Waving farewell to those who helped them, the party traveled through the sea and soon arrived at the Fourth Land. They landed and followed Hyakinth.

  The Fourth Land was the most modern Land, everything, without exceptions, had been tinkered by humans. From the road to the trees, it was inventions all the way down.

  Most books were also written here, researchers’ main residency being this very place. All and for one, it was the Land Astor wanted to visit the most. Wonders awaited him.

  “Alright kiddos, I’m thankful for the escort but I must go,” Hyakinth said once they arrived at the local city’s entrance.

  Bel stood expectant of a “thank you”. It never came, Hyakinth just left like that.

  “It will work one day, I swear,” Bel said to herself.

  Astor felt like comforting her, but out of fear of messing up again, he resigned not to.

  Cayn spoke, “Let’s find an inn to eat something.”

  They walked around with no particular direction, as they did so, Astor gazed around. People were showing off their inventions left and right: some magic tools creating elements; an innocent mechanic toy flying around, probably without mana. Many wonders Astor couldn’t understand the work of. How intriguing. He wanted to know more. He was

  At a random inn, persons queued up for a room.

  “Here I thought we came in time to reserve a room early,” Cayn said.

  “We are one day away from the festival, should’ve seen it coming,” Bel said. “How about we ask Hyakinth to host us?”

  Cayn side-eyed her then crossed his arms. “Stop crashing into people’s houses and invite yourself. You just want his class anyway.”

  “What’s wrong with that? Didn’t we crash into your uncle’s place?”

  “That’s not the same, I mean it kind of is. But you were de—” he paused. “Sure, whatever, you’re not wrong I guess.”

  “So? Can we crash into his home?”

  “No.” Cayn replied. “I would rather we try every single inn before having to resort to that.”

  And so they did. Knocking at every inn, they got rejected one by one until the last.

  “Please?” Bel said, trying to make a cute face, supposedly.

  The receptionist answered, “I apologize, this person right here,” they showed the lady, “had the last room.”

  Astor looked at her and their eyes crossed. He recognized her and she probably recognized him too; she stared at him way longer than most people.

  Hand trembling, she put down the key of the room on the counter. “They can have the room.” She then walked away,

  Astor knew there would be a lot of Helpers among the researchers. That’s why he prepared himself mentally, these last weeks, to withstand the fear of being recognized and pitied on. However, it seemed like it wasn't enough; his hands trembled as well. He was feeling unwell, about to throw up even.

  They took the room and went there to eat, as the inn’s restaurant was full. Good thing, Astor rushed to the toilet and excused himself. There, all alone, he took deep breaths to calm down.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  No one will hurt him. Being recognized didn’t necessarily mean he was in danger or anything. But as he kept trying to convince himself of those things, a thought kept pestering his mind: they would silence him about their orphanages’ activities and his life would meet its end.

  Before, he didn’t mind dying young. He didn’t mind failing to rescue the other kids. Because he had nothing he truly cared about, even his friends back in the orphanage couldn’t keep his will to live bright enough.

  But Bel and Cayn were different, after all they went through together, he didn’t want to be taken apart from them. The thought alone terrified him. And he couldn’t even understand why.

  “Hey blue-eyes, you good in there?”

  He had to compose himself, and quick. In case of emergency, he planned something: a cat plushie in his inventory. He took it out. A tabby cat. It’s not a breed of cat, like the Fourth Land could fabric them, just a coat pattern he liked. His favorite. Cute cat plushie. Maybe there will be more cats in this area? Rainforests, mountains and archipelagos didn’t have any as far as Astor knew. But surely the Fourth Land had some?

  “Hey green-eyes! I think Astor died in there!”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “What? Maybe he shat his organs out, it happened to one of my cousin; he put too much training into his Strength stat and—”

  Bel was starting to say weird things again, he should get out. He put his plushie back into the inventory.

  Opening the door, Astor spoke, “Sorry I was having a hard time.” He told the truth.

  “Oh, no worries it happens,” Bel said. “I’m constipated sometimes too. Poop do be hard to shit sometimes.”

  Shouldn’t she be worried about his mental health? Why was she talking about excrements? Astor must have messed up somewhere again. In any case, it worked out for him.

  They ate dinner. Astor had cleaned his hands before, of course. He even did that everytime he touched his plushie. Hygiene was one of those things he learned from Cayn, who instructed him without judgement. Cayn possibly knew about his past as an orphan, should he tell him one day? Another question he could only answer after improving his social skills.

  After dinner, they planned the next day. The fourth World Boss was probably somewhere in this Land. There was no coincidence about the other three being exactly where they were. To find it, they needed the [Appraiser] class, which was why Bel wanted it so bad.

  So it was simple: Bel would continue to pursue the class, she was almost there, according to herself. Cayn will use the class’ skills randomly, everywhere he could, a pure bet on luck. As for Astor, they needed him to visit every single stand to learn about items, banking information that could be useful for their Journey. His memory had some merit after all.

  A long day was coming upon them. They went to bed early to wake up full of energy. Astor was excited for tomorrow.

  ***

  Loud noises came from outside the room. Birds chirped like they would on a regular morning and Astor couldn’t sleep anymore. He got out of bed.

  Cayn was standing at the window, looking outside, and also using [Identify] on anything in range. “Good morning Astor,” he said. “Sorry, did I wake you up? I did not think it would be this noisy outside.”

  Astor shook his head. He didn’t mind. “Bel?”

  “She went to find Hyakinth earlier, we should go out too.”

  Astor cleaned himself up with magic and they went outside.

  “Do you want me to accompany you or do you want to be alone?” Cayn asked, in front of the inn.

  They could go together to look for a World Boss, and learning about items would be easier with Cayn around. But Astor didn’t want to bother him. “I will be fine.”

  “Alright, see you at dusk then.” Cayn went away on his own.

  Astor looked around. People were all over the streets, engulfing every alley. He disliked groups of people gathered in one constricted place; it reminded him of the big room he shared with the other orphans. He walked, searching for a less crowded place.

  As he did so, he observed the festival. Persons fooling around, having fun; others were in family, just eating food; some individuals were like Astor too, walking and sightseeing.

  Someone came up to him and handed an ice cream. “Free for the Azure flame,” they said, recognizing him for his feat at the First Land, then went away.

  Blue ice cream, like electric blue. Was it edible? Astor took a bite. Delicious. The taste was unrecognizable but it was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.

  The snack boosted his confidence, weirdly enough, and he started going from a stand to another. He wouldn’t interact with anyone, he’d just stay around and listen to explanations.

  The day went on and he was enjoying his time. Wait, did his friend trick him into having fun while they were hard working? Maybe they knew he was a bit moody after seeing that one person yesterday. The same thing happened with Bel and the Pink group. Astor remembered agreeing with Cayn on changing their habits to indulge with her.

  Yeah, they definitely tricked him into enjoying the festival, he was the most curious of them all after all. He might as well go and have fun on their behalf, definitely not because he was having a ton of fun by himself. It’d be better if they were here with him though. He kinda missed them now.