Passing through the noisy bar hall where the crowd was gradually growing, pushing open the rickety, dilapidated door, Samuel entered the dock area filled with the mixed scents of sea salt, garbage, and kerosene.
Just as he stepped down the rotten wooden stairs, Samuel suddenly sensed sothing and turned to look in the southern direction.
Unlike Celt, the part of Samuel's consciousness parasitizing Falson's body was not autonomous.
In other words, the one chatting with Falson all along had been Samuel himself, splitting his attention in two.
Samuel gazed across half the city toward that direction, his eyes filled with curiosity.
According to the common knowledge he knew, electricity should not be widespread in this era, so telephones should not exist either.
As expected, he knew Falson was interesting.
His own allure could attract all sorts of bizarre characters.
And Samuel, by simply parasitizing his body, could encounter plenty of fascinating things.
The next mont, after urging Falson to pick up the receiver and press it to his ear, he changed direction and stepped forward, heading toward Falson's location.
He pressed one hand against the top hat on his head, leaned his body forward, took slow steps, his hair and trench coat pulled backward as if he were pushing against a massive wind.
With each step forward, his body grew more ethereal.
After a few steps, he suddenly turned sideways and pushed forward.
Creak...
As if so sound echoed through the air, yet perhaps nothing at all.
It seed an invisible door was pushed open, and Samuel's body instantly vanished like a pencil drawing erased by a rubber.
…………
anwhile, on the other side.
Falson stood before the red box, able to sll an extrely faint, peculiar odor resembling a mix of tal and old leather.
Hesitating, his eyes swept over the unfamiliar buttons and receiver. The curiosity awakened by Samuel's extraordinary ability finally overca his resistance.
He reached out, grasped the receiver, and lifted it from the telephone base. The ringing abruptly stopped, the alley fell silent, but sound ca from the receiver.
Following the "instructions for use" from Samuel, he hesitantly pressed the receiver's sound hole against his ear.
"Zzzzt... buzzzz..."
A not-too-piercing static sound ca from the receiver, followed by intermittent, heavily distorted human speech. Mixed with intense background noise, the gender was indistinguishable, the tone unclear.
"Wel... to... zzzz... plea..."
Falson's attention was instantly captured. He unconsciously held his breath, frowning, trying to discern carefully.
For a mont, all his focus was concentrated on the receiver, completely unable to notice anything happening around him.
The wind outside the alley, distant faint steam whistles, even his own heavy breathing—all quickly faded, becoming distant and unreal.
His eyes only saw the blurred outlines of buttons on the dark red box before him. His body stiffened like a statue, completely forgetting his surroundings.
This wasn't normal, but he failed to realize it himself.
"Click, duuuu———"
The call ended, followed by a dial tone.
Only then did Falson snap out of that abnormal concentration. Still sowhat dazed, he casually placed the receiver back.
Click.
A crisp sound rang out. Falson jolted as if waking from a dream, suddenly noticing the old telephone covered in rust stains before him had sohow beco brand new and clean, with a white base box added below.
He had originally thought those rust marks were decorations, after all, this thing was his first ti seeing it.
Stepping back, his heel bumped into a hard obstacle.
Falson instinctively glanced around and got a fright.
He discovered he was locked inside a red "cage"!
It was a rectangular cage. In front was the strange machine he had just held. Left, right, and behind were crisscrossing red bars, forming a tight grid that sealed him firmly in a space so narrow he could barely take three steps. The top and bottom were also sealed with red tal.
He was trapped! Inside this bizarre, suddenly appearing red cage!
He didn't even know how he got in!
"Oh ho, it's a teleportation trap." A gleeful voice sounded in his mind.
Perhaps this world truly was as wonderful a universe as Hayao Miyazaki's (?) universe.
Falson felt montarily panicked, standing stiffly in place, not daring to move recklessly.
"Panicking about what?" Samuel's voice continued, carrying obvious interest. "Check if you can open the door behind you?"
"Behind?" Falson was startled. Tentatively, he grasped the side of the "cage" opposite the telephone and gently pulled.
【The door can be opened from this side.】
Creak...
Unexpectedly smooth. That "door" opened with his pull, without any resistance.
The "cage" door was open.
"Uh, this..." Falson maintained his door-pulling posture, montarily speechless.
"Ahem." He raised his fist to his mouth and coughed symbolically.
"This is a telephone booth. Literally, a place to store telephones. Yeah, right, that thing you just picked up is a telephone. You can think of it as a telegraph that directly transmits sound." Samuel in his mind laughed as he explained.
Hearing the undisguised mocking laughter in his head, he muttered as he stepped out of the "cage."
"I didn't know what this was..." he mumbled softly.
Exiting the telephone booth, casually closing the door behind him, Falson looked around, his expression changing once more.
The surroundings were no longer the familiar alley but a plaza with quite a few people moving about.
A spacious, open enough plaza.
In the center stood a dusty gray square pedestal with a statue of soone unknown.
Gentlen in dark overcoats and bowler hats tightly clutched rolled-up newspapers under their arms, walking briskly, quickly crossing the plaza.
Won wrapped in thick wool shawls or dark cotton dresses, carrying wicker baskets, gathered in twos and threes, whispering about things like "flour has gone up another ris."
People around held newspapers, kept their heads down, chatted with each other, or gathered to watch sothing. It looked no different from the administrative plaza in the city center of Reins.
"System, what do you think?" Falson hesitantly whispered.
"What do I think?" Samuel in his mind pondered before replying, "If you ask , I'd give this scene transition a solid rating."
Falson frowned. "You're saying things I don't understand again."
"Then think more about your own problems," Samuel replied matter-of-factly. "Think about why you don't understand? Is it because you're not trying hard enough?"
Pursing his lips, Falson continued asking.
"I an, do you know why we suddenly appeared here?"
"Obviously, you were teleported by that telephone booth. I reckon we're filming 'Moe Academy' or sothing," the System answered. "Quick, check if you have a totem as a Moe Knight? One of these days it'll be your turn to fight the Dark Emperor."
Falson was already used to the System occasionally spouting strange terms. Learning the System didn't know the current situation either, he looked around this city he had never visited before and took two steps forward.
He actually didn't like fixed jobs. His dream was to beco a traveler.
But soon, Falson hesitated, stepping backward to return to the telephone booth. He reached back, grasped the cold brass door handle, and pulled hard.
Creak—
The sa sound, much fainter in this open plaza.
He slipped inside and closed the door behind him.
Inside the cramped space, that faint scent similar to tal and old leather still lingered.
"What's wrong? I rember your wish was to beco a traveler, right?" Samuel in his mind asked. "Coming to a place like this, aren't you going to explore first?"
"When do I have ti for that?" Falson, now slightly more proficient, picked up the receiver and put it to his ear. "I have another job to get to. Skipping work for a day deducts forty sien."
"So you're not going to fight the Dark Emperor?"
"When did I ever say I'd fight sothing like that!"
The receiver felt icy cold in his hand.
He held his breath and waited.
One second, two seconds, three seconds...
"Duuuu————"
A dial tone sounded from the other end of the line—monotonous, drawn-out, unchanging.
No static, no human voice.
Nothing happened.
Falson remained inside this red telephone booth, not teleported away. Through the glass window, he could see the flowing crowd in the plaza outside.
This gave him a sowhat bad premonition.
"Huh? Not like this?" Falson raised his hand and poked at the buttons, but there was still no response.
"Need to insert coins," Samuel reminded.
"Coins?" Falson lowered his head and finally noticed the coin slot.
"Pulled
over without saying anything, and now wanting to go back actually costs money..." Falson felt displeased, but his hand obediently reached into his coat pocket to search.
After rummaging, he pulled out a quarter-sien coin from his pocket and inserted it into the coin slot.
Clunk.
The coin went into the slot and fell out from the coin return.
"Seems it's not enough," Samuel said lightly in his mind.
Pausing for two seconds, picking up the coin, Falson began searching the machine for a price list.
Soon, he found the rules posted on the right side of the telephone's casing.
【Public Telephone Usage Guidelines】
【1. Public telephones are public property of all citizens. Any form of damage is prohibited.】
【2. Please do not occupy public telephone booths for extended periods. Each person's daily ti inside a public telephone booth must not exceed ten minutes.】
【3. Using a public telephone booth requires coin insertion. Please consu one yur coin per use; otherwise, you may be unable to use the telephone.】
【4. Public telephone operating hours are from 8 AM to 9 PM. Please do not enter public telephone booths outside operating hours.】
【5. Please do not use counterfeit currency in telephone booths.】
【6. Each public telephone booth can only accommodate one user at a ti. When a public telephone booth is occupied, please do not attempt to force entry.】
【7. Public telephone booths are cleaned and maintained daily. There are no dirty, rust-stained telephones.】
【8. Regardless of who you wish to call, you need to know the other party's telephone number. Public telephones cannot deliver your intended ssage to the other party out of thin air.】
【9. Please rember public telephone booths are gray, not red. If you notice a telephone booth is red, it is likely due to light reflection.】
"Gray?" He shifted his gaze from the manual and glanced around.
Indeed, the telephone booth was gray.
Falson felt a slight headache. He shook his head hard, temporarily suppressing these chaotic thoughts.
Now wasn't the ti to dwell on colors.
Shaking his head, he looked at the third rule and couldn't help but widen his eyes. "One yur?"
"Seriously, why doesn't he just rob people?"
Hesitating, wrestling with himself for several seconds, Falson pulled a wallet from his pocket and took out a golden yur.
This was genuine gold coin, made from gold mixed with small amounts of other tals. Even if not used as currency, it held so value.
After another internal struggle, he helplessly inserted the coin into the slot.
Clunk.
The coin fell out again.
"Why still not working?" Falson's frown deepened.
"Don't know," Samuel replied in his mind. "Want to try hitting it a couple tis? Where I'm from, hitting a machine fixes ninety-nine percent of problems."
Falson instinctively raised his hand, but rembering the rules he just saw, he hesitated and lowered it.
The rules said damaging public property was prohibited.
This place was sowhat eerie. He didn't know what would happen if he broke the rules.
"Ah, too bad," ca Samuel's cheeky voice in his mind.
"You want to see
make a fool of myself?" Falson continued studying the machine, trying to press buttons as he spoke.
"I don't know," the voice in his mind remained cheeky.
After studying a bit more, confirming this silent machine wouldn't show rcy just because he pressed buttons a few more tis or listened to the dial tone longer, Falson could only give up dejectedly.
"Seems you still have to stay and fight the Dark Emperor."
"I already said I'm not fighting sothing like that."
No choice. Hanging up the telephone, Falson sighed and left the booth again.
Standing in the plaza, one hand on his hip, he turned in a circle, surveying the city.
He had been to many places, but this city was unlike any he had visited or knew.
The architectural style was no different from Reins—rows of terraced houses or pointed roofs around, no landmark buildings or distinctive styles he recognized. Thus, he had no idea where he was now.
This made it impossible for him to find his own way back.
Creak.
The telephone booth door made a sound again.
Just as Falson looked around bewildered, the door of the nearby public telephone booth opened once more.
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