After we finished lunch, I was stuffed. I hadn’t eaten this much in a single meal in months, and my stomach wasn’t used to it. Even when I told my travel companions I was full, they insisted me on eating more. Well, I couldn’t ignore Em begging me with puppy eyes to satisfy Abby’s self-esteem by taking in another burger.

With our plates empty and the ingredients finally used up, Abby waved her hand, making the items and furniture disappear back into thin air.

“By the way, how do you make things appear like that?” I asked Abby as we started on our trip again.

She smiled and placed her hand over her chest pridefully. “It’s all thanks to this powerful suit I wear, of course! This is the best piece of tech you could ever find out there!”

Ari chimed in to fuel her pride even further. “Hey, tell him about how you got it. It’s a pretty interesting story, isn’t it?”

“Yes yes!” Em chirped from beside Abby. “I think Day deserves to know about it too!”

Abby flipped back her ponytail and chuckled at the praise. “I guess I have no choice then.” She deepened her voice to a mysterious tone. As we started hiking through the endless grassy field once again, she told her story. “My tale starts ten years ago, when I was still six…” She turned to me to check if I was listening, then continued.

"My world, Cytos, was quite chaotic, you see. In the past century, after the invention of long-distance time travel machines, many expeditions ventured into the future to bring back advanced technology. As such, our world started to flourish with new ‘inventions’ every week. Genetic modification, brain implants, antigravity, you name it.

"Then came a massive outbreak of advancement. Thousands of devices were brought back from the future, but this time they weren’t used for the good of society. Old buildings were attacked by new weapons too powerful to even compare to any defenses. Outdated servers were hacked to destruction by ultra-fast computers beyond comparison.

"So, in an act of desperation, the government marked excessive time travel as illegal and imposed an act to increase spending on law enforcement. In just a few years after it started, crime and technology imports were controlled, and the number of law enforcers was brought up to a whopping 15% of the entire employed population.

"Thus, my family was relatively standard, with my father being a cyber detective and my mother a police officer. Still, they were pretty high ranking, so my household was quite wealthy.

“However, my parents rarely came home, so I was sent to a well-known private boarding school, which, of course, taught law enforcement as the main career path. There, under temporally decelerated learning, I was taught everything about Cytos and beyond. They covered all subjects from zoology to engineering to combat.”

“Yes yes!” Em cut in, breaking the flow of the story. “Ask Abby anything, and she’ll have an answer.”

“Well, yes. I know pretty much anything,” she said boastfully.

“Yeah, totally not getting all your information from that handy suit of yours.” Abby glared at Ari after his statement. “Woah! It’s a compliment, okay? I’m saying your suit is pretty useful, right?” He turned to me for confirmation.

However, I was still looking at Abby. Just what sort of life did she live? Was it some sort of cyberpunk world filled with advanced technology? Was it like what I had seen in movies, with flying cars, tall skyscrapers, and cyborgs?

I looked back at the other two. Did they have similar, literally out-of-the-world stories? While I only lived a boring life sitting behind a monitor at home and going to school for uneventful classes, were they going through adventures every single day?

I turned back to Abby. “So is your story finished? I don’t think you got to the part about how you got your suit yet.”

“Haha, I see you’re already immersed fully in my storytelling. I shall continue, then. I was twelve when it all happened. Both my father and mother were…” She trailed off and her walking slowed until we all came to a stop.

A breeze swept through the silent field, and a wave went across the tall grass. We stood there awkwardly, waiting in silence.

“What’s…wrong…?” I looked up to Ari, then down at Em for answers.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“I…I think Abby just needs some rest…” Em said to me. She put her arm around Abby. A drop fell onto the ground in front of her feet. A tear. Then, a whimper escaped her lips.

Ari quickly went to put a hand on Abby’s shoulder. “Hey, cheer up, Abby. It’ll be okay.”

In a swift motion, Abby swatted Ari’s arm out of the way and looked up at him. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’LL BE OKAY!? THEY— they… They’re gone…” She went back to a soft voice and turned to hug Em.

“H—hey… you said they’re only in prison, right? We agreed to help you free them, right? We can still do this! I personally vow that I will never lay down in peace until freedom is brought to your paren—”

“STOP!!” Abby pushed away from Em’s hug and faced Ari. “YOU AND YOUR DUMB REASSURANCES DO NOTHING TO RELIEVE ME FROM THIS— this pain…”

There was a moment of stillness as I watched the two. Ari gazed at Abby in shock while she was looked at the ground.

“Um…” Em started, finally breaking the tension, “I—I think we should just forget about this for now and head back on the road… You can continue the story at another time…”

Abby sniffed her nose and looked up away from us. “Yeah, let’s get going,” she said as she started walking again. Any anguish in her voice had disappeared now.

We walked in silence for an hour before Em broke the still quietness, asking Abby questions about another patch of flowers we passed. Ari continued to pace without saying a word. He must have decided not to bother Abby anymore for the rest of the day.

But I liked it like that. I didn’t need to worry about answering any of Ari’s questions, allowing me to gaze at the scenery as we hiked up and down the smooth hills. It was admittedly a bit boring, but the silence was worth it.

So we continued traveling through this endless field of green grass, with only the occasional patches of flowers and a few dense forests in the distance, until the sun finally reached the other side of the sky, setting down under the horizon. The clouds turned bright orange and then slowly faded into a dark, starry night. It was by a small creek cutting through the field where we settled down for our final rest of the day.

Once again, Abby materialized her kitchen setup and, as promised, started on a dinner of dishes upon dishes of seafood. To be honest, I never had much of a taste for seafood. Yeah, fish and shrimp were pretty standard, so I enjoyed those. But whenever the menu got deep into the ocean creatures category, with oysters and lobsters, I couldn’t see how they were such luxurious foods.

I wasn’t able to muster the courage to tell my companions any of that, though. I mean, they were making this meal for me, right? How could I turn it away? Em was looking forward to it too, and how could I let her down?

Still, my mouth watered when the fresh, salty aroma of the sea dispersed through the cool night air. I had eaten a lot for lunch, but a few hours of straight walking was enough to empty my stomach completely.

Half an hour later, sitting on the ground with a table full of sumptuous, steaming dishes in front of us, we finally started digging in. I couldn’t hold back my hunger anymore, so I peeled open a crab and started eating.

“Hey, Day?”

I looked up at Em, freeing me from my relentless eating. Wait, did crab really taste this good?

“Why don’t you try some of these?” Em continued, placing a small, meaty shrimp-like crustacean on my plate. “They’re harvested from Aquina.”

“Oh… Is that your world?” I asked her as I decapitated my next snack and tore off its limbs.

“Yeah…” She looked down shyly.

“Hey, tell Day about it, Em!” Ari came into the conversation. “Aquina is pretty interesting, isn’t it? I mean, It’s got magic, right?”

“W—well, yeah… I know some magic…”

“Yup, and you know she’s gonna go to the Kronoan capital’s infamous Artius Magic Academy?”

“Oh, that’s cool…” I had never heard of this magic academy Ari was talking about, but I didn’t ask about it.

Em tugged on Abby’s sleeve, finally pulling her into the discussion. She looked at her with eyes pleading for help.

“Okay, don’t worry, Em. I got you.” She said after slurping down an oyster, giving Em’s head a scrub and turning to us. “So, well, the most notable feature about Aquina is probably that over 95% of the surface is covered in ocean. And that explains Em’s love for seafood here.” She punched Em’s shoulder playfully, making her blush.

"Anyways, it’s actually really interesting how all that ocean came to be. It was originally pretty normal, with large continents where many animals roamed. Then people discovered how to manipulate the mana in the planet’s ground and atmosphere.

“For one reason or another, water magic became especially prominent. And over the time period of more than a millennium, water was continuously created from energy, raising the sea level dramatically. Well, much of the land was already very flat and low, so it didn’t take much for entire continents to become submerged. Still, it’s pretty amazing.”

I nodded slowly. Was this seriously another story far more interesting than my own? Why did I have to be born into such a boring world?

“Wait, why don’t you show us some of your magic again, Em?” Ari asked her, a bit too engrossed in the fact that Em knew magic. “I’m sure Day would be even more amazed by it.”

“Ah— S—sure!”

Em stood up and grabbed her long staff from the ground. When she was ready, she closed her eyes, and the blue crystal at the end of the large wooden stick started glowing. A thick stream of water materialized around her, and she opened her eyes.

I simply gazed in amazement at something I had only seen in visual effects came to life right in front of me. The glob of water flowed gently around the staff like a snake slithering through the air. It spiraled out, traveling around Em’s body and almost emitting a faint radiance, though it was hard to see in the lights Abby had set out. I was mesmerized by the performance.

However, I was so captivated by the scene that I hadn’t noticed the animals that had quietly surrounded our camp until Abby yelled out.

“Wolves! We’re being attacked!”