant coffee was special to him; its inconsistency in intensity matched its price, making it the ideal harmony, especially when served in that cracked mug bearing a few marks from involuntary falls and an obvious plea to be thrown in the trash, which Soren pretended not to notice. He picked up the coffee; the mug was scalding, but even so, he took a sip and stood by the window observing the gray wall with that solitary clothesline.

It didn't take long to conclude that it remained exactly the same as the day before. There was a serious satisfaction in that moment of contemplation. Knock, knock. Someone out there knocked on the door of his apartment at 18: 23.