Chapter 180 – Journal Entry 30: A Favor

Hearing Grom speaks his words, made me think. I put my hands on my waist, looked up to Miss Pandora with a glance. She looked at me back, her head slightly tilted to the right. There was something fishy, either it was due to Grom’s condition that he has for helped or something else. I could not confirm what it is, nor could I suddenly just speak my mind throwing suspicions at the Island Mistress.

“What’s up with him, Mistress...is there something wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“He told me “Help me” so I am curious, what is it?”

“Oh, it is nothing new then. As I have said, he is suffering from curses, and usually, he goes berserk to the point he hallucinates. His memories are jumbled, so not fret it is nothing at all.”

A reply made with a blank unmoving expression. It felt natural, yet my instincts told me that there was something wrong. I have no clue.

“Well, let us go, Grom. It seems that lessening the spell does nothing but trouble at your current condition.”

Saying that Miss Pandora left along with Grom, the earthen mates that were swept away by Grom’s shoulder tackle stride away in order to heal their injuries. I looked at the sky for a second, and I thought that my instincts were telling me that there was something. It is a gut feeling mainly, but I could not help but wonder. That expression Grom had was the look of helplessness and despair. I feel like I have seen such expression so many times that because of that my instincts tell me that there was something. Of course, my instincts could also be wrong. After all, hearing the story from Elena and the Mistress herself about Grom makes it seems like there was no malice involved.

I am not sure, however, the world isn’t that nice for everyone to tell you the truth. To me, I could be listening to talk to Elena’s stories about Grom or The Mistress every day and eventually I would believe that is the only truth. They could be lying to me, telling me stories to shove suspicion away. In this world there is no true fact unless it is backed heavily by the truth, I could be just hearing lies, and would never know the truth.

In fact, I could be an unreliable narrator, my thoughts might be false and I might have been feeding lies to protect myself. It is simply that easy to lie. I experienced the world through my senses, every word could be lies and maybe I am just somewhere out there sitting on a chair overlooking, daydreaming all of this.

But anyway, the point is that the Mistress could be telling the truth or not. So since I have no clue, no anything to go by, I am just going to point my eyes towards my house. The red shade of flicker has caused a commotion, and at the moment until the warp gates around the island are taken care of by the Earthen mates, then I will stay still.

I will never fight again.

...

Two days after the red flicker, I found myself plowing the land of mine again, the sound the river makes as the water from it falls down on the complex tunnels that lead to different streams doesn’t get boring at all. The land of mine has been doing okay, I could see some sprouts but it would take long for them to sprout. As for what I am planting, I have no idea. I just went to take some crops from the general store in the village, sowed them and let them grow.

The crops in this world are rather different. Most of them are mixes of the old crops I remember back home. If anything, only a few of the crops like corn and potato are still the same. I am not really bothered since they taste different, not to mention that this body of mine is used to eating such food.

The field of mine was quiet, I am quite far from the village and the chirping of birds is quite relaxing. I am still plowing the land, I mostly already planted seeds, but it doesn’t stop me from taking care of my field. I enjoy this kind of activity despite how troublesome it is. My physique is quite okay anyway. And working long hours in the field, from morning to after noon doesn’t tire me out. At best I would be hungry or thirsty, but I feel like I can go on without eating if I wanted to. It scares me how tough this body is sometimes, and because of that, my conviction does not use the cold hearted skills lingering me strengthened.

“Are you here?”

I heard a voice coming from the dirt path. Looking at the source I saw Elena holding her multi tool rod. It can transform into anything, which is quite handy. She was once showed me how it functions, apparently, it is run by golem core.

“Elena, what are you doing here?”

“Just hanging around...do you dislike that?”

“Not really...”

I carried my hoe towards her. She seems to be carrying no basket, but I could see her pick up a fruit from one of her pockets, and throw one at me. I grab the orange-like fruit that once peeled reveals an apple like texture. I sat with Elena, making small talk but suddenly she stopped and looked at me, asking.

“I heard that you saw one of Uncle Grom’s usual events of going berserk?”

‘Is he always like that?”

“Yes, although the Mistress tells me that it is merely a ‘curse’.”

“A curse, which reminds me, Grom is quite heavily filled with curses and maledictions.”

“Yes, Uncle Grom can sometimes lose control, but even so...”

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Come on, speak up already.”

Elena hesitated for a while.

“Uncle Grom...despite being like that cares for us. But sometimes, I wonder if the Mistress is lying to us.”

“What do you mean?”

“You remember Uncle Grom back before we came back to the island? He usually has red eyes, but every time he enters the island, those red eyes would turn silver, and he would look like as if he was a doll.”

“Now that you mention it, indeed, he looked and acted more independent. But somehow here, he looks like he doesn’t even take a smoke.”

“That’s right, which is why I want you to do me a favor.”

“A favor?”

“Yes, I want you to tail the Mistress...find out if she is doing something nasty to Uncle Grom.”