═──────═══✠═══──────═

After a few more moments of sailing, trying to find the Kingdom of Maltha, Alfonso finally decided to call it a day and return back ashore, a mere girl his only kind of result to show for anything.

‘I was so sure that the map was right though …?’ Alfonso had been working a ship for around thirty years, even coming to be able to rule his own humble merchant fleet with the money he saved up.

The fact that it was all a waste when a rising outlaw family in his hometown seized control of this merchant fleet aside, with his experience as a naval officer in his early years, and a merchant captain in the laters, there was near next to zero chance that he could have made a mistake in his navigations, leaving him dumbstruck as he returned to Isilia.

…

There was a certain room within a certain building in the town of Guella, in the Ispagna-controlled Kingdom of Isilia, lied a certain young black haired girl. She had long silky hair that spun down past her shoulders, her weary body wearing what seemed to be a light blue and long woolly tunic that stretched to her mid-calf, essentially making it a dress. She continued to lay in bed. Unconscious.

*Tik*

*Tik*

*Tik*

A simple clock that stood on the shelf of a simple room ticked, its fastest hand ticking by the second, consistently throughout the short following moments.

*Tok*

A minute ticked by, the small minute hand moving across the old clock face.

The sun shifted ever so slightly, causing its brilliant rays to shine into a certain glass window and over onto the young girl. The warm flicker of day came over her face, prompting her to awake into the world once again.

"Mmmm."

Rei groaned out. Her face began to twitch ever so slightly. She moved slightly to the right in the koozie bed before snapping into total consciousness.

‘How long have I been out ...?' Rei wondered as she placed her hand onto her forehead as a slight migraine came over.

‘... and what happened since then …?' She thought to herself before moving her eyes to scan her surroundings.

A plain woollen blanket covered the lower portion of Rei’s body, with a mattress and pillow filled with straw, rags, and feathers to accommodate her back, with the bed bearing its weight over a wooden base.

“...” She looked towards the ceiling, which had old wooden beams of old age holding up the ceiling, stone walls and wooden floorboards that seemed to be just the same age as the ceiling above, and from a window in the distance from which sunlight freely shone through, she could surmise that she was above ground level.

In short, she thought it looked something like the room of a filthy plebeian from somewhere around the 15th to 16th centuries.

From how her body was unbound, as well her clothes changed into what seemed to be some sort of primitive casual home clothing, she could surmise that she was in fact, not taken as some sort of prisoner, which although sounded good, confused Rei even more.

*Creak*

'Someone's coming.' Rei thought to herself as she heard the boots of a man crunching against the wooden floorboards, then shortly opening the door gently, perhaps in consideration towards Rei whom the man thought was sleeping.

“Ohh!”

The man was, in the way of most men of his age, quite average, looking of unexceptional demeanour, taking his unusually fluffy-looking and well-maintained red beard aside.

From the outline of his arms on his white shirt and legs on his brown pants, as well as the lack of any sort of visible weapon, he didn’t look to be anything quite special in terms of martial prowess, which eased Rei a bit more, yet deepened his confusion.

“Um … so how might you be feeling?” He asked.

His accent was different from that of what Rei had heard commonly in Maltha, but the man was definitely talking in Malthese, in an acceptable fluency as well.

“Urrk!” Rei feigned a pained groan, holding her head in order to simulate an authentically severe migraine, which had seemingly convinced the man enough to make him near Rei.

“A-Are you alright!?” He said, about to hold Rei but then holding off after she put her hand up, signifying that she was indeed alright.

“I-I’m fine … my head is just hurting a little bit …” Rei said, rubbing it a bit to simulate a pained forehead.

After a few seconds of delay to give the impression of momentary recovery, she continued by asking …

“What … happened …?”

“Well, my name is Alfonso Romero, me and my crew found you drifting at sea and brought you to Isilia for recovery since we couldn’t find Maltha.” Alfonso explained calmly, speaking slowly, thinking it was needed for the confused Rei to process the information.

‘Isilia … so I'm currently north of Maltha?’ Rei wracked her brains to remember the maps she saw from the library, recalling what she knew of the moment about Isilia.

It was an island far bigger than Maltha, in the middle of the Mediaterran Sea just like Maltha, though also considered to be part of the Etalian peninsula, basically mimicking the same shame of Italy from the world that she knew, it was a kingdom under the direct administration of the Kingdom of Ispagna, while its nearest neighbour was the Ispagna-controlled Kingdom of Nepoli.

‘Though, more importantly …’ Rei’s mind drifted off to another, more vital subject at hand.

‘He couldn’t find Maltha?’

Memories came flooding in, becoming clearer, reminding Rei of what transpired within Maltha.

The carnage, which was mostly due to her part, she dwelled on.

‘Hiro …’ She thought.

‘Who am I kidding?’ She told herself, after failing to garner any sense of loss for someone she used as a stepping stone.

Though he was entertaining at school, he was never someone worth noticing or remembering, rather there was someone else she was actually concerned about.

‘I wonder if she’s still alive …?’ Rei thought about her other friend whose heart she hasn’t eaten, Uruka, the cowardly girl that was forced to accompany her on the forced journey to Gaiya.

Though she knew just how tenacious and undying Uruka was, she couldn’t help but severely doubt the possibility of survival of such a large blast, one that managed to edit the world map nonetheless.

‘I’ll have to act with her death considered.’ Though Rei was all up for believing that one of her friends was still alive and that she wasn’t at all alone in the world, however at heart she was no idealist.

“...?” As Rei was busy thinking a woman came through the door, looking to be around the same middle-40s age group that Alfonso was also from, also looking just as plain wearing the same sort of long blue dress tunic that Rei was wearing.

‘I see …’ Rei realised right away that the clothes she was wearing at the moment were probably spares belonging to the woman’s inventory, and that this was the person that had done the actual treatment, including the changing of clothes among other things.

‘Thank goodness …’ Rei couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Even though she was like … that, she was still a maiden, and was thus quite relieved that it was a fellow member of the same sex that had bore their eyes upon her body.

The newly appeared woman took a look at Rei, and then directed her attention to Alfonso, talking to him.

However, there was something a bit different from the way that she was talking …

It was in another language.

“⎓⚍ᓵꖌᒷ∷, ||𝙹⚍ ⊣𝙹ℸ ̣ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ ∴ᒷᒷ↸?” The woman told him, crossing her arms as she spoke.

“Y𝙹 ᒲᔑᒲᔑ ᓭ𝙹 ⎓ᔑℸ ̣ i ᓭ∴ᒷ∷⍊ᒷ↸ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ᒲ╎ᓭᓭ ⍑ᒷ∷ ᔑリ↸ ∷ᔑリ 𝙹⚍ℸ ̣ 𝙹⎓ ⊣ᔑᓭ …” He replied, his tone carrying what seemed to be that of respect, implying that the woman was someone Rei needed to pay attention to as well.

Though the language barrier was a problem, it was convenient that Rei had a tool that could help with the issue.

“Might … there be any issue …?” After deciphering the basics of the language in mere seconds, spoken words that were, although crude, were unmistakably Etalian, the lingua franca of most people in the Etalian peninsula.

“Oh, uh, well someone important has come to see me, and I’ll be right back.” Alfonso only had a moment to be surprised at how Rei could speak Etalian, however he still bade Rei farewell for the moment, nervousness and anxiety surpassing her own within an instant clearly visible on his face as he left.

“I see … well then I wish you the best of lu–” She said, feigning understanding, however he wasn’t even around to hear what Rei was continuing to say as he already left before she could even finish.

═──────═══✠═══──────═

“So let me get this right here straight … you’re saying that you didn’t manage to find Maltha? Despite you having travelled to it several times already in order to bring our shipments to our isolated detachments?” A man who looked to be a ruffian wearing a coat, accompanied by other ruffians asked, rubbing his head as he looked to be frustrated at what he was hearing.

“That is exactly what I am saying! Look, I know that it sounds weird but you know how I am right? I’d never try to cross the Don!” And on the speaking side was a frustrated Alfonso, accompanied by two of his crew members who came to report on their employer organisation.

Maltha was a trading hub, situated at the centre of the Mediaterran Sea, becoming the mid-way point that acted as a natural buff to seaborne influences for many nations such as the Kingdom of Ispagna, the Serene Republic of Venize, the Republic of Enoa, and the Osmanyi Empire to name a few.

It was not an isolated place by any means, and could be said to be the most open place in the region, with Alfonso himself having travelled to it multiple times already throughout his multiple years of experience as a ship captain.

“Normally I’d take you in for torture for crossing the family, but you’re in luck as we’ve also received some reports that the shipments of other companies made for Maltha had returned without finding their target.” The ruffian scratches his head in what seemed to be confused frustration.

“Ah goddamnit, why’d it have to be today of all places …?” The ruffian said as he looked up to the sky, rambling to himself.

“...”

“... and what about the girl you grabbed along the way? You said she was one of them Travellers?” He asked after composing himself.

Travellers, they were beings called by the Gods of the World to solve the rampant overwhelming devil-assisted monster problem caused by the leftover mana stains made by casualties from the war period known as “The Thirty Bloody Years” which actually lasted for about thirty-one years.

From the girl’s alienistic schoolgirl clothes only seen by Newbie Travellers in the Dungeons of the Holy Reman Empire’s Free Cities, as well as her black hair, she could be easily mistaken for a Traveller, however …

“I thought she was a Traveller.” Alfonso quickly corrected the ruffian’s words, being sure to emphasise “thought”.

“Thought?”

“I thought she was a Traveller, however she doesn’t have the Speech ability.” Alfonso replied.

The Travellers, upon being basically abducted from several worlds and dimensions, would have naturally had problems with language upon entering the world of Yuropa, but thankfully the Gods were at least decent enough to bestow each Traveller the ability to gain the power of Speech, which let them talk freely to the natives which composed of many different cultures, speaking many different languages in the continent of Yuropa and beyond.

It was one of the many reasons why Travellers had become so prominent on the continent, even going as far as to own several Free Cities and Imperial Territories of the Holy Reman Empire.

“She spoke Malthan initially, but then into Etalian.” Alfonso said.

And based on her words initially as well, it first seemed as though she was someone who was greeted with learning the language for the first time …

“I see, and it's unheard of for Travellers to make children with us natives and then have them turn out with black hair …” The ruffian remarked on the facts that he knew about the Travellers.

Aside that, Rei’s body had also been observed to be nothing short of a warrior’s as reported by the gals that went about and changed her clothes, her tempered body betraying the soft face that looked to be of an sheltered noble’s daughter.

“So what do you think I should do with her then?” Alfonso asked.

“Beats me, if she knows nothing, then I don’t see why we should be bothered, there’s no need to dispose of her, and we can’t even make her into one of our whores because that would breach the familia’s code of conduct.” The ruffian says, then turning around finally to leave, after getting his report and not seeing any other business to attend to.

True enough, the familia who Alfonso worked for was one of the more ‘civilised’ ones, avoiding any sort of unnecessary violence and doing their best to stick to legality, lest they attract too much ire that the local government forces could never ignore, no matter how big the bribe.

They were past the point of kidnapping girls to make them into usable whores, rather what they’d do is force women who couldn’t pay their debts into whoring, or simply hire one of the many desperate women in the impoverished Kingdom.

“I understand Remo, send the familia’s Patriarch my regards.” Alfonso took his hat off, placing it on his chest as he bowed slightly.

“Farewell, Alfonso, we’ll see each other soon .” Remo said as he walked away, not even facing Alfonso as he spoke for the last time.

Alfonso then put his hat back on, before then sighing.

“What am I supposed to do with that girl then?”

═──────═══✠═══──────═