Foraging

It had already been a few days since I met Mythria. I decided to let her live with me for the time being as there really wasn’t anywhere she could go. There was also the matter of her amnesia which caused her lack of general knowledge about the World. I may be heartless enough to let the World below perish, but for reasons I found difficult to articulate, I couldn’t leave this girl alone.

Mythria and I had only just finished eating breakfast moments ago, so I was washing the dishes all the while letting herself be silent. It was as if she didn’t want to be a nuisance to me. It was great, but it made me curious as to how she was doing whenever these times of silence arrived. I took a glance at her from the side. She was just there, looking like she was staring at something from a very faraway place, except in reality, she really was just staring into empty space. Nobody knew what was going through her mind, but she certainly looked bored. After all, our routine had been just eating, talking a little, and resting.

Truth be told, I was waiting to hear from her, but she might just be too thoughtful for her own good. Perhaps she was minding her freeloader status too deeply. That was why I decided to make the first move, because otherwise, we would continue to live like this for who knows how long.

Mythria was sitting at a chair situated around a small round-shaped table in the living room. Again, she was doing nothing, so I decided to sit in front of her after I was done with my earlier activity.

“Say, would you like to take a walk outside?”

I asked.

“I-if you’ve got nothing else to do, then… Sure.”

She was fidgety with shyness as she replied to me. It seemed like she never really got used to me, but then again, it had only been a few days since we first met, so I could understand.

“You don’t have to be so nervous around me.” I said in a joking tone.

“No, it’s not that… I just….”

She couldn’t quite make up her mind if she was going to speak or keep herself shut, but it was fun, so I continued.

“You just what?”

She looked down with a pout,

“I’m just…”

I looked at her straight in the face, unmoving like a stone statue. That may have triggered her a little too much for she shouted at me.

“I feel embarrassed whenever I remember the time you named me..!”

But it didn’t make sense to me.

“What is there to be embarrassed about? I only gave you a name, unless you didn’t like it.”

“Of course I like it! What happened next is what I’m embarrassed about!”

She spoke with a panicked >.< face.

Okay, I’m not dense enough to not get what she was saying. It was about the hug. Her overexcitement about being named compelled her to embrace me tightly, which caused her to feel embarrassed whenever she was reminded of it.

I mean, what’s wrong with having one or two dark memories? Even I have some of those. Nothing unnatural.

I told myself.

“Well, are we going or not?”

“We go!”

And so, it had been decided that we would go for a walk.

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I know I said we would go for a walk, but I actually wanted to teach her a couple of things so that she may have some knowledge about how things work. It would probably help her confidence if she could help me do certain things instead of me having to do everything by myself.

One of the very first things I thought of was harvesting fruits and foraging for things like mushrooms and medicinal herbs. Since the island garden is already nearby, I decided to bring her here before anywhere else.

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Sanctum Paradis, or in other words, the large floating island where the two of us are living on, has a huge garden blessed with an assortment of all fruits and flowers the world below has to offer, with the added benefit of still having some of the already long-extinct species of plants. There are only a few of each specific type of specimen, but their products grow extremely quickly. As an example, I could make about a hundred bottles of wine on an individual grape vine within a week. That’s most definitely impossible in the World below.

I don’t particularly enjoy these activities anymore, but there are very few things I can do while cooped up within this island like a shut-in for who knows how many years already, so they pass the time for me.

Alright, enough about my inner monolog.

“I’m introducing to you this island’s one and only garden!”

I clapped a few times for no reason in particular while Mythria made “whooaaa” sounds with her mouth agape paired with eyes sparkling from the curiosity.

“There are so many different kinds of fruits! Waaahhh, what a grand-looking garden!”

She said, prompting me to reply with,

“It’s not just a grand-looking garden. It’s an actual grand garden.”

Her eyes then found themselves looking at some grapes.

“Say, say, what do you call this fruit? Is it edible? Is it delicious?!”

She pointed at the vines as she attacked me with a barrage of adorable questions.

“It’s just your average grapes, but it still tastes really great given that it grows here. Yes, it’s edible. Want to try eating some?”

She nodded with enthusiasm. She tried placing her hand on a cluster of grapes, but soon stopped moving as if she was hit by a realization.

“H-how do you pick this fruit?”

Okay, so there was no risk of damage to any of the island’s properties as the island was quite special, but I wanted to teach her at least a little properly because I doubt she’d be staying here for the rest of her life. It would be better if she had a bit of real knowledge.

“Use this to snip the whole grape cluster off the vine.”

I handed her some sharp scissors for her fruit-picking activity. She initially felt anxious about making a mistake as can be seen from her indecision and trembling hands. She didn’t know at what angle she should cut, or what part she was supposed to do it.

“Don’t worry, mistakes are common among newbies. Just do it and you’ll feel great afterward.”

I encouraged her with a thumbs up.

She resolved herself and finally managed to do it, giving her a huge smile of satisfaction as she held the grape cluster in her hand. She raised her arms and took the grape closer to her face, but then for some reason she kept innocently tilting her head left and right.

“Where should I start eating?”

I could only give an “Ahaha” as a reply. How can this girl be so cute, I wonder? Even though I have already grown somewhat desensitized to emotions due to my long years of living, I can objectively tell that this girl in front of me really is a blessing from the heavens ( probably )

“Just eat it at your own pace, wherever you want to start. It’s probably best to start at the very bottom, though. And you can also individually pick each grape out of the cluster by gently twisting the stems.”

She did as I suggested and began her taste-testing journey.

“It’s so sweet! It tastes heavenly!”

Heavenly, huh? I no longer associate *heaven* for anything good, but she’s different. She is yet to be *tainted*

I spoke in my head all the while subconsciously giving a subtle smile as I gaze upon this Existence of Purity.

“I’m glad you like it. We’ll go pick more types of fruits and flowers after you’re done with your grapes.”

And so, I showed her a variety of fruits ranging from the common ones like Apples, to the rarer ones like the spikeberry. I also let her pick flowers before making our way to the forest where we will forage for mushrooms and some herbs that can only be found there.

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A huge forest bearing seemingly countless numbers and types of trees welcomed us after more or less an hour of walking. It wasn’t actually all that big, but when you are in the midst of many towering trees, it feels as if the World is filled with nothing but forestry.

“Whooaaaa!! The garden is beautiful, but the forest is also grand-looking in a different way! This is amazing, hey, Zel, this is amazing!!”

“Just like with the garden, this forest is not just grand-looking. It is quite literally a grand forest in its own right. Yep, it’s amazing. But wait, when did you start calling me with a nickname?”

My question went unanswered as Mythria’s excitement got the hang of her. She already ran off somewhere and started picking something off the ground close to a large tree. I saw her twisting something off the ground that looked like it had a disc-shaped cap. It had a generally brown color with innumerable small black dots all around its cap. It was most definitely a type of poisonous mushroom which people back in the day used to adorably call brownie. Without the slightest bit of hesitation, I saw Mythria slowly but surely placing the mushroom close to her face. After smelling it a few times and finding that there’s nothing wrong with it, guess what? She swallowed it whole! Oh my! That’s poisonous, you know?!

I hurriedly came after her and told her to stop, going as far as shaking her. She didn’t budge. Her face looked like a squirrel having stocked a lot of food inside their cheeks, bulging.

“Ish Delcius”

She spoke a language alien to me.

“Throw it up or your brain might melt!”

The brain-melting part is an over exaggeration, but that mushroom was still moderately poisonous. It might not cause her death, but it’ll cause her quite the suffering.

“What’s a brain?”

She swallowed the mushroom that she was chewing just moments ago, tilted her head, and asked me a stupid question.

“It’s the organ responsible for quite literally every function in your body. Lose it and you’re deader than dead.”

She let out an “eh?!” as she held her head with both her hands. She initially had a panicked expression, but then she had a realization.

“But I’m not hurting…”, followed by a bright smile that would put even the Sun to shame.

Oh, really now. Isn’t that one hell of a sturdy body…. Well, whatever. No point in panicking if I can easily cure her. The effect of the poison wouldn’t even really be felt until the mushroom is almost fully digested, so we have time to synthesize potions.

I decided not to waste time and described to her the appearance of the herbs she’ll try to find and collect, and let her pick them as she liked. I also gave her a book about phytomedicine so she could start learning how to make use of the herbs she picked which we brought back home with us. In the end, the poison from the mushroom never really took effect.

Soon enough, the day would end, and the two of us would head to rest. That night, I had a dream. A ridiculously realistic dream to the point it might as well have been real. A dream containing information I didn't expect to come so quickly. A dream of sorrow and longing.