Azrie

I'll be honest here, I wrote this while I was sleep-deprived. Rather... I still am, so if stuff feels weird. Just let me know and I will see if I can fix it or not. Thanks for reading in advance.

I slowly opened my eyes and moved my body up-right. I looked towards the coachman sit. The merchant was slouched but still driving, I noticed Cecil and Ari next to one another laying on top of Fenri. However, I did not see Aizen anywhere. 

‘I wonder where she could be.’ After some mutter, I finally found her. She was looking outside the wagon near the back. However, how weird. She was looking at it with dead-fish eyes, it made me wonder if she actually had rest or stayed up watching outside for whatever reason. I noticed the sun had just risen up. I approached her to see if something was wrong. 

“Aizen?” 

However, she just kept looking outside. 

“Aizen.” 

‘What’s with her? All she is doing is looking outside, her eyes are not even focused. Hmm let’s see, I will move my hand past her eyes to see if she answers…’ After thinking and swaying my hand in her line of sight, she did not answer. 

“Aizen.” 

After a few seconds, her eyes finally lit-up. 

“Eh?”

“Are you okay?” I asked out of genuine concern. 

“Ah, yes. I am fine, perfectly fine.” 

Her firm reply did not convince me at all, but it couldn’t be helped. 

I wonder why she stayed up all night? There is no other reason for her attentiveness or rather, lack thereof. I wonder what I could do? Smacking her would probably not do anything at all for me, she is probably hungry, but meat wouldn’t do it. Hmm, I wonder. Wait… I just remembered something, we have apples. I remember some people saying apples were a healthy alternative to coffee, I don’t really know what coffee is exactly. BUT, I do know that it gave you energy. 

With those thoughts in mind, I took an apple out of my inventory and gave it to Aizen. Well rather than give it to her, I had to grab her hand and make her grip it. And by that, I mean forcing her to grip it until she realized what was going on. She was fairly confused but ended up eating the apple without saying anything. She did not seem to improve, but it would take some time for the apple to actually have an effect. In the meantime, I decided to wake Ari and Cecil up by gently moving them side to side. This also caused Fenri to wake up. He looked somewhat confused. 

“Yawn, Morning Yami,” Ari yawningly greeted me while rubbing her eye. 

“Morning.” Cecil was slightly quieter as she rubbed her eyes. 

“Ah, morning. Here, breakfast.” I said as I handed them apples. 

I also gave Fenri a few apples, Cecil did not notice what I was doing. 

I think having an apple for breakfast would be decent. Better than an apple with dried meat at least. Pretty weird how I see the combination as atrocious, yet the apple alone is perfectly fine. I noticed that Cecil and Yami were looking at their hands with grim faces. 

“Thanks for the food...” Cecil unenthusiastically thanked me, Ari did not seem to want it, but that was outside my control. 

Shrugging off the clearly disappointed girls, I started eating the apple, I did not taste it much before due to the saltiness of the dried meat, however. It was sweet and crunchy, clearly surpassing my expectations, it was no inn food. But, it could certainly work as a light breakfast. 

‘Come to think of it. Has the merchant eaten anything?’ With those worries in mind, I decided to approach the coachman sit. 

“Do, you, need, something?” He kept making brief pauses with baggy eyes. I did not say anything and just gave him an apple. 

“Thank, you.” 

After he thanked me,  I looked at the horses, they looked perfectly fine. I did not really question the idea of having animals run all night. But I remembered living beings need rest. Rather, I was reminded by the sight of Aizen. Huh... Well, I guess I could always ask Ari when it comes to common knowledge. 

I came back to the girls who had finished eating the apples and were now standing up. I finished my own apple, and looked at it, wondering how to dispose of the leftovers. I do remember leaving them at the ground, shouldn’t it be fine to throw them outside the carriage? They are organic and stuff, probably… Should be fine, plastic isn’t a thing anyways. Before I could do anything I noticed Ari and Cecil doing what I just thought. I followed by also throwing the apple core outside the carriage. 

I realized, Cecil was looking at me. 

“Yami, where did you get the apples from?” She confusedly asked I do not blame her. After all, I did take the apples out of nowhere. Well, not like it was relevant. Food is food, or am I wrong? 

“Does it matter?” I asked her back, however, to my surprise she just nodded. 

“Ah, Cecil. You see, Yami went out of the wagon when she saw an apple tree before she woke us up.” Ari interrupted before I could answer. She gave me a wink, I assume the intervention was for me to not tell her about the fact that I had a hypothetical [item-bag]. 

Are they really that rare here? I mean it is just a [Flawless] item… Oh, right… Trash items are considered good here. What a pain… I have a feeling I could break the economy if I were to actually try to make an okay item. Rather, it could probably do something worse than breaking the economy. How frustrating having to think about the stuff I do… I did make that dagger, and I think I left it there? I wonder what happened to it. Well, not like I can go back to try to obtain my possession. Wait, is it even mine? I did use that super impure iron from that forge. Ah, well. No use worrying about something I no longer have. 

“So that’s how it was.” Cecil accepted Ari’s explanation without much hassle. I decided to look outside out of curiosity, there was no tree to be found, only tall-grass plains. Aizen seemed to be doing a little bit better, at least she did not seem like a doll anymore. She was muttering a lot of things, I think she just had too much stuff to think about, stuff I didn’t really understand. 

Cecil took a step forward towards me. 

“Umm. Yami, do you have more apples?” She asked with pleading eyes, I noticed Ari was frantically shaking her head behind her. I guess the [Item-bag] was something serious. 

“No, I gave our last one to the merchant.” 

“I see... “ 

After giving her a reply she sat down, I also did the same but sat in front of her. Ari walked around a bit just to stretch herself and after doing that, she also took a seat. We ended up sitting in a triangle formation. 

I guess being strong doesn’t correlate to items, which is kind of odd.  At least in the game items were so important that a level 120 without items could be outclassed by a level 90 with items. The difference margin was really high. So, I guess that's why items are so valuable in this world. I wonder what people value most here? I mean I did not really understand actual real life, but I do remember hearing a player being weird and saying ‘What is the meaning of life?’ Over and over again, I personally just gave it my own answer, but I wonder what other people think. Ah well, no use worrying about it. 

“Hey, umm. Yami. I have a question.” 

“Yes?” 

“I have been wondering this for a long time, seeing I finally meet an adventurer like you. I wanted to ask. Is life just about becoming strong?” Quite the weird question.

“What do you mean by that?” I confusedly asked. 

“Well, is life just about acquiring a class and then dying?” 

She looked somewhat nervous, Ari just looked at me wondering what kind of hazardous reply I would throw at her. I assumed she thought I would say something random. However, I had reached the meaning of life question a long time ago. 

“Well, I don’t know if this is the reply you are looking for. But, I don’t think life has a meaning to it, just do whatever you want with it. Give it your own meaning if you desire it, just live if you desire it.” 

After my nonchalant answer, I noticed Cecil was thinking and Ari had a wide-open mouth from my reply. ‘Was it really that surprising? It’s really not that hard you know.’ I muttered as if answering to Ari’s reaction, after doing that I noticed Cecil nodded and looked at me with unmoving eyes. 

“Thank you.” 

For some reason, my simple reply seemed to satisfy her. I noticed she went back to thinking and nodded again. 

“Can I share some of my experiences?” 

“Sure.”

“Nn.” 

I gave her a pretty casual reply and Ari just nodded, I noticed Cecil relaxed her shoulders and had a faint smile with somewhat flushed cheeks. However, before she started talking her face looked grim. 

“Well, the reason for my question is because. As a noble, I am just expected to follow everything, etiquette, studies, even strength. There is nothing interesting, my whole life I have been trying to please my father. However, he just never seems happy…” After giving us a wry smile, she continued. “That is why I want to thank you, Yami. I think I will do whatever I want now.” This time she actually gave me a complete smile. 

“That’s great, I am happy for you.” I just said something cheesy not knowing what to say. I looked at Ari for her reply, but she seemed to be thinking about something with a somewhat grim face. I looked back at Cecil who now had flushed cheeks. 

“C--” 

“Cecil, I think your objectives are great, however, this is my advice. Prepare for the worst, life can be great and awful. Just be sure of what to expect.” Ari’s cold advice interrupted what I was about to say, I noticed she did not look particularly happy. But I wonder what could make her say that? I don’t know… It just seems like I am looking at night and day between these two girls. One is naive and the other one is smart. 

“...Nn.” Cecil slowly nodded from Ari’s seriousness. 

“Ari and K-Yami did say something important. If something bad happens, move forward, if something good happens, cherish those moments.” 

I noticed Aizen was finally awake and was slowly walking towards us. I noticed Cecil looked happier hearing Aizen’s realistic advice. Which I thought is fine. Although I wonder if Cecil would be able to move forward from certain things. Aizen moved forward from her past self, and I had to move forward from Eli’s disappearance… However, I wonder if Cecil will be able to? Well, I hope our advice helped her at least. 

“Girls! I can see the capital now.” We heard the not so dead merchant enthusiastically inform us. 

The capital huh? I wonder how big it is. Will it be better than the one on the game? I want to see something big and imposing. I don’t know… Something like that would certainly be nice. 

As I was thinking, the wagon accelerated; increasing the rattle. It started hurting my butt, but I could not do much about it. I noticed the merchant’s cargo started ever so slightly shaking, I could hear metallic sounds coming from it. ‘Could it be? No there is no way a random merchant is transporting metals… It must be something else, like… Utensils or something… Yeah... ‘ I calmed myself down with an illogical explanation, although it would certainly explain why the merchant had to leave the rest of the boxes behind. The wagon was already rattling a lot. I assume moving more boxes inside would damage the wagon’s axels to some extent. 

After a minute or two, the carriage stopped, we decided to get out of the wagon to stretch. I noticed a shadow closing in behind me, it was the merchant. I noticed he was scratching his cheek. 

“Well, here we are, haha… Thank you for escorting me through the... peculiar occurrences.” 

I realized he was still nervous and just worried about what was to come for him, but that was none of my business. There was a single thing that bothered me, I did not want to “fail” the request. 

“So, about the adventurers guild and completion?” I asked the merchant. 

“Ah, right... “ he started fumbling around his pockets. “Here, take this.” He handed me something that looked like a small scroll, I just took it and placed it inside my cloak (inventory). His face somewhat twisted from seeing his precious scroll being mindlessly tossed into my cloak. 

“Just take that to the adventurers guild and that would complete the request,” he bowed. “I am sorry for having to kick you out of the wagon, but going into the capital with three girls inside my wagon could get me arrested,” he said as his cheeks turned red. So that’s how it was, well that’s understandable. 

“Ah, I see… Well, we are leaving then,” I informed the merchant as I gestured everyone else to follow me. He just stood there not knowing what to say or do until he stiffened and went back to the wagon. 

I hadn’t paid attention to the outside aside from the dirt road, the grass was no longer twice as tall as me, it was well trimmed and seemed to be taken care of regularly. I decided to face in the direction of the carriage. I saw something imposing. It was massive; the pale-white walls were easily ten times the size of Mirl’s, the gate had the width of six wagons accompanied by a bridge that matched the walls. A moat that was full of pristine and clear water. 

At that moment I understood why Ari seemed unimpressed by the Mirl’s plaza, the bridge width alone was half the width of Mirl’s. It really wasn’t impressing when you compare it to the apex of human engineering. Well, I could only assume it was that way, seeing it was the first time I saw such a big place. The capital in the game was slightly different, while it did share the pale-white stone it also had a lot of gold accents everywhere. I mean everywhere.

I noticed the wagon had left us a while ago and everyone was staring at me. Well, it was understandable considering I looked at the entire place without blinking for a good twenty seconds. 

“Yami?” 

“Ah, yes I am coming.” 

Before I realized it, everyone in our group was walking on the side of the bridge towards a door built into the gate itself. There were some people making a line because of guard security checks or what-not, seeing the gate was heavily guarded. We idly waited as the line moved with us in it. 

“Eh?!” 

I heard a surprised gritty voice somewhere, I looked towards the distance and it was a white-haired butler, he was looking at our group fixedly before he noticed my gaze and then broke into a sprint. 

“Weird,” I muttered.