“Is this really happening?” Carl couldn’t help but chuckled from the absurdity of the situation as we cleaned up the place.

“Yep! Remember, no turning back now!” Anna teased.

Looks like she’s having fun with the fact that she’s finally got some newbies that are under her in terms of rank. That being said, I still don’t feel comfortable considering her a manager. She’s way too unserious for such an important role! Ed’s fine though, although I think he still needs to grow in the confidence department.

We had called up the landlord of the building Carl was renting and had him cancel his lease. This way we could officially have everyone move to our establishment. This wasn’t the only thing that’s changed since we had Carl’s staff join us, as we had also now gotten ahold of quite the fortune. We used the money they had to fully paint the entire building a bright red color, truly making it look like an Arthur’s!

“Well, that’s the outside.” I told the others as we entered the place, “But I still don’t like our interior. Nuts, Arthur’s the only one that knew how to make the inside look nice, so I can’t even begin to imagine how we go about doing this…”

“Oh, I know. How about we first start with properly tiling the floors of this place?” Carl suggested, “Now I’m not saying anything to insult you when I tell you this, but I think we should also switch out the seating here. The colors are just all over the place, not to mention we’ve still got our old seats from our previous restaurant.”

“Whoa, are you a designer or something?” Ed seemed enamored by Carl’s taste, “Do all adults just get really good at making interiors look good?”

“Heh, no.” Carl waved away Ed’s theory, “I just spent most of my childhood in a secret base me and a couple of buddies had. They all later left the place, but I just couldn’t get it out of my head, so I would spend countless hours making it look as close to fully-furnished as possible.”

“Is that so?” Ed suddenly recalled something, “Oh, I just got an idea! To celebrate our merging of restaurants, we should host a welcome party! I’ll go get the plates!”

Running along as earnestly as ever, we and the other workers simply stared without even saying a word. Actually, Ed’s right. We made some huge progress in the last couple of days, but the workers are still a bit stiff around us three. A welcome party where everyone got to share some stories would most definitely do us good.

“Now, tell me more about that secret base!” I suddenly swung my head back towards Carl, “Ed and I had one too! Oh, but it got taken over by a Snair and her babies.”

“A Snair?!” Anna winced, “That must’ve been scary. How did you escape from it?”

“Escape?” I tilted my head, “No, we killed it. I do feel bad about its kids though.”

Now, the table had finally livened up, and by that I mean everyone started laughing unanimously at my proud boasting. Yeah, makes sense that they wouldn’t believe me. It’s actually pretty rare to hear of a grown adventurer to fend off a Snair, but for two kids to slay it? Obviously a normal person’s first reaction would be “Yeah right!”

“Mn…! Alright, then ask Ed!” I pointed my finger at him, “Ed, what happened to the Snair that took over our base?!”

“Ugh, don’t remind me of that…” He gave everyone their cups as he poured the drinks, “You almost got swallowed whole, and we barely survived thanks to dumb luck.”

“So wait, did you really kill it?” One of the workers had no other choice but to ask, “I mean, this kid’s a natural born liar, but you seem honest at least.”

Oi, what’s that supposed to mean? Want me to dock your pay for this month, punk?

“Haha, yeah.” Ed scratched his cheek and averted his gaze, “We did kill it… somehow.”

“That’s…!” Carl wanted to say something, but Anna stepped in.

“That’s amazing! You guys actually did that?! Hold on, are you guys actually really cool or something?”

“Hey, you picking a fight or something?!” I yelled back, “Of course we’re cool! You’ve been with us for months now, how the hell did it take you this long to notice?!”

“Oh, so you three aren’t actually siblings?” Carl thought to ask.

“Siblings?” We tilted our heads, “No, we’re just a bunch of friends.”

I mean, certainly we do act like that at times, not that I’d know what it’s like to have a sibling. That being said, we don’t at all resemble each other, so I wonder where he got the idea from. I guess he must’ve connected the dots when we told him Arthur was our caretaker, hence the name of the restaurant.

“Of course we’re not related.” Ed briefly glanced at Anna, “That’d just be plain weird.”

“Huh?” She misunderstood and got offended, “And what’s so weird about me being your sister?”

“Just forget I said anything…” He turned his face away, his ears bright red.

“As you can see, it’s like that.” I had the other workers understand Ed and Anna’s dynamic.

“Ahh…” They couldn’t help but chuckle a bit, “Well, that’s youth for you!”

“What are you guys talking about?” These two turned around.

“Don’t worry about it!”

***

With the new and improved Arthur’s family restaurant, we’ve gotten a lot more customers lately. It seems Carl was right on the money when it comes to his choices on interior design, as the customers really appreciated it and we got a lot of compliments on it. Just goes to show how much proper presentation goes into a successful venture.

All of the workers have also since gotten to know us quite a lot, and vice versa. They’re pretty older than us, being basically twice our age, but even that didn’t stop us from finding a common interest in various topics. See here, since they were also thirteen year olds back in the day, they could pretty easily understand the topics the three of us were talking about, not to mention they would always enjoy sharing some of their experiences about adult life. That being said, a lot of the jokes they make fly over our heads…

Since I was in charge of keeping count of our profits and monthly expenditures, I knew for a fact that we were prospering with my plan. Heh, I really do have my genius ideas sometimes, don’t I? Well, we’re making steady profit, but we’re still not in the clear just yet, since our entire livelihoods depend on how many people are traveling to and from Secundis and Tertis. Given that we’re nearing summer, we’re obviously pretty safe for now, but come winter I’m sure these guys are gonna have way less customers showing up at the doorstep. Actually, by winter, wouldn’t we already have long left this place…?

“Hey Ed,” I asked while still counting the money we made today, “When should we be thinking about going to the next place?”

“Oh, t-that…” He stopped sweeping the floors for a second as if caught off-guard, “I mean, wouldn’t it be alright for a bit longer? To stay here, I mean.”

“I mean, we were only supposed to stay here until we found adequate workers to hold down the fort, so I don’t see why we should stay any longer. Remember, our primary goal right now is to head to Leins and get ourselves some passports.”

“Ngh…” He groaned, “I dunno, let’s just…”

“Hey guys, I wiped off all the tables, so I’m gonna go take a shower now.” Anna popped into the room, “Hm? What’s with those expressions? Something on your mind?”

“Ah, Anna, perfect timing.” I responded, “We’re leaving soon, so-”

“Could you hold off on that for just a bit more?!” Ed suddenly whined, “We’re going too fast, dammit! Plus, we just got used to the others here, and now you wanna throw that all away?”

“Ed…”

He’s got it all wrong, though. We’re not throwing away the bonds we’ve made with these people, we’re just advancing on our own journey while leaving the restaurant in their capable hands. It’s nothing bad, to advance further. Rather, I’d say it’s a thousand times worse to stand in place as you watch the people around you make progress. Not to mention, what does he even mean when he says that we’re going “Too fast”? We’ve been in here for 3 months already, dammit!

“I think…” Anna uttered quietly, “I think we should go too.”

“Grr…!” Ed threw the broom to the ground before lashing out, “But what about-!”

“Ed.” She consoled him with a teary expression, “The longer we stay here, the harder it’ll be to leave. Lune is completely in the right here.”

It seems she too was sad about them leaving the gang here. Don’t get me wrong, I am too, but both Anna and I know not to stray from our original goal too far. Ed still seems to be in his little world, but I’m sure he too will come to appreciate what we’re doing for him.

“…” He silently picked up the broom and continued sweeping, “When are we going?”

“First thing tomorrow.” I replied.

In that very instant, a ton of men could be heard busting down the door as they gasped in surprise. Hold on a second, why are Carl and the others here at this hour?!

“Eh!?” They ran into the room, “You’re really leaving that early?! Then we won’t even get to say goodbye!”

Well yeah, that was meant to be the point, idiot. Goodbyes are always so sad, so I’d rather we skip them altogether. That being said, I guess we have some time to bid each other farewell now that the cat’s out of the bag.

“Looks like now’s your chance.” I chuckled, “I didn’t really plan for any of this, but now that you’re all here – let’s all throw a goodbye party!”

As everyone huddled close to hug us one last time, the emotions kicked in almost immediately, as I began weeping with an odd smile on my face. Man, this is embarrassing, why did they have to show up this late and find out about us leaving? Now I feel like a fool…

In any case, after the party, they all left for their respective homes and we went to sleep. Waking up was an ordeal, given how late we stayed up to party, but I don’t exactly regret it. It was nice, being able to spend time and talk with them like this just once more before we hit the road. That being said, Carl still didn’t feel like it was appropriate to not send us off with a gift, so he gave us a kind amount of money from the restaurant’s treasury. Honestly, he’s way too giving…

“Alright, hop in!” The wagon driver said as he picked up our luggage, “Where to?”

“Leins, sir!” I proudly exclaimed.

“That’s pretty far away, isn’t it?” He cautioned, “Usually when traveling a further distance, you’d take regular stops in the passing villages and cities, y’know?”

“Is that so?” Ed replied, “If I recall correctly, isn’t Wheats somewhere near Leins? My uncle lives there, so we can stop by there for a couple of days.”

“Alright, will do.” The driver revved up the engine.

“Hey, hey, what’s your uncle like?” Anna inquired.

“I haven’t seen him in a while, since my parents would rarely go in that direction.” He shook his head, “But from my memory, he’s this really kind and funny bearded guy. He reminds me of Grim in a way, actually. I’m sure the both of you will love him!”

Thus, we had officially passed the border between Secundis and Tertis, making this our first time crossing a semi-national border. Well, I say semi-national because, if you recall, Secundis and Tertis are really just sub-countries who, in addition to Primis, make up the country of Trivis Numerica. This is also the reason why we can pass the border without passports, but I heard there are people who want the sub-countries to gain autonomy in the future.

It’s a whole other can of worms to think about the reasons for such people would think that way, but I’m not one for politics, so I’ll just stay out of it. That being said, I can see why they would think like that, since almost everything from the culture to the terrain is different between the two. While Primis and Secundis are a lot forestier in comparison, Tertis is basically all wheat fields as far as the eye could see. Even now, the path we’re traveling on is a lot less ridged than it was before, making it way easier to traverse. The people here really respect agriculture.

Hm? Agriculture? Wait, does that mean they might not want meat on our menu? I mean, from my basic understanding of the people here, they’re all basically farmers who tend to their fields. Most if not all of the wheat in Trivis Numerica hails from here, so I wouldn’t put it past them to be exclusively herbivores or something to that degree. Ugh… Well, whatever! We’ll think of that once we get to Leins, but for now, we’re gonna take a break at Ed’s uncle’s house!