Our trip on the peacock ship, which the sailors told me was called Amaryllis, was relatively calm for all intents and purposes. It took us about a day and a half of descent and we did get a delay in the middle of the way because of a passing storm.

But otherwise, we made our way to the surface without much impediment.

From the island of Zara, we headed west to southwest in the general direction of the rocks that surrounded Zara and the island of Vasilea.

The site where we landed was an artificial clearing at the surface that was probably created by some previous expedition here.

The trees didn’t seem that different from the ones I had seen before back at the islets of Sasara, but that might just be my first impression seeing from afar.

“Need anyone to accompany you two?” One of the sailors asked as we got off the ship to explore and perform the quest we were there to do.

Since I didn’t know what kind of dangers would be waiting for us out there, since I didn’t have that much information on the lower world yet.

On the other hand, I didn’t feel like having another person following me and Fiora since she didn’t seem to be particularly comfortable with strangers yet.

But that might be a chance to give her a little push, plus rather than worrying about such trivial things, I should be prioritizing her safety.

“If it wouldn’t be that much of an inconvenience.”

At my words, the sailor smiled and went to get one of his friends to accompany us out of the ship. It seems they picked the youngest crew member to follow us.

We had left our bags behind at the ship since carrying too much weight would hinder us, so both me and Fiora were carrying instead a small stack of papers, one for writing with me and one for drawing with her.

While we weren’t carrying that much in terms of exploring equipment, it seems our companion from the crew had brought the appropriate tools to venture the thickets.

With that said, we entered the forest in search of new plants and specimens, looking around to see if we could find anything that was worth reporting back to the guild.

I did have some knowledge on trees and plants, since I had studied a bit out of curiosity in order to prepare my charms, but I wouldn’t call myself an expert by any means. For this reason, I mostly relied on looking for things I couldn’t recognize and asking for either Fiora’s or the attendant’s, which was called Livio, opinions. For the most part the pattern was much the same.

“Oh, look. Is that something you recognize?” I asked, pointing at a plant I didn’t recognize.

“Hmmm… I think I saw something like that before. Isn’t it a plant for headaches… What was the name again?” Fiora answered hesitantly.

“Ah, that’s morning dew. It can be used to cure headaches, but it’s more commonly used to make hangover cures. That’s why the name, apparently the leaves hold thick and sweet sap that can snap someone right out of drunkenness.” The attendant took a look at it and immediately recognized it.

“Have you ever tasted it?”

“Ah, no sir. I’m too young to be allowed to drink that much… the most my friends give me are a few cups due to my age.”

“Ah, I see…”

After about an hour walking around, we found something not even Livio could recognize. It was a large tree with a thick trunk that bore large light purple fruits that looked like my old world’s mangoes.

When Livio used his hatchet to cut off a branch of the tree so that we could have a sample, we got an interesting finding.

“It’s… red...ish?”

The wood was normal on the outside, but the insides of the tree were dyed a strong pink to red which was really pretty to look at.

“Have you ever seen something like this?” I asked Livio.

“Ah, well… I do remember there having a tree like that in the lower world before the world shift, but I don’t remember it ever bearing fruits so I believe it’s a completely different tree.”

“I see… Fiora, could you draw it for me, please. That’s our first finding of the day.”

“Ah, right!”

After finishing drawing and writing a description of it, we resumed our search. When the day ended, aside from the previous tree we found a plant that had a really pleasant smell, which Fiora mentioned probably would be useful as a material to make perfumes or incense.

Aside from that, we also found a flowering plant with a weirdly enticing smell and when we tried to cut a sample, more specifically of its seed capsules, a strange milky substance with a sweet scent seeped out of the cut.

With those three findings on the bag, we returned to the ship for the day.