Skeleton Knight in Another World Vol. 5

by Ennki Hakari

  “Ah, this tomato isn’t prepared yet, right?”

  “That’s right. It’s cheaper to sell them in bulk before they’ve been processed.”

  She nodded. “These tomatoes haven’t been processed yet and are still poisonous, which is why you can’t just buy one and eat it. Besides, they only use gold here for currency, and you can’t break that down into any smaller units, so it’d be quite expensive to buy just one for a whole gold piece.”

  The whole market faded into distant background noise.

  “What do you… Ariane, are you saying that tomatoes are poisonous?” My voice unintentionally rose an octave or so in surprise, and I quickly brought my hand up to my mouth.

  The elven merchant was the first to respond. “Ohoho. I guess you’re not much of a cook, my armored friend. You really had me going! Tomatoes are poisonous in their raw form and need to be processed before eating. I guess poison is a bit of a strong word, but you’ll definitely be running to empty your bowels after eating one! Gahaha!”

  The man let out a hearty laugh and rolled the tomato around in his hand.

  Ariane offered a further explanation. “Tomatoes were known down in the south as the ‘diarrhea fruit,’ and were used as a laxative. However, the founder of the Great Fobnach Kingdom apparently loved these fruits, which he called ‘tomatoes,’ so much that he’d eat them regardless of their side effects. Upon seeing this, the founding elder Evanjulin created a magical item that removed the poison from tomatoes and gifted it to the king of Fobnach. He was so overcome with gratitude that Canada and Fobnach formed a trade relationship. Or so the story goes.”

  As I listened along, I turned my gaze back to the tomato in the merchant’s hand.

  “’Diarrhea fruit’? Huh…that certainly gets right to the point.” I shook my head and mumbled to myself, a bit taken aback by the fruit’s disgraceful name. If a tomato would give someone an upset stomach when eaten raw, I wondered what it would do to me. I’d never heard of a skeleton suffering from diarrhea, but I wasn’t exactly eager to find out if it was possible.

  However, if the founder of Fobnach had referred to these laxative fruits as “tomatoes,” and had eaten them despite the side effects, that suggested he was from the same world as me. Given that Evanjulin, who’d built the Great Canada Forest over six hundred years ago, was also from my world, and had bonded with the ruler of Fobnach over tomatoes, it made sense that he would have wanted to make them edible.

  From what I’d heard, the Great Fobnach Kingdom had been founded around five hundred years ago. For trade relations to have carried on between the north and south for such a long time, the two rulers must have been on pretty good terms.

  “And how do you remove the poison from tomatoes?” I looked back at Ariane. These fruits in front of me were nothing more than eye candy.

  “If I recall correctly, you soak them in water with an antidote crystal for an hour or two and then dry them out.”

  Ariane didn’t exactly sound confident in her response, so I turned back to the shopkeeper for confirmation. He offered up a broad smile and nodded in agreement.

  “Even if I can’t eat them raw, if I can get my hands on an antidote crystal, then I should be able to make my dream of eating a tomato come true. This is useful information.”

  I walked on, past several more shops, my enthusiasm entirely curbed. I started to feel my stomach rumble—putting aside the fact that I didn’t technically have one—as the enticing scents of food prepared with southern spices found their way to my nose.

  Though I was distracted by all the food, one particular non-food stall drew me in. The shop sold flawless paper of some sort—maybe parchment or even papyrus—in both scroll and bound book forms, and in all manner of sizes. What had caught my eye, though, were several pieces of art that hung from the sign board in front of the shop.

  “Excuse me, sir, but could you tell me about the place that’s drawn here?” I pointed to one of the works of art in front of his stall, paying no mind to the man’s suspicious glance as he looked up at the armored figure in front of him.

  The picture was an intricate sketch of a town that felt oddly familiar. There were other sketches throughout the stall depicting similar scenes, though in different places.

  “Oh, that? That’s a picture of the capital of the Great Fobnach Kingdom. Those other sketches over there are of the port town of Plymouth, down on the southern continent,” the man replied cheerfully, probably viewing me as a potential customer.

  Ariane, Chiyome, and Goemon were listening closely as they, too, were drawn in by the sketches that decorated the front of the stall. Considering how underdeveloped travel was in this world, pictures like these probably served as a form of entertainment, offering a glimpse of far-off lands and mysterious creatures.

  “Has anything caught your eye?”

  I nodded firmly, pointed at an item, and made my purchase.

  Ariane waited to speak until we’d walked some distance away, a look of confusion on her face. “Why did you buy that, anyway? I was sure you were going to buy one of the sketches.”

  As she said, I hadn’t bought any of the sketches on display at the stall. Instead, I’d purchased a pencil set and several pieces of paper, around the size of A4 sheets, that were bound together with twine.

  I ran my hand along the thick bundle and thought back to the sketches we’d seen earlier.

  “In order for me to use Transport Gate, I need to have a strong memory of the place I’m teleporting to. But there are limits to relying on memory alone. If I sketch out some locations on these sheets of paper, then it should help to jog my memory.”

  Ariane nodded, sufficiently convinced. Still, she couldn’t resist a subtle jab. “Ah, I see. You’re right. It’d probably be good to memorize as many different locations as you can, just so you don’t end up teleporting us to some random place by mistake.”

  Just as she finished speaking, we passed the last row of shops and arrived at what appeared to be the entrance to Landfrea’s port. The entire village sat atop a hill overlooking a cerulean blue ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see. The port itself consisted of a cove where ships could dock, and steep stairs carved straight into the cliff face leading down to them. I could see a lot of people milling about the port, though few seemed to be using the stairs.

  The stairs ended in front of a large cavern that led straight into the cliff. This was where all the storehouses and underground dock facilities that supported the port were located. It seemed like the facilities were broken into two levels: one above ground and one under.

  Judging by the large number of people coming and going, I assumed that the storehouses located above ground must somehow be connected with those deep in the cavern below.

  “It’s like some sort of secret naval base.”

  The excitement I felt welling up inside was quickly dampened when I noticed a waist-high fence at the bottom of the stairs, suggesting that the port was closed to most people.

  A little disappointed to discover this, I stuck my head over the fence to get a better look.

  Ariane pointed toward one of the docked ships. “Only dock workers and the like are allowed to go beyond this point. But tomorrow we’ll be boarding that ship over there, the Rievbelta.”

  The Rievbelta was a roughly hundred-meter-long sailing ship, far and away larger than any of the freshwater ships I’d come across thus far. Like human ships, it was largely unadorned, though it was quite beautiful in its simplicity. The canvas sails were neatly folded on the deck below three large masts, giving the whole ship a rather imposing feel.

  The body of the ship was pale, making me wonder if perhaps it wasn’t made of wood at all. It looked to be coated in a hard, glossy white skin. Sunlight reflected off its surface. The Rievbelta almost looked like something out of the modern era, so I decided to ask Ariane about it.

  “What’s that ship made of?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t really know much ab
out boats, but I remember hearing something about ships being made of dragon scales to increase their durability.”

  A ship made of dragon scales… It was like something ripped from the pages of a fantasy novel.

  I didn’t know too much about the defensive capabilities of dragon scales, but I figured they would turn an ordinary vessel into something like an old ironclad ship. I couldn’t get a good look due to the distance, but the deck of the Rievbelta appeared to be lined with several cannon-like objects, making it more of a trading warship rather than a pure merchant vessel.

  If I recalled correctly, in my own world, iron- and steel-decked ships had been designed in order to combat the use of explosive shells. I could only wonder at what had brought about such ships here. Judging by the way Ariane had spoken about the cannons on the ship we’d found docked in the underground lake, it didn’t seem like humans had even invented normal cannons yet, let alone explosive shells. Which meant there must be some threat lurking out there in the ocean that necessitated all that armor.

  Ariane tapped me on the shoulder, interrupting my thoughts. “We should head back. Besides, starting tomorrow, you’ll be so close to the ship that you’ll come to hate it.”

  I nodded and turned away from the docked vessel, deciding to put those thoughts aside and just trust myself to the winds of fate for the adventure that lay ahead.

  Chapter 2:

  Fobnach Kingdom

  Early the next morning, while the sky was still a shade of deep violet, the winds blowing along the surface of the ocean carried a light mist that blanketed the port at the foot of Landfrea.

  A group of sailors—the crew of the docked Rievbelta—bustled about in the fog as they prepared the ship to depart.

  Chiyome and I watched, excitement rising at the thought of our upcoming voyage, though the feeling apparently wasn’t shared by our travel companions. Ariane and Ponta stifled yawns and tried rubbing the sleep from their eyes, while Goemon stood by stoically, arms crossed over his bare, muscle-bound chest as he silently gazed out at the ocean.

  Chiyome looked back behind her at the masses of people moving about the dock facilities. Her voice betrayed her amazement. “I can’t believe they have contraptions to move cargo between the ships and the buildings. That must be a huge help in transporting items between the upper and lower levels.”

  I looked in the direction she was facing. The thing she was talking about looked a lot like what we’d call an elevator or a lift back in my world. However, it wasn’t mechanical in nature, but rather seemed to be powered by magic, giving the whole scene a rather fantastical feel.

  “There sure are a lot of convenient devices in these elven villages.” I nodded in agreement with Chiyome’s assessment, but Ariane only offered up a disinterested response.

  “Oh? Well, I guess I’m glad to hear that.”

  Her white hair flapped about in the sea breeze, and she shuddered slightly, holding her arms tight to her chest, though some amethyst-colored skin still managed to peek through. The port had been warm yesterday afternoon, but the early morning breeze left us feeling the chill.

  A group of purple-skinned dark elf men whistled excitedly as they walked past the sleep-deprived Ariane. I hadn’t seen any dark elves other than Ariane back in Lalatoya, though they were practically everywhere here on the dock. I supposed it made sense, since they were typically stronger than other elves. The mountain people milling about, likely from the southern continent, also boasted rather powerful frames.

  A man called to us, stepping through the rough-and-tumble crew with a confident stride and a bright smile. I figured him to be a dark elf, though his skin was closer to a purple-hued ash than the delicate amethyst of Ariane’s skin. I probably looked similar to him currently, given the dark skin of my elven form.

  “So, you’re the passengers the elder told me about, yah? I’m the captain of the Rievbelta. Why don’t you come aboard? We’re about to cast off any minute now, so feel free to find a place on deck, but just stay out of my crew’s way.”

  The large man waved grandly toward the docked ship and, with the introductions now through, spun on his heel and made his way back toward it.

  Before he reached the ship, however, he suddenly turned back around, as if he’d just remembered something. “I don’t plan on watching you guys, but whatever you do, stay out of the ship’s hold! If everything goes as planned, we’ll be arriving in Plymouth by tomorrow morning. Later!”

  This time, he truly was done with us, and didn’t turn back again as he started yelling instructions to his crew.

  Ariane stretched for a moment before starting after him, with Chiyome and Goemon following in a quick jog, their bags bouncing on their backs.

  I stood there, fixed in place, my mind on the captain’s warning.

  Ariane looked back quizzically. “We’re gonna leave you behind if you don’t hurry up, Arc!”

  “Is what he said true?”

  Ariane cocked her head. “What he said about arriving tomorrow morning?”

  I’d been looking forward to this voyage for a while, and was stunned to learn that it would only last one day. Upon hearing this, Ariane looked at Chiyome with a puzzled expression.

  “What’s wrong with arriving so soon? Isn’t it better to get the trip over with and not have to spend days floating on the bottomless sea? I don’t get it, Chiyome.”

  Chiyome nodded. “Honestly, I’m glad to hear that we won’t be spending too long on the ocean. Though I admit I was pretty surprised to hear the southern continent is so close.”

  Ariane looked up at the ship, a certain pride in her voice as she spoke. “The only reason we can make it to the southern continent in just one day’s time is because we’re traveling on the Rievbelta. The trip would take four days on a human ship.”

  I looked up at the Rievbelta as well. If what she said were true, it meant that this ship was four times faster than anything the humans could make.

  Like chasing after a speeding comet…

  While we were talking, a large bell aboard the Rievbelta began to ring. Ariane frantically threw her bag over her shoulder and began jogging toward the ship.

  “Arc, that’s the departure bell! If you don’t hurry up, we’ll be left behind!”

  “Ah, right!”

  “Kyiii!”

  I adjusted my own bag and took off toward the ship. I couldn’t find Goemon for a moment, until I discovered that he was already standing on the deck, looking down at us. Leave it to a ninja to sneak onto the ship while no one was looking.

  Shortly after we boarded, the plank leading up to the deck was removed, and the crew began hurrying about their business. With one more loud clang from the ship’s bell, the massive ship began slowly drifting away from the cove. We tried to stay out of the crew’s way by moving to the front of the ship, where I could see the waves breaking against its bow down below.

  I watched as the people still standing at the docks waved goodbye to the ship, then slowly turned my gaze upward. Something strange caught my eye.

  “Hey, Ariane…the sails aren’t even up. How are we moving?” I blurted out my observation in surprise, completely unsure what I was looking at.

  Ariane leaned against the ship’s railing, unfazed. “The Rievbelta is a magical ship. No wind blows down here in the harbor, so it has to move under the power of magic until it gets out into the open sea.”

  Chiyome was also taken in by the mysterious sight of a sailing vessel moving without wind. The look of surprise as she stared at the empty masts and the neatly folded sails was plain on her face.

  This meant that the vessel had to have some sort of engine aboard, and the warning the captain had given us earlier was probably an attempt to keep us from entering the engine room. Considering that humans still didn’t have access to magical ships or their technology, it only made sense to forbid any and all entry, in order to maintain the secrecy.

  “Do you know what kind of system the ship uses to move, Ariane?” Out
of pure curiosity, I figured I’d ask Ariane about the inner workings of the Rievbelta.

  She leaned back against the railing and offered up a cool, disinterested response. “Nope. I’m not an engineer or anything, you know. I have no idea how these things work.”

  As Ariane gazed up at the sky, her large bosom bounced in sync with the waves that gently rocked the ship. I stared out of the corner of my eye and slowly scratched my chin.

  She was right, of course. Someone without an engineering background would have a hard time describing how it works. I mean, most people know that cars have engines that make them move, but very few people can explain how they do it. If the ship did have some sort of engine on board, then I could easily believe that it was four times faster than what the humans were building.

  It was unfortunate that our voyage would be over in just one day, but it wasn’t the end of the world if I could get to this exciting new land all the sooner.

  Or at least, so I told myself.

  Just then, I felt a strong breeze come up from behind us and heard the calls of men yelling to draw the sails. A bell began chiming as the three sails were slowly but surely drawn up their respective masts.

  We had apparently broken out into the open sea and were now floating past several islets and rocks jutting up from the water. The boat slowly picked up speed and crashed through the oncoming waves as it skirted these obstacles.

  A few moments later, however, the bell began sounding more frantically.

  Ariane stood up from the railing and looked off toward the aft of the ship.

  “Pirates…?”

  She narrowed her golden eyes as her white hair billowed about in the strong sea breeze.

  I looked in the same direction and could barely see the outlines of two boats pulling out from the far side of one of the islets.

  “Are there really pirates out here?”

  We were still pretty close to Landfrea’s port. I had to question the sanity of any pirate who would launch an attack this close to land.

  The boats pursuing us were about half the size of the Rievbelta. What’s more, while the deck of the Rievbelta was reinforced with dragon scales, these ships looked like they were made completely out of wood, and they were far slower than us.