Well, I could go on and on for chapters long worth of content of what happened on the way back to the village, but let’s be honest, it’s not like you’d guys be interested in hearing what happened.

I mean, what’s fun about hearing on how a cat-girl in yellow parka and pants being followed by a beeping clockwork robot trashed the ground with some martial artists? Or how there was this one old man in ancient Chinese clothes with bald head and nice beard who slipped and fell face-first into a nearby girl’s bosom, only to get slapped across the road? Or how we met this sci-fi cowgirl complaining to a trench-coat wearing knight on how he’s way too stingy with his gold? Well, there was that water-dragon girl fighting against some magical girls which was pretty amusing to see, but then, nothing really amazing. Finally, there was that one kitsune who appeared from a rip in space-time and asked us for direction before going away after noticing that she had missed her target.

For some reason, Crys kind of freaked out about that last one once the mainframe told her that she could find nothing on the database, but it’s not like it matters, right?

So, as you can see, the travel back to the village was kind of boring with nothing worth any real mention, so I’ll just skip straight to when we arrived at the village’s entrance.

And let me say, when you see a couple of cats standing guard at the village’s entrance besides the guards, only to give you a meow of greeting before going back to staring seriously towards the horizon, as if looking for some sort of threat, you know that you have to search for your own cat for some explanations.

Not only that, but even as we walked down the streets I could see cats walking around in neatly organized pairs while looking and checking every corner carefully like they were patrolling the city.

“…We’ve been away for a few hours. How the hell does someone pull something off like this in such time?” I asked in shock.

“He truly pulls after his master.” Crys said with an amused tone.

“I fail to see how being my subordinate makes him able to do something like this.” I said blankly.

“Well, Lieutenant does have someone to look up.” Yuu said with a thought.

“Yuu. You do know you aren’t supposed to betray me, do you?” I said coldly to the kitsune, who just replied me with an awkward smile. “Ah, forget it. We need to find Hanbei and hear more from her anyway.”

I shook my head tiredly before looking back to the street market. Since the last few days didn’t seem to have snowed as much, the sheet of snow was now much thinner and I could feel a slight dampness to my boots. While Yuu and I were having some issues walking around thanks to the softer snow and water puddles, Aura seemed mostly unperturbed by it, while Pebblesworth rode on her back and Rio was planted on my head sleeping soundly.

Ah… no wonder my neck was hurting so much.

Anyway, this change in the environment also meant that some dwarves were roaming the streets using magic to clear up the main street.

“Ah, hello savior.” The dwarves greeted Aura as we came by them. “Hello martyr.” They greeted me afterwards.

“Heya.” I raised my hand in greeting while trying to recall if I ever met the dwarf who had greeted me. Also, let’s take a moment to appreciate how amusing the idea of being able to greet a martyr so casually is something that doesn’t happen every day.

“How have you been finding your stay here?” The dwarf asked as we stepped aside for him to clean up the area under us.

“Well, it has been amusing, to say the least.” I said with a shrug. “Just came back from giving a look to my future house too, so expect to see more of me around here.”

“Oh?” The dwarf said surprised before glancing at Yuu and giving a smirk. “Settling down so young? Aren’t you a responsible one?” He teased.

“Ah… That’s not.” Yuu said embarrassed. “Well… Maybe I a little…”

Hmm. I could have sworn I just heard bells ringing and fireworks going off, but from the looks of it, neither of them heard it. Well, whatever.

“Oh yeah, have you see a wolf girl in a fur armor being followed by a slime somewhere?” I asked him.

“Hmm?” He stopped to think for a moment before finally nodding. “Ah, I do recall something like that. They were checking the food market earlier.” He said with a nod before pointing towards the other end of the little street market. “They shouldn’t have gotten too far, been only a couple of minutes since I saw them.”

“Oh, thanks.” I said before hopping to the cleaner side of the street. Yuu and Aura followed me, and while the kitsune seemed relieved about having a firm and dry footing to walk upon now, Aura clearly looked a bit disappointed.

Hmm, since we were going through the market, I should probably take the chance to replenish my consumables. Since I gave a bunch away to my third-gendered rival… Hmm? Did I just hear an androgynous voice shouting in anger at me from a distance? Well, whatever. Since she took a good amount of my throwing knives, I did need to replenish them. Also, It’s been some time since I last made me some potions. I should probably fix that.

Still, the potions have been a bit less useful recently. Hmm… I should probably look into upgrading them.

Hmm, speaking of consumables.

“Hey, Yuu.”

“Yes?” She said surprised.

“What will you do about the talismans you made?” I asked curious.

“Those? I have not thought that far.” She said after a moment of thought. “I just made them to help with the exorcism…” She stopped for a moment and gave an awkward smile. “Though it seems that there was no need for them.”

“Well, all things considered, the fact they worked was really surprising.” I said and she nodded. “Will you try to find out more what it can do?” I asked. To be honest, I doubt I could pull something like affecting ghosts using only my crystals, so it made me wonder what kinds of effects she should be able to pull off with the charms.

“That…” She started thinking deeply about it, to the point that she even stopped walking. Looks like the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind about it. “I could do something like that, but…” She became a bit hesitant as she thought deeper about it. “I just copied what I saw on the internet, so I don’t really know how they work.” She said with a slightly disappointed tone.

“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll probably spend a couple of days in the ship, so we have more than enough free time to do some experimenting.” I said with a wide smile.

“No.” Someone suddenly denied me in a panicky tone. “No no no no. No more experimenting in closed environment.” Lily suddenly appeared besides me with a panicked look.

“Where the hell did you even come from?” I asked shocked.

“I was doing some market research when I felt a shiver and found you talking about experiments.” The undine said with a worried expression.

“But…” I said with a pout.

“No buts.” She cut me off immediately with an angry voice. “You are NOT doing those experiments in an enclosed and limited space like a boat.”

“Booh, meanie.” I complained with a pout. “And here I had finally convinced Yuu to fall in the inescapable, never ending spiral pit of crafting consumables.”

“Why did you make it sound so dark?” Lily asked me shocked before sighing and turning to Yuu. “Still, if Yuu is the one doing the experiment, I guess there shouldn’t be much issues.”

“I promise I shall be careful.” Yuu said courteously while bowing slightly.

“Oi. What’s with that difference in treatment?” I complained. “I can be careful too!”

As I threw a tantrum in annoyance, not only Lily, but also Crys and Aura looked at me with pitiful eyes. Feeling my HP draining with at a painful rate at their stares, I crouched down in the corner and started drawing circles in the ground.

It took me a moment to recover, but after a couple of minutes of them apologizing to me without a shred of sincerity behind their words, I finally went back to looking around for the wolf-girl.

“Anyway, what exactly did you say you were doing?” I asked Lily once I recovered myself.

“Market research.” She replied with an amused smile. “You see, Argento told me that some things we can buy cheaply here can be sold at higher prices in other capital’s area of influence, so I was looking around to find something I thought might be worth selling over there.” She said.

“Hmm… For someone who wanted to be a crafter, you are surprisingly invested on learning merchanting, huh?” I said amused.

“Ah… Well, I do need the money to buy the supplies for my own projects since I can’t go hunting like teacher.” She said with a slightly melancholic tone, so I couldn’t help but smile awkwardly.

“I guess I hadn’t thought about that.” I said with an awkward nod. Different from us players who could just go and hunt the monsters freely without much issues, the NPCs actually would risk their lives.

“Well, I guess I can’t be like teacher in every regard then.” She sounded a bit disappointed, but since there wasn’t much I could do about it, I could only sigh and wonder what to say to her.

“Are you also going to sell your things to Argento?” Yuu suddenly asked.

“Hmm?” Lily was caught by surprise by Yuu’s sudden inquiry. “Ah. I’m not sure. I was kind of thinking of selling them by myself since Argento taught me so much.” She said after some thought.

“Oooh, aren’t you one independent little apprentice?” I said amused while briefly rubbing her hair. She reacted with a surprised gasp before giving me a complex smile.

“Not really. This just means that I’m having to deal with things on my own.” She said awkwardly. “And since I doubt my items are as good as teacher’s, I can’t trouble Argento with selling them.”

“But this also means you have a chance to get a better profit than Shishou.” Yuu said suddenly.

“Eh? How so?” I asked curious.

“Well, while Shishou does get most of his materials by himself, he still have a fair amount of things he gets from Argento.” The Kitsune explained. “And even then, he uses Argento as a the middle-man in his sales, so a good part of the profit ends up in being pocketed by him. Not to mention that Shishou’s target-market is pretty saturated with merchandise already since most Pl… Chosen have been working on it, so the basic laws of supply and demand means that his potential profit is lowered.”

“…Waah. For someone who’s supposedly bad with math, you are really are good with economy, aren’t you?” I said amusedly.

“Hehe… Well, I learned about it since father have a company that deals a lot with market...” Yuu said a bit embarrassed while scratching her cheek. “Anyway, if I recall, Lily was thinking on specializing on making equipment for pets, isn’t that right?”

“Well, I did enjoy making Rio’s armor…” Lily replied while thinking deeply about it. “So I was considering making that my main craft, but I wasn’t sure whether that’d be a good idea or not.”

“I can not say that I grasp the entirety of the market at the moment, but I don’t believe that armor for pets are that easy to find.” Yuu said while holding her chin in her hands.

I nodded in agreement to her. I do recall receiving a bunch of requests for pet armors back when I started crafting. If I stopped to think about it, that was quite the decent way to get me some pocket money, wasn’t it?

Tuning my mind out as Yuu and Lily went into their talk about economics and market management, I absentmindedly ended up looking around while we searched for Hanbei and Yami.

Looking at the market and with the talk around us being about pets, I opened up my inventory and started scavenging around for Aura’s old ronin costume.

“Hey, Crys. Come here.” I called up the floating maid who had wandered off to buy some spices for us.

“What happened, Master?” She asked while floating closer to me.

Once she was close to me, I had her stand with her arms and legs stretched out, well, not exactly since she was a bunch of floating crystals, so if she wanted she didn’t even need to keep up her shape but you get the meaning. She was standing spread out so I quickly measured up the costume against her.

“Ah… You still had these?” She said surprised.

“Yeah. I was wondering if you’d be able to use it, but it seems some adjustments are needed.” I said with a frown. Since this was made back when Cyg and Aura were sharing the body, so the proportions were a bit off. For starters, the sleeves were a bit too short, with the legs of the hakama being roughly the same. On the other hand, at least the size itself looked like it would work. “Will need to rework… And find a way to fix the hat in your head.”

“I could always leave a piece of me to position the hat.” She said cheerfully as a piece of the crystals that made her hair floated off.

“That could work.” I said in agreement before turning my attention to the one who was watching the scene from near my leg with a slightly nostalgic and jealous look. “I think this might be a bit too small for you right now.” A clear whimper of disappointment escaped the freezing-tail beneath me. “And I’m not entirely sure if wearing an armor would affect your own skills, so I’m not sure if making one of those would be a good idea.” I said worried, and I could only see her ears falling flat against her head.

Ughh… if you give me such a look and sound so disappointed, you make things difficult to me!

Come on Gon, use your uselessly creative mind to come up with a way to make Aura something! She deserves it! Even if she wasn’t one of the main individuals to help you and have been following you ever since you met her in that forest so long ago, she’s fluffy enough to receive a present!

“I’ll… I’ll think of something.” I said after being completely destroyed by her puppy eyes.

She raised her eyes surprised before letting out a cheerfully bark and rubbing her muzzle against my leg.

Haah… Maybe I should go thinking up something then.

Let’s see, Aura could invoke three different types of armor with her skill. While the mist and the liquid one shouldn’t be too troublesome to deal with, the ice plate-mail was another story, seeing how it was entirely solid. Heck, I doubt that even dust would be able to go through that thing’s defense if she were in real life.

Speaking of dust…

Looking curiously at Aura, I lowered my hand towards her and ran my fingers through her fur. She became a bit surprised by the action, but didn’t really complain either, wagging her tails lazily behind her.

“…Looks like your fur is a bit dusty.” I said while feeling the slight feeling of coarseness from her. She suddenly froze in place before coiling her tail around herself and nuzzling against it with a curious expression. “Guess I should give you a wash, huh?”

She looked annoyed for a moment, but also nodded. Looks like she didn’t quite enjoy having her fur dirty either.

Hmm, let’s see. I guess I’d need to buy some shampoo and towels to use. Aura doesn’t really seem to mind the cold too much, so I guess I shouldn’t worry too much about getting hot water. Even then, I could always have Yuu make some for me if need be.

That said, a bucket to hold the water would come in handy since I don’t have a hose. Oh yeah, can’t forget something to do brush her hair after we are done.

“Hey, Lily.” I called the undine who was still in her excited conversation with the kitsune.

“Ah, yes teacher?” She called me curious.

“Have you seen something that I could use to wash Aura’s fur?” I asked her. “Like a shampoo or something?”

“Yeah. I saw a store selling that a bit further down there.” She said while pointing to the direction we were going.

“I see.” I nodded before storing away the ronin costume and making my way in that direction. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask, but I heard something about the undines being in unrest or something.” I talked to her as a thought crossed my mind. “You don’t really seem that affected to be honest.”

“That’s because I was raised near fresh water instead of the coast.” She told me casually. “Thanks to that, I’m not all that sensitive towards the state of the ocean itself.” She told me, and I nodded in understanding.

“I think I get it.” I said with a nod. Basically, she’s a fresh-water undine, while the ones in this city are salt-water undines. I guess that makes sense? Kind of like growing on the country or growing in a city.

“Heh. That was supposed to be common knowledge for elementals in general, teacher.” She said amused.

“Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m very good at being a bad example in many cases.” I said proudly.

“You shouldn’t be proud about that.” Crys said coldly behind me.

“Anyway, I did talk with some undines around here.” Lily continued. “And while most of them aren’t entirely sure about what exactly is happening with the ocean at the moment, there was an elder who did say that it wasn’t the first-time things were like this.”

“Then does she know why the others are so restless?” Yuu asked curious, but Lily simply shook her head.

“First, it’s a he. And no. He said that the last time they could only wait for the restlessness to pass. Though it did take around a week or two.” Lily said with a slight tone of worry.

“I see… I guess that they weren’t letting any ships leave back then either?” I asked and she nodded. “Hmm. Then it’s not really a surprise for them to have no idea what exactly is happening.” I said with a sigh.

“I guess so.” Lily shrugged. “Though, apparently, there are some reckless sailors who still set off even then, so one of them might know something.”

“Yeah. Speaking of which, Hanbei just found one of those and looks like they won’t mind taking us.” I said, and noticed as Lily looked at us shocked. “She just told us, so I guess we haven’t had the time to tell Argento.” I peeked at her conflicted expression and sighed in my heart. “Don’t worry. If you’d rather that we stay behind and wait for things to calm down…”

“Ah… no. I’ll…” She said in surprise for a moment, but calmed down once Yuu held her shoulder and gave her a calming smile. “I’ll… Think about it. Sorry.”

“Meh. Don’t worry. Your circumstances are different from ours anyway.” I shrugged it off and she nodded weakly. “Anyway, for now, we should find Hanbei so she can show us this sailor. That, and find the things to wash Aura.”

“Hmm…” She nodded a bit more cheerfully and we set back on searching around the market.

---

Post chapter extra:

Sitting in a bar near the center of the village, a single man was looking at the whole scene with a satisfied smile. Letting out an amused laugh, he downed the last of the beer in his mug, he left a few coins on the table as he stood up and put on the cap over his hair.

“Professionals… Hah.” Daniel(™) laughed. “As if such a job would last anything in this series. Let me show you how to really fix a fourth wall.”

With these words said to nobody, the fixer picked up his toolbox and walked towards the dreaded crack on the fourth wall.