The first floor was considerably better than the second floor. First class of sorts. Most people on the first floor were somewhat rich and full of themselves. But some weren't that bad. In fact, the most rich were the most humble. The middle of the pack rich was the arrogant bunch.
Some of the really rich ladies offered me cookies and tea every now and then but Den didn't let me go. He'd say "They might decide to eat you too," but I had no idea what he was talking about. I guess, you could have called me cute but steal me? Rich ladies of all people. He was probably just jealous himself or something. Surely, he wasn't suggesting those ladies would use me for sexual purposes or something. Heh, as if people were that depraved.
A literal shiver went down my spine as I considered the possibilities and immediately just erased the thought.
Anyway, I wanted to spend some time reading my book but Den had issues with that too. He asked me to read the book only once I'd reached the dorms and alone. Apparently, this ship wasn't necessarily that safe either.
Sigh. So, there wasn't much to do. And I'd basically spoken to most of the staff and people here.
"You could maybe hang out with the kids?" Den said.
"Maybe, but I kind of don't want to," I said. The few kids here were rich kids. I could probably pretend to be rich too and fit in, but I didn't really want to.
I stared out the half-drowned window. The sea was still pretty green but lately it was getting bluer. I never saw any fish, but I did see some floating Lilypad like things. wait, lily pad?
"Den," I said. "What are those?"
The ship came to a crippling halt not soon after.
Den let out an exaggerated sigh. "The Lily Field. On rare occasions, ships get caught in it."
"Means we're stranded?"
"No, means, we'll be stuck here for an extra day."
Argh!
Fuck!
Still, with Den I went to the deck and quite a few others also had the same idea.
The Lily Field, as Den said, was a field of lilies for literal miles on all sides. Just the leaves; roughly ten times bigger than the stuff I'd seen in my last life. I didn't see any actual lilies. There were a bunch of staff members at the front end of the ship, carefully getting the lilypads out of the ship's course with giant oars. "Why not just run through them?"
"Some merfolk inhabit this place. They're easily offended."
"I see."
Not just me, quite a few of the passengers had similar concerns and urged the staff members to just plow through. Of course, they did no such thing. Before long the Captain made his appearance and explained things. Now that I thought about it, it wasn't that the captain was just some lazy ass who never showed up but rather, he just didn't seem like a captain and I might or might not have just discarded the fact that he could even be the captain.
My bad I guess.
That aside though, watching the lilypads and occasional movement was sort of fun. Just below those waters, a village or maybe even a city was bustling as we passed by. There were actual people down there, underwater. I couldn't help but wonder how a civilization could even be possible underwater. "Do they all look like those fish people earlier?"
"Some look pretty humanlike actually," Den said. "I'd once met a really pretty lady," he chuckled.
"How pretty?"
"Prettier than Lin actually."
Coming from him, probably meant the lady was gorgeous as hell. "Hopefully, I'll meet one someday too."
"Don't get your hopes too high though. They might look pretty but their assets are nonexistent," Den sighed. "Flat chests, barely any meat on the bottom. They don't even have-" He stopped outright. He proceeded to laugh really loudly and awkwardly. Dude apparently realized he was talking about boobs and butts to a five-year-old. Heh.
"What's so funny?" Alastur showed up. I actually hadn't seen him all week. He was given a quarter on the first floor but he was never there.
"Den's sad because pretty merladies don't have assets. Are they that poor?"
"There are dungeons in the oceans. But strong fiends guard those, so merfolk in general don't go wandering or searching. The ocean also has vast sources of gold and other precious things but again, guarded by strong fiends. So, for all intents and purposes, yes, they are poor."
Wow, I was not expecting that. I took the dude to be the quiet and cool type of dude but he was clearly seeking company. Or maybe I was just a bad judge of character. Considering I got murdered by my best friend, yeah, the latter was probably true.
Well, now things were just plain awkward. We watched the lilypads and eventually those were behind us. "I do hope one day, I could meet one," I said. "Those pretty ladies you spoke about."
"Hmm… interested in pretty ladies?" Den smirked.
"No, I'm just curious how they're different from those fishpeople earlier. And why you'd go as far as to claim they are prettier than Mom."
"Huh." He shrugged. And we went back inside since there wasn't much to do.
The journey lasted one more day, and on the eve of the seventh day, we reached our destination. The port city of Xanir. The port was roughly twice as large as Axel and they had way, way more ships here. Some bigger than our one. Their lighting system already surpassed everything I'd seen so far and we hadn't even entered the damn city!
"This way," Den grabbed me, and with our things in toe, I bid farewell to the crew and made out of the ship.
The captain and the rest waved. Wait- Dude didn't buy me lunch!
Argh!
But anyway- finally, some damn fresh air! And lots of swaying! Yeah, the world around me swayed and it was kind of amusing to walk in a straight line. Mostly because I couldn't walk straight. I felt drunk, literally. Den too, ha hah.