After a rare night of sound sleep, Kroya woke just as the sky was beginning to brighten, though things outside were already getting lively.
With his extraordinary hearing, he could hear people getting up and dressing, washing, rushing out the door... and, most clearly of all, the loudspeaker-
"All members of the Golem construction crews, please assemble in Sector B-15 as soon as possible."
"Repeat, all members of the Golem construction crews, please assemble in Sector B-15 as soon as possible!"
The jumble of sounds and the fact that he was about to head to work suddenly made Kroya feel as though he had traveled back to his old world. He should not have felt tired, yet somehow he was terribly sleepy.
It was like struggling to stay in bed on a workday, silently begging for five more minutes, only to wake up bright-eyed at six or seven once the holidays arrived.
This really was a completely different experience from his Mage Tower.
In the Mage Tower, no noise ever disturbed his sleep. All he could hear were waves, gentle breezes, crackling firewood, and falling snow-the white noise the Tower Spirit had specially prepared for him.
He lay quietly for a while, utterly unwilling to get up. His mind fiercely resisted the very idea.
And so... he followed his heart and stayed in bed.
Before settling back down, he instructed the Woodstar Curving Vine King, who had entered his room at some point and was pretending to be a potted plant:
"Arrange for things over there to be postponed in a reasonable way. We'll continue once I wake up."
After all, once the Golem construction crews started working, the work on the other side would have to begin too. He had no desire to work unexpected overtime, especially overtime he