201. Titanic
201. Titanic
The Titanic,
in my first life, was a word that meant the largest and most luxurious passenger ship in the world.
Although the sinking part was a problem.
The Titanic here was no less luxurious.
It was lavish enough to rival the airships the imperial family built for their own use.
Airships themselves were rare, money-devouring hippos of a vessel, so the fact that this one was so opulent made Perda's wealth hit home all over again.
Judging by its capacity to carry dozens of people, it hadn't been built solely for the Perda family's private use, but rather for hosting honored guests.
The fact that it was carrying elves from the same family as the Forest's Great Warrior, like Cindy, and members of the Five Pillars made that theory highly credible.
He'd said it was on the way, but it was blatantly obvious that it wasn't.
The fact that he'd gone out of his way to invite me to such a place made Perda's position crystal clear.
'He says he wants to get close. He's way too transparent.'
It seemed my evaluation had been upgraded from "an amusing guy" at the start of the semester to "a guy I really want to befriend."
Among the Five Pillars, Perda, who was in charge of knowledge, had amassed tremendous wealth, though not quite as much as the Golden Phrygia.
Because their territory bordered the Elf Forest, they engaged in active exchange and served as a bridgehead connecting the elves and the Empire.
They mediated between the two races and scooped up every last crumb that fell from the table.
If I dug back far enough, I remembered hearing that they had a little elven blood mixed into their lineage.
Thanks to that, while Perda family members had human ears, their hair often had deep green streaks in it.
Nivas himself sported green-tinted hair that bore the traces of his elven heritage.
Typical half-elves hated that, but they rather liked it.
Something about using it as a device to show off to people just how tightly knit they were with the elves.
"Wow...! Atlas, look at that, it's a cloud!!"
"Clouds aren't actually soft and fluffy like marshmallows?"
"Mister, over there... the students look like ants."
It must have been their first time flying, because Liber and Amy were enjoying themselves with childlike, innocent delight.
Whatever the case, if my companions were happy, wasn't that good enough for me?
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The time we had to spend on the Titanic was short, yet you could also say it was long.
The Empire was vast, so even if an airship took a sky route, it couldn't help but take about three days.
If it had been as fast as an airplane, it would have been shorter, but if it were that fast, we wouldn't have been able to stand up on the deck without a care.
And this airship hadn't been built purely for the purpose of traveling fast; it seemed to have a bit of a sightseeing purpose mixed in.
Going from the Academy to the capital in three days was an absurdly short distance by the standards of those traveling by land, but I thought of it as unbearably slow.
To me, someone who had shuttled between the capital and the Academy countless times a day with a single step, it could only feel slow.
"The cabins are amazing too, as expected."
We'd been frantically sightseeing out on the deck without even unpacking, and it was only after an hour had passed that we moved to the cabins.
Of course, since we'd be staying here for about three days, each person was given their own cabin.
It was clearly an airship meant for entertaining honored guests; the rooms were so high-class they ranked in the top three of all the lodgings I'd ever been to.
Considering this was an airship, maybe it deserved first place.
When would I ever get another chance to ride a more luxurious airship than this?
I doubted I would.
"Should I leave my stuff and come out to the hallway? They said lunch is prepared in the dining hall."
Perhaps out of consideration, they'd placed my room, Liber's, Amy's, Lucia's, and Casey's — the five of us — nearly right next to each other.
I'd thought they might be a little mean and split a few of us up, but since the airship was so enormous, it seemed they hadn't played that kind of prank.
Still, I felt a hint of malice in the arrangement.
The other four rooms were positioned in a way that surrounded mine.
Amy to my left, Liber to my right, and directly across from me was Lucia, with Casey right next to her — all packed tightly together.
Everyone had gone into their rooms and unpacked the bags they'd brought.
Since I'd barely brought anything that could be called luggage, just my weapons since we'd be back soon anyway, I was rolling around on a bed that was awfully large compared to my frame.
The bed was queen-sized, probably because the room was originally meant for two or more people.
But the fact that it felt like a king-sized bed to my body was a little infuriating.
"Atlas."
I was about to look around the room a bit more and then leave, but someone came inside.
"You're done already?"
"I just had to get things ready for the return trip... and you have less than me."
Liber, who had sneaked in, quickly closed the door and trotted over to me with quick little steps.
"I was checking if all the cabin layouts are the same."
She'd slipped in and was looking around here and there, then offered that observation.
I didn't think she'd come in just to figure that out.
But I didn't bother to ask her about it.
Because Liber, who had something to say but was too embarrassed and kept checking my reaction, was incredibly cute.
She sat down, stood up, kept circling around me, and then finally, as if she'd steeled her resolve, she spoke with all her might.
"Atlas... can I come over tonight?"
The moment Liber's words ended, our lips met.
My only complaint was that since we were doing this standing up, I'd had to go up on tiptoes with all my strength, but well, what could I do?
I'd managed to do it, so it was fine.
When our lips parted, we could feel each other's hot breath.
"When have you ever asked before coming?"
"..!!"
Maybe because I'd caught her completely off guard, her face flushed bright red.
But apparently she hadn't disliked it, because without a word, she offered her lips once more.
If we went any deeper, it felt like a switch would flip right then and there, so I decided to keep it at a reasonable level.
A thought crossed my mind in the middle of sharing the kiss.
'Is tonight the chance...?'
It didn't seem likely another opportunity like this would come.
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It was incredibly hard to see this airship as a ship.
The ships I knew were places with a much more solid, rigid feel.
Because they rocked frequently, it was standard to keep decorations minimal and build them to be practical and sturdy, but this place looked like a normal hotel in every detail.
And I could feel that same impression in the dining hall.
It was a place decorated to evoke the feeling of a high-end restaurant.
The cooking area was hidden from view, and there was even a chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
If this were a ship that rocked back and forth every day, that chandelier would be insane, but a sky route was definitely less shaky.
Everything was great, but there was one strange thing I spotted in the center.
"What the hell is with this layout..!!"
Lemnos, who had entered behind me and saw the sight, couldn't hold back his anger.
He had every right to be... because there was only a single table set up.
Like a large dining table for a family meal, one big rectangular table was placed in the middle, standing there absurdly.
"Why, is there a problem?"
"There are plenty of problems. What is that? Are we supposed to all eat at one table?"
"Yeah. That's how we do it, isn't it?"
"Lemnos, you don't? We all use one table together at mealtime, right?"
"Ughhh...!!"
Since they said it had always been that way in the family, he just gritted his teeth and couldn't say anything more.
We'd all been spending our free time separately too, so he'd probably wanted to eat separately as well.
If he went further, it could have turned into an insult to Perda, who had invited him, so holding back was the mature thing to do.
But still, the dining hall wasn't even small, and there was only one table?
It felt like we'd been set up, but there was nothing we could do about it.
Sitting around one table and eating together wasn't strange.
Because, of course, family members did exactly that.
"Alright, alright, let's sit down first."
Perda and his ladies sat down in a row on one side, and on the opposite side, my companions and I sat down.
To my left were Lemnos and Albion, and across from them, Shara sat alone with an aloof air.
Shara, sitting all by herself on one side, acted like she was used to it, but seeing her like that made her seem like she was being bullied, so I wanted to go sit next to her.
When Nina tried to sit next to her, Shara actually glared at her fiercely.
"Don't waste your concern."
Most of this airship was operated by golems, but there was one thing the golems couldn't handle.
That was the cooking in the dining hall.
Navigation, cleaning, and various other tasks were all done by golems, but the food people ate was made by human hands.
"He's no match for the Perda family's personal head chef, but when it comes to making delicious food at this high altitude, there's no one who can follow him."
As Nivas talked him up quite a bit, the corners of the cook's mouth lifted high.
I thought the fuss was really excessive for an altitude that wasn't even that high.
But the food actually was delicious, so it didn't matter.
"Thank you all for boarding. I've heard that thanks to you, we can make this journey without getting bored."
Perda said, raising his glass during the meal.
Not many people were listening, but he seemed satisfied himself.
"Perda, I have one thing I'm curious about regarding this airship."
"What is it?"
I voiced a thought that had suddenly occurred to me.
"Is it okay if I get some exercise here?"
"If you want to sink like a ship and free-fall, be my guest."
He had precisely grasped what I wanted to say.
Since I needed to start training Lucia in earnest, I was asking if I could do it here, but Perda answered without a change in his expression.
"Mm... that's a shame."
"'Light exercise' is okay, you say?"
The kind of exercise I had in mind wasn't allowed, but I was asking about other things.
Perda spoke smugly.
"Heh heh, the cabins here... are very well soundproofed, so don't worry."
"I didn't need to know that much."