Chapter 404: Before setting sail, tie up loose ends.
=Well that went smoother than anticipated.=
=Looks like the captain is taking to his new ship surprisingly well.=
=And the cabin boy’s brain hasn’t imploded yet from the sudden info dump. I guess the young do learn quicker than the old.=
=… you’re upset that there weren’t more exclamations of shocks, aren’t you?=
=Hard? It took you like five seconds.=
=For the love of-Stop playing ero games before sleeping!=
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A single day.
That was the exact amount the Zhen Clan had to wait until the ship they were taking to get to Roaring Tide, finally fixed whatever was wrong with it.
While a day wasn’t enough to take in all that Pearl Tusk Harbor had to offer from a tourist’s perspective, it was enough time for the clan to get their bearings, enjoy the cuisine and somewhat ease the animosity between the branch and main clans.
While there was still a touch of tension between the two, turns out sharing a drink, a meal and a drunken brawl does wonders in making enemies into friends.
Even patriarch Zhen Shi, Zhen Liu’s grandfather, started to get along better with his counterpart, Zhen Wang. Granted, the former still have the latter a wary eye given the latter’s reputation, but that wasn’t important right now.
It was in this somewhat amicable atmosphere, that unexpectedly, Zhen Li decided to try and “make nice” with the scions of the Zhen Clan.
Albeit, there was a bit of difficulty in that due to a certain Fourth Young Master, not exactly being in the best of moods right now.
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“Good morning, scions of the branch clan.”
“Greetings, Zhen Li. Have you tried this coffee beverage yet?”
“Sup.”
“We got names ya know.”
“I had no idea pastries could be this flaky.”
“Careful with your munching! You almost got crumbs on my shirt.”
“Ugh…”
“Uhh, Zhen Liu? You okay, cousin?”
The scions of the Zhen Clan were currently in the middle of breakfast, enjoying pastries alongside a mysterious new beverage called “coffee”, when Zhen Li came over to their table.
Well, six out of seven of them were enjoying pastries and coffee.
Zhen Liu was looking a bit like a zombie while drinking two cups of coffee simultaneously. It should be noted that these were actually his second and third cup.
“What’s wrong with him?,” Zhen Li asked, noticing the behavior.
“Uhh…”
None of Zhen Liu’s cousins knew how to answer that question, because none of them knew why Zhen Liu was like this either. Luckily, Zhen Liu was somewhat cognizant enough to answer…and not go off the kaijin suggestion council talking in his head.
[Tell them you were saving children, simple as that,] Nepherage advised.
[In…somnia…,] Frosttusk added.
[Got caught up in a wild party and ended up in a singing competition!,] Hurricroak pitched.
[Say you picked up astrology and was too busy stargazing to notice the time,] Razorstella added, now that she could more coherently share her thoughts.
Archanidame and Lacerage, however, did not make any suggestions due to two of them being preoccupied with being Aranea and Lucille.
Evidently, despite all of these surprisingly viable options for a lie, Zhen Liu already had something in mind.
“Couldn’t sleep last night…got caught up in… modifying my puppets.”
“Ah.”
While it was true that Zhen Liu did spend part of the night prior to this morning adjusting the abilities of the kaijin, namely finding arts they could use that could be used at sea in case the local sea monsters get frisky or more realistically pirates, he also spent a lot of last night coordinating the repairs to the warehouse district and one unlucky ship as well as figuring out what to do with those orphan kids the kaijin picked up,Jasper and Janice.
‘On the one hand, happy they’re not the type to eat children and help them out if needed. On the other, mildly annoyed they didn’t ask me about it first. Also, I don’t know if I should be happy or worried that Logos and Pathos decided to take in those kids…then again, they did give me a fairly good reason to leave it to them.’
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{Cores condensation completed.
[Pure Core of Waiting Hope] has been added.
[Pure Core of Wanting Love] has been added.
Please use at your earliest convenience.}
=Poor babies…=
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“…”
“…”
“Mew?”
“If we promise to take care of them, can we keep them?”
*Thwack!*
“Ey!”
“Hurricroak, they’re children, not puppies.”
“Wouldn’t kittens be more accurate?”
“Not the time, Razorstella.”
“Not…wrong…though…”
“Thank you, Frosttusk.”
“Hmmm.”
Zhen Liu sat there on an empty crate, Jin Fang by his side, staring directly at the two little orphan kids and a kitten, that the kaijin had rescued/kidnapped (?)/surprise adopted.
As for the orphans, they were currently sitting in the lap of Hurricroak while the other kaijin were fussing over them. It was honestly kind of adorable, but Zhen Liu didn’t know what to do with them.
He wasn’t angry at the kaijin for rescuing these kids, since he had seen everything due to his connection with the kaijin, but that didn’t mean he knew what the fuck they could do with them.
Evidently, Jin Fang understood this issue as well.
“So what are you going to do?,” Jin Fang asked her boyfriend via aether whispering, “I know Lady Daria has a habit of taking in orphans, evidence being me, but we are way too far from the compound. I know we can use the Library to bring them over, but with the main core of the family being in Roaring Tide, it’ll be hard to convince the others to take in these kids.”
“I know that,” Zhen Liu replied, “but we can’t take them all the way to Roaring Tide with us, it’s too dangerous for that. But…I also can’t just ditch them here either.”
‘Especiallly since I got a pair of weird cores off of them,’ Zhen Liu quietly told himself.
Luckily for him, there was another solution that he didn’t see coming.
=We can take them in,= Logos chimed in.
‘Say what?’
‘Right…’
‘Wait, what?’
=It’s not a commonly known fact, but mortals with no energy production like them are able to conduct and store the more…exotic types of energy like [Chaos] and [Fate], as well as aether and anima.=
‘Is…is it safe to assume one of my predecessors had something to do with that?’
=Surprisingly, not that time…well not directly, they helped the guy who actually overthrew that tyrant, but back to the matter at hand, these kids have the channels but no aether, meaning they can learn the [Chaos] formulas without much backlash for their part.=
‘Huh…I feel like I should question the sudden lore dump I just got…but there are pair of needy children that need an answer to their well-being right now, so I will address this later.’
<=Good choice.=>
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“Jasper…are we getting adopted?,” Janice asked her older brother.
“I don’t know, Janice…,” Jasper replied.
The two of them stared at this strange young man known as Zhen Liu as he sat there, muttering to himself.
From what Jasper could remember from Hurricroak possessing him, this guy was the one who created her and the other kaijin.
While the kaijin seemed to have a fairly positive impression of the man, Jasper wasn’t the type to become easily swayed by the opinions of others, even if those others were sharing a brain with him at the time.
“Alright. I have come to a decision,” Zhen Liu suddenly said aloud as he stood from the crate and walked over to the door of a different warehouse.
From his pockets, Zhen Liu produced a strange black key and inserted it into the lock of the door.
As he turned the key to the door to open the door, a strange wave of energy washed over the area but only for a brief moment.
Once the door had fully open, Jasper and Janice saw that on the other side was definitely not the inside of a warehouse.
“Jasper! What is that?,’ Janice asked in wonder.
Jasper on the other hand was stunned silent at the sight, for he did know what this place was, but only in a vague sense that he couldn’t quite explain.
Thankfully for him, Zhen Liu was going to answer her for him.
“On the other side of this door is the Library of Nowhere,” Zhen Liu declared with a calm voice, “I am giving you two a choice. I can give you a decent amount of money to live quietly here for a few years, living a life you know, until you can figure out your next move…or, you can take a chance, brave the unknown and walk through the door. The choice is yours.”
The two children were shocked at this statement, because for the first time in their life, they had a choice.
“What should we…do?”
