Vol.4 Ch.75 - We Got Seasick

“Did you make sure to bring everything? Food? Water? A napkin?”   “Cecily, your mom side is showing.”   It seems as she really did get into the habit of worrying about us a bittoo much. Honestly, I don’t mind it one bit. If anything, I’d say it just proveshow much she cares for us in her own way, but there’s gotta be some limits toher overbearingness. I mean, both Anna and I are nearing adulthood, so Iwouldn’t call it so farfetched to think we’re capable of going on a little trip,no matter the destination.   “Even still!” Cecily rebutted, “You guys have to understand thegravity of the situation. You’re no longer gonna be in Entropa, it’s an entirelydifferent culture and language out there, and not to mention you can’t rely onyour friends to come help you when you’re in a pinch.”   “So what?” Anna added, “We’ve traveled together before, it’s notlike it’s our first time or something to that degree. Honestly, I’m moreworried on how you guys are gonna fair with having to juggle Gramps andNelly at the same time while we’re away.”   “That’s nothing compared to what you’ll be facing. Remember, don’tmake any enemies, and please don’t go causing any trouble. If you two areanything like Lune, then my worries won’t end until I see both of you reportback to Springwood safe and sound.”   “Cecily...” Aaron sighed, “Weren’t you the one that said there’s nopoint in worrying about something that’s out of control?”   “But this IS in my control! I can still go with you guys! Remember,I’m a seasoned fighter and gang leader.”   “So you’re willing to leave Aaron to take care of Arthur and Nellyall by his lonesome? I don’t think that’s what a gang leader would do in thisscenario…”   At this point, she was getting quite antsy with my replies. NormallyI’d say she’s overreacting by a lot, but thinking about it rationally, shealready has so much on her plate to worry about. First Lune disappearedwithout a trace somewhere in Sibirus, then there’s Nelly and Arthur whoaren’t capable of taking care of themselves, and now us? Yeah, anyone wouldgo mad. If anything, I should actually be praising her for keeping her nervesintact for this long.   “Haa, he’s right, you know. Cecily, with all due respect, this issomething we all need to pitch in for. Keeping everyone at their posts is thesingle most optimal way to win any gang dispute, and from my experience Ican tell you that life is definitely the same as a gang dispute.”   She gave Aaron a scornful gaze as she finally gave both Anna and I astrong hug, before doing a complete 180 and storming out of the room. Wefigured she was just having a hard time putting her thoughts into words, sowe let her calm down for a minute as we turned to a tired Arthur who wascalmly sitting at a nearby table.   “You gonna be alright while we’re away, Old Man?” I asked with afamiliar tone, “Don’t cause too much trouble for Ms. Harper and those two.Be sure to take your medicine regularly.”   “Ed, your mom side is showing.” Arthur dared to use my own spellsagainst me.   I realized my mistake and retreated back into myself in shame, whilethe others present laughed their asses off. Although if you were to ask me if Iminded it, I would have to say not at all, since it seems like even Aaronchoked on his drink a bit from the witty answer his pops dished out.   “Looks like your jokes are still landing as gracefully as ever, Mr.Arthur.” A voice could be heard entering through the front door.   “Ms. Harper, you wanted to see us off that badly?” I askedexpectedly.   “You guys still haven’t left? Geez, you’re slow. You do realize we’refighting against the clock here, Arthur’s disease is still unknown, and we’reliterally placing all of our trust into that seemingly random guess of yours.”   The last thing I expected from Ms. Harper was a scolding, but if I’mgonna be honest, it kinda felt nice oddly enough. Like, If I had to hear thisevery single day coming from her, then I’d be the biggest troublemaker inexistence, that sorta feel.   “Right, Andolia Baonei, was it?” Aaron said, “I contacted some guysI know to inform me a bit on it, and apparently it’s gonna be real difficult toacquire. As you know, it is a rare plant that only grows in the country ofUmoris, and they take immense pride in that fact.”   “Pride? Don’t tell me they’re gonna be annoying like those guys inThe Kingdom of Carmen! Grim and I were THIS close to getting bountiesplaced on our heads purely for trying to check in to the ITA…”   “Well, you’re both right and wrong about that. I’m not saying thisfrom my own experience, but well… you’ll see what I mean when you getthere. But right now you should probably hurry on over to the transportwagon, otherwise you’ll miss it!”   “STOP RIGHT THERE!” Cecily kicked open the door from the otherroom while holding Nelly up to her modest bosom, “You guys ain’t goingnowhere without saying goodbye to my adorable daughter!”   “Ah, of course, how could we forget the fair princess?” Annachuckled whilst reaching her hand out for Nelly to latch onto with her tinyfingers, “Bye bye, Nelly, Uncle Ed and Auntie Anna will be back before youlearn to walk, y’hear?”   “Come on now!” I intervened, ”Don’t say such ominous things, wedon’t wanna jinx i-”   “buh bye.” An adorably tiny voice could be heard from withinCecily’s arms.   The entire room went dead silent, slowly turning our gazes towardsthe baby who had just uttered her first words in front of us all. We made sureto check Cecily’s expression, but she apparently was the most shocked out ofall of us. I gasped in excitement as I turned to Anna, who was making quitethe scary face.   “Is this a bad omen…?”   “T-There’s no way that’s the case! J-Just because Nelly said bye byeto us doesn’t mean we won’t meet again, right?? That’s just superstition, haha…”   “R-Right you are, Ed! Let’s just be happy we got to witness Nelly sayher first words!”   Now the entire room was awkwardly chuckling, but the fear of thesuperstition was still noticeable. Now, this is still only a little folk belief, butit’s said that babies’ first words always hold an important meaning, aschildren are said to be born pure and unable to lie. This in turn has madesome people believe that a baby’s first words can predict the future. Well, ifthat’s the case, then I’m suddenly not so excited about this trip anymore…***   “Alright! We made it to Primis! That means we get to revisit Ren!” Isaid to my somewhat nervous party member, “Now that I think about it, Anna,you’ve never been to Primis before, have you?”   “I did sometimes visit the villages near the border to pick up somemedicine for Gramps, but you could hardly call that a proper visit.”   “Alright then, we’ll be arriving in Ren shortly, and the boat forUmoris is tomorrow, so while we have the time, want me to tour you throughit for today?”   Honestly, there were two pros to this plan of mine. First one was thatI got to revisit Ren for a day, which as some of you might know is the placewhere Grim and I wrote the first volume of our Travel Diary. Thinking back,his body still wasn’t healed completely, so I had to basically transcribe alarge part of his words on the actual paper. Does that mean I’m his ghostwriter?   In any case, it holds a special place in my heart, but it’ll have to scootover for a bit, since the second pro of this plan suggests that Anna and I cango on a date while we’re here! It’s two birds with one stone! Genius!   “Sure thing.” She said, “Gives me the perfect excuse to go check upon the Arthur’s branch that Gramps set up some time ago.”   Oh, then does that mean… THREE BIRDS WITH ONE STONE?!MEGA GENIUS!   “If I recall correctly, Grim said that he actually met Arthur here whilehe was working on said branch. Shame I wasn’t there with him, though.”   “Yeah, Gramps told me about it, you really are the worst…”   “Hey!”   “Hehe~”   Well, her teasing seems to be in tip top shape, so it seems Nelly’s jinxdidn’t leave too much of an impact on her. Was she just joking even then? AmI the only one worried about it? Damn unnecessary thoughts ruining myperfect date plan…   “Oh hey, Ed, I see the restaurant from here! Hurry up!”   “Coming!”***   “All aboard the S.S. Express!”   “Haah, Anna, that’s not what the ship’s called (I should apologize tothe captain).”   “Hehe, I know, I know! I just really wanted to shout that out once! Itreally rolls off the tongue!”   “…I guess (cute…)”   As you can imagine, our date in Ren went swimmingly, and weactually had so much fun that we ended up not getting a wink of sleep lastnight (hey, nothing lewd!). After finishing up everything we needed to do intown, we decided to just buy some snacks from the market and try and see ifwe can make it through the entire night without sleeping.   Staying up all night during a slumber party is an experience that I justcannot explain properly. We ate snacks, played all sorts of games, talkedabout the most mundane of topics, but even still we didn’t once get bored forthe entire duration of the night. Our memories are a bit hazy from around the6 o’ clock part, since that’s when the sun began to rise and a wave ofdrowsiness hit us in the face like a ton of bricks. Even still, we persevereduntil the very end, and finally made our way to the boat without getting awink of sleep.   Was it careless? Yeah. Was it fun as hell? Definitely. Will we bedoing it again? Fuck no.   “Fuahhh!” Anna chugged the leftover fizzy soda from last night,“Somehow drinking this in the morning just hits different, y’feel me?”   “Your stomach’s gonna get revenge for that, y’know? Don’t overdo it,the sea tides are not to be taken lightly.”   “Oh, boohoo! Look at Mister Party Pooper here, acting all seriouswhen you were stuffing your face full with chips just an hour ago.”   “Anna that was 5 hours ago.”   “Really? Man, I’m tired.”   After that, the captain of the ship kindly let us rent it for ourselves,and with my masterful steering abilities and a sleeping schedule that was justbegging to be ruined, we managed to leave the dock with little to no issues. Iwas a bit hesitant on the idea of not having the captain steer it, but it’s notlike the boat is that big or anything, and he said it’s good practice for me,since I’m an adventurer after all.   It took us not 15 minutes before the loud crashing of waves started toget on our nerves, and only 30 minutes after that…   “Bleurghh…!”   “Yeesh, here, if you’re gonna puke, at least puke in this bag.”   “D-Don’t you, ugh, patronize me, Ed. Who’s idea was it to buy allthose fizzy drinks and salty snacks?”   “It was yours, if I recall correctly. Also here, sniff this.”   “The hell is that?”   “It’s some alcohol I got from Great Hiana. It’s really good at curingseasickness. Just take a whiff of a handkerchief infused with this miraclefluid and you’ll feel as bright as the sun!”   “Fine… Ugh, FUCK!”   Exactly as expected, Anna got shocked from the pain of snorting analcohol infused handkerchief and, in her frenzy, threw the bottle of alcoholoff the plank. Well, if anything, it woke her right up from her hazy state, andshe immediately apologized for acting so rashly towards the bottle.   “Don’t worry about it, I brought spares just for this occasion.” I saidas I showed her the many bottles of miracle alcohol from my pouch.   She chuckled at the sight of it, and it seemed like she was getting tobe her old chipper self once again. That being said, while we did find aremedy for seasickness, sleepiness is completely different issue. As such,she soon fell asleep on the wooden floor of the boat’s deck without so muchas a single word. I covered her up with a nearby blanket and went to grab thehelm to steer us in the right direction, but since I too spent the entire nightawake, I just barely missed it and fell unconscious on the floor as well.   Since no one was there to steer the boat, we actually drifted all theway to the coast of Sophia and had to take a boat ride back to Cardina thefollowing day. It was a unanimous decision to cut back on the slumber partiesuntil further notice.***   As the duo began their journey to find the mysterious plant and curethe aching Arthur, we return to the tinkerer who now sits atop a lonelybalcony in Cardina. His thoughts are, surprisingly, no longer scrambled, andhe appears to be in quite the peaceful state of mind as he drinks his preferreddrink of choice.   “Mariabelle, is the night sky not the most beautiful view in the wholewide world?”“You’re asking me?”“Is there another Mariabelle around here?”She made a difficult face as she forced out a fake smile, but she still chose tosit down next to her master and enjoy the night sky together. It wasn’t a rareoccasion for these two to sit down like this anywhere and everywhere.Sometimes witnessing something greater than you simply soothes the soul,that’s all there was to these peaceful, transient moments.“Y’know, I always wondered what the stars really mean.” He said with asentimental gaze, “Like, there’s so many of them, but every night I made sureto observe that particularly shiny one. It always stays in the same place,unreachable, untouchable, unchanging… How long did it stay like that? Howdid it accomplish such a feat?”“Master, you sure do have a strong sense of imagination. You seem to be inthe bad habit of giving objects human characteristics. Put simply, it’s reallyunnerving.”   “Really?”   “Yeah. There’s all sorts of things we don’t know about the world,like why the day and night is as long as it is, and what these objects far out inthe sky are always there, not to mention where they come from, but Iguarantee you that they’re not beings, they’re probably huge lumps of rock.”   “Rock…” He made a scared expression, “I don’t like that idea. Apartfrom the obvious, it just doesn’t make sense. Rocks can’t float, and they’reheavy as fuck.”   “Language, master.”   “Right, they are without a doubt large as fuck.”   “…”   She didn’t seem to appreciate his affection towards the inappropriateword. Worst part is he didn’t even notice what he had said, he was thatengrossed in the stars. To him, someone who was always interested in howthings in the world work, the mere idea of just letting go of something hedoesn’t get isn’t even within the list of possible outcomes. It wasn’t a matterof IF he’ll figure it out, but rather WHEN.   “Master, your idea for the ‘flashlight’ was a great success. Themerchant loved it so much that he’s requesting 10,000 gold coins for thepatent.”   “Heh, it wasn’t that big of a deal. It’s just connecting a fewcomponents together is all. I actually got the idea from our streetlights. All Idid was make them portable.”   “Still, no one thought to do so before you did. Just think of theadventurer’s it will benefit in the future-” She stopped midway through hersentence.   The tinkerer’s eyes were wide open as the words left her mouth. Sheknew full well that the topic of adventurers isn’t a good one to talk aboutwith him, yet it still slipped out. She apologized profusely, but it was to noavail.   “Just… Don’t talk about adventurers, please. I have no idea whatthose guys are gonna do with flashlights, but I’m doing this strictly for qualityof life purposes. My inventions are, and will always remain, nothing morethan home appliances.”   “I-I understand, Master.” She tried looking for the right words beforeultimately giving up and calling it a night, “…I’m gonna hit the hay. You’refree to join me whenever you want to.”   “Language, Mariabelle. We’re nobles, not commoners.”   “Right, I’m gonna hit the fucking hay.”   The tinkerer burst out laughing at her ironic response, and soonfollowed her to bed as well. Yet another tiring day of inventing andnegotiating had passed for these two, but as long as they have each other,things are sure to work in their favor.