What Dema had found was part of a cute head. A head made of stone — or maybe rather cast in stone. A fossil of a size Theora had never seen before, of what seemed like a large crustacean creature.

Dema pressed it into Theora’s hands. “Take it!” she cheered. “You gonna wash the pieces for me? And then put them all together?”

Theora glanced down at the fossil. It was definitely dirty; plant matter was scattered all over it, little pieces of soil stuck in the cracks. “How do you want me to wash it? In the ocean?”

Dema fell into thought, putting her chin in her hand. Then, she lit up, shouting, “Tea! Wash ’em in tea! That would be nice!”

Theora raised her eyebrows, but nodded. There was no reason to refuse Dema, and so, she stored the fossil away in her coat, and started looking around for something she could use to infuse some tea.

The shore was long and overhung by the cliff in both directions. Theora couldn’t easily get up the cliff without Dema’s help, so she decided to see if she could find something suitable down here. Of course, many shale pieces littered the ground. There wasn’t a lot of space between the water and the cliff. Only a small walkable chaotic strap of stone pieces of all sizes, most of which looked like they were regularly engulfed by water depending on the tides.

Should she make shale tea again?

But washing fossils of shale in shale tea seemed rather unimaginative. Maybe she could find something that would complement the rock somehow? She briefly considered making ocean tea, but decided against it, since it would probably just end up being salty tea, and salty wasn’t necessarily a quality she looked for in her brewings.

She took off her boots to reduce her chances of slipping, and hopped from one stone to the next in her search, sometimes wading through shallow water, avoiding all the small little crabs and shrimp scuttling around in there with her steps.

Something that complements rock…

Eventually, after a few minutes of walking down the shore, Theora found something — and as she did, her eyes lit up. Oh, that was just perfect. She couldn’t have imagined something better if she’d tried. On one of the larger rocks that peaked up into the air right next to the cliff, standing in the diffused shadow of the stone above it, was a gigantic patch of the softest moss Theora could have hoped to find. She gently stroked over it with her fingers, and oh, was it soft. Almost as soft as Dema.

It was the lushest and greenest moss Theora had seen in her life; or maybe, the lushest she’d ever paid attention to. The smallest little feathery strands radiated out from its branches, and it felt slightly damp to the touch, without a doubt holding a healthy amount of water inside.

She picked out little parts of the plants, making sure to gently press the surrounding areas together to aid the moss in regrowing what she took. Once she was done, she turned around and made her way back to Dema, with enough moss in cargo to brew a tub full of tea and wash the entirety of what Dema was going to excavate.

And so, Theora made moss tea, all the while Dema kept diving into the cliff with some sort of Skill. It was a peculiar sight; Dema simply jumped into it like it was water, and with rumbles instead of splashes, the rock moved aside, feeling almost alive in the way the walls had felt back when she’d ruined the Devil of Truth’s Realm.

And whenever she emerged from the rock, she had another piece of isopod fossil in her arms to hand over to Theora.

It took almost two hours. Making that much tea was arduous, especially since Theora only had a small kettle and her tiny endless vial of water. In addition, using her Skill a lot was mentally taxing, even though it didn’t require any resources like mana. By now, she’d grown wise enough to always carry a batch of firewood with her in one of her interdimensional pockets, so that brewing tea whenever she wanted was a possibility, although for a while, Theora was afraid it wouldn’t end up lasting until she was done. In the end, some of the larger branches were able to hold the heat for long amounts of time, though.

One after the next, she used the hot tea to clear away the dirt from the fossils. She suffused the rocks in it, gently scraping away all the plant residue and dust and soil.

And then, she found a large and flat stone where she could lay out the pieces and arrange them into the shape she imagined the creature must have once possessed. 

A number of segmented plates formed its back, and its stature was actually a bit wider than Theora herself, although not as tall. It had human-like legs and feet, in addition to a range of smaller clawlike limbs stretching over its belly. The face was rather cute and not much unlike that of a person. The result of Dema’s and Theora’s efforts turned out to put something together that very much looked like the body of what used to be an isopod the size of a human.

Actually, it seemed more like a human with the vague shape of an isopod.

Theora was fairly certain that not all the bones Dema brought her had actually belonged to that creature, but she added them anyway, because there were enough parts that needed replacing.

Eventually, she wiped off a string of sweat from her forehead, as working in the heat of the sun for hours was straining. Dema also seemed affected, and her rock-diving efforts had clearly left her exhausted. She’d still not dressed back up after taking a bath, running around in her undergarments, sweating all-over. But, despite the exertion she’d been putting herself under for hours, judging from the wide and unwavering smile on her face, she was probably the happiest girl on the planet right now.

When they were done, she leaned over the results, breathing heavily. “Can’t believe it!” she gasped. “Finally found one!”

“You were looking for an isopod?”

“Nah… just… a person!”

Theora looked back at the forming body emerging on the rocky ground in front of them.

A person. It was true. An isopod-like person, much like Bell had looked a lot like a jellyfish. So, for all this time, Dema hadn’t just looked for any random fossil, but for a fossilised person. It made sense, because just any fossil at all would have probably been a lot easier to find.

So, what now? Theora kept looking up and down between Dema and the isopod person. What was it that she’d do now? It was time to unveil that secret, wasn’t it? The question that Theora had been so curious about, it would reveal herself to her by Dema’s next actions.

The important part of this was, by Dema’s next actions.

And so, Theora tried her very best not to put the mystery together in her mind by accident. After all, Dema said it was supposed to be a surprise. Theora wasn’t going to ruin it by guessing it prematurely. After all, that would be extremely rude, considering the effort and emphasis Dema had put into keeping it all secret.

Yes, Theora definitely wasn’t going to ruin it now, right before Dema would get to reveal it herself.

Definitely not. She tried to silence her thoughts. It was very hard. She really needed a distraction. Something to keep her mind off from what was happening right in front of her… And thus, she glanced into the sky. A distraction. Didn’t she just have the perfect Skill to distract her own mind?

Yes, she did.

What kind of question could she ask? Quickly, a rather good and safe one formed itself in her mind.

What will the weather be tomorrow, I wonder?

[Head in the Clouds].

Answer: Dema is going to revive that isopod.

… What a useless Skill. That answer didn’t even correlate to her question at all!