Present and Future Part II

Krieg pulled out a large flat bread, smoked jerky, salted fish and a brown coconut from inside the burlap sack Reinhardt left on the ship. Needless to say, neither Krieg nor Leona knew what the brown round fruit was.

"Oh? They have coconuts here." Phoebe said with a surprised tone as she sat down by the knight and picked it up. "These are really common in Nara. Especially along the coastlines."

"Coconuts?" The tactician noticed another one sticking out of the sack and picked it up. The round brown fruit was slightly bigger than her hand. "How do you eat this?

She rotated the fruit on her hand to see how she could take a bite into it without breaking her teeth.

"The fleshy inside is quite tasty." Phoebe gently took the coconut off her hand, after unsheathing her dagger she used its pommel to hit the surface of the fruit while slightly rotating vertically after each strike. "Though, it has water in it as well so I'd rather not waste it." With one precise strike she managed to crack it open and not a second later she raised it above her head and opened her mouth as water began to drip from the crack she just made. After gulping down a mouthful, she turned the coconut to stop spilling and handed it to Leona. "Here, have a sip."

"Making Leona drink it like that… at least let me get a mug or something."

Krieg felt a bit ashamed for allowing that to happen but the tactician paid no mind as she lifted the coconut above her head.

"It's fine. I always wanted to try something like this." After mostly spilling the water on her own clothing, she finally got a mouthful of the sweet liquid and after gulping it down she felt refreshed. "Wow… this is good…!"

Phoebe seemed pleased with herself.

"Right?"

"Here Krieg, try some." Leona offered the coconut to the knight while cleaning the side of her mouth with her forearm. "It's really good!"

He couldn't help but feel joy seeing how happy she was with something so simple. Without delay, he turned it upside down and started to drink from it. Meanwhile Phoebe grabbed the bread with the intention to cut with the dagger but Leona stopped her just before the blade touched the loaf.

"Phoebe, isn't that the weapon that you use to… well… kill people?"

"Huh? Yeah, why?"

"Shouldn't we use something else then? It's kind of disgusting to think you're cutting food with something you use to stab people with."

The high elf rolled her eyes as she put the dagger aside and held both sides of the bread up to Leona.

"Here, use your fancy magic then."

"What? You want me to cut it?"

Phoebe tilted her head slightly to the side whilst raising both eyebrows.

"Yeah? Unless you want me to use my dagger, which I'm totally fine with."

Leona let out an annoyed sigh.

"Fine, but hold it out further away from your body. I don't want to accidentally hit you."

She did as instructed and the tactician closed her eyes as she took a deep breath.

'Only a quick, precise burst of wind… as long as I manage to make its pressure high enough, it should cut without a problem.'

She extended her right index finger out and focused on the mana flowing through her body. It felt like being submerged in water, for a split second she couldn't hear anything and the only thing she felt was a different kind of heat rising throughout the entirety of her right arm up to the very tip of her extended finger. With one sudden jerk of the limb a quick burst of wind managed to gnash the bread in half however most of the pastry crumbled on top of Phoebe's lap as a result of the unrefined wind spell.

"Gah! The bread is all over the place."

After hearing the high elf complain, Krieg simply took the bread from her hand and cut it in another half with his bare hands.

"You should've just asked me to do it."

"Argh… you wouldn't get it, eating a sandwich with finely cut bread is many times better than eating a flattened bun."

As the two argued over bread, Leona was more worried about her concentration, the spell was still too inaccurate despite her focus. It made her wonder about what meant to have true mastery over magic, was it power? Quantity? Precision? The more she thought the more she realized how little she knew of magic aside from what was taught by her mother and the short span of time she spent in the Grand Academy.

She looked at her open left palm and evoked a tiny blue flame that was no bigger than her nail. With it she was able to precisely gauge how much mana she had left. After refilling half of a mana flask she was already mostly spent, however thanks to Phoebe being able to pilot the ship, the tactician was able to get a few hours of rest and she regained some of the mana back. But with the current amount she had at that moment, she wouldn't be able to use any powerful spells if they had to fight. With that thought in mind, her face began to frown before someone tapped her knee.

Leona's body tensed up for a moment until she noticed Phoebe with a half grin on her face. A bit confused, the tactician asked.

"Huh? What is it, Phoebe?"

"Here." Looking down near her own crossed legs, the high elf was holding a sandwich made of jerky and cheese in her hand. "Unless you don't want your share. If not, I'll take it."

"Ah. Thank you."

She grabbed the sandwich and stared at it for a bit before taking a bite out of it. Despite the chewy nature of the beef jerky and dry bread, the taste was still good overall, which brought a smile to Leona's face. It had been more than a day since she had eaten anything and only now after finally getting some rest the hunger caught up to her as each bite made her crave more and more food.

Seeing her voraciously eat the food made the knight hungry as well. He grabbed his share of the bread and stuffed in as much beef and cheese as he could before taking a healthy bite out of it.

It was a good change of pace from the hectic days they faced so far. Thinking back, Leona was proud of her decisions, she managed to save the future of a kingdom, reunite mother and daughter, while also finding a way to aid Krieg. However the more she thought about it the more it made her realize just how big of a scale this succession conflict really was, with Alexander in control of the Arcadian army, it would be just a matter of time before another war breaks out. On the bright side, since her home kingdom was weakened in both economy and military, it would at the very least hamper his ability to go in an all out war against any nearby kingdoms.

'But that wouldn't stop him from taking control of towns and small cities for short term profit.' She kept thinking while chewing on the piece of sandwich. 'Even so, he wouldn't send a dispatch to this town anytime soon. He doesn't have the soldiers.'

"What's the matter Leona?" Phoebe's voice made the tactician look at her. "You had a serious expression just now, was the sandwich not good?"

"Huh? Ah, no, I was just thinking about things." She finished eating the last part of it before cleaning the sides of her mouth with her thumb as she stood up. "We should get some rest for tomorrow. I want to leave as soon as we are able."

Both of them nodded with Krieg standing up first, he stretched his arms and adjusted the longsword scabbard on his hip.

"I'll stand watch for now. You two can get some sleep first."

"Thank you Krieg." Leona had a faint smile on her face. "Do wake me up once it's time to switch. Good night."

He nodded as he answered.

"Good night."

She headed inside the engine room while Phoebe climbed up the helm of the ship and laid down on the floor.

"I'll be up here if you need anything."

"Mm."

He grunted in acknowledgement as he went for a walk around the deck. Meanwhile inside the only room in the ship, Leona sat and slowly laid her head down against the wooden bench that served as seats.

"I'm finally close… it felt like an eternity but I'm almost there…" She muttered under her breath with her open hand stretched towards the ceiling. "Mother. Father. I will avenge you both."