Chapter 17: Day in a new life

Last time, Simon helped some kids in researching the Apocalypse Period as he tries to find his memories. While Kanonno landed a job at Wrench Monkeys. It's gonna start switching points of view from this point forward.

XXX

Kanonno woke up with a splitting headache, she searched for a pocket watch to see it was six. She sat there for a moment before standing up, she caught herself when the blood rushed to her head, making her feel dizzy. She grabbed an apple, called it breakfast, and went out the door. She slugged down the stairs, feeling awful from that hang over as other people passed her.

"I shouldn't have drank that much, I need to get something for hangovers." She muttered as she left the building. She walked slowly toward a trolley stop, she found herself walking next to a man with white hair braided back and wearing a long coat. He was tall, not quite as tall as Peter but he's still tall. She could've sworn she saw that man before, she rubbed her head trying to think where she saw him, and because of her headache.

'Oh duh! He's one of the workers from Wrench Monkeys.' She thought, she felt something grab the back of her shirt and pull her back. She caught herself from falling and looked up noticing a carriage was trotting by. She looked next to her to see the man had placed his arm back to his side, she looked to her other side to see if anyone was there, but there wasn't a soul.

"Uh … Thanks." She said.

"You're welcome." He replied. The two walked to the trolley loading platform in silence and waited for the next street car to come by. The atmosphere was quickly becoming tense between the two. The trolley came and they got on.

"So … you don't talk much do you?" She asked as the trolley started moving.

"… Not really." He stated. The two stood in silence for a bit longer.

"I'm Kanonno Vélvirki, you?" She introduced herself hoping to start a conversation.

"Veigue Lungburg." He stated.

"So … you work at Wrench Monkeys right?" She asked.

"Yes, and aren't you the person who asked about a job?" He said, she finally got him to say more than two words.

"Yes, yes I am." She said.

"How'd it go?" He asked, not looking at her.

"I'm in," she said rubbing her head, "how am I going to work with this headache?" She then muttered to herself.

"Did you celebrate a little too much?" He asked.

"There is no such thing as too much celebration and no, I was too busy bitching." She moaned, the trolley stopped and they got off.

"There is such a thing," The man argued calmly, "It's called death by intoxication. Hopefully that that hangover doesn't impair your skills."

"I hope so too." She sighed. The two walked in silence for a while longer until they arrived at Wrench Monkey's. Veigue hung up his jacket, grabbed a mechanic's suit, and put it on. Kanonno followed suit, except that she didn't have a jacket on her.

"Yo Veigue, what's up." The green haired man greeted as he wrapped his arm around. Veigue looked unamused and shoved the man's arm off him.

"Oh, you've joined the crew?" The man asked Kanonno.

"Yes." She stated bluntly.

"Tytree Crowe." The man said extending his hand.

"Kanonno Vélvirki." She replied shaking his hand.

"Let me introduce you to the rest of the crew, though you already know Veigue." Tytree offered.

"Okay," Said Kanonno feeling a bit better, following Tytree to one of the vehicles. A dark skinned woman with red hair and a young man with messy semi-long black hair wearing goggles worked on it.

"Mary, Jadeite," Tytree called, "This is our new member Kanonno."

"Jadeite Hearts." Said the young man going back to the vehicle.

"Mary Argent." Said the woman just as plainly and doing the same thing.

"Oh come on you two-" Tytree began to wine when their boss came out.

"Tytree! Kanonno!" Rusty shouted, "Quit your socializing and fix that flying machine, it's not going to fix itself."

"Yes sir!" They said at the same time, running to the personal vehicle Veigue worked on. Veigue rolled his eyes.

XXX

Some time after Kanonno left Simon woke up to notice that he was alone with Laurel washing dishes.

"Good morning Simon, your very cold breakfast is on the table." Said the flying cat not turning around.

"Thank you." Said Simon quickly eating the muffin and eggs. He left Laurel without another word and headed to the library. Once at the library he started to look for the people he was with the day before. He saw Luke looking for something, he changed his mind and tapped him on the shoulder. Luke turned around.

"You?" He whispered, Simon waved back, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm helping some people with some research while looking for my memory." Simon explained, "What about you?"

"I have the day off, so I'm looking for a book that a friend of mine needs." He replied, Simon noticed that Luke was carrying a book called Mana and Mana Byproduct Diseases, Simon didn't comment on it. "Who are you doing this research for?" Luke asked pulling out a book.

"Some kids who want to know about the Apocalypse Period." Simon said, Luke froze and dropped the books. His face went pale while his hands twitched. "Luke?"

"Those documents should've never been picked up." He murmured to himself.

"What?" Simon asked.

"Listen Simon." Said Luke picking up the books, "You should give up on that research while your ahead." His voice sounded sad.

"Huh?"

"Keep going with your research and people will get hurt, including you, I would tell those children that as well." Luke warned.

"What if it's the only way to figure out my memory?" Simon asked.

"There are other ways to find it, last I checked you didn't care at which pace your memory came back. Leave it at that." Luke said before running away.

"Luke!" Simon tried to call but Luke was already gone. He continued looking for the four until he found them at a table with books and documents laid out all over the place.

"Haven't found anything I see." He said.

"Nope, we're trying to translate some of these documents, but it isn't going so well." Said Loni "I'm pretty sure that the Relarian dictionary we're using is faulty."

"Dictionaries are reliable resources for words, why would it be faulty?" Kyle asked.

"The meaning we got for this sentence is: "Fish in a lava flinging contest with prostitutes on an aglet." This clearly has nothing to do with fish or prostitutes since these diagrams appear to be mana flow charts." Loni argued.

"What's an aglet?" Simon asked sitting down and grabbing a book.

"It's a … I don't know." Said Judas, "I doubt it's relevant to this. I'll go look for another translators." He got up and left. Simon flipped through a book explaining the sealing of the spirits. It also explained the technological advances of the period and the devices that archeologists found with some sketches. One of the sketches looked like something from the dream where he was a woman giving a message.

'That looks like the thing I talked into.' He thought, his mind slowly slipping into another memory.

"He's dead!" He heard someone laugh, "He's finally dead!" was followed with more cackling, "The tyrant is gone we can now live in peace!"

"You've gone too far!" He heard a woman say, "What's going to happen with him gone? What'll happen to Yggdrasil?"

Then an image of a man with short brown hair wearing brown robes appeared in his head.

"I'm the only judge that hasn't lost his sanity." He said looking down at the ground, "Though if I don't rest, I'll end up like the rest of them." He laughed to himself sadly, "can I trust you with keeping our locations secret?" He asked closing his eyes before fading into nothing. A woman with pink hair in white robes shut a box, another woman with blue hair wearing black robes stood next to her, the two of them had pointy ears, the distinguishing marks of elves.

"Don't worry, we'll keep him safe." Said the pink haired woman referring to the box, "My people will make sure of it."

"Siiiiimon… Simon!" He heard Kyle say snapping his fingers. "You all right?"

"Fine, another flash back." Said Simon, "I was wondering, were there any other races during the wars?"

"What type of question is that? Of course," Judas replied, back from his hunt for another dictionary. "Elves, gajuma, dwarves, half elves, if you can name it they were involved."

"What about spirits?" Simon asked.

"Yes, as we found out yesterday, some of them might have died at the time, including the theoretical spirits." Said Judas, "Why do you ask?"

"I had this memory that showed a pair of elves, vowing to keep some box safe." Simon said, "One of them had pink hair and the other had blue hair."

"It's probably nothing relevant." Judas scoffed off

"Why don't you look into a mythology book?" Loni suggested.

"Okay …" Said Simon getting up from his seat and looking for mythology books in a deeper part of the library where he found a very thick book on world mythology. He looked for a section on elves but he could only find mentions of elves throughout the book until he came across a section of the Nroby civilization.

Nroby is the longest lasting civilization known to man. The article read. The Nroby civilization has lasted for about five thousand years. The Nroby people believe in a legend that says a pair of elven sisters referred to as Amateratsu, and Tsukiyomi lead survivors of the devastation from the war to an isolated island in the south seas. There they build a new civilization and it flourished while the rest of the world had to restart civilization from scratch. Whether or not Nroby's prosperity is because of the sisters' help is completely unfounded seeing that there is no evidence. Also, there is no evidence on if the elven sisters actually existed.

Another legend from Nroby concerns the spirit of time, Sekundes, it is believed that the spirit of time helped the elven sisters build their civilization to what it is today. Some people believe that Nroby has Sekundes sealed away within their city.

'Sekundes?' Simon thought, 'Claus and Will didn't mention that spirit.' Simon flipped through the book looking for something on Sekundes. He spaced out once again.

"Come on!" Said a man that looked like a younger Captain Reynolds, "Your parents will love me."

"I'm not so sure …" He found himself saying, like the memory with the Kresnik spear his voice seemed different, "You're not a rich man, they might make judgements."

"It shouldn't matter, I really like you." the man said.

"Adrian…" He said, his eyes watering up.

Simon rubbed his eyes but they were dray, 'Did I just have another Captain Reynolds memory?'

"Simon." He heard Judas say. "Did that book tell you anything?"

"Well a myth on how the Nroby civilization started. It mentioned a pair of elven sisters and the spirit of time." Simon explained.

"That information is useless." Judas dismissed going back to the table. Simon hesitated before putting the book away and went back to the table. Simon picked up a document and looked through it.

'There's something wrong with my memory, I have a hunch that those elves were Amateratsu and Tsukiyomi but it's impossible for me to have been alive when they were around, as well as the Kresnik thing. There was also the incident with Captain Reynolds.' Simon thought, he remembered what Siela said about figuring out what's his. He looked at a picture of drawings of people and creatures and captions below them the words "He's dead" ran through his head while reading other documents.

XXX

Around noon at Wrench Monkeys, Kanonno was getting hungry. It was about time for a lunch break, the other four workers brought a lunch except her.

"Hey Kanonno, want any of my lunch?" Tytree asked offering a sandwich.

"Sure." She said taking the sandwich and eating it.

"So Mary how's-" Tytree began.

"We signed the papers, we're now officially divorced." She said sternly.

"Do you have any children?" Kanonno asked.

"No, we tried to have children but nothing happened." She said.

"Must be convenient not having to worry about custody, not that I would know." Kanonno took another bite of the sandwich. "What made you and your husband get a divorce?" Kanonno asked, next to her Tytree looked very uncomfortable.

"We've been fighting a lot, mostly over money, and we've been suspecting each other for cheating. The fighting got to a point where we had to cut it off." Mary explained, Tytree relaxed.

"Hey Veigue," Said Tytree changing the subject, "did you manage to pay off-"

"No." Veigue interrupted, mouth full.

"How are you and your sister?" Mary asked Jadeite.

"We're doing fine, though Amber has been insisting on joining the guilds lately." He shrugged, "We do need the extra money and she can defend herself but I can't help but worry."

"Same thing with me, except my sister was the one who was doing all the worrying." Said Tytree. The two went into a heated conversation about their sisters until Rusty ordered them to get back to work. The group worked on another aircraft that the guilds sent in. Kanonno and Tytree got inside and worked on the engine while the others focused on various parts of the craft. While replacing parts of the engine, Kanonno couldn't help but notice a scar on Tytree's arm, it looked like a carving of a tree. She brushed off the thought and noticed a similar scar on Veigue, except it looked more jagged. The thought on how painful the injury was crossed her mind before she concentrated back on her work.

XXX

Simon got up from the desk.

"I'm going out." He said walking off. He went to the front of the library and sat on the front steps, people walked past him not noticing he was there. His stomach growled, he looked in his pockets for spare change, nothing.

'Darn.' He thought, he got up and was on his way to the apartment for some food, when he got to the general area where Peter lived he ran into Luke again. The two looked at each other quietly.

"Hey uh …" Simon began.

"Do you want to talk over tea? I'll pay." Luke asked.

"Sure." Said Simon. The two walked to a place that was very small, where people were talking on their break. He could've sworn he saw Asch in the corner talking to Natalia as the two took a seat at a table somewhat isolated from the crowd.

"I was wondering, why were you acting strange back at the library?" Simon asked.

"What?" Luke smirked as if he said something funny.

"You seemed shocked when I said that I'm looking into the Apocalypse period. You told me that I should give up on that research." Said Simon.

"I know," Sighed Luke, a waitress came by and asked if they wanted anything, Luke asked for black tea, as did Simon, with scones. "Let's just say that there are some things man is better off not knowing. That period is one of them." He leaned back into the chair.

"Didn't you learn about it?" Simon asked slouching, putting his elbows onto the table.

"Yes, and let's just say that I would be much better off without that knowledge." Said Luke.

"Why do you say that?" Simon asked as the waitress placed the teacups on the table with a teapot and a plate of scones in the middle. "Do you want any?" He asked reaching for a scone.

"No thank you." He said pouring himself a cup of tea and putting a couple of sugar cubes in it. "Where were we?"

"You were going to explain why Apocalypse period knowledge is something that you wish you didn't know." Said Simon pouring himself a cup.

"Right, that knowledge is something I would like to call 'Bad Knowledge.' It's not beneficial, it can be used to hurt others and can put damage on the psyche." Luke explained.

"If that's the case, how come you're a perfectly sane man with no murder record?" Simon asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" He laughed sadly. Simon figured that he should change the subject.

"What would you do if you were getting memories that seemed odd?" He asked.

"Hm?" Said Luke looking up, sipping his tea.

"Well what if you got memories that seemed to be in an era where it would be impossible for you to be alive, say a couple of centuries ago." Simon asked.

"In that case I would look into mana recycling." Luke answered leaning back, "There should be some resources in the library. Why?"

"… Happened to someone I knew." Simon lied.

"I see, though I've heard that now-a-days there are some problems in mana recycling." Said Luke.

"Why's that?" Simon asked munching on another scone, followed by a gulp of tea and coughed afterwords.

"I don't know." Shrugged Luke taking another sip, smirking at Simon's expression when he burned his throat.

"Luke!" Someone called, Luke looked up and Simon turned around, they saw a woman with long brown hair, tied back, though there was some hair over one of her eyes. Under a red corset, she had on a black dress with matching gloves and boots. The dress showed her red stockings underneath. The woman walked towards them, Luke's face seemed to lighten up.

"Ah Tear!" Luke greeted, "Good afternoon, what brings you here?"

"I wanted to check on you." She replied sternly.

"Is it because I do the same thing when you have a day off?" He asked with a chuckle.

"Don't flatter yourself Luke." She sighed.

"I know, but can we talk for a minute?" He asked nodding to the side.

"Oh, all right." She said glancing at Simon.

"Excuse us for a minute." Said Luke as he and Tear walked to the other side of the tea house well out of Simon's ear range. Simon looked down at the teacup pondering if he should continue the research or look into the mana recycling stuff. Occasionally he would look over his shoulder at Luke and his friend, Luke seemed to have lightened up from the Apocalypse period conversation. Simon looked back to the teacup pondering the topic. Luke sat back down.

"Sorry about that, Tear and I had some … guild related things to discuss." Said Luke.

"It's all right." Said Simon "You two seem to be really good friends."

"Ah yes … we are, she's a nice person, you should try to get to know her." Luke recommended.

"All … right …" Said Simon nervously. Later, after Luke paid for the tea, the two were walking down the streets, Simon was about to go back to the library when Luke grabbed his arm.

"Do you need any help sword fighting?" He randomly asked.

"Well … I haven't done any since Captain Reynolds-" Began Simon.

"Great, I know a place where you could practice." Said Luke.

"I can't right now." Said Simon.

"You're going back to that research?" Luke eyed him rather eerily.

"Well … I might do research on … mana recycling, my memory is kind of wonky and mana recycling might have something to do with it." Said Simon.

"All right." Said Luke still eyeing him as he slowly walked away. Simon didn't leave until he was sure Luke was gone. When he was back at the library, he found his group just as they were.

"Oh, your back." Said Judas, not looking up from his book. "We found someone who's able to translate Relarian."

"I see …" Said Simon feeling a bit down.

"You're still welcome to join us." Judas suggested.

"… Thanks." Said Simon sitting down and getting lost in a book.

XXX

Why's Luke acting so suspicious? What's so important about the scars on Tytree and Veigue? Who's this other guy Judas mentioned? Who the hell are Amateratsu and Tsukiyomi, are they supposed to be a shout out to something? Is the Author is a bad writer? To answer that last question, maybe, and that extra help Kyle's gang got will be revealed in due time. Also this whole crazy lore for this world will, again, be revealed in … not anytime soon. Yes I am using Hisui's English name, I'm going to do the same thing to anyone with a localized name, with maybe an exception.