“So hold on.” Tanathos took the situation from the top, “You’re saying you two defeated El Scirpo all on your own?”

“Yep.”

“And after that the Provincians interrogated you?”

“Ah, is that what these guys are called?” Shaid noted, “So I take it Provincia is the name of their quik?”

“A-Ah, yes, I guess I forgot to mention that. But that’s not important right now!” Tanathos urged us to answer his question, “What is important is for you to tell me what happened during the interrogation!”

“It’s really not as bad as you make it out to be.” I rolled my Eyes, “This red guy, who we think is the leader, thanked us for saving them. After that we leveraged our way into peace negotiations. They even agreed to help us with their resources if we ever run into a shortage.”

“Is that… so?” Tanathos turned to the leader guy dressed in all red, “¿Es cierto que La Habana y La Provincia ahora son aliados?”

“Es cierto. Sin embargo, solo lo estamos haciendo porque los hombres blancos lo pidieron.” The leader replied.

“Es eso así…” Tanathos chuckled to himself before turning to the two of us again, “Well, thank you very much for this, brothers. When I offered to help you get to Havana, I would have never guessed you’d already have solved one of our bigger disputes in just under a month.”

“No worries, Old Man.” Shaid smiled before pointing over to where Olya was, “But it wasn’t just us. You should know that Olya here is the brains of the gang. He’ll be helping us greatly with all the heavy thinking, while we do the heavy lifting!”

“Phaha!” Tanathos guffawed, “Well if that’s the case, a party just has to be thrown tonight! ¡Todo! ¡Ven a nuestro quik! ¡Tendremos una gran celebración!”

“Wait, will that really be okay?” I asked him, “Holding a party with the people who literally kidnapped you? Won’t it be dangerous?”

“Eh, water under the bridge as you say, brother.” Tanathos shrugged, “Really, kidnapping is just the way of life here. It’s a dog eat dog world, only for us this saying is way more literal.”

“Oh…”

“But have no fear!” He raised his hand to the sky, “Because I hope you came back with the things I requested of you.”

“Ah, that’s right! How could we have forgotten?” Shaid facepalmed, “Old Man, we procured the soil and wheat seeds! We even took the time to test them out properly and check if the flour makes good bread.”

“Splendid!” He hugged both of us, “Oh, I can’t wait to try it with everyone… Havana is saved! Okay then, let’s go get Lina and Linda and then we’ll all be safe and sound again. By the way, where are they?”

“Ah, that…” Shaid and I looked at each other for a moment, “Well, the thing is… Linda kinda… ran away.”

“Oh.” Tanathos looked down for a moment before shouting, “Wait what?! You…! You… Ah, no, hold it in, Tanathos. These are our saviors…”

Geez, to think he’d lose his cool like this. Man, I really feel bad now. Then again, it makes sense, given Lina and Linda were Havana’s only camels. Man, I kinda feel like we should let Tanathos give us a good punch, at least for us to atone. I don’t think a “sorry” will be nearly enough. Even still, I just have to say it.

“Sorry, we’ll ask the Provincians to give us one of theirs…” I offered.

“It’s not the same!” He was practically this close to breaking down, “Linda was… Linda was…! Ooh…”

Noticing her father being so emotional and uttering Linda’s name, the nearby Cassandra quickly noticed what had transpired and walked over to us. With a frown she spit on the ground in front of us as she consoled her father and explained in her native tongue.

“Linda era el camello de mi abuelo.”

“Ah.”

“What did she say, amigo?” Shaid turned to me for a translation.

“We fucked up major league, bud.” I patted him on the shoulder, “We really fucked up on this one.”

“H-Hey!” He quickly tugged himself from me, “You’re the one who forgot to close the gates properly and let her run free! Don’t make it sound like we’re both at fault!”

“Bah!” Tanathos wailed even more from hearing that I was the one to forsake him, “Brother, how could you?!”

“Dammit, that’s completely wrong!” I tried to save face, “I-I mean, I ran after both of them, but it was Olya who only found Lina!”

“What?!” Olya heard me pinning the blame on him and quickly ran over to us, “No the fuck you didn’t, shithead! Be grateful I even stopped Lina in the first place, otherwise you wouldn’t have a single camel to your name! Asshole…”

“…” Everyone’s silent glares were now put solely on me.

“…Alright.” I raised my arms in concession, “Yeah, yeah, I get it. I fucked up, okay?”

“Yeah.” Shaid and Olya clicked their tongues at me.

“But!” I suddenly got a good idea, “Really, if Linda was your grandfather’s, Tanathos, then wouldn’t that make her really old? She’d definitely die on her own even if we didn’t lose her soon enough, so it’s really a blessing to have a proper reason to get a brand new camel, right?”

“You’re disgusting, Schnell.” Shaid rolled his Eyes.

“Really, man, that’s fucked.” Olya agreed.

“Me das asco.” Cassandra glared at me.

Well, looks like that wasn’t the right choice of words after all. Damn, I really dug my own grave on this one. Eh, I’ll just get him a brand new camel and everything will be a-okay! Come on, getting all sentimental over the past isn’t something I advocate if our end goal is to unify the war-torn World, right? I know what I’m saying is harsh, but Tanathos needs to calm down.

***

Coming back to our quik, everyone was eager to look at all the soil and wheat seeds we brought in, be they friend or ex-foe. Huddling around the carriage Lina was carrying, they all inspected the wares as if they were solid diamonds. It was kind of depressing looking at them treating something so easy to acquire in our homeland with such care, as if they’ll never get the chance to touch something like wheat seeds again.

“Incredible, you outdid yourselves, brothers.” Tanathos praised us, “But I do not remember these being so cheap that you can buy so many of them with the funds I gave you.”

“Ah, we kind of multiplied our funds for that one.” I replied, “Shaid and I are the World’s best merchants, after all, so this much was nothing!”

“Hey now, do keep in mind that what you did is essentially a crime.” Olya rolled his Eyes, “You two would be in jail right about now had it not been for me covering your tracks.”

“Exactly, that’s why the World famous Revisor is here in the first place!” Shaid patted him on the back.

“World famous? Cheh, hardly…” He chuckled, “Besides, I only do it for the money and respect. I couldn’t give one less of a fuck about the title.”

“Revisor? I do not remember hearing about that word before.” Tanathos tilted his head at Olya.

“He basically travels the World and documents each town’s state. He gets access to tons of benefits, but from what I’ve seen, his pay isn’t all that good.” I explained.

“No, it’s enough to keep me afloat.” Olya shrugged, “But I wasn’t born in this piece of shit World just to stay afloat. I wanna be rich by the time I retire, so for that I’m working with these two fellas.”

“To play with kids at your age…” Tanathos shook his head.

“Fueh?! I-I ain’t playing with no kids, Old Man!”

“Hm?” Tanathos furrowed his brows, “I was talking about Shaid and Schnell. Are they not a decade younger than you, brother?”

“A-Ah, yeah. I was just covering my bases.” He wiped the sweat from his brow.

Okay, this conversation went stale. I think I’m gonna go talk to the leader of the Provincia quik. He seemed to have been more eager to talk about the futures of our quiks, so I’d like to establish a good friendship as soon as possible. Right now, he’s Eyeing the hell outta this soil we bought, so I guess I should better explain it to him.

“¿Arena… marrón?” He took a handful of it, “¿Qué es esto?”

“Eso es, uhh...” I tried to think of a word for dirt before just giving up, “En mi idioma nativo, lo llamamos dirt.”

“Dirt?” He twisted his tongue trying to pronounce the four letter word, “Ay caramba, señor.”

“Hahah, I know, right?” I nudged his arm a bit, “But damn, to think you can’t understand a word I’m saying. The World is such a Vast place…”

“¿Qué?”

“Oh, ignore me.” I patted him on the back before walking away, “I’m just muttering something to myself.”

Leaving him utterly confused, I believe I gave him a good impression. The key here is to isolate him from the rest of his entourage, give him some information about yourself that you don’t mind giving away, then when he’s expecting for you to ask him to do the same, you leave him without a moment to spare. That way he’s left confused and feeling like he got more than he gave. Just watch, next time we see each other, he’ll be giving me all the info that I could ever need!

“Hm?” I turned to look at a lone and naked young lady happily munching on the soil we bought, “¡O-Oi! ¡Cassandra! ¡Para, no comas eso!”

“¿Hmm? ¿Por qué no?” She didn’t at all heed my words and continued on eating.

“Dije que te detuvieras, así que quiero que te detengas.” I grabbed her by the wrist and forcibly threw the soil back onto the pile, “Geez, you’ll upset your stomach.”

Seriously, where’d she get the idea that this is something that’s edible? It looks like shit, for cryin’ out loud! Not to mention it smells moist and weird. Then again, seeing her so desperate to put something in her stomach makes me feel unbearably sad. And to think, even though we brought all this food with us… Wait.

“Shaid!” I called out to him.

“Yeah, amigo?” He turned to me.

“Did you tell these guys we brought tons of bread with us?”

“No man, I thought you did.”

“You brought food with you?” Tanathos yelled, “Then why didn’t you say so earlier! Can’t you see we’re starving here? Come on, get the food. I said we’re having a celebration with drinks, but I’m sure they’ll be way more ecstatic if they had food to go along with it.”

Doing as we were told, the three of us quickly rushed over to Lina to get the bread we brought with us. It was kind of stale, given our long travel time all the way from Entropa to Abyssus Solis. Well, “kinda stale” would be a pretty big understatement, since this bread is at least a week old. On the other hand, the people here didn’t at all care for that. In fact, I’m pretty sure they enjoyed the crunchiness of it more than anyone I’ve ever seen before. This especially went for our local dirt eater, as she just couldn’t seem to get enough of it.

“Here.” I handed her my share of the bread.

“Mn?” She looked confused at my gesture, “Eso es tuyo, cómelo tú mismo.”

“No tengo hambre. Por favor, no dejes que se desperdicie.”

At the exact moment I told her that I’m not hungry though, my stomach growled just loud enough for her to hear it, sitting next to me and all. Giggling at my embarrassing display, she tried to move the bread back into my hands.

“No, no. I told you already. You eat it.”

“No, no!” She chuckled, “You eat!”

Being a bit more forceful with shoving the bread back at me, I’ll admit I got a bit fussy for no reason at all, so I decided to raise my voice a bit.

“I appreciate you trying to speak Entropic, but I’m serious! You eat it!”

“No!” She pushed the bread onto me, her hand slipping and making both of us fall back on the sand, “¡Ahora mira lo que hiciste!”

“Aiee!” I started panicking, “Dammit, you’re naked! Get off’a me!”

Looking at the situation unfurl in front of his very Eyes, Olya couldn’t help but glare at me as if I’m doing something wrong. Dammit, the things I get for trying to be nice…!