It seemed he was wrong. The food literally tasted like crap! Arthur wondered if this was the dish that people with blue blood usually tasted every day? Or maybe the standard was too high. Or maybe the cooks on this ship did a bad job. But Della and her servant weren't bothered at all, they actually looked like they were enjoying themselves!
The salt was barely there, the sauce was completely absent, and the meat of what was supposed to be a steak tasted like cardboard. Not to mention, the portions were really small when compared to the portions one usually get at the faculty's canteen. He might have a small appetite, but even the portions in this place weren't enough to cure his hunger. He looked at Della and Selena again. No wonder Della had a thin body.
"What is it?" Selena asked noticing the expression on Arthur's face.
"No —" Arthur said as he shoveled a piece of meat into his mouth. As bad as the food was, he still had to eat it to survive until dinner time.
They didn't say anything for the next 10 minutes. Everyone was completely focused on eating. Arthur looked at Della who seemed to really enjoy the cake in front of her. If he wasn't mistaken, the cake was called 'strawberry shortcake'. It sounded delicious, but Arthur guessed that it wouldn't taste much different from the steak he was eating — trash.
"Mmm~, so delicious. It's rare for me to eat a cake as good as this!" Della said while wiping her mouth with a napkin. "I want to order again~."
"Better not, Miss. Or master will make you have to take extra lessons again," Selena reminded, making Della have a sullen face. "We'll order it another time, okay? But not today,".
"Fine~," she agreed sulkily.
Arthur was stunned. What was wrong with letting a child eat cake as she pleased? After all, that didn't mean they were limited by their finances, right? Was it because of the nutritional content? Arthur knew that cake didn't have the most ideal nutritional content for growing children, but did any parents think that? Unless her parents were really strict —
"Hey, Arthur. You're spacing out. You haven't spoken a word since before!" Della said.
"I have nothing to say," Arthur muttered as he chewed on the meat. He still hadn't finished his food either. "And again, I'm still eating."
"You're not with anyone are you?"
"How do you know that?".
"You are alone now!"
Arthur was silent for a moment. "You won't ask where my parents are?"
"Well, I'm also only with Selena anyway, so we are the same, hehehe~."
Wait, how? As for himself, Arthur had his Professor's invitation letter. But how did an ordinary little girl like her get here?
As if having read Arthur's mind, Della said, "At first, my father wanted to come with me, but he couldn't because he had a job. Because I didn't want to miss this opportunity, I used my father's invitation to come here,".
"In short, you stole it," Arthur got straight to the point.
"More like replacing," Della corrected. "After all, Sellie is here! I'll be fine!"
"It would be much easier if you weren't running around every 20 minutes, Miss," Selena said, sipping her glass elegantly.
"Then what about you?" Della asked, completely ignoring her servant and also guard. "What's the reason for you to be here?"
"Same reason as you, I — um — replaced my professor," Arthur said. "He said I'll definitely be fine so he's not worried about me,".
"So it seems," muttered Della.
Arthur looked at Della's face. He had always felt that there was something strange about this little girl with an unchildlike way of speaking. From earlier her face kept attracting Arthur's attention, but his mind kept getting distracted by strange things from this other girl. But still, that familiar face still could not be ignored.
"Daphne —" Arthur muttered.
"Eh?"
"Nothing," Arthur replied as if no name came out of his mouth.
But Arthur still wondered whether the little girl in front of him had any connection with that relative of Professor Southwind. Because in the first place, this child couldn't be Daphne. Daphne was not blind, her hair color was also different.
And finally, Arthur preferred to eat back the cardboard meat on his plate rather than thinking about weird things.
********************
If his stomach wasn't raging for food, Arthur swore he wouldn't come out of his room. He just ate at 3 o'clock earlier, why was his stomach already begging for more food? Well, to be honest, the cardboard steak was not a sufficient source of nutrition.
"It's 7 o'clock now —" Arthur muttered. It was already time for dinner. Arthur couldn't help but finally moved his feet unsteadily towards the cabin door.
Unlike earlier in the afternoon, there were quite a number of people hanging around the hallways now. Maybe because most of the activities on board such as theater and orchestra performances are carried out at night. Arthur saw small children running in the hallway, making Arthur thought again of the little blind girl he had just met this afternoon. After eating, he and the girl separated. Well, Arthur doubted they'd ever meet again.
******************
Thanks to his photographic memory, Arthur had completely memorized where the restaurant was. Unlike before, now the place was filled with people who are enjoying and waiting for their night. Although Arthur wondered how they could enjoy such food.
As he walked into the restaurant, a waiter immediately guided him to his seat. Arthur was finally able to enjoy the service he was supposed to get on that ship. At least that was the only positive thing he had experienced about this cruise.
His seat in the restaurant was a luxurious chair behind a large round table. There were six seats there, and out of all the seats, only two were occupied — excluding the chair Arthur was sitting on which made a total of three seats filled. The two seats were occupied by an old man in his seventies or eighties who was wearing a luxurious suit and an old woman in a beautiful dress who sat next to him. It seemed like she was his wife.
"Excuse me —" Arthur said as he sat down in his chair. He didn't want to pay too much attention to the couple who were talking. After all, why were the chairs and tables in this restaurant shaped like this? Arthur was really annoyed that they didn't have individual seats meant for one person only. With tables and chairs like this, of course, social communication between two or more people couldn't be avoided. And sadly, Arthur was the last person who wanted that.
But unfortunately, Arthur's hopes were gone when the woman sitting in front of him seemed to be aware of his existence. "Are you waiting for your parents, child?" Asked the woman with the fat body who sounded worried. "Why are you alone?"
Arthur smiled forcedly as he heard the same question over and over again as if there was no better question. "Please don't worry, Madam. I'm fine," Arthur immediately changed his way of speaking to a more formal one. He always did this to people much older and more senior than him.
"Oh, what's your name, child?" asked the Woman.
"Ah, forgive me for my impudence, my name is Arthur —"
"Wait a minute, Arthur? Arthur Rolyn?" Suddenly her husband said. "You're Arthur Rolyn aren't you?"
Arthur felt like covering his face deeply and running back to the room when he realized who the person in front of him was. He was Professor Herman Spott, renowned for his accomplishments in the world of architecture where he also spearheaded the renovation of the Virion Library 50 years ago and made it what it was today.
"It's Professor Spott apparently. Forgive me for just realized it was you, I heard a lot of good things about you," said Arthur.
"You too, Mr Rolyn. Isn't this the first time we've met? I heard about you from Charles." Mr Spott smiled pleasantly. Arthur was stunned, he actually knew Professor Southwind! "He talked a lot about his students having a hobby of going back and forth to the library — and as the person who made the design, I'm really flattered."
"Honey? Do you know this child?" asked his wife confused.
"Ohoho! Of course, Velma. This child is a prodigy who has broken the record for reading all the books in Virion's library," said Mr Spott in full praise of Arthur.
"The whole book? Where did you hear about that, Professor? The news you heard is too exaggerated. I only read about forty percent of it," basically, it was impossible to read two hundred million books in 4 years, even if it was Arthur Rolyn who could read and absorb the contents of 7 to 8 books in a matter of seconds.
"That can still be said to be impossible, little Rolyn," said Mrs Spott in a mixture of admiration and disbelief. And it was. Only this book-allied person who was jobless chose to waste 4 years of his life in a giant library.
"How do you do that, Mr Rolyn? For ages, the one who broke the record before you was Virion Courtenay himself who had read a total of forty million books at the age of eighty!" exclaimed Mr Spott. And it didn't help at all. He was, basically, just comparing one nerd to another. It seemed that people like them have nothing else to do beside spending time in the library.
"There is a trick in itself, Professor," replied Arthur, who was lazy to explain how he did things that were beyond human reason.
"I see. Don't worry, Mr Rolyn. I won't share your secret," said Mr. Spott trying to persuade Arthur.
"That's not the problem —"
It was fortunate that Mr Spott finally stopped forcing Arthur to reveal all his secrets when a man of a similar age to Mr Spott — only slightly younger — came in with a waiter to show him where to sit. He was walking with a cane to support his completely hunchbacked body, and his face looked like someone a child would be afraid of.
But his gloomy face immediately turned radiant when he saw Mr Spott there. He grinned broadly, showing barely any teeth, and said, "Herman!"
"Peter!" The two old men who seemed to know each other then embraced each other as if it had been a long time since they saw each other. "It's been a long time, where have you been?" ask Mr Spott as he returned to his seat. The old man too, sat on Arthur's left, between the boy and Mr Spott.
"The last time was 10 years ago in Aemena, right? My goodness, you looked much healthier than before."
"You too, Peter."
After that, the man's attention then turned to Mrs Spott. "Oh, is this Velma? My goodness, still as bright as ever, isn't she? Herman is lucky to have a partner like you," he praised.
"Oh, thank you very much, Peter. How about your children? Are they all right?" ask Mrs Spott who seemed pleased with the compliment from Peter.
"Dory just gave birth to her third child last month — unexpectedly that the little one who used to love fishing in the river would become a good mother," Peter answered talking about his youngest child. "Kenny and his family now live in ChenLu, and Adam is on an expedition to the deeper lands of Alkeba — that kid, even though he is over thirty, he still doesn't want to get married."
"It seems that your children do have an adventurous spirit, right, Peter?" said Mrs Spott before she also then told about their children and grandchildren to the extent that Arthur, who was also at the table, could only be silent and lost in thought, waiting for the elderlies to finish talking.
"Then what about this child, Herman? Is he one of your grandchildren?" Arthur, who had almost fallen asleep, immediately regained consciousness when Peter's attention was diverted to him.
"Hahaha! Of course not Peter. This kid is Arthur Rolyn, he is also a student at Virion," said Mr Spott before he turned to Arthur. "Mr Rolyn, this man is Peter Quill, you may know him as the person who wrote the book 'Diversity of Flora and Fauna in Alkeba'."
Arthur nodded. There was no way he wouldn't recognize who Peter Quill was. He once read one of his books because it was recommended by Dominic Wilberg who was totally obsessed with animal research.
"Virion? I didn't expect to see someone as young as you as a student there, what is your course of study?" Peter asked, raising an eyebrow while looking at Arthur in disbelief.
"Err — biology, sir," replied Arthur.
"Biology? Oh, that's also the course I took when I was in Virion. It was so long ago, how many years ago was that?" said Peter as he immediately became nostalgic again.
"By the way, Peter, what have you been up to lately?" asked Mr Spott.
"Oh! Of course, there's something I've been researching," said Peter. "Regarding the plague that recently appeared in Eandalus," Arthur's attention was quickly focused on what Peter said.
"Plague? I don't think that's your area of expertise?" ask Mr Spott in confusion.
"To be more precise, it's not the plague that I'm researching, but the source of the plague, which turns out to be sea creatures whose cells are mutating for reasons that haven't been found yet."
Arthur raised an eyebrow as the topic turned to plague. His attention was immediately drawn to the two elders' conversation in their respective subjects.
"But it's not like I'm really going to have a hand in this research, I'm too old for that," Peter said, wiping his glasses. "Besides, I just got a young assistant who can be said to be quite proficient in his field,"
"Assistant?".
"Yeah, he graduated from Virion too. I think his name is Dominic Wilberg."
Arthur who was about to say something when he heard a familiar name suddenly stopped when the waiters brought foods to their table. Even the two people who were supposed to occupy the two seats had not yet arrived.
"Oh, the foods look delicious," said Mrs Spott while tasting the warm soup in front of her. "Herman, you try this!"
"You're right, Velma," the two very loving old couple sampled each other's dishes. "Peter, I think we should put this conversation on hold until we've finished eating. Sheesh, I think my stomach may have been rumbling."
"Of course, pal," Peter then looked at Arthur. "Child, your food will get cold if you keep staring at it," he said to the boy who had only spent time staring at the beef soup in front of him.
"Yes —" Arthur answered hesitantly as he shoveled the food into his mouth. He had a bad feeling, as if something bad was going to happen. There shouldn't be anything right? It was just plain soup.
But it seemed those feelings didn't lie to him as Arthur's gaze felt like it was spinning, as if the earth and sky had become interchanged. Arthur glanced around, what exactly was going on? But before he could wonder, his small body fell to the floor.