The floor shook as the jingling sound of bells was heard.
Kanter looked outside and saw a gigantic white bear as large as a snow mountain slowly emerging from the dark forest in the distance.
There was a church building made of ice on top of the creature. As the bear moved, the bells hanging around the building clinked cheerfully.
“Here’s Dokibell and another group of workers,” Kanter commented.
A piece of yellowish parchment floated down from the church and slowly landed on the windowsill of the magic hut.
Kanter opened the window and picked it up. “Let me see here... Which unlucky bastard sent their apprentices here to die? Oh, we got 36 people from Valley of Breeze, 17 high-level apprentices from Tree of Paradise, 7 weak ones from Forren Family. Huh... Looky here, Sunders. Brute Cavern also sent one apprentice. A level-3. Didn’t you say that Brute Cavern is out of this?”
Sunders was also surprised to hear about it. As planned, Brute Cavern should provide capable combat power, meaning, wizards. They didn’t need to provide apprentices as cannon fodder.
Sunders waved his walking cane to summon the parchment to him and read it.
Bobota, level-3 apprentice, Brute Cavern.
“Bobota?” Sunders mumbled this name but without recognizing it. “Is this someone’s student? They overlooked the warning sent by Mister Rein?”
The door to the hut was pushed open by Samantha, who spoke to them in a cold tone, “The fresh slaves are here. Go and get them to work, will you?”
Sunders, Kanter, and Samantha were the only three wizards here who were responsible to command the apprentices to build the new base. This shouldn’t be their job, but it couldn’t be helped as they didn’t have too many wizards in the campaign.
“I’ll do it.” Sunders stood up.
Samantha raised an eyebrow. She meant to tell Kanter to do the work because the old man spoke unnecessary stuff to Sunders earlier, but things didn’t go as she planned.
When Sunders left the hut, Samantha stopped Kanter, who was about to take a walk outside as well. “What’s with Sunders?”
“There’s an apprentice from Brute Cavern coming. So...”
Samantha looked at the roster on the desk and showed a disgusted look.
...
Seeing Sunders coming, the giant bear, Dokibell, lowered its body and allowed a group of apprentices to get off from its back.
“Mister Phantom, I’ve delivered the newest laborers. I’ll be going now.”
When Sunders nodded, Dokibell turned away and slowly moved into the forest while causing a small earthquake with each step.
Sunders looked at the group of distressed apprentices in front of him and sighed. These were either elders or hopeless members of their organizations who were given up. Many of them had not learned basic cantrips such as Preserve Heat yet, and they were shivering badly in the cold wind.
But there was an exception.
A young man in a white hooded robe stood tall among all the other wobbly apprentices with a proud look. A crimson chain with runes sculpted on it was slowly worming all over his body as if it were alive.
“You, step out. What’s your name?” asked Sunders.
The young man was startled a bit before he bowed politely. “I am Bobota, Mister Sunders.”
...
Ferran Land wasn’t very far from the Land of Revelation as only the Blackberry Waters separated them. Blackberry Waters was usually peaceful and calm without many monsters lurking around, so the two continents had established communication and trading routes since a long time ago.
In fact, Angor could see occasional merchant ships moving below on his Gondola.
A particular ship with roses hanging all over it drew their attention. The cute design was quite a sight to behold on the boring sea.
“Mister Padt!” Tulu yelled out. “That’s a trader ship from Versailles Principality!”
“Is it something special?”
Tulu saw Angor’s relaxed expression and felt relieved all of a sudden. He was glad that Angor returned to being the friendly and carefree character he saw on The Limpet.
“They transport special goods made of roses. Food, mostly. But since these things spoil pretty fast, they usually empty their stock to the other ships they come across before reaching Ferran. The ship has another name to it, which is the ‘traveling restaurant of roses’. We can try buying their merchandise too, if you feel like it, sir.”
Tulu had been eating the dried fish slices he took from the village, which were far from appealing. When he saw a chance to get proper food, he almost drooled into the sea.
Angor looked at the pink ship and recalled when he was traveling with Sailum and Nausica four years ago. He still remembered that Sailum used to be a timid boy who kept away from everyone. Sailum only began to warm up when Nausica revealed herself to be the former conqueror of Blackberry Waters. Then, Sailum mentioned that Versailles Principality was his home.
When Sailum felt depressed that he came from a small place, Nausica quickly read his mind and claimed that she loved that place and its local products, thus allowing Sailum to feel confident again.
And Angor always admired Nausica’s flexible way when treating her friends.
“Let’s go and taste their roses then.” Angor smiled and told Tulu to head that way. He also wanted to find out how the “rose cakes” tasted, since Nausica loved them so much.
Delighted, Tulu followed the order while almost dribbling like a hungry animal.
Their arrival caused a giant ruckus at the merchant ship. When the trembling workers learned that two “mysterious wizards” would like to have some of their rose cakes, they immediately presented their best-quality stock to the table that looked too colorful to be proper food.
Tulu happily devoured his share with teary eyes while not forgetting his backpack so that he could have more takeaway.
As for Angor... he only took a small bite before giving up. The cake was TOO sweet, and it set his teeth on edge. He wondered why Nausica left those good comments when talking about this stuff. As far as he knew, Nausica loved salty taste more than sweet.
Those words were probably meant to cheer up Sailum.
After paying for the food, they ended their brief visit without further ado.
While still smacking his lips, Tulu spoke up, “Mister Padt, I heard one of the sailors mentioning that there are mermaids showing up at this route.”
“Mermaids?” Angor frowned. He wasn’t paying much attention to the sailors when walking around the rose garden on the ship.
“They said a bunch of mermaids tried to seduce them with their voices. They’d have already ended up at the bottom of the sea if they didn’t buy their way through using the cakes.”
“Using voice to charm sailors... that sounds typical for mermaids. We’re probably talking about some high-ranked ones too, since they chose cakes over human flesh.”
“Eh, mermaids come in different ranks, sir?”
Angor proceeded to explain the knowledge that was common among apprentices. “Just like humans, mermaids have social classes among them. There are the Figgs, who usually dwell around the Shampoo Coast. The Black Jail Mermaids at White Sand Sea. The Pruss Mermaids at Fantasia Canal... so on. They have different looks on their skin, scale color, size, language, and traditions. The figurehead of The Limpet is a Siren, right? They say that Sirens are close relatives to mermaids.
“While low-class mermaids usually can’t resist the temptation of human blood, better ones know how to control their desire.”
As Angor talked, Tulu slowly painted a fantastic picture of mermaids in his mind.
“Awesome... I wonder what their songs sound like. Ehh... Mister Padt?” Tulu’s ears suddenly twitched. “Did you hear that?”