Naia pulled her attention away from the phone and hurriedly went to a room to hide; She felt that the old man would look for it soon.
Sure enough, the old man soon opened the door to look for something, grabbing the phone as soon as he found it, mumbling something under his breath. He said something about asking for more compensation since he was blackmailing already.
Hey, if the old man was gonna make the sperm donor's life more difficult, then all the better.
Anyway, Naia, who was hiding in the other bedroom, did not dare use her newfound teleportation skills for now. She didn't know how to use it with precision yet. What if she blinked in the middle of the wall?
Further, she had never heard of a successful use of someone else's essence. There had been scientists from the radical faction who had experimented on this, and no one succeeded with an actual procedure even after their deaths.
They had even tried to plant the stolen essence cores inside the brain, the navel, or the heart, but none of them had worked. Not to mention, she was practically wearing it as an accessory.
She was unsure of the core's effect on her or how finite the energy was inside either. What if she enjoyed teleporting so much that it consumed all the power, prohibiting her from teleporting again. Wouldn't that be a tragedy? For now, she would treat it as a lifesaving emergency tool until she figured out more.
As for her, she went to the room that was supposed to be Nadia's. It was small in the standards of this time, similar to a big closet, but nothing the old her or the current her hadn't seen.
In the apocalypse, everyone was squeezed into a single base, nearly all rooms were dorm types, with mostly eight to twelve beds per room.
She only managed to get a single room in the latter half of her life because she was part of the administration team with Kael. That said, even then, that 'premium' single room was just around this size.
As for the old Nadia, she was often forced to sleep in literal cabinets growing up, so this wasn't too bad in comparison.
Naia waited for the old man to fall asleep before taking a bath. The old Nadia's luggage was still here, so she had some stuff, like a few sets of clothes. Fortunately, the old man hadn't thrown it out yet.
Most people who committed murders would be rushing to get rid of the victims' after effects. The fact that the old man hadn't cared at all spoke volumes about his 'experience'.
As for the bloodied dress, she'd throw it out later. It was a sleeveless, fitted dress that cut above her knee. The old Nadia was forced into it by her parents, and seeing the dress made her queasy.
Some people just did not deserve to have children.
After cleaning herself up, she looked at herself in the mirror.
Nadia's hair always seemed to cover her face, and there were long bangs that almost covered her eyes. Her back was always slouched, as if trying to hide her presence, so standing upright was a bit uncomfortable at first.
However, when she waved those bangs away and took a good look, she was a little startled.
The facial features…they were really similar to her own back then. The difference was just a little, about three parts out of ten. Another difference was the colour of her hair and eyes, which had been red and green, shifting to the more common black and browns.
To be fair, neither she nor Kael inherited their parents' hair and eye colours. It was like the effect of being born as an awakened.
She wondered if she and Nadia could have been relatives. However, if things had unfolded the same way as before, then Nadia would've been dead long before she was born.
She tried to recall her appearance with Nadia's memories, but the poor girl barely looked at herself, as if disgusted.
All that was to blame was that family of hers.
They bullied her a lot growing up, physically and verbally, calling her a burden and a waste of space. Without her mother, she was defenseless and didn't know any better. It was also why the poor girl was totally fine when she got a cabinet for her bedroom.
If primary education weren't required in this country, it was estimated that Nadia wouldn't have been able to step out of the house at all. She'd have been treated as a maid or a slave, her whole life.
In a sense, Nadia seemed to have matured and realized the wrongness of everything just recently, which was why she had been so desperate to pass that college entrance exam.
It might've been her hope to escape such a family, which was why, when she failed, she was so depressed that she physically fell ill.
Naia wondered whether to kill that family, which could get her in trouble, or to let them suffer the apocalypse.
Anyway, Naia locked the door and took a deep breath as she lay down on the bed, finally breathing out as she lay, thinking about her next point of action.
Next on her agenda: How to prepare for the apocalypse.