Vol.4 Ch.76 - We Couldn’t Believe It

“What the hell were we even doing in Sophia of all places?!” Aconfused Anna shouted out while we were making our way back to Cardina,“I blame the fizzy drinks!”   “I told you it’s gonna bite us in the ass, but nooo~ you were adamanton getting snacks and drinks.”   “But Ed, the fizz is the biz! You can’t have a slumber party withoutit!”   She justified it with a rhyme! I can’t believe how adorable she can beat times!   “Whatever, let’s just make sure we don’t ever fall asleep while on aboat, we could’ve capsized or even worse, gotten stranded on someuninhabited island.”   “That sounds kind of fun, actually.”   “Don’t just accept such a horrible fate, I’m already not feeling wellever since Nelly said her first words.”   Upon hearing that, Anna burst out laughing and started teasing me forbeing afraid of a little rumor. I didn’t really care about it, but I did make apromise to Arthur to take care of Anna while we’re on this trip. Honestly, Idon’t like being away from home, and I still haven’t even paid my parents avisit, so I’d really like to get this over with as soon as possible.   “Oh, we’re here.” I said as we neared the shore of Cardina,“According to the map, and the layout of the shoreline, we should besomewhere near the southern side of Occidence.”   “Cool, then let’s head to the nearest currency exchange office andwe’ll be on our way.”   “…The what?”   Anna looked on at me expectantly as I simply looked right back at herin silence. What the hell is a currency exchange office, and why do we needto stop by there before continuing to Umoris?   “…Ed, you do know that the people of Cardina don’t accept coins,right? That’s strictly an Entropa thing.”   “Eh? Then what do they use?”   “Shils. They only accept shils in Cardina. One shil is worth onebronze coin.”   “Well, if it’s worth the same amount, then what’s the point of usingthose instead of coins?”   “God, must be nice to be this politically ignorant. Listen Ed, I don’twant to have to explain to you the entire history and politics of the world, soI’ll just tell you this much: shils only come in bronze coin variants. There isno such thing as a conversion rate from one silver or gold coin to shils.They’ll just hand you 100 or 10000 shils respectively and send you on yourmerry way. That’s the main difference.”   “What?! That’s outrageous! And inefficient! I am NOT carryingaround God knows how many shils in my pockets!”   “Well that’s the thing, shils come in paper format. They’re not coinslike our currency, so it’s very easy to stack and store them.”   At first she had my curiosity, but now, she had my attention. I wasnow fully interested in seeing what these shils looked like, so I just had toaccompany her to the exchange office.   “By the way, Anna, how do you know all this stuff?”   “Gramps told me about it. He also taught me some basic phrases inCardinic just in case we had to ask some locals for directions in case weever got lost.”   “Oh right, these guys probably don’t speak Entropic, huh?”   I can already tell this trip isn’t gonna go well…***   “Dobar dan! Šta vam treba?” The man working the booth smiled atus.   “Uhh…”   What the hell is he saying? Is this what Cardinic sounds like? Itsounds really weird, and that’s coming from the guy that talks to animals.   “D-Dobar dan.” Anna tried her best to say the lines her grandfatherhad taught her, “Razmjena valuta… molim.”   The guy manning the stall tilted his head at us and after a while ofpure silence he just went Tourists? in his best Entropic, to which we gavehim a nod in agreement. He chuckled a bit and told us to give him our coinsso he can properly exchange them into shils.   “Okay, we need this much in shils, please.” Anna handed 50 goldcoins to the booth worker.   “Jebo mater!” The man gasped in shock, “E-Err, we cannot acceptthis much from you. Sorry.”   Looks like we scared him out of the deal. If we factor in the fact that1 gold coin equates to 10000 shils, then he’d have to give us 500000 bills ofshils. Either he doesn’t have that much at his disposal, or he just doesn’t wantto have to deal with counting that far up. In any case, we were out of luckhere.   “Eh heh, no worries then, we’ll try elsewhere!” Anna answered backwith a nervous smile on her face, “Doviđenja!”   Well, if we’ve learned anything, it’s that these guys at least seemfriendly. Even still, I should’ve studied up a bit more on this language oftheirs, we won’t be able to make it to Umoris with just Anna’s simplephrases it seems.   As such, we decided to take a little detour to the ITA Headquartersand ask them if they can help us. They have Agents from all across the world,so there has to be someone who understands Entropic. Plus, we can also askthem if there’s been any updates on Grim-!   “I’m sorry, but Lune Grimheart, along with the rest of his party,have all perished in Sibirus.” The ITA Agent told us.   “What?”   “It is as I said. We have sent out a rescue party to check in on themafter they didn’t arrive in the specified time, but all we could find is ashallow grave with the remains of one of the party members, Linus Tenford,along with the remains of the ship that was supposed to take them home.”   L-Linus… is dead? What’s going on? Why was he with Grim? Atthis point Anna was starting to break down, and I was getting pretty nauseousas well.   “The search party went on for a week straight without finding a singleother body safe from him. Our current theory is that Mr. Tenford died ofnatural causes while the others died in the explosion that blew up their ship.But rest assured, we are looking into the reason for the explosion and willcontact you if any new info surfaces.”   “You… You’re kidding right?” Anna chuckled through her tears, “LLune isn’t dead, right? It’s all just a misunderstanding!”   “I’m sorry, Miss. But if any of them were truly alive, they’d havechecked in with the ITA. There is no worries though, as all of LuneGrimhearts belongings left at the lodging will be brought back for his famil-”   “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT HIS BELONGINGS!” I lashed outat the somewhat ambivalent worker, “I WANT TO HEAR THAT MYFRIEND IS BACK SAFE AND SOUND! HE DIDN’T WANT TO BE ONTHIS DAMNED EXCURSION IN THE FIRST PLACE!”   “…” The ITA Agent simply looked on before breaking the silence, “Icannot disclose any further information.”   “Fuck you.” I said as I grabbed Anna’s hand and stormed off.   “Ed! Where are we going?”   “Isn’t it obvious? We need to exchange our coins into shils…”***   “Ed, please explain this properly.”   “It’s as I said, our current goal isn’t to find Grim, it’s to cure Arthur.To do that, we need to exchange our currency. The ITA didn’t prove  helpful at all, so we need someone with more power to help us.”   “B-But Lune’s…”   “Grim’s whereabouts are unknown. He ain’t dying that easily, I canguarantee you that. Besides, even if he did, I’m not gonna let his death affectour current objective. If Grim’s dead, then let’s at least save Arthur.”   Anna gulped at my somewhat heartless words, before quietly sobbingto herself. I didn’t like the idea of Grim being dead either, but it’s preciselybecause the ITA said this that I don’t believe it. They’re a shady organizationthat we’ve gotten ourselves tangled up in, and up until now all of their Agentsshowed nothing but hostility and unwillingness to aid us in our journey.   This is just something that Grim told me, so you should take it with aslight grain of salt, but he basically said not to trust the ITA’s words toomuch. They’re good when they’re good, but they like to jump to conclusionsfor the sake of saving face. It wouldn’t make sense on their part to spend anymore than a week looking for a missing party, so they were basicallysatisfied with finding Linus’ remains and labeled the entire party deceased.At least that’s my hypothesis, although I could be entirely wrong.   Just thinking of Grim dying somewhere far from us is making me wantto sit down next to Anna and wail the night away with her, but that wouldn’tdo anything for Arthur. If we got so bummed over Grim’s death that weneglected to search Umoris and that ultimately lead to Arthur dying, Icouldn’t even begin to imagine how I’d face Harper and the others. Or justimagine if Grim turned out to be alive this whole time, then we’d feel doublyashamed, and it might actually lead to Anna blaming Grim for hergrandfather’s passing. Geez, this has devolved into something complicated…   “Anna, I have a friend I know who could help us with our littlemoney problem.”   “W-Who cares about that!? Did you not hear what that guy said aboutLune?!”   “Anna…”   Grim was basically a brother to her, so I can only imagine how muchthese grave news came as a shock to her. Honestly, if it turns out Grim reallydid die, then I’m gonna feel like the world’s biggest ass. I should probablytell her about my theory soon…   “Anna,” I propped her up and gave her a hug, “Let’s go to Centralis.”   “Sniff, Centralis…?”   Looking at her state again, she seemed a lot more shaken up thanbefore. Her balance was completely out of whack, and her face was as paleas a ghost’s. The youthful, hopeful nature emanating from her had completelydissipated, leaving nothing but a timid and scared girl in its wake.   I need to get her confidence back, I need to be the pillar of supportfor her just in the case that that ITA Agent was telling the truth. Anna isstrong, yes, but I think that strength of hers can only be fully tapped into whenshe knows both of us are safe and sound. We three are a set, a dynamic trio.We are no more than wheels to a transport wagon, but without wheels, atransport wagon is no more than a horse without legs.   “Yep, we’re gonna seek some financial support from the Gryses…!”   She heard my outrageous suggestion and looked up at me with eyesthat suggested both excitement and worry. I can already tell from that alonewhat she’s thinking.   “You think they’ll just give us the travel funds without reserve? Ed,now you’re sounding more and more like Lune with those crazy ideas.”   “That’s what I’m aiming for.”   Anna was taken aback from my words, but she didn’t appear todislike the idea. That is, she didn’t really care about it in general.   “I don’t want you to be Lune, dummy. Just being you is enough. Butseriously, the Grys Royal Family is certainly known for being generous andkind to outsiders, but overstepping our boundaries could be dangerous. Youof all people should know that.”   “Don’t worry, it’ll be alright. All I’m asking from you is to trust meand to not fuss over the details as much. We’re gonna get this over withquickly, save Arthur and then we’re gonna go look for Grim. We’re gonnacheck if he’s alive on our terms, because as far as I’m concerned, nothing iscertain until we find his body.”   She finally realized why I wasn’t as disheartened about hearing ofGrim’s untimely demise and returned the embrace I had given her just amoment ago (it felt very nice). After that, we decided to book an inn and headout to Centralis first thing in the morning!   “3k shils for a two person lodging.”   Ah right, we should probably go ask that guy at the exchange officeif he can at least exchange this much…