“Faye, do you want to know where we’re going?”

She didn’t answer.

“Umi, the sea,” I drew the symbols of the word into the ground, “海”

“You see? You could also refer to it as Kaiyo, 海洋, it’s written with the same symbol as Umi but with the Yo symbol, 洋, which I think means western

But it’s not pronounced as Umi-yo, weird, isn’t it? If you would write Kai on its own it would be written “回” which means times. I can’t make much sense of it anymore. My Japanese is a bite rusty cause I didn’t really use it for 18 years.”

More silence from her.

“Strangely enough, the people of Japan love the sea, or rather their characters often were fixated on them. You wouldn’t have a swimsuit, would you?

I want to get the ‘swimsuit/beach/hot spring’ episode out of the way as fast as possible.”

Still no answer.

“Faye, how come I have never used [Judge] on you?”

[Judge]

│───────────────────────────│

[Faye]

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[Paragon]

│───────────────────────────│

“Naruhodo, very informative.”

“Satisfied?”

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go find an inn or a resort close to the sea.”

Then we wandered.

“You see, for you to understand let me explain, normally when going to anywhere water-related the male characters are hyped up to see the female ones in bikinis or trying to get a peek when in a hot spring but being just the two of us I really don’t see that happening. You’re just not my type. Know what I’m saying?”

I made a cupping motion to my chest, “You haven’t got any breast-age. Do you know where a young man might get ahold of a young maiden to swoo?”

“You could always try to buy a slave.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, “hold up. Are you meaning to tell me that slavery is legal?”

“Yes and no. Slavery is allowed in a few countries and banned in others. But there are always black market ways.”

“In what country are we in right now? Where might be one of those black market auctions?”

“There are ones in every country.”

“What kind of slavery is it? ‘You are beneath me and my property’ kind of ‘You are a servant and can live here with me and stuff’ kind?”

“A-”

“You know what? Fuck the sea. Fuck hot springs, that can wait for another 200 episodes in some sort of filler.

Let’s go free some slaves.”