Chapter 35: Vacation
[Edited By: Arthur300000]
[Vandalized again By: Branya]
[Saved by: ArchmageNaoki]
"What happened?" My sister noticed my distressed expression.
"I forgot my computing device on my bed." I looked down, dejected.
"You mean this?" With a smug face, she showed the elusive white alien in her arms.
"Thanks, Sis!" I hugged her and took my PC back. I thought I'd have to spend five days without por-. I mean research material...
As I boot up the PC to check the map, I noticed the significant drain from the device. It appears that to have both my mom and PC draining my Magicka at the same time is too much even for my regeneration rate. I think I could hold on like this for a few hours, but it felt uncomfortable to have my magical energy continuously drain at this rate. So I only boot up the PC from time to time to check the map as I enjoy the scenery outside.
It was like a dream to ride a car through the exotic terrain of the fantasy world. As I was a hardcore shut in for my entire life, I never travel much. I only see pictures of them. Also, the scenery on the floating island winter is just white blankets everywhere. So, this is a first time for me to experience the grandeur of this fantasy world.
"Look it's a wind dragon." While I was trying to take a picture of the beautiful scenery, my mom points at a moss covered mountain to my left. I tried to locate the dragon for a while with my enhanced vision until I noticed that the mountain itself is a dragon when it moves.
"Is it safe?" I worried because that thing made Skyrim's dragon look like a flying chicken. Due to its size, I believe we would only have a few seconds at best after it decides to pursue us. The knowledge made my body tense up unconsciously.
"It should be. We made a nonaggression pact with them almost hundred years ago. However, if we get too close, an accident could occur like they could sit without noticing us." My dad explained.
"Won't they accidently step on a road or a town?" Considering its size, it's highly possible.
"That's why before anyone going to build anything in this region, they have to gain the joint approval first. And to this date, no such accident has occurred." My brother answered. A joint dragon and human council? In the future, I should think twice before rebuking anyone who said "I'm a dragon." in the internet chat session.
After a long drive through bushes, thickets, jungles, forests, and exotic unorderly assortments of grasslands of all sorts of colors, my dad parked the car at a clearing in the middle of nowhere. I already confirmed the route we took with my pre-downloaded map, and It appears he knows what he's doing. Right now, we're a bit off from the main path, but everyone began to feel hungry, so my dad took us for lunch at a beautiful meadow.
It's a beautiful place full of colorful flowers and butterflies. The grass and flowers are really tall, coming to around my knee to my thigh level. Led by a magical flying pig, we wade our way through the sea of flowers and butterflies to find a perfect resting spot. Sometimes a strong gust of wind blew past us and brought a lot of beautiful flower petals up into the air. It was like a scene from a well-made computer graphic movie. Well, it was wonderful until we noticed the petals stuck on our heads and clothes. I could easily shake them off, and my brother seems to not care about it. Mom though appears to have some difficulty removing them, but my dad just said: "You look even more beautiful."
My sister? I don't know. She seems to be preoccupied with something when we exited the car and said: "I'll follow you later!"
We found the perfect spot on some high ground under the shade of a large lone tree. We set up a mattress and a BBQ stove there. The view is breathtakingly beautiful, I could see a snowy mountain peak and a mirror-like lake from far away, and the sky was so clear. It was hard to believe that we walk far enough from our car for it to look like a tiny black dot. The sea of multicolored flowers dancing along with the soothing wind surrounded us. There is a small river nearby from the far away mountain in the opposite direction of our car. What interests me the most though is the lone big tree. It's impossibly huge, filled with blue crystallized fruits that scattered millions of beautiful rainbow colored rays of light everywhere.
"It's a magical tree called blue hazel. Its fruit can be used as an energy source like a monster core. Their size isn't the same though so if you want to use these fruits you have to polish it down to the same size as the monster core, something no one bothers doing anymore." My mom explained when she saw me mesmerized by it. How did dad know about this place? Could it be this is the place where mom and dad first meet?
We began setting up the camp which is just a BBQ stove and a mattress. As soon as we finished, my sister came fully geared up with photography equipment. She looked like a real professional photographer with that super long zoom lens, or is it called paparazzi?
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
My dad will be cooking this time while my brother took out the fishing pole and sat on a mossy rock near the glittering river. It seems everyone was prepared quite well for this trip. I want to try fishing as well, so I drag my mom along while my sister was enjoying at taking our picture. But when I asked her why did she take my picture a lot more than others, she said: "Because Kuro doesn't have many pictures with us yet."
"Careful, it's slippery." My brother warned as we approached the river. Did he already forget that I was adventuring with him last wee-!? Whoops, I almost slipped. Luckily I was holding my mom's hand. The rocks here are a lot more slippery than they look. "It's a slime hunting ground." My brother explained.
I looked left and right for the living slime. Isn't it the must have for a fantasy world? I was unable to find any, though. My brother chuckled "You won't find any now, they only come out at twilight."
The river water is crystal clear. If I didn't have to hold my mom's hand, I might try to catch some fish, grizzly bear style. Anyways, my brother gave me his spare fishing pole and a few artificial fish bait. My brother seems to be good at fishing. His pole needs to be assembled like a professional fisher's pole that I’ve seen on the internet or TV, really now, with my brother the know it all also knowing how to fish makes me wonder if he has a weakness at all. It was quite a struggle to tie the rope on the chosen bait manually. However, with my mom's help, I cast the first fake bait into the water in no time.
The fish bit, and the artificial bait was gone with the fish.
While my mom was trying hard to hold in her giggle, I looked at my brother and saw his eyebrows twitch. Of course, I could hear my sister's camera shutter repeatedly. Don't look at me like that! You try tying the bait rope with one hand. It isn't easy. In the end, my brother had to help me tie the knot on the second bait. He used some kind of complicated looking knot, different from the shoelace knot that I used.
Like last time in only just a moment, a fish bit again, and I pulled hard. The little fish just flew out of the water and smashed onto the slime coated jagged rocks, causing the poor fish and its insides to splatter everywhere and die gruesomely along with the destruction of the second piece of bait. My brother shook his head while my mom was unable to hold in her laughter in anymore. My sister just showed a thumbs up and continued her frantic picture taking.
"Don't pull too hard. Luckily it's a small fish. Otherwise, the cord would've snapped. Try to wear down the fish's stamina first then slowly pull it back to shore." My brother lectured. I know that. I played a fishing video game before. I just don't know how strong this fantasy world's fish are... And I was in a bit of a panic. I’m still a beginner at this after all.
There was a saying that third time's a charm. Although I doubt it could be used in my case, made evident with how no more fish bit my bait anymore. Maybe it was because of the last artificial bait that I avoided to use looked too plain. My brother said it wasn't the case.
"Food is ready!" My dad yelled out. I looked at my brother's ice chest. He already got several silver foot long fish, and they were still flopping around. How many did I get? None. Well, let's not count that splattered mark over ther-.
"Kuro, something’s bit your bait." My mom noticed at the same time as me. It must be huge because it pulled a lot harder than Mr. Splatter mark. I learned from my experience and tried not to lift it up too fast. We fought with my arm took most of the load and my mom help controlling the gear. My dad also came to help, and my brother keeps telling me what to do. It was quite a fight, and I think my heart was pumping faster than the spar yesterday. When we finally got the fish out of the water, my dad was holding the fish by its mouth and supporting its belly with the other arm. If I have to described what the fish looked like I would say it's like a black-blue tabby catfish, except it's huge. It's even longer than my dad's arm.
"It's blue whale eagle catfish. Congratulation Kuro, they say it's a lucky fish. It could get a lot bigger downstream. However, smaller ones like this one taste a lot better." My brother congratulates me. Its name made me doubt this world's naming sense. More importantly, this fish is considered small? What's its full size? As big as a whale? I looked at the mirror-like lake far out there and wondered.
My dad bled and gutted the fish, putting five pieces of fillet on the BBQ stove, and I store the rest to preserve it. The smell coming out from the grill made me feel even hungrier. While we were waiting, my sister gave me a plate with several steaming juicy looking meat on BBQ sticks for me to share with mom. It's delicious, the meat is juicy and sweet, but somehow my focus is on the fish fillet on the sizzling grilling grate. It's the first fish I caught so I really want to know what it tastes like.
"Can't we just catch fishes with magic?" I just realized.
"You can, but those fish are sensitive to magic waves. If you fail on your first attempt, then there won't be any more fish around the area for a long while. And besides, that method's no fun at all." My brother replied while making the BBQ stick disappear from his hand. The storage device is really convenient. We could also use it to store the garbage and dispose of it in a proper place later.
At first, I was afraid that the thing would be mixed up or touch each other when put inside the storage dimension. It seems that it isn't the case, though. The only known limitation is that it can't store living beings, so my brother is currently sat on the ice chest filled with the still living fish. Bacteria and fungus seem to be fine inside the storage space because food can still get spoiled inside it. Perplexed, I asked my brother.
"It's the natural interference field emitted from most living beings. The dimension transfer spells can't penetrate those fields, no matter how weak it is. Most microbes though don't have that, so it gets transferred along with stuff into the storage dimension. Some expensive devices with a food preserving function have the ability to control the temperature and filter out those microbes." He tossed a fallen blue hazel fruit at Mr. Bobo and continued.
"But even with that you still couldn't store meat forever because there are still some enzymes in the flesh itself, protease for example, which continue to digest the meat in the storage dimension." My brother ended his explanation when my dad gave me the first piece of grilled fish.
The flavor of the fish is overwhelming, and its freshness made it impossible to stop chewing. It was grilled just like that, no salt or spice used on the fillet but even my mom complimented the taste of the fish. It felt like my belly was stretched when I finished the piece. Ugh, I ended up overeating again.