Otjag

Hey, we are back to 4.5 stars, awesome!

Anyway, if you wonder what I was doing last week, then the answer to that is nothing. I was depressed and that's that.

Enjoy!

The group walked through the streets at a fast pace, not yet hurried but faster than a casual stroll. Or, at least the small people had to walk fast, for Argul it was agonizingly slow and she let out a low whine, not that anyone except her daughter knew what the sound meant.

Now that she was back in the body that mana thought most suitable for her as an avatar, Argul really wanted to enjoy herself and part of that was running and playing around. She would have to endure until they made it to their camper, she supposed that was a fitting word for their mobile house, and out of town before she let loose however. Argul could of course increase her pace, but because of her size she would leave the others behind in no time and some of the stuff bound to her back looked and felt like it was about to fall off if she made one wrong move, which effectively forced her to keep her daughter, Arthur and Luna company.

It was still all very boring, though it left her with a bit of time to think about this and that. How Luna was suppressing her tears right now for example and how she had no idea how she could help the woman, which made her feel somewhat guilty as she was the reason Luna had to leave in the first place. 

Argul hadn’t exactly forced her of course, but the situation with both church and state would have left Luna in an awkward place if she had stayed. She also couldn’t help but feel like her family with the Arthur addon were Luna’s only friends and she would be all alone if they had left without her. Perhaps it was best if Argul just gave her a bit of space and let the more socially inclined people sort that out before she made things worse.

Someone came out of the house Argul was just walking by and immediately turned around, grumbling to themselves how they weren’t going to deal with this now, which was funny because that had to be the fifth time someone had exactly that reaction to seeing Argul. Then again, after being teleported and integrated, she could understand that people just wanted some peace for a while.

Though that reminded Argul of something she had wondered about: Why did humanity get teleported to another planet before getting thrown like trash into the Lotusriver-Universe?

She could understand that she had to be removed because her existence harmed the universe and it was plausible to get rid of humans by extension since one could think they were responsible for her creation, but why not simply take the sol-system and throw that away? Why bother moving humans to another solar system before doing so?

The only explanation she could come up with is that earth and the sol-system had to have something valuable enough or were expensive enough to be worth the hassle. Maybe both, Argul didn’t know how universes worked.

She shook her head lightly, eliciting a squeak from Mia who hadn’t expected the movement and slid down her neck a bit as a result.

Argul pushed that little problem away for future-her to handle like she did with all the questions and theories she had about the uni- and multiverse. Once both she and Miss Lotusriver were ready for it they could come back to this.

The group continued their track through the city to a large parking place somewhere in the outskirts as the sun slowly began to rise. Argul didn’t know where exactly they were headed. The trader she had negotiated with had at some point relocated the trailer they used as base because there hadn’t been enough space in the warehouse. As a result they had to walk about half an hour longer.

Argul honestly thought it was better this way. Sure, the longer distance was a bit annoying, but having to drag the camper through the streets sounded much worse. 

When she had first been in this form in her domain, she hadn’t really realized it, but she was large. Like, house-sized large and the streets had not been built with giant molfs, that’s what she decided to call this form now, in mind. 

A major oversight if she had ever seen one. Who didn’t plan to accommodate beings such as her that were totally not rare?

Anyway, the point is she was tall and cars were kinda small to her, so sometimes, when a street was lined by multistory buildings without any sort of front garden, it could get a bit tight for her. Argul compensated by bending the streetlights out of the way in these cases.

Thankfully, her steps were relatively light considering her mass and she didn’t shake the earth every time she moved. When she had asked Arthur about it, he said it was noticeable right next to her, but the tremors only reached a few meters away from her and by then anything should have already been able to see her. 

She was also quite silent and her paws made deceptively little noise while she walked, though that was to be expected from a predator.

They arrived at the parking lot with dawn in full swing, the camper being the only thing there next to a few unusable cars and it was honestly a lot more than Argul had hoped it to be.

“Oh wow.” Luna sighed in relief. “That's actually cool and a lot better than I expected.”

And she was right. The house, in all its wooden glory, was a bit elongated, around 30 meters long and about 4 meters wide, which gave the group a respectable amount of living space, all things considered. It had a ground floor, roof floor and a box hanging from the end that was probably some kind of storage space. The large tractor tires looked a bit out of place though.

Arthur put down his backpack and looked proudly at their new home. “Well, after Argul pushed this project into my lap I sourced some more money to get the craftsman to expand on the original plans.”

“Sourced some more money?” Argul gave Arthur a questioning look and laid down so the others could free her from her burdens. “You did a good job.”

“Ahh you know, the usual stuff. Looting abandoned houses, finding and selling hidden cages of cocaine, that sort of thing.” He answered with a smile and was about to enter and show them around, but Alyra interrupted him, pointing at Argul.

“Mom comes first.”

While everyone, even Mia, began to unload everything from Argul’s back, she thought about Arthur’s answer for a bit, unsure of her opinion. 

Argul wasn’t much of a fan of drugs and hated it when others pushed someone to start consuming something, even if it was just alcohol. That stuff was so ingrained in society that convincing the average person that it was okay not to drink and aggressively trying to get someone to start drinking was not, was all but impossible though.

She didn’t actually mind if a person took anything, so long as that didn’t impact her? Like, smoking was okay, but do it somewhere she didn’t have to smell it or don’t vomit all over her when you drink something.

Argul knew that Arthur was a dealer and, ultimately, that was kinda okay. People probably needed it during current times more so than ever.

Unloading everything from her back took maybe 10 minutes and was a much faster affair then securing it.

With that done, Arthur led everyone to the front of the camper where the entrance was. In front of the door was a bit of place to stand and from there two metal poles extended another 8 meters or so with a large leather harness inbetween. Hopefully that would make pulling the camper around easier for Argul and stop it from rolling into her when they moved down hill.

The only problem really was how they would get to the door in the first place since it was at least one and a half meters above ground?

Arthur pulled out a ladder from underneath the small porch area in front of the door as answer and everyone except Argul climbed up. “Allright, so this is the entrance. The porch can actually be extended along the two metal poles when Argul isn’t pulling the camper.”

Then he led the others inside with Argul looking through the nearest window to follow along. Despite the elevation of the ground floor she had to duck to be able to look inside. 

“This room, as you can see, is both the living room and kitchen, though we still have to furnish it. The stove and pretty much everything else in the kitchen doesn’t work because of mana so we will have to manage somehow.”

The first half of the room right behind the door was empty except for a couch and had plenty of space for all the stuff they had brought with them from the inn. The second half housed a surprisingly modern looking kitchen, though there was still room for a few shelves. Argul would have to do something about the functionality of the kitchen equipment later with her enchantments. Getting the stove to actually heat up should be the easiest problem to solve.

Arthur walked past the kitchen and knocked on the door in the wall there. Beside him was another ladder that led upstairs. “Behind this door is our bathroom. Like everything else nothing works because of mana so we currently have no water and everything that falls into the toilet just goes through to the ground. Hopefully Argul can help us there.”

And she definitely would. Shit and urine just falling through sounded disgusting and it was probably cold when you sat down.

“Behind the bathroom is a junk room, the weird hang on you were able to see from outside and it can also be accessed from there so you don’t actually have to go through the bathroom each time.”

Arthur turned to the ladder and motioned for the others to use it. “This is our way to the second floor where our bedrooms are. I took the liberty to section it into four small rooms beside the area around the ladder, though you will have to go through some rooms to get to the others. I could have told the builders to make a thin walkway of sorts, but I thought we would rather use that space for ourselves and at least I don’t mind others having to go through my room to go to bed so I volunteer myself for that.”

While the others had to climb up, Argul simply looked through the windows. The rooms were right underneath the roof and only had bed frames in them for now, though that alone would already make things easier. The ladder upstairs was a bit inconvenient, but it took less space than stairs. It was an acceptable tradeoff. 

As for the rooms, there was one above the bathroom and three in the other direction. It was one room less than they were people, but Argul had no intention to change back to her humanoid avatar so it would be okay.

With that investigated, she took one more look at the house where Mia had just claimed the room above the entrance for herself and decided that now was a good time to run around a bit until the others were done with packing, again.

Argul had to say, the house was quite cozy and she already liked it. Once they were done with the furnishing it would be even better.

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Yesterday I figured out that metal doesn’t screech when bent and I’m disappointed. I’ve also been lied to by so many books, outrageous!