Chapter 4: Road Trip

The trip to Rainbase took a long while, during which neither the woman nor I spoke. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence; we just had nothing else to discuss.

At one point, I looked over at the beauty, hoping to strike up some casual conversation. "What's that writing, some ancient language?" I pointed at a small iron necklace hanging from her nape. At the end of the string was a thin oval plate engraved with strange characters. The writing looked similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs from my past life, whence my question.

"It is. It is a forgotten language from a forgotten time". The woman did not look at me while answering, her tone unwavering yet a bit forceful.

"Really? Do you know what it says?" I continued pushing the subject.

The compartment became quiet for a second or two before she gave me her answer. "…Why do you want to know?"

I felt a pang of annoyance at her for being so closed off. "Geez, no need to be so uptight. You know, I can tell you're trying to keep me at arm's length and all that, but I'm getting really tired of this mysterious attitude you're shoving at me. If there is something you don't want to tell me, just say so. You can be cautious all you want, but don't take me for a fool".

Miss All Sunday appeared a little guilty at my words but eventually sighed and looked me straight in the eyes with a serious expression. "I am sorry. It is a force of habit for me to mislead. If you really want to know about my necklace, I guess it's fine since you can't remember anything anyways. It's personal and valuable information, though, so you'll have to tell me something valuable about yourself in return."

"you're really gonna ask the amnesiac for 'valuable information'?" I tried lifting the mood, also feeling a little guilty for ruining the atmosphere.

She chuckled lightly at my words.

I smiled at her and said, "Well, I do have something I remember about myself…." I waited a moment to build up suspense. "… I'm immortal!". I made a small 'tadaa' gesture with my hands.

"What?" She seemed to think to have misheard me.

"I'm immortal," I replied.

She looked at me with a dumbfounded expression. "What do you mean immortal?"

"It's pretty simple, actually. I can't die." I genuinely smiled to show her I wasn't playing tricks. "Stab me, and I'll heal; cut off my legs, and they'll regrow; drown me, and I'll wake right back up. You get the drift."

This time she didn't answer. Her expression was unreadable as she stared at me.

"Do you have a knife or something sharp lying around here somewhere? I'll show you what I mean by immortality." I once again began scanning the cockpit, this time in an attempt to hurt myself.

Miss All Sunday's confident air vanished instantly as she began to sputter words. "Wah!? No.. why are you?.. You shouldn't hurt yourse-"

"Oh, relax; I'll just make a small cut on my hand so you can see me heal." My smile widened even more, "It's nice to know you care about my health though".

Her face fell back into seriousness, and she didn't seem to mind my jab at her good conscience. A thin arm appeared from behind my seat. In its hand was a fine golden letter opener. Before I could say anything, I felt a slight sharp pain on the back of my hand.

'Okay, maybe she did mind'.

It wasn't as if I couldn't have stopped her before stabbing me, but I found her action quite amusing.

I looked at where the wound should be on my hand and saw it closing itself at a visible pace. The woman to my side watched the process with me in astonishment.

"See? Now tell me about that necklace." I wanly smiled at her stupefied expression. 'This woman tries so hard to always be in control, and while she has no malicious intent, she can't bring herself to trust me at all. She feels like a little kid wearing a mask; I wonder what made her like this. I feel sorry for her.'

All Sunday then began explaining about the language on her necklace. She was apparently a retired archaeologist, though she wouldn't tell me more about her past. About the writing, I had guessed correctly, it was an ancient language, and at this time, only a few people in the entire world knew how to decipher it, one of whom was her. She also told me what was engraved on the metal plate.

The necklace was a memoir of a colleague of hers who had apparently passed away. She also read aloud the message written on it. It was just some sappy words about 'always prioritizing the truth' and 'the mission of her people' or whatever. Not that I was interested in any of that.

For me, the really interesting part was that my drugged-up brain automatically began learning the ancient language just from seeing the writing and hearing the translation once. My instant knowledge assimilation and omnilinguality almost immediately solved the language's complicated syntax and semantic structure, allowing me to read and understand the writing relatively well despite still missing some letters.

'While I wouldn't bet on knowing this specific language to be very useful in the future, it is still pretty neat to learn things this effectively', I quietly mused on my abilities.

Miss All Sunday and I continued lightly chatting for the rest of the trip. She still queried quite a bit about my claim of immortality. She assumed it to be from a devil fruit, but I avoided answering anything specific about the origins of the power.

Soon, Rainbase appeared on the horizon. The slowly setting sun could be seen reflected from the enormous golden pyramid in the city's center. Adorning the top of the pyramid was a massive, and even more shiny, golden sculpture of a crocodile. The structure's total height must have been more than 200 meters.

The woman told me we would arrive in around five minutes, and I quieted down as we entered a traveled road. I admired the sight of the glittering golden building as we closed the distance.

'If nothing else, this world is beautiful'.