Finally entering the capital city of Schnell’s homeland, the familiarly predominant blue tint of the continent had finally began to set in. The air was also way fresher and easier to breathe in than it was back in both Abyssus Solis (due to the hot climate) and Sulfury (due to the overlapping smell of smoke and gunpowder everywhere).

Indeed, in rather start comparison, the ‘scent’ of Cardina truly does feel incomparably better. Unlike the childish Green ‘scent’ of Trivis Numerica, or the unforgiving Gray ‘scent’ of Great Hiana, Meridia feels just right. Not saying these two are bad, mind you. In fact, I think I prefer Trivis Numerica’s colors more than any other, but then again I’ve still yet to visit places like Schnell’s Archipelago or even Simpleton.

“Oh, what about this one?” Cecily pointed to a red house in the street we were in.

“Mnn, it’s making me too hungry. Next.” I declined her suggestion to buy this specific house before once again falling deep into thought.

Scent is important for humans, I’ve come to realize that. It’s important for basically every aspect of our lives and dictates our every choice, even if we may not notice it immediately. I mean, at least that’s what I think, but that’s just based off of my own experiences, so your opinion may differ.

I think I remember first noticing this when I was just about to enter Shaid’s Lair with the rest of the party, and we were all talking about being a team…

-YEARS PRIOR-

“Before anything, I need to make sure of something.” Sullivan said, “How often do you guys shower?”

“What an odd question.” Genevra tilted her head, “With how serious of a face you were making, cutie, I was expecting it to me something way more terrifying.”

“D-Did you really mean it when you said cutie?” Sullivan blushed.

I don’t remember much about the conversation, because it seemed like it wasn’t anything too important that it’d require my attention, but I do recall Sully’s next words.

“No, I’m just saying, some people shower daily, like me, but I’ve heard that some cultures only shower once a week.” He defended himself, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging anyone, just making small talk.”

Immediately, everyone began attacking him verbally. In the end, it seemed like all of us showered daily, which is good for regular folks, but was terrible for us. Why you ask? Well, it’s because we all knew that we wouldn’t get out of Shaid’s Lair in less than 24 hours, so a couple days later, while we were deep underground…

Hmm, I suddenly thought as I passively inhaled the air around us, We… really smell. Like, unbearably so. How did those two (Genevra and Sully) even do it with such a strong musk covering them? Yuck, I don’t ever wanna be put in such a situation…

“Lune?” Cecily suddenly pulled me out of my flashback, “You hear me? I said we’re here.”

“Oh!” I looked on at the giant overgrown mansion in front of us, “It looks really amazing! A bit overgrown, but it has a giant yard for Nelly to play in!”

I mentioned this a moment ago, but we’re currently looking for a good house. Yeah, we are on a journey across the continent, but what good can a family vacation do us if we have nowhere to return to after we’ve visited all we wanted to experience? That being said, we made sure to take the time and look for a house we could hopefully buy and have as our property, but it seems like the Gods had other plans.

Immediately pointing to the side of the house, Cecily silently showed me the downsides of getting this particular two story house. “This house is great and all, but what’ll we do about the neighbors then?”

Following her gaze, I peeked over at the neighbor’s garden. It was a punk looking teen who had bulging red eyes and smoke coming out of every crevice of his house. Dunno what that’s about, but he certainly seems like the sleazy type.

“Ooo, komšija!” He yelled out to us with a drunken stutter, despite us trying to remain anonymous, “Planirate tu ‘der kuću kupit, a?”

“What’s he saying?” Cecily whispered.

“Nothing too bad, for now at least.” I replied without breaking eye contact with him, “But he’s got a country accent, I don’t know if he means trouble or not.”

“Oo pa jel ti to dama?” He approached the fence and ogled Cecily, “Ala ljepote! Daš mi je preko vikenda, hahahaha! Aj ba ne budi škrt, phahaha!”

“I don’t know what he’s saying, but he seems like a fun person.” Cecily naively brushed off any and all suspicion as she went to shake his hand.

“Nah,” I put my hand in between, forbidding them from making any physical contact, “I don’t like this place after all.”

With a confused Cecily, and a bewildered Nelly in tow, I had promptly left the area with them and went on to our next candidate.

“Wuh-Lune, what’s going on??” Cecily tried to get me to let go of her arm.

“Daddy’s angwy.” Nelly added.

“I’m not angry!” I shot back, “It’s just…! Gah, I don’t like that guy. He spelled trouble.”

Well, that was just an excuse. In truth, I’d hate it if I one day came back home to see him and Cecily in bed together. A weak guy like that taking her from me, I don’t think I could ever come to terms with that! A-Ah, no, it’s not like we’re together… But still, I don’t want that to happen, for Nelly’s case! Yeah…

***

“Lune,” Cecily groaned, “Let’s just go back to that house and apologize to that neighbor. He by far had the best house out of all of these, plus my feet are starting to hurt from all this dull walking.”

“You can climb up any wall in a second, run tens of kilometers without even breaking a sweat, but this little stroll is too much for you?” I joked, “Oh, and we’re not going there.”

“Why though!?” She yelled, “At least tell me why, goddammit! And so what if walking is too boring that it actually tires me out? Like there’s anything good that can come out of a stroll…”

This had suddenly made me recall all of our previous dates together back in Great Hiana. Now that I think about it, didn’t we always sit down somewhere for a cup of tea or just sit at a bench out in the city? That kind of makes me sad…

“A-Ah!” She noticed my slightly sad expression and fixed her statement, “Our dates were fun, though!”

“You weren’t faking to be happy with me?”

“Of course not!” She jumped before retreating a bit, “But that was then, and this is now.”

“R-Right.”

Walking and talking like this, with Nelly holding both of our hands in between us, it truly did feel like we were a real family. Sadly though, I messed up a bit too much, and tattered any and all chances of that actually being a thing. I don’t regret loving Marina, but sometimes I really do start to wonder if things would’ve been different if I had just sent a letter to Cecily from the start. Now that I think about it, maybe I was just a bit too paranoid of the ITA, I doubt they’d focus on one lone letter coming to Great Hiana.

“Oi, you there!” A raspy old lady’s voice called out to us, “Family! I hear you looking for house! Here, here!”

“Oh, hello there!” Cecily waved as we approached the inn, “Yes, we are!”

“Good!” The old landlord smiled, “Come on, come in! Good deal!”

Entering, we now finally understood why she was so desperately calling out to us. This whole place is a far cry from the standard inn quality we’ve come to expect from our travels. The wallpaper was old and peeling off, the carpet’s wet and musky, and the sofa was littered with weird stains all over it.

“…” She made sure to pinch her nose before speaking, “Good deal, yes?”

“How are the neighbors like?” I decided it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“Lune!” Cecily interrupted me, “You can’t be serious about this place! It’s a pigsty! O-Oh, no offense, ma’am.”

“None taken.” Even the landlord couldn’t deny it.

I know it’s a bit, how do I say it, original than the other houses, but like, we’re rich enough that renovating a house isn’t gonna leave that big of a hole in our wallets.

“Neighbors are no!” The old lady tried her best to explain in Entropic.

“No neighbors?” My eyes twinkled at the prospect, “That’s perf-!”

Perfect, is what I wanted to say, but then I recalled that this inn isn’t just gonna be mine anymore. I have to accommodate for Nelly as well, and having her isolated from the rest of the folks here certainly isn’t a good idea, lest she grows up into a hermit like her old man. Looks like this isn’t the place after all, but then that leaves us without a place to stay.

“But pricing is very fair!” The lady tried a last ditch effort, “3k per month!”

“That’s way too much!” I slammed the door as we left, “Renoviraj ili smanji cijenu, jebo ga dan!”

Without a place to stay at, we just sort of went to get some treats at a local patisserie shop. It was nice and colorful, befitting of its unreasonably high prices, but we could afford it, so I didn’t mind.

“Ugh, looks like Melgorra is a no-go.” Cecily clicked her tongue.

“Mhm!” Nelly nodded as she dug into her ice cream, “But I don’t like this place anyways, so…”

“What if we just pay someone to make a house from scratch?” I suggested.

“And where would we put it, genius?” Cecily replied, “There’s no more plots of land that we could buy close to the center of town. Closest we could get would be the town periphery, and that’s just too far, even for us.”

“Mnn, yeah…” I silently put a spoonful of ice cream in my mouth as well, “Mmm! This is delish!”

“Is it?” Cecily followed suit, “Whoa! You’re right! It’s melting in my mouth!”

I don’t know what got into me, but hearing her say that tantalizing phrase, I suddenly felt like I needed to try playing a tiny little prank on her now. Sorry, my horny brain is acting out of impulse from now on.

“Cecily,” I gulped as I said, “If you really wanna feel the taste of it, try rolling it around in your mouth.”

Naively listening to my instructions, she slushed the white ice cream all around the insides of her mouth. Even this much was enough for me, but I got a bit greedy and continued.

“Now,” I stared at her with my expectations high, “Stick out your tongue, it should be white.”

Again, she did as I said, and showed me her mouth filled with a white substance. She was so aloof too, she was none the wiser about what I was making her do. Soon enough though, she took a peek at the waitress blushing as she looked on at her, before turning to the reflection and finally noticing.

“You horndog!” She blushed, “I’m not forgiving you for this!”

Quickly finishing her ice cream in record time, she jumped out of our table and tried storming out of the place. That being said, the waitress that saw her was in her way, so she did a little nervous dance around her all while muttering “I’m sorry…!” before finally sidestepping her and running off. Heh, I overdid it, better go apologize.

“Daddy!” Nelly turned my attention to her, “Like this?”

“No Nelly, don’t copy that. It feels wrong, and I was just pranking your mother…”

It’s an innocent display in the eyes of a child, but with the current context, I kind of don’t wanna touch my ice cream anymore. Let’s just say I lost my appetite…