Back in the doorway to the "Common Room" in the castle, Starrk just stood there, as he processed the new information with a deadpan expression on his face.
Unbeknownst to him, the reason why Starrk hadn't seen the Teleporter on the mountain summit was that he had been teleported in front of it.
In fact, if he had so much as stumbled a single step backwards, he would have activated it by accident.
There was a long pause in the room.
Then, Starrk lifted up his arm with his index finger. His mouth opened, as if he was about to say something, but a moment later, he let out a long sigh.
He then turned on his heel.
"I'm going to go take a showerand get a fresh change of clothes," Starrk muttered. "And then…" he added, before slumping his shoulders in defeat. "I'm gonna go cry myself to sleep."
He then slowly began to walk away.
"Commander Starrk," Gobkiko replied.
Starrk stopped moving.
"The living quarters are on the second floor," she replied.
Starrk raised his hand with his thumb extended, giving her a "thumbs up" without turning around.
Starrk then continued to walk away from the common room. As he did, the doors slowly closed on their own.
On the couch, Kujaku and Gobkiko exchanged looks. Then, Gokiko lifted a remote control to the TV and changed to another channel.
***
Back in the castle hallway, Starrk walked down the hall away from the large door.
When he passed by the two sets of curved staircases, he turned to the left and ascended the left staircase.
As he reached the second level and began walking down the hall, he saw a long line of identical doors. Like with the first door, the doors were significantly spaced out.
Starrk also noticed that several of these doors had images on them. The images were a light-blue hexagon with the upper torso of one of the Summons occupying the hexagon. However, the strange part was that the images appeared to be larger than the hexagons, as they extended out of the hexagon like an overframe image.
Going down the line from the far right, Starrk discovered that the first three doors along the hall all had images on them.
The first showed Artoria's upper body, then Sylvia's, and then Rakshara's.
Finally, he found a blank door to the left of Rakshara's door.
Starrk reached out his hand and wrapped it around the doorknob.
As he did, light-blue square and rectangular pixels began to appear in front of him. The pixels clustered together into a large, light-blue rectangle with words in a digital font written on it.
[Would you like to claim this room as your Living Quarters?
[Yes] [No] ]
Starrk stared at the words on the strange rectangle for a moment.
He then let out a long sigh.
"Sure," he replied.
He had been having a hard day. He had been struck down, transported to this strange world, and then had wasted god knows how long traversing that blasted chain. He just wanted it to be over.
The "Yes" rectangle inside the larger one lit up, and an electronic beep was heard.
Then, the rectangle vanished, only to be replaced by a new one.
[Room is now registered to Individual Coyote Starrk.]
The strange rectangle vanished, and Starrk watched as a line of pixels appeared near the middle of the door. The line of pixels traveled upwards along the door. As it traveled up, an image began to form on the door.
Slowly, Starrk watched his own torso appear inside one of those light-blue hexagons. In the image, Starrk was looking ahead in his normal, uncaring look, with his right arm down by his side and out of frame, and his left arm resting inside the right side of his outfit just above his sash.
Once the line of pixels reached the very top of his head, they vanished.
The doorknob now felt incredibly loose in his grip, as if it were now unlocked.
Starrk slowly turned the doorknob to the left, and an audible click was heard.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
Inside, the room was quite large and resembled a small apartment. It was a large rectangle cut into two halves. The half closest to Starrk had linoleum flooring, as well as a small kitchen sink in the middleof the section, pressed against the wall. Above the sink was a set of two cabinets. Extending out to the left of the sink was a set of two connected counters, arranged like an upside-down "L".
Placed a few feet to the left of the sink along the kitchen counter, there was a microwave.
The far right side of the kitchen section of the house housed a full-sized oven, with a fridge a few feet away to the right of it. Both of these appliances were pressed against the far wall.
The living room section of the room had two recliners pressed against the west wall of the room. Bolted high on the east wall, there was a large flatscreen TV.
Pressed against the back of the kitchen counters, there was also a large couch.
Also placed along the west wall of the room were two doors. One was placed just to the left of the closest recliner to the kitchen. And the second was placed just slightly to the left of where the kitchen sink was located.
Starrk walked up to the first door and opened it. Inside, he found a modest bathroom with white walls. It had a counter with a sink in the center of the room, as well as a cabinet underneath it. To the right of the sink, there was a toilet.
Pressed against the far wall facing the toilet, there was a cabinet with three drawers.
To the left of the sink counter, there was a bathtub pressed against the far wall. The bath also had a curtain hanging above it.
The last thing in the bathroom was a towel rack attached to the wall between the sink and the bathtub.
Starrk let out a sigh of relief.
"Finally," he replied.
***
Back in the meeting room, Sergeant Faye turned to Head General Paul.
"Given the recent events, I propose that we remove the Portal to Pioletic from the restricted training room and place it in a separate, more highly-guarded storage facility," she suggested. Her eyes then narrowed. "As the 'incident'last week has proven it's not as secure as we thought in that room, and we don't want to have any more 'accidents'."
Despite now being a Vampire, Faye did feel obligated to protect the kids on the base, but that wasn't her only reason for this suggestion. By putting the Portal under lock and key, it would minimize the chance of more Humans appearing on the Planet.
Paul looked at Sergeant Faye for a moment. He then turned to the others.
"All in favor?" he asked.
Slowly, everyone's hand rose into the air. Even those from the Second-Year section. Duke knew that if he did object, it would just raise questions.
"Motion passes," Paul replied. "We'll have guards relocate the Portal in the morning." Paul then cleared his throat. "Right, then. I think that's just about everything."
Paul turned to look at all those around him.
"Meeting adjourned," he replied. "You're all free to go."
Slowly, the seven of them rose from their chairs, and they began to leave the room.
***
Back in the bathroom in his room in the castle, Starrk rinsed himself off in the shower. He had taken three showers, just to make sure that he got all of the sweat off his body.
Starrk pulled open the shower curtain and grabbed the towel from the rack on the wall.
After thoroughly drying himself off, he wrapped the towel around his waist.
Starrk then walked out of the bathroom and back into the main room.
He then began to walk towards the second door on the west wall. As he walked, his wet footprints on the ground began to glitch, before breaking apart into pixels moments later, keeping the floor in a pristine, clean state.
Starrk walked up to the door off to the left of the recliners and pulled it open.
Inside, the room appeared to be some sort of bedroom.
It had a large, king-sized bed pushed up against the right wall lengthwise, the bed possessing an ornate bedframe made out of African Blackwood. The room also had a flat-screen TV bolted high on the back wall, tilted downwards, so that it could be watched as the person was lying in the bed.
In the center of the west wall in this room, there was a rather large doorway with a door of a light-tan color. Four lines were going down the length of the door, suggesting that it was actually four smaller doors. Near the left and right edges of the two center doors, there was a set of two circular knobs.