“Are we there yet?”

If I thought that being a ‘warrior princess’ precluded her from acting childishly, I was severely mistaken.

“Why do you keep asking the one that knows less than you about both the speed this ship can travel at and the geography of this world when we are supposed to arrive? And I’ve been the entire time down here, either with you, or within that other private room, where there are no windows, so I wouldn’t even be able to tell if I could. Not that I’d even know how the place we are going towards is supposed to look like.”

I was done with simply responding with ‘I don’t know’, and now I was trying to articulate more complex responses so as to elicit something other than that look she usually sent me afterward, that was equal parts amused and bored.

No such luck: If anything, the ‘amusement’ in it now superated the ‘boredom’.

“That wasn’t a no. So, are we there yet?” She asked again, a smug smile plastered on her face.

Before I could respond, I saw, with my [Demiurgic Sight], that the ‘engines’ of the ship were lowering their power.

“Actually, we may be there”, I responded, nonplussed.

It took a moment for her to register what I said.

“No shit!?” She jumped to her feet from the sofa she was sprawled on.

Then, we heard the voice of the [Captain] magically come from the walls: “We will soon arrrrive at ourr destination, please prreparre yourr bags forr disembarrkin-”.

The fact that the announcement seemed to cut off was weird, but I proceeded to prepare my things anyway, while Sheeno seemed comfortable enough to just sit there and watch me do it.

“What? Don’t you have anything else to do?” I asked, while checking that every book I owned was comfortably sitting on the bottom of the backpack.

“Not really. Everything I have is inside the [Spatial Bag] inside my pocket”, having said that she pulled a black bag with golden decorations out of said pocket, making it clear where the [Spire of Truth] had previously come from.

“Can I put my-“, I started asking

“No.” Was her immediate response, and she didn’t even wait for me to finish my sentence before delivering it.

“Cheapskate-OW!” My rebuke was halted by the sudden feeling of cold on my buttocks.

“C’mon, let’s go”, she said, ignoring the glare I was directing at her.

After I had slung the backpack on my shoulders, we started walking out of the passenger room, and finally started seeing the people that run the thing dashing to and fro, clearly a sign that there was something afoot.

“Who do you think lighted a fire under their assess?” Sheeno asked me after watching them dash around for a while.

“Definitely not the one that prefers to spawn ice on them”, I muttered.

It was at that point that we felt a small tremor run through the ship, which made the warning bells go off throughout it, and then the “pirate” [Captain] rushed towards us.

“Oh, good, you’rre all fine. I was getting worrrried when they hit the passengerr’s suite”, he said, wiping a bit of sweat off his brow.

“But… we were in the suite, and we didn’t feel anything while in there?” I said.

“We weren’t in the passenger’s suite, we were in the VIP suite.” Sheeno looked at me strangely.

“Why were we- Oh, right, the [Princess] thing…” I realized mid-way through what had happened.

Another shake was felt, and this time it was followed by an audible rumble.

“[Captain], we need more power redirected to the cannons!” Said a pale Nymph, either from birthright or from fear of the situation he had come from.

“[Prrivate]! Don’t talk about these things in frront of the passengerrs!” Hissed the [Captain], who I only now realized was an equally pale Nymph, who I had mistakenly thought as a [Human], even though it should have been impossible.

“It’s technically still my ship”, interjected my tall companion, “so I would like to know what is happening and if we can somehow help”.

I didn’t question how she owned the ship, nor the ‘we’ she added in offering help; we had more pressing matters.

The [Captain] nervously licked his lips, before responding with a sigh: “Ok, fine. We werre having a bit of a prroblem with some [Audacious Albatrossess] in the area, and theirr crries seem to have attrracted something biggerr”.

“How much bigger?” She asked immediately, without missing a beat.

“[Lesserr Garruda] type of biggerr”, he responded meekly.

“In the name of the [Gods], how the fuck did something like that get all the way over here!? What are the people at [Wild Guild] doing!?” She exclaimed, seemingly flabbergasted.

“Isn’t a [Garuda] some kind of ‘God’ from Eart?”

Yes, and the features of this creature aren’t too dissimilar from what those you are thinking about.

Garudas are [Deity-level] beasts, practically [Demi-Gods] amongst animals; so a lesser one attacking unprovoked is unheard of.

“I know that I should stop blaming it all on the [Goddess of Luck], but I would bet that she is somehow involved in this.”

“-and why haven’t you activated the [Repulsion Field] yet!?” Unbeknown to me they had kept on arguing, and Sheeno was now asking about some kind of defensive mechanism.

“We… haven’t been able to”; the [Captain] himself seemed angered by the statement.

Sheeno dropped her furrowed gaze to the ground, before bringing it up again with a simple question: “Sabotage?”

“That’s what we have also been thinking”, he responded.

“My brother?”, she asked again, this time clenching tightly her fists.

“We have no prroof of that, but we did find the symbol of the [God of Purrity] behind the command console, so it would be a safe bet.”

“Damn it!”

While they were stewing over it I decided to go and see what all the fuss was about.

Was I going to confront the [Lesser Garuda]? Of course not, I’m not crazy.

I’m going to the control room, to check on the panel, and the handy colored lines on the ground, with their meanings, marked once in a while, easily guided me to my destination.

The control room was packed with lights, buttons, and other bits and bobs (live valves, levers, etc.), and there were currently various people frantically going over them, especially over a section filled with red lights.

“Sorry, sorry. Coming through!” I kept saying, while pushing into the crowd, until I found myself in front of the damaged panel.

“Hey! Who the hell are you-“ Someone started asking, but I wasn’t listening, since I was already casting multiple [Repairs] on the thing, hoping to catch the malfunction with it.

Once the lights flickered to green everyone quieted down, and started staring at me.

“So? What are you waiting for!? Activate it!” I said, gesticulating towards the console. And as soon as I spoke, I was swarmed by hands that were trying to reach for the various controls.

I tried extracting myself from the mess, but the ‘jungle of legs’ around me was too thick to pass through… That is until two toned thighs made their way through and two big, yet dainty, hands holstered me by the armpits.

“I kinda want to put a ‘child leash’ on you now”, said an amused Fyratta.

“If you use ‘child’ in the same phase with me again, I will hurt you, and not in a fun way”, I responded, mimicking an old statement of hers.

This seemed to break through to the woman, and she laughed.

The bells stopped ringing, and the crew shouted in joy, which was quickly followed by an unnecessary number of slaps on my back, to which Sheeno added her own 4 after seeing how much I wasn’t enjoying it.

“Good job, little lad!” Suddenly exclaimed the [Captain], “thanks to you we’ll rreach ourr destination safely, and on time to boot!”

We were then escorted to the waiting area, where a bunch of people were already waiting, and they all looked like seasoned [Adventurers].

I started looking at their armors seemingly made from opaque glass, others from leather that looked like it had some kind of bioluminescence to it, and weapons made of materials that made them literally hard to look at.

When we entered the room a couple of them started looking our way, and while some quickly dismissed our presence, others started whispering between each other; this only caused more people to stare and then whisper, causing those that hadn’t bothered looking at us too closely to do a double take.

And while I thought that they were either enthralled by Sheeno’s beauty, or they had recognized her, it soon became apparent that they were more interested in me than her.

“What the heck is happening here?”

The one with the glass armor and flashy two-handed sword approached us. He was a beefy Elf with tanned skin and blond short hair, and he leveled a dubious gaze at me.

“You one of the newly [Transferred]?” He asked, briskly.

“Yeah? Why do you-“ I started asking something back, but was rudely stopped interrupted from doing so.

“So the [True Adventurer] thing must be a fake then?” He continued.

“What? No, I was just lucky enough to earn it on the first try-“ I was starting to not like the guy, and he went on to interrupt me again.

“What a bunch of Bullshit!” He exclaimed.

“For fucks sake, not this shit again!”

All I could think of at that moment was Tyrone, and the way all the [Humans] had treated me while thinking that I was getting preferential treatment.

“You better back off, before you start finding icicles in places you didn’t even know you had!” Shouted the buxom behemoth, stepping between us.

He looked at her with a sneer, “figured that the abominations would side with each other”.

Looking at both of them, they were readying [Spells] and [Skills] to throw, so I used [Annul] on them.

“We don’t want any trouble, and I doubt you want any either”, I said to the ass when he started looking around for the source of the dispel.

His face colored in anger, but before he could do anything else one of his buddies came to collect him, apologizing for his conduct, which he clearly wasn’t happy about.

Alone again, Shenno looked at me intensely.

“I could have taken him. You shouldn’t have interfered”, she stated.

“If you had started slinging stuff inside the ships you would have caused problems for everyone else,” I pointed out, before adding in a whisper “and I thought that it would be best to not alienate ourselves from those that we’ll have to work with in the near future.”

She flinched at that, and failed to come up with any come-backs.

“Well said lad, but it seems like you can’t stop poking yourr nose arround, huh?.”

I had felt the presence of the [Captain] approaching well before he started speaking, but it seemed like the same wasn’t true for many of the [Adventurers] present in the room.

“[Captain], is everything going smoothly now?”

“ ’Smoothely’!? The consol you rrepairred seems ten yearrs younger than it orriginally was! You just saved us hundrreds in maintenance costs!” And he accentuated that last part with a couple more slaps to my back.

“Glad to hear it”, I groaned out, while working my shoulders back into place.

“And you’ll be even morre glad to hearr that we have a surrprrise for you, as thanks: Hand me over your [Carrd] for a moment?”

I complied, and he immediately gave it back after holding to it for not even a second.

“If you need to trravel anywherre else, please use the contact for the [Fierry Wing] to call on us, and we’ll be surre to rrespond!”

“Oh, thank you. I appreciate it”, and while I wasn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon, it was still something useful to have.

“Privileged prick”, mutter ‘Glass Joe’.

“Great, I haven’t reached where I’m supposed to start my new life yet, and I already have a ‘fan’… just great.”

As always, your ability in making new friends is unparalleled.

“And you shut up.”

Sheeno guided us to a more secluded part of the hangar, and brought a new device out of her pocket, explaining that it would muffle any sounds we made while inside its area.

“Look at you, already making connections: Maybe the political field would have suited you”, said Sheeno.

“Don’t even joke about it, or [Luck] will start concocting schemes to make it happen.” I waved her statement away.

“A bit conceited of you to think that the [Gods] are just listening on you at every opportunity.”

“Not if said [God] is my [Patron]”, I responded, not even questioning if I could trust her with the information.

“Oh? You’re the [Goddess of Luck]’s [Protegee]? I’m [Conflicts]’s! We’re even more similar than I thought…”

While she seemed to get lost in her statement I just squinted at her and said: “Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”