After spitting out the blood, I tried to recover my strength. Luckily enough, Woden had a bunch of dragon bone marrow left over in the lower parts. Apparently, the entire boat was made from the dragon's bones. There were just 2 days left until we reached our destination – The grand city of Narayal, isolated from society and situated almost in the middle of nowhere. The only way to reach the city is through the city's own portals or through the sea at the cost of one's life considering the tons of whirlpools and storms situated around it.
Now we had to brave those whirlpools to reach this city and no one knows what could happen. Anyone who passes through the sea and arrives at the city is allowed to enter because they've shown their might and bravery as such.
I had spent the remaining two days concentrating on my own power gain and had managed to recover about 30% of my power permanently and another 20% temporarily. We had reached the edge of the whirlpools that surrounded the city. Woden came to me at the stern of the ship and said "I advise you to go inside to the hull because we will be going underwater." "Underwater?" I asked to which he gave a me a devilish grin which gave me the heebie jeebies. I went inside the hull while Woden went to the captain's cabin atop the ship. Suddenly the entire ship whirred like it was breaking. Joyle ran over to me while chreshield and Arthold hid at a corner. Chreshield specifically seemed scared of the water while arthold was unfazed.
Then suddenly the ship dived underwater, we could feel the pressure rising until it didn't. we were travelling the sea underwater. It felt new. The whirlpools were left behind above the sea while we had passed beyond all of them. When we resurfaced, the sun was shining above and we had come out from the hull. Infront of us lay an island spanning over miles and miles and almost half of it was the large palace which was completely different from the previous palace we visited.
This one seemed to be in its heyday and was glittering. Other than the palace, there were other buildings as large as the palace. We docked at the port and got out. Woden then said a few words and the boat just compressed into a suitcase as if it were the most normal thing. He took it and when we saw around, almost all the sailors and even the normal people were staring at us. From the crowd of people, a single man with a long mustache and no beard came running towards us. He fashioned a red color dress with a weird kind of pant I'd never seen. It was a light blue color with lines just riddled across.
Woden said "those are called 'jeans' pants. They've been famous for about half a century. Even though I had hoped to get out of that island, I needed to have information about the outside world. I built up picture relaying devices which could display the pictures taken from afar as if they'd happened at the moment. It was the only piece of hope in my dark corner of the world."
"don't worry Woden, now you have us. You can tag along with us for as long as you need." I reassured him. Then we headed into town. As we turned a corner, I bumped into someone. It was a demon; my instincts took over and I formed a blood blade and took it near the demon's throat when suddenly my blade was parried. In front of the demon stood a man in all white clothing with an eastern style dress. He was quite young, maybe in his 20s but he managed to easily parry my blow. He said "why would someone take out a blade in broad daylight in this city? That's so dumb." Behind him 3 other guys in similar uniforms stood as though they were his lackeys. They seemed stronger and more experienced than the brat that stood before me yet they treated him with respect. Then chreshield stood before me and said "I apologize for my companion's disrespect. He meant no harm; he has just returned from a battlefield and is extremely on edge."
I just noticed but Chreshield's ears and tails had disappeared. Very few beast men I knew could pull that off, the art of hiding their main characteristics as they considered it a damage to their pride. I guess we weren't out of danger yet. Chreshield continued "this man's name is Kevin Fallenhyde (yes I decided to keep my first name as Kevin) and he is here to find a job as a professor. He's quite intelligible on matters involving battles and is hoping to lead the future saviors and generals of the world."
Ok so now she's pushing unwanted attention and work onto me. I didn't really mind considering having a job and money to feed Joyle would be necessary, I've never taught anyone in both my lives so this is definitely gonna be hard. He looked at me, then Joyle who was hiding behind me and asked "What about her then? If he has just returned from a battlefield, why's there a small girl hiding behind him?"
I replied "this is...… this is my daughter Joyle Fallenhyde." I took a look at her and she was smiling like so much, I couldn't help but feel so happy. My heart would've given itself up to protect that smile. "Yes, she's my daughter, my wife passed away last year in a pandemic and my daughter had been living with my aged mother. I had been on the battlefield so I had no idea my wife had died. Now I'm here with my daughter trying to give her a good life." He seemed to find the answer satisfying and wrote us a ticket instead. It was a small amount to pay.
"This is the city of Narayal, a neutral point for humans, demons, the beast men, dwarves and every species that exists. I advise you to not cause a ruckus as this time you met me, a human officer but if you had met anyone of another species, you'd have had your head cut off." I simply nodded at him and left with Joyle and chreshield. Arthold seemed to have slept off in Chreshield's arms having a nice dream while Woden. Wait where's Woden. He was right there with us. I could hear the familiar noise of his hammering nearby, after being with him for over 20 days and each night he would hammer something or the other, I could figure out the rhythm of his hammering. Usually during those times I'd block out the noise from Joyle's and Arthold's ears with a little blood headband.