Chapter 4 – New friends and new companions

“Are we going higher?”

“Yeah, we’ll increase our altitude and have a better view of the area; we’ll reach the clouds, I think.”

“Yes, that might be the case.”

“Ummah!”

“Even though, I don’t know much about how to operate ships and planes, I know the basics when it comes to using the air ship system in this fantasy world. This ship is different compared to the ships I made for my novel, this one is faster and stronger and much more powerful than the ones the protagonist and his companions used, I’m sure I’m the only one who can operate this for now.”

“Maybe I should teach Bolus to drive this too? It may come handy if I’m resting or wasn’t on the bridge… I’ll teach him later.”

“Our current supplies will only get us about a couple of days, we need to stop somewhere first and stock some food supply and other necessities. I don’t have money from this world so we should find some way to earn money.”

“Master…”

“Yes?”

“The view from up here is really amazing, I can even touch the clouds. I’m really lucky… truly lucky to be brought in this journey. I will do everything that I can to repay this kindness, Master.” Bolus happily said.

“You’ve been saying that for over and over for a while now; Don’t worry about it, you’ll be able to do what you want from now on, you’ll be helping me a lot in this journey of ours.”

*Whale wailing

“!”

“Is that-”

*starts running to the front of the ship

As soon as he heard the wailing sound, Cillian quickly runs to the main deck and searched around the ship. He went back on forth the ship’s main deck and the bridge to look for the sound’s origin.

“Is it what I think it is! Where is it? I don’t see any of them? Are they above the clouds, maybe?”

“Master, what are you looking for?”

“Whales… I’m looking for whales, didn’t you hear it? I’m sure there’s a group of them passing here, I want to see them!”

“Ah the Sky whales, Catastrophe grade monsters (A), they’re one of the few species that lives off from the mana dispersed in the sky. One of the few species that doesn’t interact much with other living creatures.” Bolus said.

“Yeah, and there is only a hundred at most left of their species. Most people think that they’re already extinct but the truth is they’re just living too high for any people to see them. They mostly stay on small float islands above the clouds in the south but they sometimes travel lower if they encounter other flying monsters that are much stronger than them like sky dragons, Sky whales travel from place to place to search for high concentrated mana because it’s mainly their source of energy.” Cillian added.

“Ummah!”

“Did you see them, Cotton!”

Cillian turned around and witnessed hundreds of them flying above the clouds, He witnessed the view in which where Sky whales are feeding on high concentrated mana that’s found above the cloud.

Some Sky whales even got close to the ship; they fly around the ship for a while then joined the group after. After a few minutes, all of them were too far for them to see and went above the clouds again.

“That sure was a worthy sight, if I had brought Kayne to this world, he would’ve loved to see this as well… What could he be doing right now, hmmm?”

-----

[Kayne’s POV]

*driving down the road

“Cil already filled the fridge, I should buy the groceries next time. I’ll buy some things for my room for now, my things will not be arriving here for a couple of days, the movers will arrive here next week with my sister. The town is 10 minutes away from the house, I’ll go to the supermarket first.”

*slows down

“Hmmm, I wonder if Cil has he already gone around the town already? Maybe not… That guy must be writing his novel again right now in his room, I should bring him some food maybe.”

He circled around town and checked most of the shops, after a short while, when he was driving in the main street, he found a café. The café was not appealing in any way when you look outside. It was the café Cillian visited on his first day.

“Is that a café? It’s not maintained properly in the entrance, is it closed down? Ow, it’s open? I should check this place out.”

He went and parked the car near it and went inside after.

“The air feels much fresh here compared back home, all I smell is the forest?”

*enters the café

“There are many people inside, are they popular? What drink would be nice to drink this time of the day? And if there’s some delicious looking dessert, maybe I’ll buy it as well. “

He walks to the counter and a staff greeted him with a smile.

“Welcome to our café, may I take your order?”

A beautiful lady on the counter was smiling at Kayne when taking his order.

“Um, I’ll order an iced salted caramel latte and that slice of cake there at the top please and can I have another one of my drink I order made later about 30 minutes?”

“Yes sir, you can get your order in a minute. You can take a seat first sir while waiting.”

“Ah, I’ll be drinking the other one here, thank you.”

*looks for a seat

After making his order, he immediately looks for a good place to sit.

“That corner looks good, maybe I’ll sit there.”

As he approached the table, another person came to sit on the seat he was planning to sit on.

“Ah!”

Both were surprised at each other and was standing close to each other awkwardly.

“Are you taking this seat?”

The lady Kayne stumbled to suddenly asked him.

“Oh, umm- I was… You can take this seat if you want.”

 Kayne gave up on that corner seat and looked for another place to sit at. As he was walking away, the lady then asked him, “If you don’t mind… do you want to sit at the same table then.”

“Are you sure? There are-”

“No, I- I insist… Since this corner of the café is the best spot to read, I always sit here, I don’t mind sharing it with you.:

“Ah sure, that spot was something I had my eye on since earlier.” Kayne replied.

“AH, REALLY, let’s share it then!”

Both were really awkward at each other at first but when they found out that both were reading the same book, they eventually got a comfortable to talk at each other.

“So, you also read that book-”

“Yeah, I got into it after a friend of mine recommended it to me.”

“Isn’t it a great book.”

“Yeah, I got hooked on it after reading the first chapter.”

“bla-bla-bla”

Both continued to talked to each other and enjoyed their conversation.

“I was feeling an awkward atmosphere growing between our table so I was gonna try to start a conversation but when you brought out your book, I was just surprised to see a person reading it.” The girl said.

“Same here. I actually thought that this book wasn’t popular but you’re reading it as well. Oh, I’m Kayne by the way, Kayne David.”

“I’m Natsumi Koga, it’s nice to meet you!”

“Ah yes, you as well. I was actually about to ask if you always come here.” Kayne asked.

“Uhuh, I always go to this café every time I go to town, this is actually kind of my spot, haha.”

While they are busy talking, the other drink Kayne ordered was then served to him.

“Ow, Natsumi, you got yourself a friend here, do you two know each other?” the café staff said.

“We just got to sit on the same table, he’s a new friend. Anyways, this is Kayne.”

“Hello! Nice to meet you.” Kayne said.

“He’s actually new here, and this is my friend, Isabela, she works here part-time.”

“You’re very handsome, I honestly thought you were Natsumi’s boyfriend.” Isabela said frankly.

“Isa!”

“I’m just kidding, haha. I’ll see you later then.”

After they got to know each other, Isabela went back to the counter.

“…”

“Sorry about that, Isabela is just like that when she sees me hanging out with a guy. Did you bought another drink for yourself, you sure quite like drinking iced latte?”

“Ah, this, this isn’t for me, I bought it for my friend, he didn’t join me since he was quite tired, I think.”

While they were talking, another girl went inside the café, she was quite beautiful and looked a lot like Natsumi.

“Ow, I think I have to leave now, my sister’s here.” Natsumi said as she stands up and quickly waved at her sister.

“It was nice talking to you, I had quite a lot of fun, maybe I’ll see you next time.” She added.

“Yeah-”

Natsumi and her sister quickly went out and waved goodbye to Kayne.

“Who was that guy you were with? Are you two dating?” Erin Koga, Natsumi’s older sister said.

“Huh, no! We just met each other, he’s a new friend.”

“New friend, huh.”

“I better get going then, Cil must be writing his novel in his room without break, I’ll give this to him.”

As he was leaving, Isabela then notices him and went to him and said, “Are you leaving already? Did you have a great time at our café?”

“Ah, I did, the coffee was good and the cake was also great too.”

“I wasn’t talking about that.”

“Huh…”

“Did you have fun talking with Natsumi? She seems she enjoyed the time you were talking to each other.”

“Ah that, yes, I didn’t expect that she was a talkative person, she was really enjoying talking about the book we both were reading earlier.”

“Will you guys meet each other again?”

“Uhm, I guess, maybe.”

“Wait, did you even get her number?”

“No, I-”

“Uggh!”

Isabela sounded really disappointed and was sighing the whole time.

“Here.”

*Hands her phone

“What’s this?”

“It’s her number, dumbass, I’m giving this to you not because you’re handsome, okay? I just feel that I can trust you, even though we just met.”

“BYYYEEE!”

She walked away quickly and Kayne was left there standing at the door confused.

He walked to where he left the car and got inside, he drove off as soon as he got in and checked his phone.

“I’m not particularly interested but I did have fun.”

…

When he got back to the house, as he was about to park the car, he noticed a familiar face walking on the other side of the road.

“Is that Natsumi?”

“Natsumi!”

“Kayne?”

-----

“Master… There’s still a sky whale over there; I think he got left behind.”

“That doesn’t sound good, it’ll be hard to-”

“It’s headed straight to us! Everybody hang on…I’ll turn the ship.”

*swoosh

The whale headed straight to the ship but misses.

“Um, why is it attacking us?”

“I don’t know. It might be stressed, he can’t see the rest of his family and the rest of it’s group, Bolus use this and throw it to the whale when it comes close.”

“A cube? What is this? What does it do?”

“It’s one of the treasures we picked out in the ruins, it’s used on monsters going berserk and are not on their right mind. We can use this on that Sky whale since it’s a type of monster that can be tamed.”

“Okay master!”

The young sky whale turns around and glared at the ship… A few seconds later it started to charge on the ship.

“Here it comes, throw it.” 

*throws the cube

Bolus accurately hit the whale’s head and the cube released a bright light and smokes surrounds its whole body making it weak.

“Bolus bring the whale on deck before it loses its conscious and falls to the ocean.”

*Bolus grabs its whole body using his skill

“It’s still a bit young… This guy shouldn’t be all alone by itself, we need to find its group before they get too far.”

“Give this potion to him… I’ll search for the group.”

“Ummah!”

“This ship has a function to search the area, it tracks signature of monsters nearby and identify it’s mana and energy. Good thing we added something like this to the ship, Cotton.”

“Ummah!”

“Let’s start the search!”

-----

[Kayne’s POV]

“Ow, Natsumi, what are you doing here?”

“You, what are you doing here?”

“Haha, I asked you first, didn’t I?”

“Ow, I live near here. Is this where you’re staying at? I didn’t know we live near each other.”

“Ah, it’s my friend’s house, I’m staying with him. I didn’t expect we live near each other, what a coincidence.”

“You live here! I thought this house didn’t have anyone maintaining it. I remember that this was owned by a rich family and was left alone six years ago.”

“Yeah, that’s what my friend told me, except the rich part.”

“Haha, my family actually just moved here two years ago so we didn’t really know anything about the neighborhood, anyway it’s nice to see you again-”

“Do you maybe spare some time to hangout sometimes, I’d love it for you to meet my friend, he doesn’t really go out that much and he don’t have any friends here so-”

“I’d love to, I’ll come over next time with my brother and sister.”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

Natsumi waved goodbye as she left. When Kayne was about to enter the house, the door was opened before him.

“You’re back already.”

“Ow, Cil, yeah.”

“Did you visit town? I saw you talking to someone, you made a friend quickly, you just got over here, that’s fast.”

“Ah, we met at the café earlier and got to know each other, I invited her to come over next time so that you’d interact with someone from here too.” Kayne answered.

“Sure. Sure.”

“Where’re you going?” Kayne asked.

“Ow, I’m just going to some friend’s house, I totally forgot to see him when I got here yesterday, you want to come?” Cillian suggested.

“Sure. I thought you didn’t have a friend here.”

“What do you think I am, some kind of loner?”

“Yeah.”

“Uggh…”

“So, who’s this person we’re going to meet?” Kayne asked.

“He’s a friend I used to hang with when we were in grade school, we’re all going to the same university and I thought I’d visit.”

“Same school, huh.”

“Are we walking there?”

“Yeah, it’s not that far… So, who’s that girl you were talking with, hmm?” Cillian smirked as he asked.

“She’s Natsumi, I told you we met at the café earlier.”

“If you say so.”

---

“I managed to get back home before Kayne arrived, good thing we found the group of Sky whales before that.”

“Hey Cil…Hey CIL…HEY CILLIAN!”

“What…What?”

“How long are you going to be like that, I was asking you if we’re close to that friend’s house of yours or not.”

“Ow that, Um… It’s around the corner to the right.” Cillian responded.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You shouldn’t hole yourself in your room that much, you should go out once in a while.”

“Okay… okay.”

“There’s the house, let’s go.”

Chapter ends~ to be continued