Vol.3 Ch.61 - Buried in the snow

“Today we say goodbye to three people. Thank you everyone for coming tothe funeral of Sullivan Streits, Genevra Lionheart and Linus Tenford.”“Who else is here besides us?” I asked Marina.“Well, it makes it sound grander that way.” She went on to explain, “I don’twant to make it sound like we’re the only ones present. I mean, we’retechnically only attending Gramps’ funeral, since we only have his body withus. Plus we’re burying him in the snow outside the lodging, so it’s not even abona fide funeral.”“I see, then please continue.” I let her speak.“Thank you,” She continued her speech with an ahem, “I have known thesethree for a very short time-”“Just under a month to be exact.” I corrected her.She glared at me once more for interrupting her, so I quickly shut up andcontinued quietly sitting on a chair we brought out.“These guys had helped us on our journey… well, not really.” She stuttered,“Err, they made it more enjoyable?... No, not quite. Okay, let’s put it thisway, the journey wouldn’t be the same without them.”“Yeah, it’d be way more fun.” I commented under my breath, “You’re theonly one who seemed normal out of them, I imagine we’d already be done ifit wasn’t for their antics.”“No time for flirting!” She teased.“Wha-! I didn’t mean it like that! I’m engaged, y’know that?” I shoved my lefthand at her that was missing it’s pinkie (and to-be wife’s engagement ring).I immediately realized what she was gonna say, so I quickly put my hand inmy pockets to try and play it off.“…” She stood there for an unbearably awkward amount of time, “Y’knowyou’re not engaged until both you and you’re girl put the ring on, right?”“I know that! Shut it!” I teared up from the embarrassment of my ownblunder, “And isn’t this supposed to be a funeral or something? Come on, notime for jokes!”She giggled a bit more after she won this little back and forth against me, thencontinued her speech, “As I cry (fake) tears, I would like to humbly ask myfuneral assistant to lower the body.”I was wondering who she was gonna bring out, but then realized she wasstaring directly at me the entire time.“…” I looked behind me then pointed at myself as if to make sure, “Y-Youwant me to push him down the hole?"“Don’t make it sound so rude!” She told me off, “And yes! Get to it!”“I don’t wanna.” I said with a deadpan expression.“And why not?”“I don’t wanna be known as the guy that pushed a Dead Old Man down ashallow grave in the middle of Sibirus.”“Fine!” She scoffed, “Then we’ll do it together!”“That’s what she said.” I saw the opportunity and took it.After my hilarious joke (which flew right over her head), we promptlyshoved the Old Man down the shallow grave, gave a prayer or two thenheaded inside to get some sleep and heat back up.“…” Marina stood quietly in front of the now empty table where she hadpreviously played chess with the Old Man, “So he’s really gone, huh?”“Yep.” I answered back, “I say good riddance.”She found my comment quite inappropriate, but chose to not say anythingabout it, “Now I don’t have a chess partner. I really wanted to beat him onthis last round.”I was really getting tired and just wanted to head to bed. But while I laid onmy side I noticed she still hasn’t moved an inch from that table. I sighedbefore getting up.“Fine, I’ll play with you.” I sat down adjacent to her, “I’ll be his replacementuntil you find a better partner.”I noticed her eyes light up immediately upon hearing that, and she quickly gotthe table ready, but stopped midway to ask me something.“Does that mean I have to call you Gramps now, Big Bro?”“Only if I start calling you Granny.” I shot back in an attempt to sound witty.“Who knows? Maybe one day that’ll be the case?” She giggled once more toherself.“What the hell do you mean by that?” I asked.“Well…” She looked around the room before looking back at me, “… I hopewe don’t join the others of our party until we’re as old as Gramps. Yeah,that’s what I meant.”She’s obviously hiding something, but I’m not sure what. I’m not sure why,but the thought of Ed laughing at me suddenly appeared in my head as well.Strange…After that, we played a game… Then another one… Then another one afterthat. As it turns out, we’re quite evenly matched! I’d win one game, thenshe’d catch up on the next! It was easily the most fun I’ve had since gettingoff the boat. Even still, we played through the night until the candle flickeredout.“Aww,” Marina said disappointedly, but quickly changed into an excitedemotion, similar to how a puppy would react, “Oh! I’ll go get another onethen we can continue!”“No! I’m all done for tonight! I wanna go to sleep!”“But the night’s still young! Come on, just one more?” Marina begged me tocontinue.“Where’s the rush?” I asked, “We can play whenever we want. Didn’t I say Iwon’t ever leave you until you find a better chess partner?”Since the candle had stopped burning, the room was only illuminated by themoonlight outside the window. On top of that, we played chess so much that Iwas too focused on the game to properly take a look at her. Her skin was assmooth as cotton, her eyes as bright as the moonlight that illuminated thisvery room, and her cheeks were… flushed. She was flustered, and sheimmediately jolted her gaze away from mine.She started fiddling with her chess piece, the Bishop, before quietly speakingher mind, “I… don’t wanna lose you like I did the others.”“…” I raised my eyebrows in sheer surprise.“Lune, will you really stay by my side until then?” She asked.“…” I paused once again to look her in the eyes, “Of course.”I didn’t notice this at the time, but that was the first time she called me bymy name.***I woke up the next morning pretty late, since we spent most of the nightplaying chess. An interesting aroma wafted throughout the room, whichquickly woke me up. The first thing my eyes saw as they opened was thesilhouette of a young woman in an adorable little apron.She was borrowing the kitchen to make us breakfast, but I didn’t wannaannounce myself just yet. I stood there, for whatever reason, and looked on ather from my bed. Simply staring, nothing more to it, but it was certainly ahappy sight.She was a horrible cook, though. From the smell I could tell she was makingsausages, but she somehow managed to cut herself with a knife as she triedopening a seasoning packet. Her form was horrible, and I only got up to stopher when I noticed she tried putting sugar instead of salt.“Hold it!” I screamed out.“Bwahhh!” She yelped in fear, “Don’t scare me like that, you dunce! I’mcooking!”“That’s exactly why, dumbass! You’re ruining our limited supply of food,give it here!” I said as I snatched the sugar packet out of her hands.Cooking is a skill any adventurer should have! And if you’re a klutz, thenat least find someone who can cook for you! Food poisoning is our numberone enemy here!That being said, she didn’t get angry at my remark. Instead, she simplypeered at the food from behind my shoulder before quietly putting her brightpink apron around me.“What are you doing?” I asked while seasoning the sausages.“Seems like you’re the cook in this relationship, so I think you should haveit.” She said with an aloof stare.“Relation-!” I spilled some seasoning on the table in surprise, “D-Don’t sayit like that! People will misunderstand!”“… What people?” She asked innocently once again, “We’re the only oneshere. I can make as many misunderstandings as I want.”I had nothing left to say to that, and in trying to make her realize all theembarrassing things she just said by silently staring at her, I instead foundmyself to be the one to get embarrassed first and looked away. I regretcalling her reliable previously…“I-In any case!” I said, “Have a seat and eat up, we’ll need all the energy wecan get if we wanna make it back to the boat in time.”“Aww, I wanted to have some more fun in here…” She hunched forward witha grimace.“Can’t help it, the Captain’s scheduled to be here in a few hours.” I said,“Also, I don’t want to spend another second in this Godforsaken place.”As such, we ate our food (which was delicious thanks to me) and packed allof our stuff before leaving. We prayed once more to the useless trio’s graveand got going.The snow was thicker than yesterday, and the blizzard was awful. Wadingour way through the freezing climate was certainly a lot more difficult thanbefore, so we had to worry about a lot of things.I was using Spark as much as I could to keep us warm, but it drained mephysically and we would have to take short rests often so that I couldrecover. Marina was trying to be polite the whole way through, insisting thatshe wasn’t cold at all and that I should worry about myself, but I know she’slying. From my experience, girls are definitely more sensitive to the coldthan us guys are, so I didn’t change my decision to keep us warm using myIro.We passed by two mountains until we made it to familiar ground, which wasa clear sign we were headed in the right direction, but navigation was stillquite difficult. The fog from the blizzard made it so we could barely see whatwas in front of us, and we decided not to talk at all during this walk to saveenergy.In the end, we saw what resembled the dock, so I got excited and quicklydashed towards it. Just then, Marina pulled me back by the collar, making mefall on my back.“What the hell?” I reprimanded her, “Why’d you do that?”“Shh!” She shushed me before pointing to the boat that was docked overthere.“Who are those people?” I asked, “They seem familiar…”“No clue, but the Captain is a loner.” Marina recalled her trip on the boat,“I’m not sure if you noticed while you were riding the waves on that boat ofhis, but he’s always alone, and no one else was dispatched to this place butus.”“Right…” I agreed, “So what do you think is going on? Should weintervene?”“Dunno, let’s wait and see for now.” She suggested.As such, we hid behind a rock and listened in through the blizzards howlingwind. There were around 10 people, give or take, and the Captain wasnowhere to be found.“Fuck this place!” One of the guys yelled out, “That fucking asshole probablylied to us about the World Wonder having treasure hidden underneath it!”“Just shut up and get moving!” The other guy replied, “We need to move allthis cargo outside, according to Kaido there’s a lodging just up ahead wherewe’ll seek refuge throughout this damned blizzard.”Are they talking about the Captain? Did the Captain sell us out? I don’tremember his name being Kaido, I’m pretty sure he mentioned it wasDave… No, wait, it’s possible they’re just pirates who overheard himtalking about us… But no, this is definitely the Captain’s boat…“But it’s freezing! I miss the warmth of our base! Heck, I’d even say I missLemmy!”Lemmy, where’d I hear that name from?“Oh, don’t you go mentioning the kid’s name! Be glad he’s out with his poppop, going to some fancy-schmancy school. The kid’s a menace to society, aneducation would do him good.”“Yeah, fuck that kid, honestly. Because of that arrogant little shit-stain, I’mafraid of the color yellow!”Lemmy… Base in the forest… Yellow… Arrogant little shit-stain… Gasp!“You’re the bandits from before!” I jumped out of our cover, to the surpriseof both Marina and the bandits.“Lune!” Marina shouted.“You!” The bandits followed her example, “You’re the asshole who burnedour place down! Because of you we’re freezing here just to find sometreasure to make ends meet!”“What did you do to the Captain?!” I shouted the question out, demanding ananswer.“Took his boat, of course! We’re bandits!” The one guy laughed, “That OldMan didn’t stand a chance after we whipped out our swords.”“What?” I stopped upon hearing this.“Heheh, yeah, he’s probably still in a ditch in the forest, now that I thinkabout it. The asshole was feisty, too, we had to hold him down before we gota few cuts in, but it was manageable.”“You… killed him?” I asked to reaffirm my suspicions as the world aroundme suddenly turned red.“Yeah, we got an earful from Lee, though.” A third bandit joined the fray,“We beat him up too and took over the group. We took pity on him and let himgo under the condition he takes care of Lemmy. You remember Lemmy,right?” He jeered, “The kid that knocked you out without even having totouch your pathetic ass?”“Oh I remember, I got him back good, though.” I said as I prepared to castFireball, “But not as good as I’ll get back at you.”The air around us was getting thinner and thinner as everyone from the boatgot off and readied their weapons. I told Marina to stand back as I held outmy left hand. The bandits stood there, wondering what I was doing andmaking jokes, before marching towards me at high speeds.I had one shot, and I wanted to make it count. These assholes burned mybelongings and locked me up in a cage. These assholes made fun of a kindand honest man and shunned him out of the group. These assholes killed theman that taught me chess. I need to make sure they don’t do such thingsagain.With a sudden high pitched sound, a beam of fiery light spewed from my lefthand’s wound, surprising the bandits as they quickly went to duck. TheFireball was sizeable, bigger than the one I launched back on the mountainwhen I first discovered it. Even still, I aimed too high and missed thementirely, instead hitting the boat dead on and sinking it.“Nice going, idiot!” The bandits mocked me, “Now neither of us can getback!”“Who said you’d be leaving this place?” I asked rhetorically, ”Your gravesare under this very ice.”“Lune! Calm down!” Marina tried to grab me, but got burned the moment shegrabbed my shoulder.“Wait, this fire… You guys think it’s something like Lemmy’s Command?”One bandit asked his mates, “If so, we should really be cautious. The guylooks like he’s got a few screws loose!”“It’s certainly mysterious how he does that…” The other bandit answered,“But I don’t care! This just further enforces the idea that he was the one whoburned our base down, and that it wasn’t just a random forest fire like Leeclaimed!”“Just try not to die.” The first bandit shouted back.“Don’t worry.” I interrupted their little quarrel, “You aren’t surviving this.No need to fret.”And just like that, I fired off my biggest Fireball yet. It was scorching hot, tothe point where it had burned away all of the skin on my hand, and it lookedas big as the Sun. Marina was probably terrified, but she still held onto meuntil the very end.It was so big that it moved extremely slowly, to the point where it’s speedwas actually laughable, but everyone present still dreaded the moment it hitthe surface of the ice. The bandits saw what a Fireball smaller than this didto the ship, so they knew running away from this one was a fruitlessendeavor.Once it hit, though, there was no sound. Well, that’s what I thought at first, butlooking back that’s probably because the impact burst my eardrums, so Icouldn’t hear anything.I saw only a flash of light before I was blown far away into the sea. In thedistance, though, the burnt remains of the bandits was engraved in my mind,but I still smiled upon seeing it.