Departure
What were we supposed to do with the fish we’d caught?
After a brief conference, we decided to hand it over to Atisha.
It might have looked like nothing more than a fish with pitch-black scales, but the magi seeping from its corpse made it clear that this wasn’t an ordinary fish at all. It was a monster.
Honestly, that much magi probably wouldn’t have been a problem to eat.
Just when I’d been so disappointed we couldn’t have it, Da-eun put her foot down and shut the idea down hard.
“Among our Apostles, it’s customary to eat fish raw—thinly sliced, without cooking it first. What do you think? Would you like to try some too, Atisha?”
At Da-eun’s words, Atisha looked skeptical.
“Eat fish raw…? I can’t really picture that….”
“Might there be poison in it?”
“Well, you’d have to eat it to find out….”
“Uh… but by the time you find out after eating it, isn’t it too late?”
“A little bit should be fine…?”
“That does not sound fine at all.”
Da-eun and Atisha bent their heads together in discussion.
Somehow, a conversation that had started with whether we should eat raw fish had drifted into a debate over whether it was poisonous.
Watching the two of them chatter away, I felt a strange pang of nostalgia.
I’d had moments like that too.
Back when I’d been arguing over whether monster meat was safe to eat or not.
Captain.
Oh, Kana. What is it?
This.
Huh? That’s the monster you caught earlier. Why’d you bring it over all of a sudden?
I thought maybe we could eat it.
Hm… at your level, it should be fine. All right, let’s try some monster meat for old time’s sake.
Yay.
…Vice-Captain. Dinner’s ready, so stop picking up weird things and come here already. And Captain.
Huh? Y-yeah?
If the Vice-Captain starts trying to eat something weird, you should stop her. What kind of guardian are you, encouraging her instead of restraining her? What if it’s poisonous….
Ah, well, unless it’s some monstrous poison like “World Tree’s Lament,” Kana and I probably wouldn’t even notice most toxins. What’s the problem?
…Captain. Have you forgotten that the Vice-Captain is still young? Children are weaker than adults. I don’t care what happens to you, but if you get careless and the Vice-Captain gets poisoned, that would be a disaster. A disaster!
Th-that’s true…. Wait, what do you mean, you don’t care what happens to me?
Besides, what if this becomes a habit of picking up and eating random things? Hm? Do you want the Vice-Captain scooping up junk from the street while people point and whisper behind her back?
…That won’t do! Kana! I’m sorry, but the monster barbecue is canceled!
…Do you both want to get hit?
I remembered my father panicking in front of Aaron, his face pinched with deep lines of worry.
As I pulled up that dust-covered memory, I tilted my head.
Mm, maybe this situation was a little different….
Still, the broad strokes were the same, so it didn’t really matter.
That was just the first thing that came to mind; I’d had a few similar experiences after that too.
Like when our schedule ran long and we ran out of food, with nowhere convenient to resupply.
Or when the ingredients got contaminated with magi while we were fighting monsters.
Whenever things like that happened, a whole debate would break out.
Just like right now.
Whenever people with enough strength gathered to resist the faint influence of magi, it felt like this sort of thing always happened.
“...Is it okay?”
“Mm… it’s better than I expected…. Chewy and savory….”
“No, I wasn’t asking about the taste. I was asking whether it was safe to eat.”
“Ugh, cough….”
“Don’t suddenly start acting, either.”
“Wasn’t this what you wanted…?”
“Why would it be?”
While I was lost in my memories, the two of them had made alarming progress in their conversation.
Neatly sliced sashimi, Atisha picking up each slice and offering her verdict, and Celine beside them providing the finishing touch with her holy magic as she watched over the whole affair.
Even if she was only an apprentice, Celine was still an honest-to-goodness saintess candidate, so to see such a high-value professional being used for little more than testing monster fish...
If the followers of the Edel Church had seen this, wouldn’t they have fainted on the spot?
Thinking that, I walked over to them.
Nom.
“Gasp…!”
“Munch munch—”
“K-Kana! You can’t eat something like this! It’s yucky, yucky!”
“...Yucky?”
Atisha’s expression twisted into something worth seeing as she suddenly became the person eating “something like this” and “yucky.”
“Ah! That’s not what I meant! I just meant that Kana isn’t a demon, so eating monster meat might be dangerous… I was worried!”
Only after her slip had she realized what she’d said, and Da-eun scrambled to explain herself.
Glug.
While Da-eun flailed, I swallowed the sashimi I’d been chewing with gusto.
In Silia, there had been a food culture of eating meat raw, but not seafood, so this was my first time eating sashimi.
Of course, if you counted my past life, then it wasn’t really my first time, but….
I couldn’t remember what it had tasted like or what the texture had been like, so maybe it was fair to call this the first time after all.
Either way, my first sashimi was really not bad.
It was a little fishy, but there was a subtle nuttiness to it, and the chewy texture made for a pleasantly satisfying bite.
When I picked up another slice, Da-eun looked at me with wide, curious eyes.
“Is it good?”
“It’s decent enough.”
“Really? That’s odd…. People usually have a hard time with it the first time they try it.”
Well, I couldn’t exactly say that, even if the taste itself was fuzzy because I’d eaten it back when I lived on Earth.
...And even if I did say it, she wouldn’t have heard me.
“Who knows. Maybe it’s because I’ve eaten worse.”
“Worse?”
“Bread fished out of a trash can, or meat that was half-rotten.”
“...Be honest with me. You’re saying that on purpose just to mess with me, aren’t you? Hm? To make me feel guilty…. You’ve been doing that a lot lately, haven’t you?”
Well, I couldn’t exactly deny it.
But I didn’t want to admit it so readily, so instead of answering, I simply picked up another slice and ate it.
“Sigh… fine, eat as much as you want. It’s nice seeing you eat well.”
Da-eun reached out and gently stroked my hair.
From the pity in her voice, it seemed that what I’d just said had made a pretty deep impression on her.
Well, by any objective measure or any subjective measure, my life had been pretty miserable.
But there was one thing Da-eun was misunderstanding.
“Half-rotten meat could be really good, you know.”
Would homeless kids in back alleys ever have had the chance to even look at meat that expensive?
Even half-rotten, finding meat was a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity.
“Yes, yes. I know, so eat plenty….”
And if anything seems off, tell me right away.
Da-eun continued patting my head.
“You must’ve had it rough too, huh….”
Atisha quietly slid a few slices of sashimi from the plate in front of her over to mine, and I didn’t refuse her kindness.
If I remembered correctly, there had been some kind of seasoning you were supposed to dip it in, but there was no such thing here, so what could I do?
Celine, who had been watching us while radiating holy power, joined the meal too, and Da-eun, who had been watching enviously, finally gave in and took a seat.
Even so, she still seemed uneasy. Unlike the rest of us, who were eating slice by slice, Da-eun cut her already small portions into even tinier bits before putting them in her mouth.
She clicked her tongue.
“The full experience is eating this and then making soup with the leftovers….”
“Soup…?”
“Yes. If you simmer the head and bones together, it turns out incredibly delicious.”
“Hm….”
Atisha didn’t seem especially interested.
Fair enough. Even I, who understood what Da-eun was talking about, couldn’t exactly imagine that explanation making the dish sound appetizing.
After the meal—and after receiving Celine’s holy magic just in case—we cleaned up our place.
The fish had been so huge that even after the four of us ate, there was still plenty left over.
“What should we do with the rest?”
“It’s raw, so just throw it back into the sea…. Or use it as bait….”
“But what if the other fish eat it and turn into monsters?”
“Are there even any normal fish around here…?”
“Ah.”
And just like that, the remaining sashimi was neatly dealt with, and Da-eun—having completely lost her interest in fishing—put the rod back where it had been.
As soon as the meal ended, the party scattered as if they’d planned it, each person going off to do their own thing.
Da-eun leaned on the rail and stared blankly out at the sea, Celine stood beside her with her eyes closed, quietly feeling the wind, and Atisha took the helm.
Looking at it that way, the only one really doing anything that qualified as “work” was Atisha.
Well, and me too, I guess.
...I was sleepy from eating, and I had nothing to do, so maybe I should just take a nap.
I sat in a reclining chair, letting my eyelids drift shut one lazy blink at a time.
Warm sunlight. Cool wind.
The magi mixed in with it was the one blemish, but for napping, the conditions were perfect.
With my mind emptied out and the wind brushing my skin, my eyelids gradually grew heavier.
Ra...-
“...?”
Just as I was letting my eyes close without bothering to resist, a strand of melody rode the wind and settled in my ears.
It wasn’t a clear song with lyrics, just a light, wordless hum.
Was Da-eun singing a lullaby or something? I lifted my heavy eyelids.
But contrary to my expectations, the culprit behind the humming wasn’t Da-eun.
“What is that sound?”
Da-eun was looking around in confusion, trying to find its source.
And so was Celine standing beside her.
If it wasn’t Da-eun, and it wasn’t Celine, then that left Atisha.
I quickly discarded the suspicion.
Not a chance Atisha would be humming to herself.
Besides, the pitch was too high for there to be any confusion.
Atisha’s voice was pretty low, after all.
Then, as if she’d approached without me noticing, Atisha spoke with a completely indifferent expression.
“A siren….”
“A siren?”
“Yeah…. A monster that lures prey in with song and steals their lives…. Looks like it made a nest nearby….”
The moment Atisha finished speaking, the hazy sea mist began to lift.
And revealed beneath it were dolls.
Those dolls were floating on the water, surrounding the ship in a wide circle.
Da-eun watched them, unable to hide her tension, and tilted her head.
“...They’re ugly.”
“...”
...Ra-
It seemed like the siren’s humming had cut off for a moment.
Probably just my imagination.