Chapter 147: A Sprouting Friendship

Late Morning - Early Spring : Springarrow City, Elynnor

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Emelia and I continued to talk outside for a while before we ended up going back inside and spending the night socializing with Adrian.

Emelia was in high spirits the rest of the night which was a good sight and, although they still had their moments, for the most part they seemed like a normal father and daughter.

Adrian was a bit special though, simply put, he was the opposite of the rumors I had heard. 

From what I could tell, he was a simple minded man that was just living for the fun of it. He constantly wore a smile and cracked jokes with his incredibly contagious laugh. He honestly seemed like a giant teddy bear to me.

After his talk with Emelia, he also looked like he had taken a heavy weight off his shoulders which made the rest of the night a good one for him.

Although I never asked what their situation was myself, after a dozen or so glasses of booze, they did let out a hint.

From what I could tell, it seemed like the woman Emelia hated so much was actually her mother. Neither of them ever revealed why she was killed but I obviously wasn't going to ask. 

On top of not wanting to ruin the good mood, something about the topic made me incredibly uncomfortable.

Besides that though, the night was great.

Once morning rolled around, we finally discussed our plans to leave and stopped drinking.

After a couple more hours of casual talk and letting Adrian sober up, people started to flow into the guild to get their morning quests and we left.

As we walked out of the guild, I overheard some whispers among the adventurers.

"Who is that guy?" It was two female adventurers whispering to each other.

"No idea.. but he's walking in front of the Pirate King.."

"He's kinda cute.."

"Y..yeah.. he is.."

"I was talking about the demihuman you dumb*ss!" *smack* The sound of the smack echoed through the quiet room.

I had to hold back my laugh to not cause a scene.

Once we got outside though, Adrian couldn't help but joke. "Hey, that adventurer girl back there was pretty cute." He turned to Emelia with a sly smile. "What are your thoughts about having a stepmother?" 

"Father! She's younger than me!" Emelia didn't find it as funny as we did.

After joking around a bit more and gathering the attention of everyone around us, we made our way out of the city.

Once we got outside, we picked up the pace a bit. By my standard it was still slow but it was far faster than even a fast mount.

That speed couldn't be sustained forever though, after several minutes, Emelia started to get tired and Adrian let her up on his back.

With it just being Adrian and I left running, we picked up the pace again.

"Hey Vasilias!" Adrian looked over at me with a competitive smirk. "I bet I'm faster!" He lightly resituated Emelia on his back before picking up the pace again.

"You think you're fast?!" I quickly kicked it up a gear and instantly zipped past him. Once I got a decent lead, I glanced back to taunt him a bit. "How sl-" *Crack*

The second I looked back I slammed into a tree. -The one time I let down my guard..-

"Hahaha!" Adrian was laughing his ass off as he ran by. "Watch where you're going!"

"Haah.." I got up and brushed the dust that covered my clothes.

"Woof!" Ilios jumped up on me.

"Haha, I'm alright buddy." I rubbed his head a bit before he got down. "Let's catch back up, shall we?"

Ilios and I quickly caught back up to Adrian and ended up goofing around with him a bit more before the ocean came into view.

The beach had beautiful white sand and the water was crystal clear, but just up the beach, there was a massive galleon anchored.

The wood that made up the hull was a dark red that was almost black and looked fairly worn and weathered. It was on the big side for a pirate ship as well.

"Is that ship yours?" I glanced towards Adrian who was looking over at the ship.

"Yep, that's my baby." He lightly set down Emelia.

"H..how do you guys.. run so fast.." She seemed out of breath even though she wasn't running.

"Haha, are you alright?" I looked over at her while I was petting Ilios.

She was hanging her head down with her arms propped on her knees. "Yeah.. totally." She gave me an unenthusiastic thumbs up.

"Well, let's quickly get on board! I'm sure the crew is dying to see you again." Adrian did a few stretches before waving us along.

"I doubt any of them even remember me, Father. It's been over 10 years." 

"You're in for a surprise then. You made quite the impression when you were younger."

As we walked closer, the voices of those on board filled the air. They sounded like they were doing a competition of some kind.

"Vice wins that round! He's 5-0! Who can stop his monstrous streak?!" The distant voice echoed out of the ship.

As we got to the part of the beach closest to the ship, Emelia raised a question. "How do we get out to the ship?"

Adrian twitched a bit before looking back with a bit of worry. "You don't remember?"

Emelia just looked confused.

"Haah.." He walked over and picked her up, princess style.

"What are you-"

"Hyup!" Bending his knees, he jumped all the way out to the ship and landed on the bow. *Thump*

-I guess I should do the same..- *Pshh-fwoosh* Instead of taking the effort to jump, I just picked up Ilios and turned on the thrusters for a second.

*Thump*

Thankfully the wood that made up the ship was exceptionally sturdy. My landing didn't seem to break anything but it did rock the ship pretty hard. "Sorry for the hard landing Adrian."

"Haha, you're fine! This baby is made of 500 year old, mana reinforced redwood. Even monsters struggle to even bend its planks." He said it like he was bragging, it was clear that he was proud of it and I honestly couldn't blame him.

The ship, although mostly wood, was covered in beautiful metals, carvings and to my surprise, even artifacts.

Although I didn't know their purpose, there were artifacts just about everywhere that had something for a crewmember to do, like hoist the sails or drop the anchor, so I could at least make some assumptions. -Are they there to reduce the workload of the crew?-

*t-t-t-t-t-t-t-tap* The noise of footsteps echoed through the ship.

Hearing the people come up from below deck, I quickly moved up to the bridge deck so they wouldn't see Ilios or I. -Emelia should have the spotlight..-

A moment later, a bald man stuck his head up out of the companionway. "Captain is back with the Young Miss!" He cheered out as he sprung above deck.

Following behind him, there were around 25 guys and around 5 women of varying ages. -They're all quite strong but isn't that too few crew?- 

The aura coming from the group was quite impressive, most of the crew seemed to be at least S rank if not low nation rank, but the galleon was not small.

"We greet the young miss!" The crew all lined up and bowed in front of Emelia on the deck.

"Uhm.." She just awkwardly stood there, unsure of what to do until she looked up at me sitting on the railing next to the helm as if to ask for help.

In return, I just gave an encouraging smile. -To think it hasn't even been a day since we first met..-

Although I wore a smile then, my gut told me something was going to happen on this trip across the ocean. A strong sense of premonition. -I doubt it'll be anything I cant handle. Plus..- I looked up at Adrian who was introducing Emelia to the crew with a proud smile. -He's quite a monster himself..-