Karen, Korwen and I returned back to the entrance of the underground cave, leaving Ria behind so she could study the portal. I was a little worried whether it was okay for me to just leave but Korwen told me to just leave it to Ria and she’d handle it. With that in mind, I decided to shelf that matter for now. Either way, I had a bigger problem in front of me right now.

“Hey, Yumi. If I told you to climb up here, what would you say to that?” asked Korwen as he stared at the rope we had used to climb down with.
“That it’d be faster for me to leave through the portal and walk the entire way to the fort again. Sounds less painless as well.”
“Figured.”

I very barely managed to get down on my own. Expecting me to get up again was just not happening.

“Do you prefer being pulled up with the rope or being carried on someone’s back?”
“Are there other alternatives?”
“None.”
“... I think being pulled up would be better.
“Got it.”

While I would mind Karen carrying me on her back, that didn’t sound like it’d be very safe. If she slipped up because of me, it wouldn’t end pretty. So, being pulled up was clearly the safer way… Even if being treated like immobile luggage made me feel a little… It was true but still…

“In that case… Karen, you probably don’t know how to properly secure a rope, do you?”
“A rope? With a knot?”
“Well, yes…  With a knot isn’t wrong. But there’s a little more to that if you don’t want her to drop down again when she is already halfway up. Anyway, you should go up first and pull Yumi up. I’ll make sure the rope is secured.”
“Understood, Mr Captain.”

After saluting to Korwen once, Karen then made her way up. With quite the speed, as she pulled herself up in fluid motions, as if her body weighed nothing to her. Which probably wasn’t that far from the truth either. Barely a minute later, she had already arrived at the top.

“Quite quick, isn’t she? If only she could spare a fraction of that strength for you.”
“Nn…”
“Now then… It’s your turn. Well, even if I say that… First, we have to make sure that rope holds.”

Korwen walked up to the rope and tugged at it twice.

“Okay, Yumi, stand here, and arms up.”
“Nn… Like this.”
“Yes, perfect.”

A few seconds later, his thick arms were going around my waist with the rope and then making a thick, complicated looking knot.

“Okay, Yumi, listen now.”
“Nn?”
“You have to hold the rope to keep your balance. Don’t, for the love of everything, ever let go. You hear?”
“N— Nn. Got it…”
“If you do, we will stuff you into a box in the future and then pull you up.”

I’d really become luggage then…

“Good. Then, hold on the rope now.”
“Like this?”
“Yes, just like that. Okay, hold tight, I’ll check if it’s safe.”

While I was holding the rope in front of me with all my strength, Korwen grabbed it a little higher and then lifted me up into the air.

“Woah!”
“Mm, looking good.”

He tugged at the knot and the rope around my waist a few times before nodding, satisfied.

“Okay, you’re ready to go. But one thing first.”
“Yes?”
“Yumi. You really need to eat more. You’re way too light. Small wonder you can’t build up any muscle.”
“...”

I sincerely doubted that was the problem why I wasn’t building muscle… and I was really trying my best at dinner time. My stomach just couldn’t handle more.

“Well, that aside… Karen! You can pull her up. But slowly!”
“... Yes, Mr Captain!”

The rope moved, lifting me up a little higher. Then again a little bit.

“Up you go.”

With regular movements, Karen pulled me up, slowly making me ascend through the narrow path. Looking up, I could see Karen holding the rope.

Actually, this is way easier than going down… If it’s like this, I don’t even mind using a rope. It’s even better than a ladder.

Although, I could only say that because I literally had nothing to do except keeping my balance. Karen and Korwen were the ones doing the actual work here.

After a short while, I finally arrived at the top, the small room in the tower coming into view again. With Karen’s help, I could return to the ground once more.

“Hehe! I’ve arrived.”
“Yes, Yumi, you did. But why do you look so smug about it?”
“Just proud of myself for actually managing to arrive safely?”
“You didn’t even do anything…”

Yeah, I didn’t…

“Oh well… We should get the rope back to the captain. But… How do you untie this knot?”

While I had watched him tie it, I really hadn’t committed the whole thing to memory and now I had absolutely no idea what to do about this. I knew a little about different knots but I sure didn’t know this one…

“Ehh… Let me try it.”
“Nn, sure.”

Karen squatted down and tugged at the rope, checking how to unwind the rope. And much to my surprise, she seemingly figured it out after several seconds as she began to untie it.

“There.”
“... I am impressed, Sis. I have no idea how you did that and I was watching the whole thing.”

Seriously, I had no idea how she did that.

“It’s not really that hard…”
“So you say.”
“... You just need to try it yourself next time.”
“Well, I’ll do my best when the time comes.”

That said, untying a knot in a rope was probably easier compared to a small thread.

“Anyway, we should throw the rope down again so Mr Captain can climb up.”
“Ah, you’re right.”

It was probably not a good idea to let him stay down there waiting for us… Although, I was half-convinced he would be able to climb up without the rope, too. It’d probably be easier for him with the rope.

Karen took the rope and let it fall down the hole. Several seconds later, we could see the rope tense up from something pulling it down. The two of us stepped back, watching the hole for a little while until Korwen appeared and climbed up.

“There we go. Haa… We probably should get a ladder as soon as possible.”
“Do we even have ladders, though?”
“He, he. Don’t underestimate me, Yumi. Fetch me a rope from that bag there.”
“Nn? Sure.”

In the corner of the room was a bag with ropes, so I took one coil and carried it over to Korwen. While I was doing that, he had turned around and, for some reason, was pulling up the rope.

“Mr Captain, what are you doing?”
“We’ll switch the ropes. Ah, there’s the end. Look here.”
“Mh?”
“Nn?”

Curious, Karen and I both stared at the rope in Korwen’s hand. There was a knot at the end that hadn’t been there earlier but…

“With this we know how deep this hole is. More or less, at least. Knowing that, we can make a ladder.”
“We’ll… make it?”
“That’s right.”
“How?”
“How, you ask? Isn’t it obvious?”

He lifted the rope with a grin.

“Of course it’s going to be a rope ladder…”

What else did I even expect?

“It’ll take a while, though… Maybe it’s better if I have Merim check if there are some ladders in our storage that we could use.”
“How long would it take to make one?”
“Mm… With this length… an hour to an hour and a half?”
“... Captain, I think asking Merim if there are any would be better.”

At least, I wasn’t fond of the possibility of sitting around for that long and making a ladder out of rope.

“Probably. But that’s something we can worry about later. We should check up on how the others are coming along.”

As long as he wasn’t worrying about it after someone made that ladder…

---

Our group returned to the large open area of the fort, the courtyard. A group of men was busy setting up small tents and a few other things.

“Oh, Captain’s back.”
“How are you coming along, Taddick?”
“Just fine. We’re nearly done now.”
“That’s good to hear. What about Fenna?”
“Well, there’s some issues on that front. Sir Wendl went with them, said the water here isn’t safe to drink or something like that. They’re now looking if they can draw water from the lake.”

Korwen furrowed his brows as he received the report, not quite happy about it.

“Mh… Did he say why it’s not safe?”
“Well, he did but he threw out a lot of words that I had no idea what they meant… Only thing I got from him is that it would make us ill.”
“I see… So it’ll take a while until they are done with that.”
“Sounded like that’d be the case.”

We had some water in our waterskins but if we wanted to stay here for a while, it’d be necessary to have clean water… And I sure didn’t want to walk to the lake everytime to refill those waterskins.

“No choice but to wait then. When you’re done setting up the tents, you can take a break.”
“Sure thing, Captain!”

Taddick saluted and then went back to his group to relay Korwen’s words.

“Now then, what to do… Mm… Yumi, Karen.”
“Nn?”
“Yes?”
“You two can take a break as well until Fenna solved the water issue. You’re free to explore but be careful if you do.”
“Nn, okay.”

Exploring did sound nice… Although, I wasn’t quite sure if I could really enjoy that right now. My mind was still occupied with that portal.

“Then, take care.”

Leaving those words behind, Korwen made his way back to the tower we had just come from. No doubt to ask Merim to find that ladder or have someone make one.

“Sis, we got a break.”
“We did.”
“... So, what do we do now?”
“I don’t know…”

Breaks were nice and all but, well…

“Is there even somewhere we can take a rest… The tents? But which one is which?”
“How about we ask Mr Taddick?”
“Nn, let’s do that.”

We walked over to Taddick who was supervising the other men as they built up a tent. Presumably the last one, as some others were watching them as well. As we approached, I heard someone shout “Finished!” followed by loud cheers from the others.

“Good job, everyone! Take a break now, you all deserved it!”
“””Ohhhh!”””

The men cheered again and immediately dispersed, some disappearing into the tents, others going through their few supplies to eat something.

“Taddick.”
“Mm? Oh, you two again. Something I can help you with?”
“We wanted to ask if there’s somewhere we could take a break… Or well, which tent we can use.”
“If you want to know where you sleep, that’d be over there, third tent from the right. Otherwise, we also set up some benches and a table over there if you’d like some company. Since we’re on break, I bet some will play dice or something else.”

Playing around a little did sound quite nice as well, actually.

“Sis?”
“I don’t mind either way.”
“That’s the most troubling reply you could give…”
“Uhh…”
“Then… Let’s take a rest in the tent.”
“Okay.”

After saying our thanks to Taddick, we entered the tent he had directed us to. It was a very small tent but for just the two of us it was big enough. The tent itself was empty except for a large blanket.

“Oh, that looks warm. Yay.”
“Yumi… Really?”
“Nn? What?”

After I dived towards the blanket and hugged it, Karen stared at me with exasperation in her eyes. Wonder why.

“Nothing…”

With a wry smile, Karen sat on the ground and let out a sigh.

“... I’m glad everything went well.”
“Nn. Me too.”

I spread the blanket and then claimed my space in Karen’s lap before covering us with the blanket.

“Oh, this really is warm.”
“Nn, it is.”

I leaned back, resting my weight against Karen and closing my eyes. This familiar warmth that I so loved encompassed me once more. As if moving in response to this, Karen’s arms tightly hugged my waist.

“I still can’t believe everything went all right…”
“I was worried for a little while there, though.”
“Ahh… Yes… But it still worked out in the end.”

And now, there was a portal leading through space itself.

“Mr Captain was really happy.”
“Nn. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that happy before.”

His small outburst of joy was… quite surprising. I had known before already that he was expecting a lot from this but when he actually saw it realised, his unbridled joy was quite something to behold.

“Hey, Sis.”
“Yes?”
“The captain mentioned that with this, it might be possible for us to travel to the Beyond, right?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Mmm…”

I looked back, looking at Karen before posing my question.

“What kind of place is the Beyond?”
“Uhhh… I’m not quite sure either. I only heard a few rumours so if you would like to hear those...”
“Nn, it’s better than knowing nothing so, sure, why not.”

And rumours usually did contain at least a grain of truth to them.

“Then, let’s see… I heard that it is a very, very vast place. The countries are rich and the people don’t suffer any hunger. That people living there are happy, eating good food everyday and things like that. I think that’s what you most commonly hear.”
“That sounds a little bit too utopic if you ask me.”
“It does…”

If such a place really existed, everyone who could move there would have already done so, after all.

“But it is true that there are many very expensive things being imported from the Beyond. When I was still living in Aldreigh, I saw my father once bragging that he had acquired clothes made in the Beyond.”
“Clothes?”
“Yes… Well… Err… I don’t know if it was the truth but those clothes… really didn’t suit him.”
“...”

The way Karen crunched up her face told me that she was probably still very nice about the way she worded it.

“They were very colourful but it just looked like a mess to me… Back then, I thought he was dressing like a clown but maybe he didn’t know how to actually wear them…”
“I see…”

Now I was a little curious just how bad it had been.

“Other than that… Well, only what we heard from Mr Captain before.”
“Nn? Did he tell us something about it?”
“He did.”

Oh, he did… What did he say about it, though? I could remember him telling us on a few occasions that he wanted to travel there if possible but apart from that…

“He said that there were only a few countries there and that it was a paradise for monsters.”
“A paradise for monsters, huh… That… Doesn’t that sound actually a little bit bad?”

Where was the utopia people talked about there?”

“I don’t know. But it’s trustworthier than the rumours I heard, I think.”
“That’s of course the case. I don’t think the captain would listen to some rumours making that place out to be a utopia.”

Korwen had more sense than that.

“I agree. Mr Captain usually knows what he is talking about, after all.”
“Nn.”

And if he didn’t it seemed that he made a point to research it. Just like how he informed himself about Auria before coming here.

“But I wonder what Mr Captain hopes to find there.”
“Nn… Unknown riches and wonders?”
“Is that… interesting?”

From the corner of my eyes I could see Karen tilt her head a little, confused about this kind of motivation.

“Well, yes, I’d say it is. I mean, if there was something hidden below a blanket, you’d like to know what’s beneath it, too, right?”
“I guess I would?”
“It’s similar to that, in a way.”
“I see. I think I can understand that a little.”

Maybe Korwen wanted to be an explorer who travels to unknown places. No, I felt like I could vaguely remember him telling me that he wanted to be one. Well, either way, it was quite an exciting thought, admittedly.

“I do wonder if the portal works for such a distance as well. I mean, what if we end up at the other end of the sea and it doesn’t work suddenly?”
“Didn’t Miss Yumias say that the distances wouldn’t be an issue?”
“Nn, she did… But I don’t think she meant the distance from here to the other side of the sea. Well, maybe she did but…”

She didn’t specify it, at the very least, so we had no way of knowing for sure. Unless we asked her again, of course. She had been surprisingly forthcoming with our questions so maybe she’d really answer truthfully. After all, it really worked out, just like she had said.

“I guess we should mention that to the captain.”
“It’s better if we do.”
“Nn… Also, Sis.”
“Yes?”
“She’ll correct you again if you call her with ‘Miss.’”

Karen’s arms stiffened the moment those words left my mouth.

“Uhh… She will… But she’s not here so she can’t correct me.”
“That sounds like you’re forecasting her appearance.”
“...”

Last time she also showed up just after we talked about her… Ah, but now she was with the mercenaries again, so her showing up was more than likely. She was also aware of the portal, or rather the experiment, and as such a person that was more likely to be involved.

No, wait… Do the captain and the others even know that we consulted with Yumias? And thinking about it, it’s something the captain wants to keep under wraps so maybe we shouldn’t have talked with her about it in the first place…

That was… probably something we should take into consideration for the future.

“Yumi? Something wrong?”
“Nn… I just realised that we should have asked for the captain’s permission before asking Yumias about Space magic… I mean, it’s something he wanted to keep quiet about as much as possible.”
“Oh… Now that you mention it, I didn’t think of that either.”
“Nn…”

While I wasn’t quite sure whether we had talked about this with Korwen afterwards, it was already too late for it now anyway…

“Nothing to be done… We should talk with him about it, though.”
“That might be good…”
“Haaa…”

Strength left my limbs and I slumped against Karen.

“I think I am a little more tired than I expected.”
“Do you want to take a nap?”
“Nn… I kind of want to. How about you, Sis?”
“I’m not that tired so I won’t.”
“I see.”

So I’d have to sleep alone? That was… I was already so used to sleeping with Karen, could I even fall asleep without her anymore? Or would I lay awake in bed unable to fall asleep?

I’ll have to try, I guess…

My motivation for a nap had diminished instantly to nearly nothing. But I was still tired. Knowing that it was better to at least attempt and get some rest, I tried to stand up from Karen’s lap… only to be pulled back in immediately.

“Sis?”
“You can sleep like this, Yumi.”
“Uh… Are you sure?”
“Yes.”

I looked back, only to find her smiling at me.

“If I feel sleepy, I might lie down as well. So don’t worry about me.”
“If you say so… Then I’ll take you up on that.”

Moving a little to make myself comfortable, I closed my eyes and leaned against Karen.

“Good night, Yumi.”
“Nn, night.”

Hearing the quiet rhythmic beat of Karen’s heart, I fell asleep.

---

“...mi… Yu… Yumi…”
“Mmm… Nn?”
“Yumi, wake up.”
“Nn… Sis?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Mmm…”

When I opened my eyes a little, I could see Karen’s face right in front of me. She was shaking me gently to wake me up but it just made me feel sleepier instead.

“Come, Yumi, open your eyes.”
“Mmm… Don’t wanna.”
“Seriously… Can’t be helped.”

The next moment, something soft touched my lips. I opened my eyes in surprise, only to find Karen’s face right in front of me.

“Awake?”
“... I’m not sure. I think I need another one.”
“Seems you’re plenty awake.”

Karen chuckled as she straightened up again, drawing away from me.

“And I slept so well…”
“You sure did.”

Once more she chuckled. Had I done something while I was asleep?

“Do I have to get up?”
“Mr Captain called for us so yes, you do.”
“Damn you, Captain.”
“Don’t let him hear that.”

I wouldn’t. I wasn’t suicidal enough to do that.

“Can’t be helped…”

With slight regrets, I forced myself to sit up. It seemed that at one point I had moved from sitting in her lap to sleeping on it as she gave me a lap pillow.

“Yumi.”
“Nn? Mmh?!”

Since she called my name I turned around, wanting to ask her what was up. But before I could, my mouth was blocked once more.

“Mmgh…”
“Nmm…”
“Ngmm… Ah.”
“Na… Haa…”

Our lips parted as we both tried to catch our breath again.

“Yumi. Are you awake now?”
“Seriously… Nn, I am. I’m completely awake now.”
“That’s good. Hehe.”

Really… It couldn’t be helped. Taking me by surprise like that.

“Sis you meanie.”
“Ehh? Why am I now mean?”
“Because.”
“That’s no reason.”
“It is. From now on it is.”
“Well, maybe I should just keep going then?”
“... Yes.”

I really wouldn’t mind that, actually.

“Hehe, unfortunately, we’ll have to delay that until later.”
“That’s indeed very unfortunate.”

We stared at each for a few seconds before we both broke out in laughter.

“Just what are we doing?”
“I don’t know… Hehe, Sis.”
“Mm? What is it?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Yumi.”
“Mm.”

Ah, yes, this was happiness. I sincerely wished this would never end. But as things stood, we had to get up now.

“Let’s go. The others are waiting already.”
“Nn, sure.”

Karen crawled out of the tent and I followed right behind her. It was still quite bright outside so I probably hadn’t slept too long.

“Sis, how long was I asleep?”
“Mh, about an hour?”
“Huh…”

That was longer than I had thought. But that explained why I felt quite refreshed. Taking a nap had been a good decision, after all.

“Oh well, where are the captain and the others… Oh, over there.”

It didn’t take long for me to find them, as everyone had grouped around a table. Much to my surprise, Merim was also there. As well as…

“Oh my, oh my, my dear children have come.”
“... I knew this would happen.”
“... I’m sorry, Yumi.”
“No, it’s not your fault, Sis. It’s not your fault.”

Whether she had said something or not, this little girl called Yumias would have appeared either way. At least, this way I was expecting her already.

“My, so rude. Is that how you should talk about your mother, dear?”
“You’re not my mother so it’s fine.”

Would she ever give up calling me her child? Probably not…

“But that said… Hehe.”
“Nn? What is it?”
“Oh, well, you see…”

Yumias giggled as she looked at us.

“I just thought that you two really get along well, don’t you?”
“... Of course we do.”
“Yes, yes, of course you do. But you know…”
“... Nn?”

She giggled again, not saying anything, only staring straight at me.

“You might want to take care in the future. Those tents don’t really have thick walls, you know?”
“...”
Wait… Wait, wait, wait… They heard that from earlier?!

In a panic, I turned around to look at Korwen and the others present only to find them smiling at me warmly.

They absolutely heard that… They totally did…

Someone, kill me…