After almost a month of staying in Wheats, we were all getting restless. Anna was worried about my arms, feeling guilty for the whole ordeal no matter how many times we assured her it in fact, was not her fault. Ed and mine worries lied in the fact that our parents could come here any minute, especially since uncle sent them a letter, presumably because of my injuries.

We spent our last day in Wheats meticulously writing a letter for our parents each. The letters contained our goals and goodbyes to them, and we had intended to entrust them to uncle so that when they do eventually arrive, at least their journey wouldn’t be for nothing. In the crack of dawn, uncle Ridge will have gone to wake us up for breakfast, but all he will see are three letters, the third one being addressed to him. This was our way of showing gratitude. It also served as our proof of residence just in case our parents doubt uncle.

In the transport wagon that came in the morning, for the first time in our journey we weren’t the only ones in it. This isn’t all that rare, but it was very weird looking at our frequency of using this thing. The person sat with us was a middle aged man with bald spots. His presence wasn’t all that comfortable, but we decided to be polite and strike up a conversation.

“Hello, sir. How are you?” I asked first.

“Oh, hello kids. I’m doing fine, but how are you?”

He was obviously concerned about the injuries on my arms, so I at least know he’s sympathetic.

“It was a scuffle, to say the least. But never mind that, this wagon leads to Leins, correct?”

“Indeed it does, and my guess is you’re going straight to the hospital, haha!”

His loud guffaws filled the wagon as he almost started cry-laughing from his own joke. To be fair, it helped alleviate the tension, since his laugh is quite contagious. We had spent our time in the wagon talking about all sorts of things, which lead to talks about our jobs.

“…so that’s how we plan to make our grandpa’s brand be well known all across Trivis Numerica.”

“I can’t believe it! And to think, when I was nearing 14 like you are now, I could barely find a job! Until I found the ITA, I was a nobody, really.”

Our brows raised upon hearing those words, and we suddenly changed the topic.

“You’re an adventurer? Amazing! But what are you doing here of all places?”

“Oh? Interested, are we? Well, to tell you the truth, I used to mostly explore near the Kingdom of Carmen, but I’m on my way to visit Shaid’s temple all the way in Sibirus.”

“Sibirus!? That’s all the way on the top of the map! And what even is Shaid’s temple? I’ve never heard of such a place.”

Before he could explain everything, we had made it to Leins, and as much as I wanted to hear more, neither party simply had enough time. Before we left, he told us his name, Linus, and hoped we meet again for him to finish his story.

***

Finally, we thought to ourselves as we strolled around the city we considered our goal. Thinking about it now, we made a lot of progress from where we started, but this is definitely not the end. To be honest, it’s not even the beginning of our grand adventure, as we still need to attain passports and officially enter the ITA. I wonder if we could use Linus’ name if the situation calls for it…

Since we didn’t really spend much money when we crashed at uncle’s place, we used the first day to travel like real tourists. The city is located near the northern part of the country, sitting snug right between the river Nadia and Leins Lake. I had heard rumors of water canals going through the city, but we couldn’t find any, so I might’ve confused it with some other place.

As we passed around the city I noticed many gazes pointed at me. Well, my bandaged arm to be exact. Since my left arm mostly healed, safe from some scary looking scars, I chose to let it get some fresh air. My right hand still has bandages all over, though, since that was the arm I shoved into the wolf’s mouth.

“You should’ve worn a long sleeve shirt, Grim. These gazes are getting annoying.”

“In the middle of summer? I’d rather the world look at my sick scars than cook myself alive.”

We walked around a bit more before choosing to finally check into an inn. I don’t know if inns are always this comfy, but this particular one was very easy to get used to. The food was some of the best we’ve had yet (no offense to anyone who’s cooked for us up until now) and the beds were made of a certain silk that almost felt like laying on clouds. Leins is definitely a luxury town, so just imagining what we’ll see in the future kept me awake all night…

As we ate breakfast, we negotiated splitting our jobs. Anna mentioned she’ll be taking charge on the restaurant part of the plan, whilst we focused on getting our passports. We didn’t like the idea of leaving her all alone, but she mentioned we’ll be helping her around the shop when we’ve got free time, and it’s not like we won’t meet up at the end of every day in the inn.

With the plans having officially been completed, we went our separate ways and hoped for the best on both ends.

***

The International Traveler’s Association (shortened to ITA) is a large, global scale community which served as a hub of sorts for people who wondered what’s outside of their current field of view. They are the ones who give you passports (if you’re qualified for them, of course) and at times even give out bounties for finding out certain mysteries that plague the world.

The branch that we visited was huge, and I mean that in an objective sense. Truth is, we had seen the building even as we were entering the city. STOP GAWKING I told myself, but I just couldn’t help myself. It seems as though Ed was doing the same.

“Ahem! Young sirs?”

“O-oh! Hello, mister! Yes, we’re here to apply for passports, where can we get some information on this matter?”

The agent looked at us weird, and we were almost shooed away immediately.

“Wait! Graal Thurs! We were asked to visit him! Can we at least meet up with this person?!?” we pleaded with all our might.

The agent stood there for a second before telling us outright:

“I am Graal, who sent you?”

“Arthur Gray, sir!”

“So you’re the kids, huh. He did send a letter notifying me of your visit, but I honestly thought he was joking. That or Annie sent a prank letter in his stead.”

“Wanna meet up with Anna? She’s currently near the inn setting up shop.”

“She’s what?”

He couldn’t believe his ears. He probably last saw Anna when she was very young, so if she suddenly made her way all the way here without Arthur, he would obviously worry. After we assured him of her location and safety, we discreetly changed the subject back to our original reason for coming here.

“Sorry boys,” he said, “the truth is since I didn’t really expect your story to be true I didn’t really set anything up in advance.”

What a good friend you are to our dear Arthur, Graal.

“No worries, as long as we get our passports, we don’t really care when it is.”

“Sure thing, then your tests should be prepared in uhmm…let’s say a month?”

We didn’t really mean that long, but hey, better late than never, I guess. As he sent us away we decided we’ll spend the month getting some extra travel money and simultaneously help Anna in the process. This way I got to limber up my arms and prepare for the test. First thing we did was go back to Anna and report to her our results thus far.

She seemed delighted that we wouldn’t be rushing into it, going all Now you can help me, haha! But both Ed and I knew she was just glad we got to spend more time together. Apparently she had already set up a contract for a little homely looking one story building.

This confused us at first. Why set up a small scale shop in a place where everything is big as all hell? But she reassured us with the reasoning that in a forest, a colorful branch will stand out.

We still didn’t really understand her analogy completely, but if she was happy with it then we didn’t really care. Our first three days were spent tidying the shop up, but by far the most time consuming part was painting it red. This would definitely take a toll on me, so Ed and Anna had to do it alone, which in turn made the process quite the slog.

The first week wasn’t really that busy, and Anna even considered cutting our losses and buying a different bigger house, but we talked her out of it. And thank goodness we did so, since the second week made profits of historical scale.

Seeing a pair of kids set up a small shop apparently made the locals think we’re doing some sort of charity work, so they went to help our cause. Well, we thought of correcting them, but seeing as we were a sort of charity (helping Arthur) and business was booming, we chose not to say anything.

Two weeks in, my other arm was freed of it’s cast, and life was getting comfortable again. We decided to treat ourselves with some dessert after dinner.

“We really are getting pretty rich. Arthur’s sure to be happy about this!”

“Yeah…” Anna replied with a melancholic expression.

“Annie? I was meaning to ask…” Ed slowly checked to see if it’s alright to ask.

“Yeah, Anna, I didn’t really get to ask you this during the hike, but why are you getting sad again?”

“?” She suddenly donned a quizzical expression as she replied:

“Sad? No idea what you’re talking about, but… I have been preoccupied in the past couple of months, haven’t I?”

While not exactly what we expected her to say, we still listened in and prepared for hearing the worst.

“I wanna one day make Arthur’s a world-wide brand. When we started this journey to Leins I never even imagined saying this, but the more shops we set up the more plausible it seemed. I didn’t really wanna tell this to you guys since I was worried you’d stay to help with the project.”

“You’d worry… about us not leaving you?” asked Ed.

“Don’t get me wrong, now! I really want you guys to stay with me, but I know you guys want to visit the world. It’s your life goal, and to me this is my goal. I don’t know if any of us can fulfill our wishes, but I certainly don’t want me to be the reason you throw yours’ away.”

She spoke with a soft tone. Not mad or sad, but she wore a fuzzy expression as she said this. Ed didn’t have anything to say, he seemed a bit perplexed about the situation. Certainly, this wasn’t within our realm of expectations, but keeping quiet would just make her feel awkward, so I chose to motivate them both.

“I like it! A couple years down the line I wanna see an Arthur’s all the way in Simpleton, y’hear?”

“Wuh-Y-YEAH! I’LL MAKE YOU GUYS PROUD!” She proclaimed with a bashful smile.

“YEAH! WE’LL EAT TOGETHER IN AN ARTHUR’S ALL THE WAY IN MERIDIA!” Ed joined in too.

With us celebrating and toasting so loud that we probably bothered the neighbors, the evening was very lively, and we got back our happy smiling Anna once more. To us, it was like resuscitating a family member back to life. The amount of happiness we felt at that moment was immeasurable, and we couldn’t decide whether we never wanted it to end or if we wanted the lunch in Meridia to come quicker.

As these thoughts occupied our minds, we welcomed our dear customers with smiles ear to ear, the restaurant became a lot livelier than it already was (especially after we got Graal to send us some employees). We were once again back to how it was all the way in Stringwood. It was the same, but it was different. We had changed, gained and lost, but we always stood by each other’s sides.

The days had started to pass by a lot quicker since that night, and just like that we stood in front of the ITA building, ready to take our tests and earn our passports.