Saybil was completely unable to understand it. Their ship was in a harbor, which meant there was land right there that wasn’t swaying.
So why is everyone trying to spend another night in their cabins─?!
“Their inner ears must be completely screwy…”
He stepped onto the pier, blankets and pillows clutched tightly in his arms. Passing a rope around a couple of nearby lampposts, he hung one blanket over it, then used rocks to hold down the four corners so that it resembled a kind of triangular cave. By putting other blankets over each end, he was able to create a makeshift tent to protect him from the elements. Saybil filled this simple shelter with more blankets and pillows from the ship, until finally he had the perfect bed─one that wouldn’t move beneath him as he slept.
Just as he had nestled in like a moth in its cocoon, the side of the tent flapped open.
“Sayb! How come you didn’t come get us?! You’re hogging all the fun!”
“Damn, it’s actually pretty warm in here.”
It was Hort and Kudo.
Saybil remained resolutely cocooned inside his blankets. “I’m not out here for fun. Didn’t have much of a choice…”
“Never did get over the seasickness, didja? I got booze and milk, which you want?”
“Milk. You drink alcohol now, Kudo?”
“Been startin’ to come around to the stuff. Didn’t drink on the voyage, though. How ’bout you, Hort?”
“Milk all the way!”
Kudo poured out two cups of milk and one of booze, then dropped a tiny ball of fire into each from the tip of his finger. The drinks were warm in an instant, and the three lightly clinked their cups together before taking a sip.
“Wowww! Just getting to sit like this without the ground wobbling underneath me really is awesome!”
“Right? See? How come everyone else won’t come out of their cabins?”
“’Cause that ship’s fulla nothin’ but monsters, is why. Maybe I’ll make myself a tent, too.”
“But like, but like, I totally figured we’d get to stay in the tower! You know, ‘Please relax and enjoy your stay’… That kind of thing!”
“Just a guess, but I think maybe they don’t have any rooms for visitors in there,” said Saybil, gingerly sipping at his hot milk as he recalled the simple construction of the tower. “Once you get inside, you’re immediately in the audience chamber, and then it’s just open all the way up, isn’t it? Didn’t look like there were any higher floors or anything…”
“That right?”
“Hmm─I don’t really remember… But even if they can’t put us up at the tower, how ’bout an inn or something?”
“Ol’ Crystal Horn prolly doesn’t even have a concept of hospitality. Rule a place for a few hundred years and that’s what you get.”
“Sounds about right. I bet if we asked them for a place to stay they’d figure it out for us, though─why don’t you try tomorrow, Hort?”
“Hmm, I’m pretty comfortable in this tent, though. This’ll do for me.”
“Not like we’re hurtin’ for bathing opportunities, either.”
Usually, the biggest hardship on any sea voyage was the lack of fresh water─a typical trip would involve going weeks or months without bathing. But with magic, they could create an endless supply of fresh water from the brackish ocean around. They had prepared a large wooden tub on board, heating the water in much the same way Kudo had just warmed their drinks, which meant the passengers and crew could take a bath every day if they wanted to.
Even now, Hort was giving off that wonderful just-out-of-the-bath scent, and there wasn’t so much as a speck of dust lingering among Kudo’s scales.
“…Hey, so whadja think of the meeting today?” asked Kudo, casually broaching the subject as he sipped at his booze.
“It pissed me off,” Hort replied bluntly. “I get that we’ve gotta accept the rulers’ unreasonable demands if we wanna establish trade without starting a war or anything… But the people in town are suffering, aren’t they?”
She raised one corner of the “tent” a little and looked out at the two-wheeled wizard carriage parked on the wharf.
“I wonder if we couldn’t just, like, sneak off and sell mana potions around the New World like Har Bell was doing on the Great Continent.”
“Hmm─I wonder if they’ve got any kind of constabulary like we do back home…”
“But they’d never beat me!”
“That’s exactly the kinda invasion we were talkin’ about earlier!”
“Sure, but I know you don’t like this either, Kudo!”
“I don’t like it, but I can wrap my head around it. I ain’t like you, I don’t live by emotion alone.”
“…You know, I never really understood it,” said Saybil.
“Huh?”
“War. I’ve never really understood what it is, or why it happens.”
Hort and Kudo looked at each other.
“It’s just like…a dust-up between two countries, right?” Saybil ventured.
“An’ most of ’em start over land disputes or whatever, don’t they?”
“Like the Dragon Conqueror King explained: stealing resources, protecting them, that kind of thing.”
Saybil nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s true most of the time. But I think some wars maybe start from people thinking they could make everyone happier if they were in charge.”
Wanting to make everyone in the city happy, but seeing with your own eyes how much they’re suffering, and blaming the politicians for it. Thinking, “If only I could kill them and take control myself, I could release the people from their pain”… I bet it happens.
Saybil suddenly thought of the father he had never met. The vision of a world without witch hunts─that was what had led Thirteen to start his war. For the non-witches of the world, it had been a witch invasion. For the witches, it was a war to free themselves from persecution. And for Thirteen…it had simply been a war waged to protect his one and only sister. The world saw it as evil. Many innocent lives had been lost.
“A righteous invasion, a righteous war… Can those things exist…?” Saybil sipped his milk. Hort and Kudo fell silent, when suddenly the entrance of their tent was flung open.
“Youth! Such youth! Such a flush of youth did I feel just now, I could not help but make mine entrance!”
“P-Professor Los…?!”
Hort and Kudo half rose and rushed to put themselves between her and Saybil.
“Th-This isn’t what it looks like, Professor Los! It’s just normal adolescence! Harmless adolescent doubt! It’s definitely not dangerous, he’s not actually in favor of war and invasion and stuff!”
“It’s just a discussion! Just talk! A little thought experiment! This kinda thing’s important in growing up!”