Once again, I was traveling the seas. Ever since leaving Fusou, I had spent a great deal of time on ships, and for the entire three days I spent in Mintar, it had felt like the ground was swaying beneath me.
Maybe it was obvious, but traveling by ship came with many problems. First of all, because ships had to carry so much cargo, the amount of water in their stores was limited. It seemed a bit irrational, considering how the ship was always surrounded by water, but seawater and drinking water weren’t the same thing.
I could ask the water spirits for fresh water whenever it suited me, but out of consideration for the thoughts and feelings of the people around me, I couldn’t just casually bathe whenever I felt like it. The most I could do was get enough water to wipe myself down.
There was obviously no forge aboard the ship, so working steel was impossible. Blacksmithing had become my way of making money, but also a hobby. It was an inextricable part of my life. But the last time I had picked up a hammer had been during my stay in Fusou...that is to say, quite a while ago. My urge to create something was starting to grow. It wasn’t unbearable yet, but the craving was certainly made worse by the fact that I couldn’t do it on the ship. Maybe that was just a problem with my personality, though. Impossible things were impossible, after all.
However, just because I couldn’t forge didn’t mean I had no way to spend my time. When it came to practicing my swordsmanship, the constant motion of the ship beneath my feet provided me with a rare challenge I could never find on land. Even standing still required me to focus on keeping myself centered, making me conscious of my movements as I swung my sword in entirely new ways. It was surprisingly fun practice.
Besides that, listening to the wind blowing past me and the waves lapping against the side of the ship brought all sorts of interesting stories to my ears from the spirits. The spirits in the sea told me of the movements of large schools of small fish, or the large predators that hunted them. The spirits in the wind taught me about the lives of people living on distant islands, or the birds flying over the waves. Of course, these stories all came from the perspective of the spirits, so they were vague and abstract. But for some reason, that made them all the more charming and fun to listen to.
As restricted as I was on this voyage, I was still enjoying it.
As I said before, though, I was also getting a craving to go hunting. I really wanted to invest myself in enjoying the prize of freshly downed game. That might have been a very strange impulse for a high elf, but I was a strange high elf, so I doubt it would be much of a surprise to anyone.
I had started getting a little tired of salted meat and fish. One of the challenges of life at sea was getting access to fresh fruit and vegetables, the lack of which threatened scurvy. While it certainly existed in this world, it was known as “Sailor’s Plague,” and was feared all the more due to the lack of knowledge of its origins. But even with the cause of Sailor’s Plague being a mystery to them, the people here still understood that fresh fruit and vegetables could fend it off, so while access to food like that was difficult on long voyages, they always ate them in abundance whenever reaching port.
The issue with meat was entirely one of culinary preference. Especially in port towns, the most popular food near the ocean was always fish, meaning most meals centered around it even when we were on land. All there was to do was bear with it for a little longer.
Once I returned to land, I’d take the opportunity to visit a forest. I didn’t want something light and generic like poultry or crocodile meat, but the strong and distinct meat of a monster, even if it was strangely flavored like that of a greedboar. Getting the chance to put my skills with a bow to work again would also be fun.
Suin had set me up with a ship leaving Mintar that was part of a larger fleet. The fleet had been organized by the kingdom itself, meaning I was on board what was effectively a military vessel. It felt a bit strange to be on a ship that was both a military and trade ship at the same time, but now that I thought about it, I had already had a close enough brush with a ship that was both a military and pirate vessel, so it was a bit late to be complaining.
Among the fleet were some warships brought as an escort. Never mind monsters, most ships from other nations wouldn’t bother a fleet of this size, so there was little risk of running into trouble on the seas. A fleet of any size would still run into trouble if they found themselves in the middle of a storm, but that wouldn’t be an issue while I traveled with them.
The fleet traveled under a warm—or more accurately, quite hot—sun as it sailed effortlessly across the ocean. This was the easiest voyage of my journey so far, but for some reason, that made me feel like something was missing. The thrill of a journey fraught with danger, and its attendant exhilaration, was entirely absent.
Stopping in ports along the way to restock food and supplies, the fleet spent a month traveling around the Man-Eating Swamp and into the center of the continent.
We reached a port on the southern edge of the Azueda Alliance, in a country known as Dolbogarde. Though not to the same scale as the Vilestorika Republic, Dolbogarde still had a thriving trade relationship with the eastern region of the continent. Well, Vilestorika maintained a trade relationship with other continents too, so when it came to sea trade, they really were on an entirely different level.
The fleet I traveled with was ultimately headed for Vilestorika as well, but I decided to disembark here in Dolbogarde. The situation in the center of the continent seemed to have gone through quite some changes in the decades I had been gone, so I wanted to walk through them and see them with my own eyes.
It would slow down my return to visit Kaeha a bit, but at long last, I had returned to the center of the continent. Even if I was a bit delayed, or even took a few extra years to make it home, it made little difference. She had always waited for me, so a little more waiting wouldn’t bother her in the least.