After picking a quest they leave the Guild and Melissa experiences a train for the first time.
After riding the train, they arrive at the parking garage. Taking the omnidirectional elevator, they arrive at the Chimera's parking space.
"Woah…" Mel says, wowed by the Chimera, the first ship she's ever seen.
"That's my baby, the Chimera!" exclaims Tholl, proudly, "She's built by me with an assortment of different ship parts that I've collected over time, hence the name."
"The name?"
"Chimera, it's an artificial beast created by the Demonlord on Old Earth, like a thousand years ago. It's made up of other beasts like a lion, a goat, a snake, sometimes it even has wings. I'd like to see one, one day, but they only exist in zoos on Old Earth, so…"
"That does sound pretty cool."
"Right!"
"Mel, don't encourage him, he won't ever shut up." Ark buts in to stop the potential fanboying ramble.
A small boarding ramp extends from the front left side of the Chimera and they walk on board. Ark shows Mel around the ship. The ship is split into 3 distinct sections, with 3 floors. The front section has the living quarters, with 8 small single bedrooms, a recreational room with sofas and televisions and a kitchen and dining room.
The middle section is the thickest of the 3 with a 2 floor high loading area with an openable floor at the bottom. It has enough space to store a small ship. The third floor of the middle section has the armoury and an observatory at the top with rotational cannons attached.
The back section has a large ramp attached to the storage area of the middle section. Above the ramp is the Space magic storage room with several km2 of storage space that exists in a warped space so it only takes up one small room on the ship. Next to the Space magic storage room is the engine room which is connected to the 2 big thrusters at the back and the 4 smaller VTOL thrusters at the bottom. The engine uses mana as an energy source which is powered by liquid mana created from magic stones and crystals. Above these 2 rooms is a cylindrical tube connected to the middle section that extends out the back horizontally to connect to other ships while in space.
In the middle and front section are elevators that transport people to the different floors, there are also ladders in case the elevators cease functioning. At the front of the ship is the cockpit that sticks out. In the cockpit, there are various consoles with different functions like managing the support systems, firing the cannons and flying the ship. The consoles are arranged like a triangle with the flight console in the middle at the front and the other consoles behind it to the left and right.
After the tour, Ark shows Melissa to her bedroom which is next to Elsa's and separated from the boys' bedrooms before they go to the cockpit where the rest of the crew are preparing to depart.
When they all strap into their seats, the Chimera takes off and maneuvers slowly out of the parking space and up. They ascend aside other adventurer ships that are also either parking or leaving the garage. Out the top, Mel looks out the window in amazement and the even better view of the bright white city below them.
The Chimera joins a queue of other ships, including merchant, adventurer and transport ships, all lining up in an orderly fashion up to the sky where a massive ring is floating above the atmosphere.
Rising high at a slow and steady pace, the Chimera finally starts to leave the atmosphere and before long they enter inside the ring with many other ships.
"What's that?" Mel asks about the massive ring in the sky.
"That's a Space Attribute Wormhole Generator, they allow us to travel several hundred lightyears in a few hours, incredible devices powered by magic." Tholl, the space geek, explains, "Without them, it would take years to go from planet to planet, and hundreds of years to travel across galaxies, they are super important. Be prepared though, the first time you go through one, it might make you throw up." He laughs.
After waiting in the ring, the space in front of their ship starts to distort in a circle and the Chimera lurches forward and appears to disappear into thin air to the ships behind it but what actually happened is that they've entered Warp Space.
As predicted, Mel precedes to vomit into a bin prepared next to her seat. Ark unstraps and goes to help her.
"It's okay, you're alright now, don't worry, it happens on everyone's first time." Ark tries his best to reassure her while patting her on the back. Elsa comes over to help her.
"Come along, I'll show you to the bathroom where you can freshen up." Elsa says while putting her hand out to Mel. Mel takes her hand and they walk to the bathroom together.
"Alright, after she's recovered, I think it's best if I show her how to fight. With her mana, it should come easy to her. About her light attribute, I think I'll have to get out the book." Ark says to Tholl.
"Are you going to show her that?" Tholl asks.
"...No, I don't think that's necessary, or a good idea."
******
Ark leads Melissa into the middle section loading space where there are 2 metal crates that make suitable seats.
"Alrighty. Sit on a box, Mel, I'll be right back." Ark says.
Mel goes and sits on one of the metal crates at the side of the room. After sitting down, she watches Ark as he approaches a door at the side of the room labelled 'Elevator'. He presses a button on the side and the elevator *pings* and the door swiftly slides to the side and he enters.
The door closes behind him and Mel is left alone in the room. She looks around while swinging her legs. Realising this is the first time she has been alone since the hospital, the sudden realisation of the strange events that have happened to her suddenly hit.
"Just yesterday, I was with my parents, struggling to survive, and now, I'm an adventurer flying through space on a spaceship. It feels like a dream." She thinks to herself while pinching her cheek again to check if it's a dream.
She winces from the pain, "Still not a dream…" she confirms. Kinda bored, she gets up from the metal crate and begins to walk around the room, looking at the various devices connected to the walls and the messy selection of other small crates, filled with items, scattered messily around the room. After looking around for witnesses, she opens some of the crates and rummages around. There aren't any special items in the boxes, just random ship parts and unidentifiable gadgets.
As she walks around, suddenly, she senses something strange from the corner of the room. Confused, because she doesn't see anything, she heads towards it.
She brushes her hand across the rough dark grey metal wall of the ship. Moving her hand across it, it slowly starts to warm up in one small area. Unable to suppress her curiosity, her hand glides towards the centre of the heat. Feeling a small indentation, she touches it…
"I'm back, Mel!" Ark suddenly calls out as he exits the elevator. Mel, surprised, moves away from the wall quickly and goes to greet Ark.
"Hello, Ark!" she says, excitedly, to try to cover up her sneaking.
Ark notices her moving away from the corner and squints his eyes suspiciously before brushing it off.
"I've brought down some weapons from the armoury, so it's time to do some learning!" he says enthusiastically while holding a sheathed sword, a pistol and a shotgun in his arms, "I'm going to teach you how to harness mana and imbue it into objects, how cool is that!"
"Yes… it's very cool…"
"Absolutely, I mean, I don't know how it works, it is almost like magic!"
"I thought it was magic?" Mel asks, confused.
Hearing this, Ark's eyes widen and his mouth becomes agape, as if he has heard some sort of revelation. "By the gods! That makes so much sense…" he taps his forehead with a grin on his face.
Mel smiles and chuckles lightly at the humorous attitude of her teacher. Seeing this, Ark feels proud.
He puts the weapons he is holding onto one of the metal crates before walking over to Mel, who is currently standing in the middle of the room. He unholsters one of his revolvers, pops out the cylinder and empties out all the bullets into his hand before popping the cylinder back in. "Catch!" he shouts while passing the revolver to Mel.
"Woah…" Mel exclaims while catching the flying gun with both hands. She examines the gun in her hands. It appears to be a normal revolver with a thick metal handle, meant for bigger hands than hers, a hammer above connected to the trigger, protected by a trigger guard, below and the cylinder bulging out both sides of the gun. On the top is a small ironsight that looks to be difficult to use. At the front of the gun are 2 long barrels with the one below the other being shorter and lacking a hole at the end. The whole gun is made of a dark metal which is contrasted to the patterned gold embedded across it.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" she asks, confused.
"Fire it, of course!"