----------------------------------------

- 60 years later -

----------------------------------------

"You doing alright back there, old man?" The captain of the ship turned to Olya, who was peacefully sitting on a barrel with cane in hand.

"Never better." The wrinkly Olya replied, "Just make sure to keep a close Eye on that sextant. I don't want you to miss the damned place."

"Phah! Do you even know who you're talking to!?" The captain guffawed, "I'm the finest captain that's ever sailed the high seas! The only land we'll see will be that archipelago you told me about. That is, if it even is real to begin with..."

The archipelago he's referring to is actually the massive cluster of islands Schnell and Olya had found way back when they visited the Tria Prisma and saw it on the map etched on the sandstone monolith. Seeing as life had always gotten in the way of him actually going there to scope the scene, Olya had mostly forgotten about that promise he and Schnell had made that day to go and see it. Alp was now quite the old man himself, and seeing as he was quite the family man, he had stopped following Olya around on his journeys ever since he got married to that baker's daughter. They are now safely back home, celebrating the birth of Alp's grandson, and subsequently Olya's great grandson.

"So, how's it feel to be a great grandpa?" The captain teased, "I've known you and Alp ever since I was a tyke, but to think you'd still hold out at this age. I'm starting to think you'll outlive him as well."

"Ouroboras forgive." Olya chuckled, "Don't say such things, Kenny. Just pray it follows the natural order."

"Natural order, my ass!" Kenny shouted, "Alp's already in his mid-seventies, and you're way older than him. Just give it to me straight before you croak, old man, what's your secret?"

"Cheh, my secret?" Olya recalled the wish he had made, "Anger the Gods until they curse you with immortality."

"Old man..." Kenny looked at him worriedly before brushing it off, "Tch, guess you don't know either. Anger the Gods... Seriously?"

"Heh, sorry." The old man shrugged, still holding onto his cane, "Anyways, Eyes on the road. Well, sea."

"O-Oh, right!" Kenny rushed to turn his head back, only to jolt in awe as he saw the giant shore in front of him, "Holy-! I-It's really here - Schnell's Archipelago!"

Kenny had never met Schnell before in his life, which was obvious when you realized he and Alp were the same age. Still, when Olya had asked him to sail all the way to a never before seen archipelago not even present on any map, he had referred to it as Schnell's before even seeing it. This was his way of making sure it'd be marked on the map as such, effectively etching Schnell's name in the history of the World for at least a couple hundred years. This goes without saying, but Olya still hasn't found a way to revive the people Ouroboras had killed.

"Man, to think you were actually telling the truth..." Kenny could only gawk at the newly found location, "Dude, we're making history! This is epic!"

"Hold your horses, kid." Olya calmed him down, "What do you mean we're making history?"

"Well, think of it like this - We're the first people to ever set foot on these lands!" Kenny happily anchored the ship, "Haha! Now I can definitely call myself the best captain in the World, though it's not like that wasn't a given to begin with."

"First people?" Olya chuckled before pointing to the shrubbery located ahead of the beach with his cane, "I wouldn't say that if I were you. Look over there, a pair of Eyes."

"H-Huh!?" Kenny immediately pulled out his machete he carried for self-defense, "T-There's someone else here!? Stand back, old man!"

"Young man!" Olya didn't at all heed Kenny's warnings as he confidently called out to the pair of Eyes hidden away in the bushes, "You can come out, we don't bite!"

"W-What are you-!?" Kenny panicked, "Grr, blasted old fool! What makes you think whoever this person speaks...!?"

"Entropic?" The buff older teenager with a slightly sunkissed tan to him carefully walked out of the bushes and towards them, "You two aren't from here, so how come you're speaking our language?"

"Schn-!?" Olya nearly experienced a heart attack from the shock once he saw the spitting image of his late friend, still the same as when he had last seen him, "Schnell!?"

"Hm?" Kenny darted his gaze between the two men, "Wait, so this is Schnell? What the hell, I thought you said this was some never before seen place, but it's just some kid's private property..."

Of course, there's no reasonable explanation as to why Schnell was here, and looking as if he hadn't aged a day, no less. A ton of possibilities had popped up in Olya's mind, be it a trap set by the Gods or Olya thinking this old body was playing tricks on him, finally. Nonetheless, he approached the young man and extended his frail hand to touch him, leaving his cane to fall on the ground beside them. This was neither mirage nor trick, he was really there, back in the flesh!

"Uhh...?" The boy resembling Schnell looked around awkwardly, "Sorry to burst your bubble, sir, but I don't know who you're talking about."

"Eh?" Olya furrowed his brows.

"My name is Ship, but you can call me Shippy if you'd like." He smiled, "Anyways, here's your cane. You dropped it just now and... sir?"

"Shippy..." Olya facepalmed, "Fucking Shippy...!"

----------------------------------------

***

----------------------------------------

"Does the name Shaid ring a bell, perhaps?" Olya began inquiring about Shippy's past.

"Nope." Shippy replied as he gave the old man a piggy-back ride, "Never heard of him either."

"Then, the doctor?" Olya then realized, "Wait, now that I think about it, I don't actually know that guy's name either. I always called him Doc."

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Wow, you're a horrible friend." Kenny added.

"Shut up! Don't call that horndog my friend!" Olya berated him, "We just had him take care of Shaid while he was in a coma!"

"Still, sir, I have no idea who any of those people are." Shippy pressed on as he replied.

"Listen man, I think I get what's happening now." Olya shook his head, "Your real name is Schnell, got it? You, me and that Shaid guy I just told you about traveled the World together, but you two died and left me all alone. Someway or another, I now see you back here again, albeit without your memories. Understand now?"

"Hmm..." The boy took a long time to make sense of this explanation before coming out empty-handed, "Nope, not at all. But maybe grandma will know a thing or two."

"Your grandmother?" Kenny tilted his head now as well, "Wait, then you're both here somehow?"

"Not just us, everyone's here." Shippy replied, "My parents, my siblings, my cousins... Oh, and of course there's grandma."

"And is there anyone outside of your family living here?" Kenny inquired.

"Outside of the family..." The kid kind of looked confused even, "Well, apart from you two, not really."

"Huh!?" Olya and Kenny recoiled, "Then how come there's so many of you!? Ah, actually, we don't wanna know..."

Not long after that, they had finally made their way through the jungle-like rainforest before ending up at a clearing with a bunch of houses in it. It seems whoever is living here has set up a pretty nice village for themselves, making use of the terrain to build up a beautiful isolated area. Houses on the higher up terrain were grounded, however the houses that couldn't fit there and instead had to be put down on the lower levels were made into treehouses, elevating and equalizing them with the hilltop ones. Truly, an island resort of sorts.

"Shippy!" A lightly tanned girl ran up to the group of three, "What are you doing!? Who are these people!?"

"Ah, we come in peace-" Kenny tried to explain, all the while averting his gaze from her pretty risque leaf bikini attire.

"This feels nostalgic." Olya recalled their first reaction to the people of Havana back in the old days.

"And they talk!?" The girl jumped, "A-Are you... humans from outside?"

"Outside?" Olya looked back, "Yeah, I guess you could call us that."

"B-But your skin..." The girl pointed out with fear, "I-It's so... light."

"Well, duh." Kenny shrugged, "The Sun don't shine as brightly in Caballerio, as they say. We don't get tanned all year long like you folks do."

"Is that so..." The girl looked down, lost in thought.

"Hey, Shy! Snap out of it." Shippy snapped his fingers in front of her to bring her back to them, "Where's grandma?"

"Huh?" She shook off that lost expression as she pointed to the top-most hilltop house, "Where else? It's not like she'll go far from the house at her age."

"Ah, fair." He shrugged, "Then sirs, let's go see what grandma has to say about you."

"Let's hope it's good..." Kenny rolled his Eyes.

Walking slowly to the house, still carrying the frail old Olya on his back, Shippy had successfully escorted the foreign explorers to his community's leader. On the way there, he also made sure to tell them that the people here have been taught by this mysterious grandma person to always accept and cherish any visitors, so they could at least rest easy in knowing they won't get eaten alive or something like that. Opening the leaf curtain door to the bamboo house, Olya couldn't believe his Eyes as the White haired old lady looked him in the Eyes, equally as shocked.

"D-Diamond!?" He gasped.

"Ah, what took you so long?" She laughed audibly before coughing a bit, "And here I finally gave up hope of you guys finding little ol' me."

So there you have it. For Olya, the puzzle pieces had finally started aligning. This woman was someone they had known from their time in the lair. She was one of the succubus ladies Schnell had favored the most due to her uncanny resemblance to Cassandra. It was just when they had opened up the portal that she had accidentally jumped in and got lost. Seeing as they didn't know how to bring her back to the lair back then, they kind of forgot about her and just ended up stranding her on some random deserted island. As luck would have it, she was pregnant at the time, though even she didn't know it.

"So that random ass island somewhere out in the World was here..." Olya chuckled as he finally pieced it together, "And the people here are all descendants of Schnell, to boot. Hah, geez..."

"Yeah, we made due with what we had." She replied in a bittersweet tone, "But these kids ain't gonna live long after I bite the dust."

"How so?" Kenny asked.

"Let's just say that a community with only one family in it will eventually face a dilemma when it comes to reproduction." She replied in a roundabout way.

"Ohhh..." Olya glanced over at Shippy before realizing, "Oh. Ew."

"Yep, either we died out ages ago or the family tree goes haywire." She shrugged just as defeatedly, "So if you would be so kind as to send us over someone not related to us, that'd be swell."

"I-I'll look into it..." Olya looked uncomfortable as hell before turning to Shippy, "Well kid, I guess I got you mixed up with your grandpappy. Sorry about that."

"My grandpa?" Shippy looked kind of excited to hear more, "Grandma doesn't really talk much about him, so could you tell me more about him?"

"Yeah, old man." Kenny sat down beside the kid expectantly, "I have no idea what's going on either, so don't go skipping out on any details, y'hear!?"

"Fufu, looks like you've suddenly become quite popular, Magic Fingers." Diamond leaned on Olya's shoulder teasingly as she recalled the nickname he went by among the girls.

"Looks like you still haven't lost your charms, you retired prostitute..." He smirked before clapping his hands decidedly, "Then, I guess it's time for me to tell you all a story! Come one, come all, cause this one's a doozy, and it starts off in a faraway land called Meridia..."