Chapter 96: It’s The Little Things~
"You should go first, then, no? You look lady-like enough, with that pretty face of yours." Elden cackled, bowing with exaggeration while sneakily pointing towards the innards of the ship.
"What he said." Nemora scoffed.
"I second that." Esme chuckled.
"Me too!" Hilda excitedly swivelled her face towards me.
"...And me." And I could only join in on their ridiculous little play.
"Fuck."
Jill stretched his limbs then decisively walked deeper into the ship, "Follow me."
And follow we did.
Stepping into the ship, the warmth of Jill's light shrouded us as Hilda hastily followed along so as not to be left behind.
Arriving at the first set of opposing doors, one on the left and one on the right, "Nemora, take the one on the right."
"Didn't have to tell me." Walking up to the door on the right, Nemora held the door handle, then nodded at Jill-
Click.
Creak...
-The door opened simultaneously.
Nemora's mouth stayed oddly open throughout the ordeal, while Jill continued staring lazily into the room.
"Anything in there?" I asked.
"Nope."
"It's empty."
The responses I received weren't ideal.
"Hilda, let me see."
"Okay."
Swiftly walking to their side, I glanced over their shoulders and stared into the two rooms. But just as they stated, there was nothing.
"Let's move on." Esme patted Jill's arm.
"...Fine."
With a rightfully pissed face, Jill followed through with our requests and moved on to the next set of doors-
"Again?"
"Empty."
-we were stumped once more by another set of empty rooms.
"The ship seems incomplete. Not to mention, less than half of the ship is exposed to the air; I wouldn't be shocked to find every room on this ship empty." Elden gave us his blunt analysis of the situation.
"What about the captain's cabin? If any of the cabins are complete, surely that would be finished, right?" Scratching her chin with her left hand, Hilda tucked me tight with her right. And she did have a point; if anything, I'm curious as to where that white crown is.
Unless it was part of Finnie?
Nevermind.
I shouldn't create baseless theories that could potentially lead me into a useless rabbit hole.
"We'll see." Nemora patted Jill on the back.
"Go on then~" And Elden promptly did the same, playfully patting his back, even lightly shoving him forward with a grin on his face.
Frustrated, he clicked his teeth again and pushed onwards to the T-junction.
Trudging behind Jill's luminescence, we stopped at the junction moments later.
"A staircase leading down to the left, and the one on the right curves back to the left just a metre away; what do you say, which route?" Elden wrapped his arm around Jill's shoulder and asked Nemora.
"Let's check the rest of this floor before moving down." Nemora eyed Elden and motioned him to nudge Jill once more.
"Off you go~ Have fun, into the unknown!"
Jill ignored Elden this time around and 'quietly' stamped his way towards the right.
Following the young man, the ebony walls silently loomed over us; the eerie, shimmering glow of Jill's light reflected off the walls, oozing with dread. Fortunately, it was only a sensation, and nothing truly came out of these dreary walls to slice us into pieces.
Diced Alora wouldn't taste good; my blood is Cursed, and I'm half bone.
Never mind that.
Soon enough, we reached the end of this section of the ship.
"Let me take a guess-"
Elden offhandedly pointed at the sole door at the end of this corridor.
"-it's the captain's cab?"
"Very funny, Elden."
"Couldn't have guessed."
"I was right!"
Standing at the end of this section of the corridors was a sole door aptly labelled:
[Captain's Cabin]
Even a pig could have figured out what sat behind the door...
Or maybe not?
"Lady's first?"
Pat. Pat.
Elden patted Jill on the shoulder, "Indeed, lady's first. Off you go~"
Shrugging, Jill walked up to the door, slammed his palm on the door handle, and nonchalantly pulled the door open, "...I shouldn't have bothered coming today."
Elden skipped up behind Jill, planted his chin on his shoulder, and gazed into the Captain's Cabin.
"We've got something this time around, ladies. Come take a look."
Hilda hopped on over, jolting me up and down like a roller coaster...? Yeah, that's what it was called. After momentarily sending me to the stratosphere, she settled down with a cute apology on her face.
"Forget it." Sighing, I looked inwards into the cabin alongside the others.
Etched into the wall at the back of the cabin were a stretch of windows blocked by clean grey stone and ebony panels; at the centre of the room lay a table with slidable shelves, a desk by the window alongside the captain's chair, and, lining the walls of the room, were a plethora of empty cabinets.
"Jill first?" Esme poked the man's waist.
"...Of course."
Walking in, he tapped the ground a couple of times, then gave us a thumbs up, "Safe."
Following suit, all eyes immediately focused on the closed shelves and the slidable shelves under the main table and under the captain's desk.
"If I'd take a guess, I'd say that anything of tangible use will lie inside these shelves?" Elden commented.
"Who knows?" Shrugging, Nemora patted Jill on the shoulder and crouched down beside the main table.
"Come on, get to opening."
Creak...
---
"Haa... Me? Again?"
"Tsk, you're to blame, dumbass." Standing sharp with her arms folded, Vanessa clicked her venomous teeth and leaned over Yulei's wheelchair.
"At least help me?"
"And whose gonna save Yulei if anything happens?"
"Ugh! Why is my luck so horrible?" Hildekar slumped his shoulders and slowly stomped around the makeshift house, searching every corner for any remnants of the previous residents.
"Is that a rhetorical question?" Yulei's gentle, yet hoarse, voice echoed across the room.
"Sigh... Obviously."
"It's still your fault, dumbass. I'd bet half my blood supply that this would all clear up if you just fessed up the truth to those other two dumbasses." Smirking, Vanessa playfully lifted one arm into the air whilst the other hand remained tucked over her chest.
"I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"It's too embarrassing."
Yulei sighed after hearing that from Hildekar, "You'd rather be treated like an outsider by those two than admit the truth? Too prideful?"
"No! It's just too embarrassing, imagine being in my position."
"Having shit luck must suck, huh?"
"Obviou-"
Thud!
"-shit!"
His shin smacked into the corner of a dusty table, drawing a set of pitiful laughs from the two observers.
"D, damn it."
Fervently rubbing his smacked shin, not out of pain, but out of shame, Hildekar was about to swivel his head-
He was about to quip back at the girls-
But-
"...What?"
He noticed something out of place.
Tucked beneath the table and its chairs, hidden in plain sight...
An engraving.
But it was only once he noticed it, once he recognised its existence:
Flash!
A deep, crushing wave of light filled the room for a split second. The moment that split second ended, the trio noticed a monumental change in the room.
Not in its structure, but in what they had missed the whole time.
An engraving.
Stretching throughout the room's floor, spreading to the edge and back;
"Yulei, Vanessa, am I seeing things, or..." His breath hitched, then, pointing at the ship engraved beneath the table, "...is that The Canary riding pitch-black waves?"
---
Flutter.
Sliding her hand over the cascading trusses of wavy-brown hair, Nemora pushed it back over her shoulders while neatly, gently, and carefully sorting the pieces of paper across the main table.
"Only this?"
"Yes, Hilda only found this in the drawer." I answered on behalf of Hilda.
"Anyone else find anything useful?"
Silence was the response to Nemora's question.
All in all, the only thing we discovered in the Captain's Cabin was these papers.
"A blueprint for the complete ship. Please take a look here; it's the four rooms that we found to be empty minutes ago. Each room has its speciality that seems to be incomplete as of now."
Running her fingers along the paper, Nemora grazed the pages with deep interest.
"If only Hildekar were here." She mumbled beneath her breath, but that mumble immediately drew the ire of one of the guys.
"Tch, that bastard- Guh!"
"...Didn't I say not to antagonise him?" Jill sighed and plunged his fist into Elden's abdomen.
"Nemora is right." Sighing lethargically, Jill fiddled with a stranded piece of green hair while eying the blueprints on the table.
"Why Hildekar?" Curious about his Blessings, I asked in hopes of Nemora not scoffing at me again.
She didn't quite like me at the moment.
In the end, Nemora wasn't the one to answer me. "Construction, maintenance, and innovation. Hildekar is divinely gifted in that regard; metaphorically, of course, not literally. The Empyreans have long abandoned us, and the Pillars are also nowhere to be found."
Esme hopped to my side, her soft white hair pressed on my waist as she patted my back. She whispered her explanation into my ear on her tippy toes; so cute~
...But The Dark World, huh?
I'm still so curious, why do we have light?
Even though the Sun is long gone, retracted by the very beings that abandoned this world, why does the Domain of Light have 'Light'? This accursed thing?
What has the personification of madness done?
How is our mother involved in all of this?
All valid questions with zero answers; hopeless, soul-draining question.
Heh, get it? Soul-draining?
...Never mind.
It's the small things to keep my brain alive~
"Thank you, cute sister~"