by Ennki Hakari
I sat down on the deck, crossed my legs, and flipped the book open to the first page.
“All right, this helmet’s getting in my way now…”
Speaking to no one in particular, I took off my helmet and set it down next to me. I then picked up my drawing implement—essentially a stick of charcoal sharpened into a primitive pencil—and began drawing.
After sketching the rough outlines, I started filling in the basic details. As I looked up at the still-life inspiration laid out before me, I absently wondered how long it had been since I’d sat down to draw like this.
Ponta and Chiyome were standing at the ship’s railing, their tails wagging gently as they looked out across the sea, while Goemon stood at the front of the ship with his arms crossed tight across his chest, cutting an imposing figure as he glared ahead.
A gentle smile crept across my face as I sketched the scene in front of me. Ariane appeared at my side and looked down at my drawing.
“Wow, you drew that, Arc? You’re pretty good!” The surprise was evident in her voice.
“You think? I’m just an amateur, really.”
I thought back to my previous life. When I was younger, I’d been pretty good at art; I’d even had some of my works put on display. One day, a girl in my class complimented my work, but frankly, I thought she’d done a better job overall than I had. In the end, however, it was my picture that was put up on display. I felt really bad about that.
I wondered absently where that girl was now and what she was doing.
I averted my gaze as I got lost in these memories, prompting Ariane to look closer, her golden eyes wide as they bore into me.
“Arc, what’s wrong?”
It seemed that, while I was back in my elven body, I could feel homesickness and other emotions welling up inside me.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts and took a nice, deep breath of ocean air. Then I turned my gaze back to Ariane’s large chest. I immediately felt better.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I was just worried you might have gotten a sunburn on your cleavage.”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than Ariane’s fist came flying toward my face, her cheeks flushed.
“You don’t need to concern yourself with that!” She crossed her arms protectively over her chest and turned away.
Tears formed in the corners of my eyes from the strong blow she’d delivered to the bridge of my nose. I let out a deep sigh. Up above, the thinly sliced slabs of kraken meat wafted in the wind like flags. Despite all the downsides, I was starting to think that maybe there was some good to my change, since it allowed me to actually look forward to the upcoming meal of roasted kraken.
The sun slowly approached the horizon, bathing the sea around us in the deep scarlet shades of nightfall. The people who had hung their kraken meat to dry were now scrambling about the ship to prepare their meal.
It seemed as good a time as any for me to do that too. I untied the meat from the ship’s riggings and checked the texture. Thanks to the constant sea breeze that blew across the ship, the surface of the meat was nice and dry, while still maintaining a nice springiness to it, despite having shrunk a bit. Overall, it seemed to have come out well.
“Seems to have dried out quite nicely.” I held the meat under the light of the setting sun and nodded confidently.
Ariane spoke up, her face in a grimace. “You’re not really going to eat that, are you?”
I thought back on the massive sea monster we’d fought earlier that afternoon and let out a rueful laugh. Considering that Ariane’s hometown was much farther inland, I realized she probably wasn’t used to eating seafood.
To be fair, while I’d eaten roasted squid, kraken was new for me as well.
“I’ve never tried kraken before, so I figure I might as well give it a chance.”
I looked around the deck of the ship and discovered that a number of grills had been set up all over while I had been preoccupied. Skewered meat rested on the grates, roasting away. A few people carried out barrels of liquor from below deck and began setting them up. It was starting to feel like a proper party.
However, as I looked closer, I realized that the only people enjoying the feast of roasted kraken were the mountain people. There were no elves to be seen. I wondered if this was a cultural difference.
On one of the grills, I saw half a tentacle roasting away. Elsewhere, Chiyome and Goemon were helping the others untie their food from the rigging lines.
Could we really eat all this food? But first things first—I’d need to actually try it.
“Well, let’s give it a taste!”
“Kyiii!” Ponta let out an impatient mew from atop my head.
I made my way to one of the nearby grills that wasn’t being used and began spearing the kraken meat on skewers before laying it down to roast. The aroma was divine. Right around the time that the meat had worked up a nice char, Chiyome leaned in, her large tail wagging.
“Well, it certainly smells good.”
Goemon nodded.
Ariane seemed to be in agreement on the smell at least, though she furrowed her brow and stared intently at the meat as the flames licked it. Apparently, she still couldn’t get the thought about where it had come from out of her mind.
I took three of the cooked skewers and handed them to Chiyome and Goemon before removing the meat from the third and setting it down in front of Ponta.
Taking another, I turned my attention to Ariane, but she didn’t seem in any hurry to try it. She shook her head for added emphasis.
“Sorry to eat in front of you, Ariane.”
I took a bite and chewed at the roasted kraken, trying to get a feel for its flavor.
It honestly tasted a lot like roasted squid. I continued shoving more of the slightly charred, flavorful meat into my mouth as Chiyome and Goemon followed suit. The moment they did, both of their eyes lit up, their tails wagging about slightly. In a matter of moments, the skewers were picked clean.
Apparently, they liked it.
Chiyome was staring longingly at the remaining hunk of meat, so I put some more on skewers and placed it on the grill. Down at my feet, Ponta used its magic to summon up a burst of wind to blow across the steaming meat and cool it before testing the temperature with its tongue.
Chiyome watched intently as I worked, slowly roasting the second round of skewers.
“It’ll be ready in just a moment,” I said. “It tastes a lot better if you get the char just right.”
Chiyome’s ears went stiff, and she leaned back, shaking her head from side to side. The normally calm and collected young girl frowned and tried to make up an excuse, her face twisting into a frown.
“N-no, that’s not what I meant. I-I was just going to ask you about something!”
I nodded, urging her to continue.
What she had to say took me by surprise.
“Would you be willing to sell me several cuts of kraken meat?”
There was a seriousness in her deep azure eyes and a slight flush to her cheeks that I usually didn’t see, making her look a little more childish than usual. The image brought a smile to my lips. Goemon stopped eating for a moment and looked over at his young ninja companion.
I responded with a gentle laugh. “Goemon and I did this together, so there’s no need for me to sell you anything. Half of it is already yours anyway. It looks like you’ve really taken a liking to the roasted kraken, huh, Chiyome?”
Chiyome turned her gaze back to the roasting meat and brushed her cheek lightly. “I can’t remember the last time I ate something so good. I figured that my brother would like it, too, so I was hoping to bring some back to him as a souvenir.”
“Oh, you have a brother?” This took me by surprise. It was the first I’d heard of Chiyome having a family.
Ariane’s ears also perked up.
Chiyome shook her head at this.
“Well, he’s not a brother in the traditional sense. I’m taking about one of the six gr
eat ninja of our clan, the one known as Sasuke.”
She frowned slightly and turned her gaze toward the sky, looking off to the west at the remnants of the setting sun. Goemon, having long since finished his roasted kraken, still had the skewer sticking out of his mouth as he listened intently to our conversation.
The name sounded familiar. Back in the hideaway, I faintly remembered hearing Chiyome talking with the twenty-second Hanzo about such a person. Something about how they weren’t able to find him.
It was hard to see clearly in the fading light, but a look of sadness seemed to have clouded Chiyome’s azure eyes. I stroked my chin, recalling the eagerness Chiyome had shown when she asked about Sasuke’s whereabouts. I’d only happened to overhear the conversation and hadn’t been given any other background information, so I figured it best to not pry and let the conversation trail off there.
“Well, we’ve got quite a lot of meat left, so we’ll leave it somewhere safe once we hit the port.”
Ariane still wasn’t interested in eating anything, and I could only polish off so much food on my own. It’d be a pain to try and lug all this meat around with us as we traveled the southern continent. Maybe I’d try to Transport Gate to bring the food back to Chiyome’s village, as a test to see how far I could teleport. We’d still have quite a bit left over, even if I gave half to the village. For the rest, I was thinking of cutting it up really thin, drying it out, then frying it up. Fried kraken sounded pretty good to me.
Maybe I could even slip some to Ariane without her noticing.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, I could feel Ariane’s gaze drilling into me, like an elbow to my gut. Ariane could read me like a book even when I was an expressionless skeleton, so there was little chance of getting away with devious thoughts in my elven form.
I tried to keep my cool and turned my attention back to the roasting skewer, checking on the grill marks. Stay calm. Just gotta stay calm.
The next morning, I woke up in my armor, lying on the hard bed in the small cabin we’d been provided below deck. A little furball moving around my face had woken me up. Apparently, the motion of the ship had knocked Ponta from my chest onto my face.
The fox yawned a few times, eliciting a smile from me as I picked it up by the scruff of the neck and tried to set it down next to me.
Ponta was fully awake now, though, and kicked its legs about in the air before curling up and clutching onto my arm.
“Kyii!”
“Huh, you up now?”
Ponta ran up my arm and onto my shoulder as I looked around the cabin.
Though illuminated by rays of sun that managed to make their way in through the small, circular port built into the wall, the cabin was rather spartan and dimly lit. Several bunks, reminiscent of coffins, ran along both sides of the cabin, with a narrow passageway running between them. This was where Ponta and I had spent the night, joined by our roommate Goemon, who’d slept in a sitting position with his back against the wall.
It wasn’t clear to me if Goemon was sleeping, or meditating with his eyes closed in search of some sort of higher consciousness. It didn’t seem to me like that position would be very relaxing.
Not like I was one to talk, though. After all, I’d fallen asleep in my armor.
I decided to head up to the deck and see if I could get a sense for where we were. After adjusting my helmet, I stepped out through the doorway, careful to duck low so I didn’t bump my head.
I walked down the hallway with both hands outstretched, fingers gliding along the walls as I moved to keep from falling over as the ship swayed from side to side. After making my way up to the deck, I was greeted by the sound of sails flapping in the vast, blue, early morning sky.
I turned to look toward the front of the ship, then off to the right, where I saw a large continent, still blanketed in the deep purple hues of dawn. The darkness kept me from getting a good look at the land that stretched out before us, but from what I could see, it was a rocky coastline made up of sheer cliffs. Definitely not a good place to dock a ship.
“Wow! So we’ve already made it to the southern continent?”
One of the mountain people heard me talking to myself and came on over to join me.
“Yer a weird one, wearing armor out on deck like that. This yer first time to Fobnach?” The cat man let out a lazy yawn and leaned heavily on the railing as he looked up at me, confused.
I nodded. “I’m interested in this country ruled by the mountain people that I’ve heard so much about, as well as the various spices, tomatoes, and other goods that grow down here.”
The man looked back at me curiously. “What are mountain people? Us beast people are the ones who founded the Great Fobnach Kingdom.”
It was now my turn to look confused.
“Oh? I thought that that the term ‘beast people’ was an insult used up in the north to refer to your people. Is that not so in the south?”
Chiyome had told me humans had coined the term “beast people,” but the preferred term, which they used for themselves, was “mountain people.” After I explained this to the cat man, a look of realization came over his face, and he nodded firmly.
“Ahhh, so that’s the term they use up in the north? Down in the south, Fobnach’s founder brought the many beast clans together to found our great country.”
I could sense a certain amount of pride in the man’s voice as he spoke, and no negative connotations to the term. Apparently, customs changed depending on the region, or in this case, continent.
“Besides, most of us down in the south have never even seen a human.”
“Oh, so most of the people living on the southern continent are…beast people like yourselves? No humans live down there?”
The man smiled wryly at this. “Off to the west, beyond the large plains, there are some lands ruled by the humans. However, their push into these lands contributed to the formation of Fobnach as we know it today.”
I saw no hostility in the man’s face as he talked about the humans. When I asked him about this, he laughed and shook his head.
“The humans built a large wall along the plains, which they never cross. Some brave souls of ours live and work beyond that wall, but if the humans were ever to come out and try to drive us off, the highly skilled warriors of Fobnach would put a quick end to them.”
The cat man’s chest puffed out with pride as he spoke.
With the humans separated from the north by the vast South Central Sea, it was clear that the southern continent belonged to the mountain people.
Personally, I felt it would make the most sense to just gather up all the mountain people in the hideaway village and bring them down here to the southern continent. However, as an outsider, that wasn’t my decision to make.
Judging from what I’d heard so far, the village I’d seen was just one of many, and the Jinshin clan was still busy rescuing their enslaved comrades, so they couldn’t leave the northern continent anytime soon. You can’t solve problems that have built up over generations in just one day.
I couldn’t help but wonder how Chiyome and Goemon would tell the people back at their village what Fobnach, a country built by the mountain people, was like. At least, I assumed that was why they’d come along.
I felt a presence approach me from behind. I looked back and spotted Ariane coming toward me, trying to brush out her mussy hair as she moved. All eyes on deck turned toward Ariane’s voluptuous body as she approached.
Ariane seemed to be unaware of the eyes on her as she stretched her body, loosening up her muscles after being confined to such narrow quarters. This only increased the intensity of the gazes directed her way.
“Good morning, Ariane.”
Even though she seemed to ignore the looks she was getting from everyone else, without fail, she’d always lay into me if I looked at her that way. She had quite the bittersweet personality.
Though, honestly, I couldn’t recall a time when she’d actually been sweet to me.
Ariane rubbed at her lower back and let out a sigh. “Morning, Arc. That bed was just awful to sleep in. I’m sore all over.”
Just as I was about to reply, I noticed everyone around me turn their eyes away from Ariane and look straight ahead. Following their gaze, I spotted a town shining in the early morning sun off to the right.
Chiyome spoke up from beside me. I had no idea when she’d appeared, but there she was, her azure eyes—the color of the ocean—fixed on the town.
“Looks like we’ve arrived at Plymouth.”
She squinted her eyes against the bright sunlight as the sea breeze blew her ears ever so slightly from side to side. There was no trace of the sadness I’d seen on her face last night.
Goemon lumbered up behind her. I let out a deep breath and looked back toward the sun-bleached town ahead.
I was finally going to set foot on the southern continent.
Chapter 2.5:
Chiyome & Sasuke
The magical elven ship, the Rievbelta, slid effortlessly through the sea all night as it made its way toward its destination.
Though larger than the sailing vessels humans usually manned, the inside of the ship placed little emphasis on living quarters, leaving nothing but small, cramped cabins barely big enough to accommodate the bunk beds stacked three high. However, many of the beds remained empty. Given how few women passengers there were—only a handful aside from Chiyome and Ariane—most of the beds were used for storing cargo.
Ariane was asleep, her brow furrowed as she tossed in the narrow bed, a thin blanket pulled over her. From time to time, she’d mumble some complaint about Arc in her sleep.
The cabin, quiet save for the soft sounds of its sleeping occupants, was dimly illuminated by the light of the moon shining through a porthole in the wall.
In front of the window sat a young girl with cat ears atop her head, gazing out at the dark ocean that moved about below them.
As she watched the dark waves splashing against the side of the ship, Chiyome thought back to her younger days, when she was still a trainee back in the village. One particular night, when she’d been deep in the forest, surrounded by rustling trees, came to mind.